The TACX Vortex Smart Trainer. It's not a new device
but it's one I haven't covered before, and it's quite popular.
So today, the unbox, build and my first ride of this unit and we put it through the Llama lab test.
So the Vortex Smart Trainer, it's an entry-level Trainer now
or a budget Trainer because you've got things like the Flux
and the Neo, that have come along and really improved that premium experience indoors.
But this is quite a popular entry-level smart trend for people to
dip their toe into erg mode, Zwift and all those interactive smart training programs
that we're now using.
Although this unit was out in 2014, it still supports
everything that's popular today. So ANT+ FE-C and Bluetooth.
Reporting power, speed and cadence.
Some of the specs of the unit, it goes up to 950 Watts
for a few seconds in the sprint at about 40 kilometers an hour.
It'll pack a punch of 750 Watts for a minute, if you can hold that.
If you're doing that, you're doing pretty well, and a 7% grade simulation as well.
So it's kind of packing a punch mid-range when it comes to the hills.
You're not going to get those really steep pinches, but it's enough for a good training session.
The flywheel weight of this unit is 1.65 kilos with an effective flywheel weight of 11 kilos.
That's the key component that I'm looking at today.
What's the ride feel like? What's the experience like, compared to all these
other Trainers that I've had the privilege of putting a few k's on recently.
Power wise, the specification is less than 10%.
Well, that means within 10% accuracy of a true calibrated and certified power meter.
I've got the Powerset P1 Pedals on the bike today, which have been proven pretty good.
We'll actually test the unit up against those today with a Llama lab test.
Ok enough talking, let's get this unboxed, built and let's get my session done for the day.
I don't even know where to start.
Let's try the old, pour it out.
It's making a lot of noise for...here we go.
Oh, Zap!
Ok, here we have the box.
We have power cable, done. We have the manuals, done.
Build Kit.
Ok
The resistance unit and roller.
Ok
We have the feet.
We have a, we have a rice cake.
No.
Oh, another rice cake.
And we have the front wheel mount.
Now this looks a little different to the ones supplied with the Neo.
I've also put some extra feet on the bottom of this to make it a little less slippery.
Bet that's the front wheel mount there.
Ok, that's it.
Ok, so here's everything that's come out of the box.
There's not a lot to it but there is some assembly required.
Let's go through setting this up for a road bike
which is a 700c wheel that I have on my giant TCR
Almost.
There we go.
Ok, first up we have to...get the frame legs out of the way.
Done.
Locked in place.
Now, that's the front wheel mount goes over here.
This we have to spin upside down and put this device in the right...Oh, it also comes with a
really nice steel skewer. I highly recommend using those. Save the super light race skewers for race day.
But for training and just generally riding around on your bike, stick with the steel skewer.
They won't bend or break.
We could only assume race is road bike here. There's no 700 listed. So what we want is Number 2
Assume it goes into No. 2
That then locks in there.
Ok, there we have it.
And the motion over the back here is simply locking onto the wheel.
There is a little turn resistance adjuster in the bottom
to pull that in or out.
But we'll know where to put that as soon as we got the
bike on the actual unit itself.
Ok, we'll go for middle range 110 Psi
and before putting a bike that's been outside on the indoor Trainer, make sure
you clean that rear wheel. Introducing dirt under that roller, it's all bad news.
It'll prolong the life of both your tyre and the roller if everything is clean.
Beautiful.
Now to adjust this for the size of your bike, that rolls out.
Try about there, and that locks in tight, there.
Secure in, lining it up and bang in place.
I came for the rear resistance unit here.
We'll see if the defaults work alright.
Not quite touching the tyre there. I'll need to move that...
...a little bit out the other way.
Ok, a bit of trial and error here to get that just right.
I think that should be fine. Let's check for tyre slippage with a few pedal strokes
Ok, that looks good with this tyre.
So for today's real-world test I'm just using my race tyre here.
I'll be doing a session for probably 90 minutes or so.
So, this thing shouldn't get too hot but if you're doing a ton of K's indoors.
More than 5 hours a week or so on one of these Trainers, get yourself a specific
Trainer tyre. I've got the TACX blue tyre here. I'll put that on another day.
We'll do another video on that.
But for today, just using my normal clean race tyre
and there was no slippage then for my little sprint test.
So we'll see how it goes once we plug this thing in
and get up and running.
Ok, now we have the thing plugged in, we could check for the latest firmware. So TACX Utility.
This should...there we go Vortex straightaway.
Connection made. Check for updates.
Oh, we have a firmware update. Rock and roll. Let's get that done.
and that took about 5 minutes to update. Very entertaining watching that tick along.
Now we've got the numbers showing that we're on the current firmware.
Always, always handy to check when you pull a device out of the box and anything digital.
See if there's a firmware update for it. And they've also got calibration as well.
Let's do that after 10 minutes of warm-up on the Trainer first though.
So there's the unbox, build and mounting of the bike correctly on the Trainer
and the firmware updated. Probably around about 15 minutes of work.
The most trickiest thing was to try and get the resistance unit in the right spot and
then you get that tension on the tyre right. But once that's done it's set.
You only need to do it once. Same with the firmware update. Well, make sure you check
for those every few months or so to make sure you get the best out of your Trainer.
Ok, everything's ready to go, I'm going to kit up. We'll do the Llama test on this,
which is the 20 minute steady state with a few different ERG mode tests,
a few sprints and a few response tests as well to see how it goes up
against these PowerTap Pedals.
It's been fun, but let's ride.
So the Llama lab test sprint, it definitely tops out at around 950 Watts.
I was in the 52-11, and there was just a spin sesh post that. So, 950 is about a limit
we'll have a look at the data later, but I'm okay with that.
That's all I got at the moment.
A newly added section to the Llama lab test
is the ERG mode response over 20 seconds. So, I'll get stuck into those now.
Hopefully I'm recovered.
So the ERG mode test that I used for the Llama lab test is 20 seconds at 165 Watts;
20 seconds at 385; 20 seconds at 165, so bringing it up and down over
the 20 second period which some Trainers have trouble with stabilising at
and then into some 495 Watts bringing it back down to 165 between those.
The response time of this Trainer was really, really good within 1 to 2 seconds
it really jumped that resistance. You can see here jumping from 163 Watts up to
385, sorry, and the power on the power tap dial, jumps straight up.
ERG mode itself will always overshoot at the start within a few seconds and it
stabilises and then it decays. So attack, decay, sustain, release.
It's pretty much like a musical note using ERG mode. That's what we see here.
Accuracy wise at the top end, it was well within spec.
So jumping forward to a section where we went from 165 up to 495,
you can see the power tap dial there within a few seconds
starts ramping straight up. So that's the resistance being put on the legs.
Over to 500, so it overshoots a little bit, but again that's
just how ERG mode works.
Response wise, like it was super quick for that response.
As I said within a few seconds it was there
and we'll go across the bridge here and we'll see it release that resistance...
1, 2 and then starts shooting down straight away.
So with ERG mode response being very, very good.
Let's have a look at the data comparing the PowerTap P1 Pedals
to the power coming out of the Vortex over on DC Rainmakers analysis site.
So in purple, we have the PowerTap P1 Pedals. In blue, we have the TACX Vortex Smart Trainer.
Standard 10 minute warm-up here,. I always do this just as an
interesting test to see how things go out of the box. It wasn't too bad.
You can see early on there's a lot of separation, so nothing to worry about here but just
a little test that I do. Here's where I perform the spin down at about 10 minutes
and then we're into ERG mode. ERG mode, once it found its feet there
right about there, it was pretty good. You can see the PowerTap P1 Pedals
a little bit more jerky. There's a lot of smoothing going on with
the Vortex Power Reporting, but that was bang on within a few Watts.
Stepping it up to 220 Watts
and that's keeping pretty, pretty well. So definitely well
within spec. Well within that 10% accuracy spec.
So let's dive into the 2 sprint efforts that I performed you saw those on the video before.
First one, the peak power isn't too bad. What we're seeing though is the Peak Power
reporting though is about 4 seconds delayed on the Vortex.
Look, that's pretty much to be expected.
These things are power estimators not power meters with strain-gauges.
The pedals are instant straight on.
There's about a 4 second delay.
The actual peak reported number though isn't too bad. And look to put
this into perspective, this units about half the price of a mid-range Powermeter
and it's about, a third of the price of a top-end Smart Trainer
So, at the level that it comes in at, this isn't too bad.
You're not losing Watts, it's just a little delayed there for just these sprint efforts.
Though overall, still pretty good.
In to the ERG mode test there that I showed you before
which were the 20 seconds at 165; 385; 165 in to 495,
The response time for ERG mode as I said, it's very, very good. You can see the
response to ERG almost instant there. Really, really good.
I think that was more me than anything with the first one, because the second one, I was a lot
smoother just riding into that ERG change and holding cadence as much as I could.
You can see there the attack to K sustained.
Release right there and the numbers there are 381 on the Vortex versus
397 on the Power Meter Pedals. So, that's definitely well within 10% spec.
10% at around 400 watts you're looking at 40 Watts, there's definitely a lot closer
than 40 watts there between those two.
And the same up here we have a bit of
overshoot, again ERG mode.
But, close enough.
And again the last one, we're looking at a separation there of around 35 Watts at 500 Watts.
So again, give or take 50 Watts for plus or minus 10...that's well within spec.
I then throw in a just riding along 400 Watt effort, or just a bit over 400 watts.
See the response time there if the pedals are a little quicker then the
unit itself for power reporting, but once it's stabilised, it shot along just fine.
So, not too bad between the two and then at the end, just to cool down just riding along,
just riding along. It all looks pretty good.
As with those ERG mode resistance changes kicking in pretty quickly,
you get the same thing when you're writing on, on Zwift in sim mode. So as soon as
you're riding from 0% to 1% you know about it.
It kicks in pretty quick, and if it kicks up to 2% or 3% you really have to labour the pedal stroke
over a little bit more to get that going.
This is due to the flywheel size 1.6 kilos, there's not a lot of inertia there to
kick you into a hill. If you've ridden a Smart Trainer with a big flywheel
you'll know what I'm talking about. The hill will change and you can sort of
slowly bring your pedal stroke up to match it like you do outdoors.
With a lighter flywheel, that'll stop pretty quickly. So you have to get on top of it.
Now the Vortex probably has the edge over the Magnus for the wheel on
so I'll give the points to the Vortex over the Magnus.
Still a damn good workout though.
Noise wise, the Trainer wasn't too obnoxious, but it wasn't silent either.
So it wasn't a screaming Banshee, but you wouldn't have a sleeping baby next to it.
If you need that, the TACX Neo is the answer for that one for now.
Another question people had was around tyre wear. People reporting excessive tyre wear.
Look that's par for the course when you have a roller pressed hard up against
a rubber tyre that's meant for out in the road.
I had a quick look after my session here, and yes from the Roubaix Pro that I had on,
there's a few black specks there.
Look, get yourself a tyre specific for indoor training and wear through that and replace it.
Things are replaceable.
I, just out of interest as well, I put on the power meter and it had a 2.9 Watt power draw.
So, it's not going to be increasing your power bills too much to leave this thing plugged in.
And another tip for all tyre on Trainers -
make sure you remove that roller from pressing up against the tyre after every session.
So in summary, to be honest I wasn't expecting too much of the Vortex and I was surprised.
Most people go from a Vortex and upgrade to a
Direct Drive Smart Trainer and love that experience.
I've gone the other way today just to see what it was like at the entry level. It was pretty good.
Just riding along the resistance changes in ERG mode were really, really,snappy.
I was surprised by that. No surprises with the power reporting of course it's going to
be a little bit of lag there and the way it actually works, but it wasn't a show-stopper.
And for the price point, you sort of can't go wrong there.
That was a pretty good entry-level Trainer to buy.
So if you're looking at the entry-level,
dipping your toe into the interactive Smart Trainer for Zwift, where you get
the full experience, you sort of can't go wrong with the Vortex, and it's
definitely a Trainer I'd be confident putting people on for the first time to
give them that interactive experience about ERG mode,
hill grade simulations on Zwift and suffering indoor...well, enjoying indoor riding.
Ok thanks for watching, we'll see you soon