- This week's GCN unboxing is a big one.
Literally, a brand new Wattbike.
And I'm pretty sure that if you don't know
about this already, you are gonna love it
when I show it to you.
Particularly, this new one, the Atom, a smart, static bike,
that has actually been designed for cyclists.
Now as well as getting a close-up look at the tech,
but also, this being GCN unboxing, gonna give it away.
(applause)
I know, stay tuned to find out how you can enter.
For now though, forgive me for it to crack on,
because I really think you are gonna want to see this.
Ta-da!
Ta-da! The Wattbike Atom.
A pretty smart kit, I think you will agree.
The external design was actually handled
by a leading industrial design consultancy called Coventer.
Nope, I hadn't heard of them either,
but they know what they're doing,
judging by the look of this.
First time wood has ever been used in a GCN unboxing.
So, a Wattbike is a static bike,
and a highly advanced one at that.
Yes, at its most simple, you just sit on it and pedal,
and then it provides easy control distance
by changing through 22 gears
by these electronic shifters up here.
But, it also has resistances electronically adjustable,
and it has a power meter,
a very accurate and reliable one at that,
and a power metre that by design gives you all other
sorts of advanced metrics as well,
which we will get onto later.
The original Wattbike was launched back in 2008,
and had been designed in collaboration with Peter King,
who was the performance director
of British cycling at the time,
as a means of giving riders,
particularly track riders,
the ultimate indoor training tool.
So it had realistic feel,
thanks to a combination of air resistance,
magnetic resistance, and also a huge weighted fly wheel,
but also it gives power readings,
those advanced metrics,
which we will get onto later,
and boy could it take some punishment.
Now, it stood the test of time,
nearly ten years on, it's still widely popular,
and used by all sorts of people,
including the UCI, in fact,
who use it in their fitness testing.
However, the recent rise of smart training software,
like Zwift, for example,
means that there's now a call
for responsive trainers.
So, you ride up a hill on Zwift,
and your smart trainer will make it feel
like you are riding up a hill.
So enter the Wattbike Atom.
All the cool bits of the first one are still here,
but this now has a dynamic magnetic resistance unit.
So, you connect via hardware you already have,
like your phone, or indeed, smooth, a tablet,
and then you connect to it
via the companion app, which is called the Wattbike Hub.
You then use these as your head unit,
attached up there on the built in mount.
And it is available for both iOS and Android.
So, the first thing you can do
is put it in just ride mode.
So, that's where you simply pedal,
and adjust the resistance
by scrolling through those 22 gears,
just like you would on the open road.
The higher the gear, the harder you have to pedal.
And all your data is clearly displayed in front of you.
But you also have alternatives.
So, you can have climb mode,
which is where they've got six iconic climbs
already preloaded onto the app.
So, you've got Calebra, Alpe d'Huez,
you get the idea.
And what they've done is use
the stats in Strava and Veloviewer,
and then that means that as you ride,
the dynamic resistance unit makes you feel like
you are in fact going up that hill.
Then, you've also got workout mode.
So that's kind of more conventional
structured training sessions.
And, at this point, you can then put it in ergo mode,
which is also known as torture mode.
So, basically, the Atom will keep you
at a specific power that's been dictated
by that training session, and your ability level.
Which means, physics fans,
that when you pedal quickly,
then the resistance is less.
However, as you're peddling slows down.
Perhaps because you're getting tired,
the resistance ramps up.
I e, torture.
It is, however, very good for training.
Okay, you've waited long enough.
Let's get on to those advanced power metrics, shall we?
The way that Atom actually measures your power
allows it to record the force you're producing
at a 100 times per second.
Now, that is a lot of data,
and what it means is it can generate
some really cool force curves in real time,
actually showing you how you are peddling.
So what that means is that it looks a little bit like that.
So, you can see that with a choppy pedal stroke,
like I've got now, riding in casual shoes,
that you've got two almost distinct circles.
But the smoother you get,
the more it will morph into a peanut shape,
until eventually your peanut
could very well turn into a sausage,
and that's when you know you are really smooth.
And you can also see underneath, the average PES.
So, that's your pedal effectiveness score.
And what that does, is it calculates
the average maximum and the average minimum power,
force, produced by each leg during each pedal stroke.
Basically, that gives you a figure
for how effective your pedal stroke is.
So, you're looking at about 73
is the absolute gold standard.
I'll take 59.
I'm not even clipped in.
Now, you might be thinking about
how much tech is going on here.
That this would be insanely expensive.
But it actually retails at 1,499 pounds.
Or 1,995 euros slash dollars.
Remember though, that one of you can get
your hands on this for free.
You just gotta enter the competition
to be in it to win it.
To do that, you have to click on the link
in the description in this video.
That'll take you through to the competition page,
and then you can enter very simply.
Now, do make sure you subscribe to GCN
before leaving there, and that is completely free.
To do so, you just gotta click on the globe,
and if you want some more content,
I've actually got current Wattbike content
already on the channel.
For example, a training session
using the Wattbike trainer.
That one is just down there.
Or to see how to test your fitness indoors,
that one is just down there.
Both of them hurt quite a bit,
I warn you now.