Hot off the press - Wahoo have just announced the Kickr bike at Eurobike.
Let's jump straight to the promo video they've released on it.
This one's for the obsessed
A training machine built for cyclists
by cyclists
The goal
blur the line between virtual and reality
And this is the result - Kickr Bike
A Complete training system designed to recreate what you experience on your outdoor bike.
Your fit
Your kit
Your set
Your rides
All built on everything we've learned since we launched our first revolutionary creation
And you all thought they were releasing a watch
Okay, while we're in shock and awe, let's go through the tech specs of this new smart bike smart trainer
So power accuracy plus or minus one percent with no calibration required
Power up to 2200 Watts
Grade simulation +20% down to -15%
So they've taken a stationary bike and made it less stationary. Noise is virtually silent
It's belt-driven, the group set function can simulate Shimano di2 SRAM and Campagnolo. That is fully customizable
(I'll go into the details in a moment) Gearing simulation again fully customizable
There's a status indicator on the bike showing grade gearing and connectivity.
The cranks on the kicker bike allow from 165 to
175 crank length with all those 2.5 mm increments in between the adjustability and fit. Well, it's quick adjustable
There's a full set-up guide and it's made for multi riders (we will go through more of that in a moment as well)
Customization: You can put your own bars saddle stem pedals and TT or tri bars on the kicker bike
Connectivity: ANT+ / ANT+ FE-C and Bluetooth smart
So supported by everything and the data transmitted is speed, power, cadence and obviously trainer control
It's an interactive smart trainer. The kicker bike has downhill grades simulation
So the flywheel will spin over if you're in sim mode coming down a negative gradient and the braking works both back and front
So you can stop that flywheel from spinning or if the software you're using supports braking. There you go. You've got some interactivity
Ok now catching my breath on a few things now and my take on what we've just seen. Well, first of all
They've kept this under wraps very very well. No embargo leaks. No one really saw it coming
There was a few guesses around but that's it. Wahoo now make a smart bike. It's out and known.
I've ridden an early version of this a little while ago and the one thing that jumped out to me on this bike was the
Gearing and the gear changes now on a belt-driven smart bike
Sometimes it's hard to differentiate between a gear change
Which makes things a little hard to pedal and a simulation great change which makes things a little harder to pedal as well
So they're one in the same. You didn't really it was a bit confusing with the kicker bike
Will you change you get that slight jolt knowing that you've changed a gear? It feels like that. It's one of those
"Oh, wow, they've got that part right" moments when I was running at this unit
There's a lot to discuss when it comes to the customization of the kicker bike
And I think that's quite important to be spending this kind of money on this kind of bike
You want it to be your bike with your fit?
You don't want to be feeling like you've just wheeled a spin bike out of a spin studio and taken it home
You want that experience to be just like riding your bike with your fit.
So as such the adjustability of it is quite extensive as mentioned in the tech specs
You can swap out all contact points as per your preference
So your bars, your stem, your saddle, your pedals,
Whatever you like to make it your bike and your fit. If you want to go to the next level
I'd been putting a set of carbon bars on there not for the weight savings, but if you're sweating buckets indoors
You don't want to be sweating over some alloy bars
So I'd go a carbon stem and carbon bars if you're sweating buckets and have some spare buckets of cash for that.
There's provision to add even more shifters on the Kickr bike as it stands
So a future upgrade will be for the triathletes, Ironman, time-trialists
in us all - to put those bars on with some shifters out the front
Alternatively, you could put a pair of mountain bike bars on there. Maybe even a dropper post if you get creative
More on the customization
and as I said
There's a lot to talk about here. The gearing: You can configure the gearing as you please. If you can think about it you can configure it.
The crank length options as mentioned (quite unique) weight isn't a problem
indoors so they can fit the bike with this crank set and you've got the options to maybe even try out different crank lengths if you want
There is no physical steering of the Kickr bike
But there are enough buttons on the front which can be utilized by any software to provide almost any functionality
So for example on the inside, there's some thumb buttons which you can use to turn left or turn, right.
Okay, more details on the setup and the configuration now this is important to cover because it's going to be a seamless experience taking this out of the box.
Yes, it comes in a box not on a pallet, so you don't need specialist equipment to get it into your house
That experience needs to be straightforward and just work every time and in particular the bike fit has to be correct
So they've put a lot of effort into the onboarding
There's an app that will take you through the experience with animations and just showing you how to get it done
Once you've assembled, powered up and paired the kickr bike
There are three options to get your fit exactly the same as your bike that you ride
first of all
If you've had a professional fit done from say Guru Fit, Retül or Trek
You'll get a set of numbers at the end of those saying they're your fit numbers for your bike
You can just enter those numbers in and it will spit out how to configure the Kickr bike for that exact setup
Secondly, you can take a photo of your bike. Now, bear with me. This does work quite well
So the little app has some smarts built in. You put your bike up against the wall. Stand back. Take a photo
There's some interactivity for it
Then you measure your wheelbase
And again, it will spit out some numbers for you to configure your Kickr bike
Which will get you pretty close to accurate. Or the third option is to enter your height and inseam length
And it will give you a few options to get your riding close enough to where you need to be
The shifting configuration on the Kickr bike is quite unique. You can replicate any group set that's out there at the moment
So we have Shimano di2 or mechanical to choose from. SRAM eTap, SRAM Mechanical or Campagnolo - how that works is the same muscle memory
That's what they're focused on
So for example SRAM
mechanical you press or press and hold to replicate pressing in a little further for SRAM mechanical or eTap up and down same as
eTap outside. Campag: You've got those inside thumb buttons as well. There are five buttons Per lever for each side plus the brake
So I'd call it five point one buttons. Plus in the future, there'll be more to add for the TT bars
There is presets for the gear ratios
but you can customize that if you like and up the front you can go virtually one by virtually two by or virtually three by
Okay, almost wrapping this one up for today and more on the value of this unit now
But $3499 that price tag is high but again referring back to when we went from dumb trainers to smart trainers there
Was a jump in price of a few hundred dollars to over a thousand dollars
But the value that provided us and the experience on bike and for the training it was much better
So the value matched that. Smart bikes we don't quite know
Just yet if that price tag is going to match the experience. On paper it looks pretty close
So in summary there
I think the value add for this bike is it has tilt so it's not just a stationary bike that onboarding
Experience looks to be pretty seamless. We will cover that in the near future
I have one on route to the llama lab next week. And the ability to customize that bike looks pretty neat too
So there we are the wahoo kickr bike announced today
They're the details stay tuned for my experience. Hit subscribe to be notified when that's released. Alright, thanks for watching