- Hold onto your hats, ladies and gents,
and indeed your pants,
because this week's GCN Unboxing is Hammertime.
"Every time you see me, this hammer's just so hype.
I'm dope on the floor and I'm magic on the mic."
(record scratch sound)
No?
Okay, well you see the thing is, this week's GCN Unboxing,
is a CycleOps Hammer smart trainer.
Hammertime, see what I did that?
Moving swiftly on, this is the latest and greatest trainer
to come from CycleOps.
They've been making indoor trainers for over 20 years.
And they've been the go-to choice
of many a pro rider in that time.
Currently, in fact, the go-to choice
for the Trek Segafredo WorldTour team.
Now before we actually start to unbox.
(angels singing)
I'm gonna let you in on something here.
Because we are actually gonna give this very trainer away.
(crowd cheering)
I'll tell you how to enter into that competition at the end.
You may have seen me struggling to lift or indeed move,
(beeping sound)
Outta my way
(beeping sound)
smart trainers in recent weeks and yes that is in part
because I'm particularly weedy, see?
But there is no getting away from the fact
that these are really serious bits of equipment.
And so it's quite a bonus to find
that the box for the CycleOps opens sideways.
Wow.
(plastic ripping sound)
That looks like the absolute business.
Satin black with yellow graphics.
That is cool.
The first thing you need to do
is open out the supporting legs.
So, CycleOps tells us that this trainer
has the widest standpoint of any trainer on the market.
So, that is particularly good if you, like Matt,
are prone to dropping some serious wattage bazookas
and some hard sprint efforts.
That could be right up your street.
Then, what you gotta do is drop the back wheel
out of your bike and connected it directly up
to the trainer, having of course put
a cassette on there first.
Now, if I have a rummage around here in the box
then I can find these.
So, using these axle spaces, you can adjust your hammer
to fit just about any configuration of axle.
So, that is set up for 135mm quick release.
You can also get 130mm quick release.
Or, you could go new school and have
142mm through axle or even super new school
148mm boost through axles.
So you could fit conceivably (mumbles) mountain bike
on that if you so wished.
And then, something that I've been told about
and I quite want to investigate is that apparently
under there is a built-in front wheel mount,
so there you go, stored in the trainer,
you pop that on your front wheel and when you're training
it stops it waggling all over the place.
And gives it some nice support.
As cool as these features are, what is more important
is what's going on in there.
And being a smart trainer there is a lot going on.
Most of the heft of this trainer, is actually down
into the 9kg fly wheel.
It's not there to provide resistance.
What it does, is it gives the flywheel more inertia.
So when you're up to speed and then you stop peddling
the flywheel can keep turning just like your wheels would do
actually when you're out on the open road.
And then what does provide the resistance
is an electromagnetic unit inside.
Which when plugged into the mains...
via a plug.
It will provide up to two thousand watts of resistance.
And indeed it will also simulate gradients of up to 20%.
I wonder what that would be like.
- Yeah, it's pretty hard.
- We have heard a lot about the hammer now,
we haven't heard really touched on its smart side yet.
So, it can connect up to a third party device
via ANT+ or Bluetooth Smart.
And then you can either control the resistance
of the trainer manually, or let's face it,
much better, you can follow
a pre-programmed work-out or virtual ride.
So, you can take for example,
the CycleOps Virtual Trainer software,
you download it to your tablet or PC
and then you can actually simulate accurately a real course.
Because the trainer will follow along and
adjust the resistance based on the gradients in real time.
Whilst you obviously lead the way,
watching a video of the route.
Of if structured training is more your thing,
the Hammer will accurately keep you to a pre-set wattage
regardless of your gear choice or cadence.
And that's going to be absolutely perfect
for hard intervals.
And then of course, it will also be compatible
with Zwift and the like.
Borrowing technology from their sister company Power Tap
there is also a built-in power metre in there,
meaning that any power that you put out
will accurately be translated into whatever software
you happen to be using.
And then, like I mentioned earlier, there is also a function
that will keep you to a pre-set power.
Now it's called Erg Mode.
It's frankly, absolutely brutal, or at least it can be.
You set whatever wattage you want like,
I dunno, 450 watts if you happen to be fab
and you can't (mumbles).
And then, the hammer will keep you there.
Ouch.
Well, so far so good.
That is an awesome bit of gear.
And like I said at the beginning,
you can potentially win it.
All you gotta do, if you want to train harder
or train smarter or train more effectively,
or indeed just enjoy your training more,
is to click on the description beneath this video
because there's a link in there that will take you
straight through to the competition app.
Where you just work your magic.
And then wait, because we'll tell you who the winner is
in a forthcoming GCN show.
So, just sit back and keep you fingers crossed.
I'm pretty sure you can still
ride a bike with your fingers crossed, just about.
But you could certainly do with your fingers crossed
is actually subscribe to GCN
cuz that's just pressing a button, it's completely free.
And then, if you want more content,
we have a great video, actually,
well we had a look around the CycleOps factory
seeing their indoor trainers being made,
in Madison, Wisconsin.
And then if you fancy a little short cut,
to the competition, it's just down there.