Today I finally get to introduce the Kickr2 or the Kickr16, the family of smart trainers
I've got here in the pain cave.
I've first talked about the Kiker16 back in July last year, when team Sky were using one
of them over the Tour de France for their warm ups.
I also saw them and they were released and available over at Eurobike.
So Wahoo did nail the marketing and availability straight away there which is really good to see
It's been a while coming since I've got one of these.
But let's go through my version of unboxing, throwing parts everywhere, getting the bike
on, and having a chat about it.
Bit different than the other Kickr box, actually the other Kickr box had a hinge to it, this
one has just the standard opening at the top.
OK, so we have manuals and power cables.
We know what we do with the manuals.
Um, disk brake protector there.
We have the American power cable.
Now here's a first, straight from the U.S. I've got an American power cable.
We're going to have to deal with that.
Um we have a important information documents, and we have a cadence sensor, which is both
Bluetooth smart and Ant plus.
Very handy.
Ok in the box itself is the beast.
I think I'll tip this upside down.
To get it out as I said the other box had a bit of a hinge to it.
Which is kind of cool this is just a standard box.
That was kind of more user friendly doing it that way.
Ah ok cool.
So what I've got is the standard power brick here.
Again it's the easiest parts that I get caught up on every time.
There we go, right.
OK so a standard IEC connector on here so I can use any of the power cables I've got
so that's not a problem.
OK comparing the power pack to the old Kickr.
So just double checking the power packs from the original Kickr to the new Kickr, um they
are both 12 volt 5 amps output.
Cool, so they are interchangeable.
Oh yeah, OK.
I was skeptical about how good the handle actually was, but I'm sold, Straight away.
That handle you can see system balanced, you can cart this thing around.
Let me show you difference between the old one trying to cart the old one around.
Original Kickr new Kickr.
Ok picking up the old Kickr with the handle the thing just spins straight around.
You can see that.
It's a two handed job, every time it's kind of awkward, even though it does have a handle.
So the new one with the handle, it's actually centered right and you can just pick up and
go down the shops.
OK so the handle gets a thumbs up for me straight away.
Another win here when you buy a Kickr is the supplied cassette, so you don't have to worry
about getting another cassette, if you're compatible with this.
This is an 1126 entry level SRAM which is good enough for indoor work.
So the next step is to get the feet adjusted out.
And this set up for the correct height for my road bike.
I"ll do the height adjustment for the feet while I'm here, make life easy.
And these do ship with 650c road we have to change that up so let's get that done now.
And just to be sure let's check the cassette hub body.
There's absolutely no movement at all in there.
Everything is tight on.
OK, we're good.
So now I've got both side by side the new and the old Kickr.
Let's go through just a few of the differences with both systems, before I mentioned the
handle, so new handle great positioning on the new one.
The old one was down here and very unbalanced.
We have some led status lights in here, so we know what's connected with the new one.
With either Bluetooth or Ant, so we know when the system is on and working.
Over here there's no status lights whatsoever.
The power for the new one just connected straight up the back.
Really really easy to get to.
The old one is under the bottom here.
They did update with a bit uf a piggy-tail, which was OK, but still a bit of a pain.
Probably the largest difference between the two is how they measure power.
The old Kickr you can see here this black disk on the Kickr one, that's the power meter.
So that's very delicate, you've got to be very careful with that.
And that's connected to the brake, and there's strain gauges connected in there.
And that's not the case on the Kickr2, there's no strain gauges on this unit.
The power's estimated from the speed of the fly-wheel and the resistance supplied by the
brake.
So I'm really keen to put this to the test.
A subtle change on the new Kickr is also the lower profile to the plastic.
You can see that this is flush here with that disk.
But on the original Kickr it sticks out a little bit.
You can see that it's not quite flush.
And there are a few reports of people running eleven speed with their rear derailleur hitting close.
Let's have a quick look at the two differences now with my bike.
My bike isn't suffering from the same problems as others.
But it is really really close here you can just touch the edge there.
Now let's compare that to the new one.
You can see here there's plenty of room to move between the unit and the rear derailleur.
That's good.
OK the system seems to be pulling less than one watt on standby.
That's not too bad at all.
So our lights are happily flashing away wile Ant is always solid and on and Bluetooth is
seeking a host.
Get it up in time to ride.
I'll be doing my standard tests of steady set intervals plus those ten second sprints
collecting data from multiple sources to grab the response time from the Kickr2 / Kickr16
whatever we call it.
So let me run you through the setup at the moment.
The Garman 820 is going to be used to collect the power from the pedals themselves, the
Powertap P1s.
I have the garman 800 over here.
Pit of Ant plus to the Kickr 16 and I'll have Zwift loaded up here collecting data from
the stages once it wakes up again.
There we go.
So I have 3 sources of data that I'll overlay together and we'll check out how it goes with
steady state and the sprints.
So I've got the initial steady state tests out of the way and a few ramp ups to about
four hundred plus watts all looks pretty good, but we'll take a look at the data in a minute
now to see how quickly this thing changes resistance based on the gradient changes on
Zwift.
Right now we're in the we're on the London course.
And here's the stairs coming out of the subway here.
So as soon as I hit that I should get resistance kicking in let's see how quickly it kicks
in.
That's really hard to quantify but I can tell you the resistance kicked in almost instantly
as I hit the ramp and kicked out as soon as it flattened up.
So what they've been saying about the responsiveness of the new Kickr.
Yep OK, I'll pay that.
So now I'll be honest the next intervals I dread.
Ten seconds on ten seconds off.
With the first one being all out, everything I've got.
And the next subsequent ones are never as good because ten seconds isn't really enough
to recover your sprint power.
But it's a really good test of your units and responsiveness and reaction time.
First session complete on the Kickr16 and it held up quite well.
Side note on how much it bounces around, in this room.
This is a carpeted floor with another carpet layer put on top, so over a thousand watts,
I expect things to jump around.
I'm OK with that.
If the trainer breaks, if the bike breaks, if I break great it's going to make some great
footage but also makes sure that these systems will hold up in every environment.
Not everyone's going to have a solid concrete floor.
If you do have a solid concrete floor though, you will have issues with noise, so you'll
have to do a bit of sound suppressant such as carpet walls or carpet floor if you want
to keep your neighbors happy at night.
Speaking of sound here's my sound comparison test between the new Kickr and the old.
So the unit being quieter than the original is one of the main selling points.
Is it quieter?
By ear I couldn't tell the difference.
But the darish says it is, but it's still got that customary whine to it.
It's definitely no neo and no driveo it's down the trail a little bit further, it's
not too obnoxious, but it's not a silent trainer so is it quieter?
Yes.
Is it a quiet trainer?
No.
Ok, let's have a look at the data and how responsive this thing actually is.
Just for interest sake, here's the data before the spin down and you can see the Kickr's
reading a little high.
I've ended the spin down just here and everything comes more into line which is looking good.
Ok over the first ten minute steady state interval here at three hundred watts, now
this is with is with power smoothing on from erg mode from Kikr 2.
So you can see the Kickr2 heat is reporting three hundred watts.
Wether you're doing three hundred watts or not doesn't matter.
In this mode in erg mode using the Wahoo fitness app, it will say three hundred watts and just
stay there.
The power tap pedals pretty much on song all the way through and the stages surprise surprise
is reading a little low.
All systems normal there for today.
Into the second interval we have a slight drop from two data channels here, let's ignore
that for now and look at the over-all.
Again the erg mode is saying 300 watts and it flat-lines from the Kickr.
But par for par it's all looking pretty good for the power tap pedals and the stages sort
of comes into line a little there.
But let's ignore the stages for now.
Now, I then switch to power smoothing off in erg mode.
Which is a new feature of the new firm-ware.
You can see what happens here, so this power spike here is me doing an aborted start for
that ten minute session.
But you can see the power has tracked really well.
And really closely through here.
Um ok the red line let's ignore the stages, the stages had better things to do then report
accurate power, but what you can see here is the Kickr is tracking super super closely
with power tap pedals.
Now this is erg mode with power smoothing off.
Really really good super impressed with that.
The averages look really close.
So steady state it's a thumbs up for me.
Now the sprints - these were three all out sprints, super close together to see the kick
in response time and the drop-off response time.
These are looking good, these are looking really good.
So here's my JRA just riding along 40 watts 43 watts sub 50 watts.
That's all pretty stops in there let's zoom in a little harder here.
OK so I kick in a sprint here, pow.
Um yeah, we're seeing the Kickr actually jumping first pretty happy with that.
Power tap pedals in stages probably a second or so later, but that's very very close, the
next one, closer again, these are within a few seconds of each other.
And the last one's track really really well even up to the peak power there, so stages
reporting 1124 the kick is on 1053 and the power tap pedals is on 1078 so super close
super responsive and you'll have no issues whatsoever racing online in Zwift.
Kicking into a sprint closing wheels and everything there.
The dropoff's a little different on them both.
But it's the response time when you press the pedals you want that response time there.
Thumbs up from me.
And at the end here I did some one legged intervals there so there's a bit of power
separation there but again just riding along just riding along and I think I gave it a
bit of a squirt at the end and again up to 400 watts for a few seconds and the Kickr2
and power tap pedals tracking really well the stages was on holiday for a second or
so.
All very very happy with that.
OK my overall impressions this is a good unit.
It's the Kickr1 that I love, I actually own four of those.
But it has a few refinements.
The handle, it's still a good solid build the flywheel adds really good inertia.
The power response time reported is really good.
And the brake resistance kicks in nicely with Zwift.
So it's a thumbs up for me on this one.
The sound, it's not as quiet as I'd like it's definitely no Neo and no Driveo as I'd mentioned
before.
Just a side note on the old Kickr, there is firmware and development that's gonna allow
us to switch from gauge mode to model mode, the same as the new Kickr on the old ones
which should in theory bring the older Kickr up and almost on par with the new Kickr with
regards to accuracy and responsiveness.
Stay tuned on that one.
So here's my wrap up of the Kickr2 / Kickr16 Kickr new.
Rock solid unit that builds on the legendary status of the Kickr1 that I do love.
Alrighty we'll leave it there, comment questions below, happy to answer.
Thanks for watching.