Annoyingly accurate!! Virtual shifting going to take some adapting too - race mode is great when you put power down, not so much when you come off power.
Big swing in wattage from my Saris… Cat C here I come!
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How did your Favero compare to the H3?
My H3 takes a good bit more effort.
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That mirrors my measurements…apart from the fact I’ve never seen anything above 450W 
.
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After a firmware update and a few hundred km…
The power does feel right… But I’m still struggling to maintain it across the board. Just feels like the flywheel slowing too fast.
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Just needed a urinal to rival @Doonhamer for the anti dentist turbo setup today.
(At a mates in Edinburgh, this is their attic and a spin bike that I had to wipe four years of dust off to use 
(The rest of their house is lovely)
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Was it a lockdown purchase? 
Good effort to synch it up to your Zwift 
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£120 apparently
Brought my pedals! 
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I had almost convinced myself to ditch my last remaining road bike and turbo set up in the garage.
However, recent back related events have convinced me that keeping a cross training option other than the MTB would be useful.
My 2017, 1st gen Elite Directo had been rock solid until last year when the belt snapped. I’ve replaced it and adjusted but it’s not the same and the big cross head screw that needs removing to replace the jockey wheel has galvanised in place. It’s not coming out. The pedalling isn’t consistent like before.
Given that and the fact that something new and shiny heading into the colder months later in the year could be a bit of a motivator, I was thinking of a new turbo. I have a TV in the garage, Zwift account, pretty good wifi signal and an Apple TV box.
I’ve seen good reviews of this and I don’t want to spend a fortune, my serious TT days are well over. What do you think? The whole Zwift cog thing is new to me also. Could I drop my MTB into this thing as well?
I’ve been totally out of the loop
Buckle up…
I pre-ordered 2 of these back in October. Replacing a very old Flux v1 and a Saris H3.
Saris worked fine but I wanted race mode and virtual shifting seemed like a good way to go - also wifi connection seemed to be a better prospect as I’d had numerous Ant+ issues with the Saris.
The wife on the flux had a number of drop outs and despite weighing the same as a gnat - seemed to love to change gear under massive load all the time.
We have had issues. As have others if you jump on a few forums.
Wi-Fi is sketchy… however bluetooth has been rock solid.
The bigger issue has been some of the early batches. The 2nd lot out the factory used different bearings, they also were some damaged in transit leading to different packaging.
We’ve had about 8(?) units between us since October (fortunately the company fixing issues are 20 mins down the road and we have been able to swap units relatively easily).
I’ve had some fairly hefty power discrepancies… I now have custom firmware for my unit based off my assioma data. One of the units was damaged after a repair as the company didnt have the correct tools to remove part of the assembly. We’ve also seen mis-aligned belts - again from a repair.
The wife is currently waiting for a new (rather than refurb) unit. We thought something internally had shredded - tho oddly its working fine. Tho think theres been a few refinements since the initial batches plus avoiding all these issues on refurbs.
That said - customer care despite all that has been pretty good and not felt fobbed off. I was close to binning my unit at one point till the custom firmware came in.
So the positives;
Bluetooth - rock solid
Virtual shifting - gotta be honest, its pretty good. Takes a bit of adapting (on the inertia, pedalling side) but I find it quite naturally and I use 24 sequential gears.
Found the play controllers much better than the click (which is now gathering dust)
Level 85 zwifters can get play controllers “free” just paying P&P .
Its much quieter than prev trainers
Race mode is good (tho it reacts as quickly to slowing down as speeding up) so my sprints seem to have me bouncing up and down as I clearly have deadspots in my pedal stroke.
If you get one that works (which is more likely now with the re-development) - its hard to beat.
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Thanks mate, that’s a mixed bag for sure! I’d vaguely heard of the brand and then DC Rainmaker said they built the underpinnings to the Zwift hub or whatever it was called.
More research needed!
There’s alot of negativity on line - tho got a few in my zwift club that had it early doors and been flawless (and they are far better cyclists than me).
Alternative would be the kickr core. One thing I do like about the wahoo stuff is the direct connection - tho not really applicable for you with Apple tv.
One thing you can benefit from - the Jetblack will transmit HR, so frees up your limited apple tv connections. Tho I assume you then need the other connection for the play controllers.
Since my firmware update (start of April) which then matches my pedals to within 1% - I think I’ve only had 1 issue last weekend when the resistance seemed to stick a few times during a ride. Tho the garage was pushing 30c and I was having a mental meltdown - so couldve been me.
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After sitting on the sofa for what seemed like 24 hrs earlier, I did ‘something constructive’. Went in the the garage with intention of sorting out whether my turbo was any use at all after the belt replacement of over a year ago (haven’t pedalled since!).
Also needed to fire up the ATV, Zwift (with a long since cancelled sub) and the TV in the garage.
Zwift remembered who I was (good start!), it also remembered I’d cancelled my sub and was not offering a trial, boo.
Found my long forgotten password and allowed them to extract £17.99 p/m from the coffers. All my connections to the Direto trainer seemed in check and I had a good signal on wi-fi.
However, after pedalling for 30secs, I just got the ‘disconnected’ banner on Zwift and said I needed to update Zwift. OK, went to do that and then was told repeatedly ‘can’t connect to App Store’
Went into the ATV settings and clicked ‘update s/w’, which then advised me that it would take 44hrs! 
Then it came down to ‘9hrs’ which was BS but it still took a good 90 mins.
Once that was done, I could connect to the App Store and update Zwift, another 30 mins and seemed to go ok.
By this time, I’d had dinner (tea for the northern heathens) and lost all interest in doing a session.
So I pedalled for about a minute and all seems well on the tech side now but still need to check the belt over time.
I also need to calibrate the turbo but I can’t remember my Elite log in details. I use to calibrate via my old iPad and the Elite s/w didn’t need an account, but now it does and the iPad is long gone.
To be continued… 
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The watt bike is so much easier
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I just used the 25 free km. But I now see they cancelled that in the summer. Shame you now have to pay for a month subscription just to find out all the gremlins you referenced above!
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It is but I’m in desperate need of some cross training anyway, so I think I’ll carry on with it. May need a new trainer though, we’ll see.
I’ve very nearly finished Level 41.
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I’ve started using Mywhoosh as its free, purely because I won’t use Zwift enough to be worth paying the money for it. No one come at me about supporting sports washing please…
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Might be more than you want to pay if you do get a new turbo but via Zwift there’s the Wahoo Kickr core, with Zwift cog and clicks for £500
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ooh, interesting, thanks Jeff!
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Still a month to wait, but there will be Black Friday deals on a lot of these. Wahoo might even be offloading the old core for not very much.
As ever, check out DCRain for budget turbo recommendations. Think he liked a decathlon one for under £300.
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