Which Wattbike?

[jon-yprpe]

I’ve previously used a Wattbike Protrainer in the Gym for winter training, then switched to having a Peleton at home.

I noticed that all my best road segment times were in the Spring after spending winter on the Wattbike.

Peleton has now been sold, and want to get a Wattbike for use at home. I can get a recon Protrainer or the Atom or Air for about the same price.

Any thoughts…I quite like the mix of magnetic and air adjustment on the Protrainer….

[aspender]

It depends on what you want your training to look like.

Pro/Trainer and Air are aimed at gym/professional sports teams and fundamentally you manually control the resistance. So training is primarily following a set programme where if you want to hit 400W for a minute you are selecting the right air resistance manually and it's all IMO a bit of a faff. These bikes come into their own for HIIT style maximal efforts and that's what you see Rugby players, Americas cup cyclors etc doing on them. It's 'jump on, jump off' style training.

If however you want to be able to use 3rd party apps (Zwift, Rouvy, Trainerroad and even the Wattbike app) to have a training session in ERG mode where resistance is set for you, or just to ride virtually experiencing gradient changes then the Atom or the new Proton are much better.

For 99.9% of people the higher top-end wattage of the Pro/Air is irrelevant.

If you are coming from a Peloton then the Wattbike Proton is their offering aimed at directly capturing that market segment, but with the benefit of wide 3rd party app compatibility. I've had a Proton for a few weeks and it's been good so far.

Edited by aspender on Monday 7th October 11:20

[Julian Scott]

A Wahoo KICKR Bike ;-)

[christhreadgill]

I have a re-con Atom V2 and it is perfect for those days when you just can't get out on the roads. 60-90min on a structured training session I find equivalent to a good 3-4 hour social group ride, as there is no freewheeling, stops etc.

The adjustability is great, and you can use the measurements of your real bike into the WattBike app, and it'll give you the setup dimensions for your Atom to perfectly replicate your actual bike fit.

I don't use the WattBike app, I run it all via TrainerRoad, but I'm just about to switch back to Zwift for the winter!

[jon-yprpe]

Thanks all - on the Pro I tended to set the air/magnetic to max and then ride for an hour, varying effort according to my heart rate monitor.

[Smitters]

Is there a reason you're targeting a static bike over a smart trainer and using your actual bike? There are pros and cons to each, but just putting it out there.

[Julian Scott]

Smitters said:

Is there a reason you're targeting a static bike over a smart trainer and using your actual bike? There are pros and cons to each, but just putting it out there.

I've had both, and having a smart bike is way way better than your road bike on a turbo. The only reasons not to are cost and space, IME.

[JEA1K]

Julian Scott said:

I've had both, and having a smart bike is way way better than your road bike on a turbo. The only reasons not to are cost and space, IME.

Agree, once you've experienced a dedicated smart bike, there's no reason to use their roadbike/trainer for indoor training if they have the space and funds.

I had the Wattbike trainer for quite a few years ... very basic and no real smart functions which I didn't really need. The bike is a bit rudamentry but is an excellent training tool ... and very robust. The two resistance options allow you to get the right power/cadence immediately although you need to reach down to get to them both. I use TR and my wife uses Wahoo Systm which were all good with the Wattbike trainer connected to an iPad with BT.

I bought an Atom late last year and was initially dissapointed with the restistance ... the bike is much smoother than the WB trainer but as I do a lot of Vo2 stuff on TR, the bike felt like it didn't react quick enough to the resistance changes on the short efforts and I struggled to get to 'my' comfort levels of cadance. My wife however, preferred it significantly ... so I had a read on the forums and descovered that ERG mode only works with TR when paired through ANT + and not BT. So I purchased an ANT + dongle and can now use the bike in ERG mode so, yes, it feels like an improvement over the old WB trainer. The only downside is that the app doesn't display my cadance ... no major issue though.

One thing I really like about Wattbike is the service .... you can get the bike collected and repaired or fully serviced in the UK. So I'd certainly recommend the Atom.