WattBike focuses on improving technique and said, “If you aren’t a smooth rider, the watts will fluctuate.” This isn’t the case with an electronic brake.Īfter years of using an electronic brake, I initially found it cumbersome dialing in the resistance manually. This is a better representation of what the rider is doing.” WattBike explained that this exclusion was a philosophical choice: “the WattBike is a feedback tool measuring precisely the power you are creating rather than the bike dictating the power. An electronic brake allows the trainer to control the wattage, constantly adjusting to the rider’s cadence. What surprised me was that, in this era where Tacx, CycleOps, and Computrainer all offer an electronic brake, the WattBike did not. The air brake just proved a lot noisier than the mag brake. In reality, while I liked the ability to fine tune resistance, it wasn’t that different from putting a road bike on a mag trainer.
WattBike claims the “air brake” is similar to changing gears while the magnetic system emulates climbing. The combination allows for high cadence/low power on one end and low cadence/high power on the other. The WattBike uses a dual braking system - both wind resistance and magnetic resistance. Better than most, but it will never be the real thing. But it’s still an immobile bike in your living room. Certainly the large integrated flywheel made the WattBike Pro feel better than most trainers I’ve ridden. WattBike put a lot of research and time into creating a realistic “road” feel.
COMPUTRAINER PRO PRICE PC
But the Computrainer requires a connected PC and it does not have the depth of data nor the simplicity of the WattBike. Computrainer also offers the feature and at half the price ($1,650). The spin scan feature isn’t unique to WattBike. More importantly, I noticed that once I was back on the road, my work with the Polar Cadence feature had really helped my pedal stroke. It even stole my attention from my usual indoor survival tool: “Rocky IV.” It’s not often that something wins out over Ivan Drago. Watching the spin scan and focusing on my pedal stroke became surprisingly addictive. I tested the WattBike during the snowiest February on record in Boulder, Colorado, preparing myself for the usual “10 minutes feels like an hour” pain of indoor training. This allows the WattBike to display a real-time spin scan including left-right balance, angle of peak force, and even a graphic representation of your pedalling technique. With a 100-time-per-second sampling rate, and a power meter built into the bike, the WattBike gives highly accurate cadence and power data confirmed by several peer-reviewed studies of the WattBike’s accuracy. WattBike’s Polar Cadence feature is what sets the WattBike Pro apart from the many trainers collecting dust in our closets. The question is: Does the WattBike do these two things well enough to justify the hefty $3,130 price tag? The spin on WattBike Like most of you, I look to indoor training for two purposes - to do structured interval work and to get some extra time when the roads are sloppy. This review covers the Pro, which only differs in its resistance range, providing what WattBike calls medium to hard resistance, ideal for Cat. The WattBike comes in two models - the Trainer and the Pro. But sometimes, when the weather is bad and friends aren’t around, we just have to ride vicariously as Contador or Froome indoors.įortunately, WattBike, a UK-based company has developed an indoor trainer, in conjunction with British Cycling, that it hopes will have you scrambling to get inside to get your training fix. Generally, we’ll use work, illness, prior commitments, or any other excuse under the sun to avoid it. Let’s face it most of us have a love-hate relationship with indoor training. Get access to everything we publish when you