I’ll be interested to hear how close your Direto FTP is compared to your Kinetic inRide FTP when you get set up.
What do you guys think to the Tacx Vortex smart trainer?
Club mate is offloading one for under £100…
…I’d use my Powertap pedals with it
That was the one I was considering a year or two ago. From memory, it’s a decent cheaper option for a wheel on erg trainer. At that price I’d definitely say worth a go
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Cheers!
I sold my old Tacx, non smart trainer, as I wasn’t liking Zwift.
But I do like TrainerRoad and no longer have access to a WattBike 
(Which, IMO, are by far and away the best way to indoor train)
I largely used them at the gym for my only full IM so far. But that was when I didn’t have a smart trainer. Having a smart trainer is, for me, even better than the wattbike, with the big added advantage that I’m training on my bike in my position
It’s the one I use, plenty decent enough for everything I do on trainerroad
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I can report back and say the Tacx Flux will be a game changer for me, I never really appreciated the value of the resistance and having to use the gears. On the Elite Muin I would grind out a session in a single gear but now with the varying resistance I am having to change as I would outside.
It also means I can take the TT bike off the turbo and let It have a rest in the corner.
My son wants a free U16 account on Zwift so we can race each other…
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My bad, I’d confused you with Midlife_Trisis.
No worries 
Will be using power from Power2Max rather than from the trainer anyway.
Does anyone have any recommendations of where to start on Turbo trainers, never had one. looking appealing today with the weather the way it is…
Budget of up to around £200?
Anything by Tacx will be bombproof at that price point. With people constantly upgrading to smart trainers, you should get something S/H for way less than 200. You’ll need a Power Meter though, for it to be used with any training software.
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Not necessarily, if it’s a common trainer with a known resistance curve you can get away with a speed sensor on some platforms.
Ps. You can get a 2nd hand Bkool for less than £200 which is a fully interactive smart trainer. I’ve had mine about 4/5 years now and it’s been bullet proof. It’s not the most accurate or smoothest but I can’t complain for the money.
Replaced my Tacx One mag trainer (£110, c. 2004) with a 2018 Wahoo Kickr (purchased April 2018, so I guess it’s the 2018 Kickr but dunno). It’s been faultless thus far, having been used on average three times a week since purchase
Kickr + huge fan + Bose QC headphones + Netflix & Prime on iPad on music stand + TrainerRoad = indoor training made tolerable once again.
Well, talk about tempting fate. Turned it on last night and the usual “Zzzzz, Zzzzz, Zzzzz” noise it makes when resetting itself (or whatever it’s doing) took on a much more expensive, 2 skeletons at it in a dustbin, type of noise. Tried to do an Erg session but it wouldn’t respond and was sending crazy power figures to the software.
I turned it off and just used it as a dumb trainer with the the gears and numbers from my power meter. It really got me thinking about whether I would replace it with another smart trainer, as I don’t use Zwift or ride any “real” routes any more. I just do interval workouts with blocks at certain power levels and can do that fine without.
I already have rollers with progressive resistance so may just switch to those. I can’t ride them properly in the TT position but I have the fork clamp attachment which I could add for the TT bike.
Hmmmmm decisions.
ETA - I turned it on and off a few times after the session and it sounded normal again so maybe it just needed a good blowout at 40kph (very low resistance when off).
A smart trainer is way down the list of things I need! You can add new smart TV to that as well (until the current one breaks anyway).
Not sure about the noise, however a mate at work has a Tacx Muin and he said ever since the latest upgrade, he’s seeing absolutely crazy numbers, specially cadence.
Everything is fine on my Direto (not that it gets used much these days!)
Jorgan, I used to say that about a smart tv, then we got one about 6mths ago. The bloody thing is amazing and absolutely tranforms watching YT.
I’m getting a smaller version for the garage (only to to look up wreching tips you understand, cough cough) 
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I have a first generation Kickr, from October 2015. It got a lot of use over the past 4 years, but nothing this winter yet as I am still enjoying getting outdoors while I can. Come January I am sure it will get spun up again for some Zwift racing. It seems bullet proof so far, but then it is also facing a 2009 iMac that despite being 10 years old still makes a perfectly functional Netflix machine for the turbo.
I was tempted in Lidl last week; they had 43" Toshiba ones for £199! But right now, that’s £199 needed for Xmas/plumbing/new floor for extension etc!
However old it is, at least your turbo isn’t sexist
Incidentally, I bought my wife an 11 speed road bike just so she could share my Kickr. She loves it!
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