Cleaning out some drawers and found this old Ant+ dongle.
That’s what started it all isn’t it?
What connector does that plug into? Something Apple?
Yeah it’s an Apple one. The beginning of all things smart trainer.
Maybe for Wahoo, but depending what you mean by smart trainer not really the beginning by a long shot. My old Tacx Flow / iMagic / Fortius connected by USB and had working steering and everything. I had it up and running back in 2005/6 - it was way ahead of it’s time.
I was still able to use it very recently for my first forays with Z***t and Sufferfest via the FortiusANT Github project.
My first Wahoo product was a BT HR strap which was part of the Kurt Kinetic inRide “power meter”–a magnet + speed sensor on the Kinetic’s drum that got translated into power based on the fluid resistance curve.
Bought it in December 2012 but don’t think I have the Wahoo HR anymore. Replaced about a year later with the OG KICKR, naturally.
I’ll have to dig up my old Wahoo RFLKT for funsies. It was a horrible product (always crashing and eating batteries) but I guess it helped them on the way to the ELEMNT.
I still have both of the Kurt Kinetic BT heart rate monitors. They suffered from a fatal flaw, the lugs that held the battery cover on would break off. Fortunately, this was fixed for the TICKR.
landed in Sufferlandria with the KK and inRide module. Their old FIT app had the SUF vids for my first ToS in 2016. Fun times! Fuuuuun tiiiiiimes.
Sadly, I’ve seen no movement in the inRide app. It was an excellent idea and had a simple but efficient interface.
yeah, it got me started on the whole power thingy. Ended up getting PMs for my bikes after that. KK was a GREAT dumb trainer but I wanted to go the smart route so went to a Kickr Snap a year later, then a Kickr '18 after that. No regrets.
I still have my KK. Sadly, i see no need to get a KICKR. I even let the 50 USD off a Zwift Hub expire. Being hereveherr i csn ride 300+ days a year, I’m finding riding indoors less inviting now that I’m retired.
I didn’t know Fit app had SUF videos.
I started “smart” training with TrainerRoad which had the SUF workouts where you could drop in the video you purchased. I never bought a SUF video, though I recall some were available on Strava for a while (2014ish) and then I joined as a subscriber through the Sufferfest Roku app.
It was a while ago, before the SUF app, and it may have only been for the 2016 ToS.
Nice! I love that it still works just fine. That’s awesome. I bet it has heaps of mileage on it too!
It’s all good. I started riding a smart trainer with Computrainers back in ~2010. Never owned one but rode one in a bike shop that had 8 set up. Wanted to get a Kickr ~2015 but wound up with a Saris Hammer instead due to bike shop politics. Still works great, except for being pretty noisy. My ANT+ dongle is also from ~2015.
It was a great thing in it’s day but at the time you needed a fairly high spec Windows 95 computer to run it smoothly!
Sadly mine spent quite a few years unloved in the garage before being revived using FortiusANT. It’s back to being unloved again now that I have my Kickr Core. Best thing about getting the Kickr Core was the >30% boost to my FTP when I discovered the Tacx was massively under-reading
The video isn’t of my one - just something I found on YouTube!
I still use my KK dumb trainer and ANT+ dongle. Use that along with the downloads from Sufferfest. Works a treat to record with Golden Cheetah.