Hi all, pretty new to a smart trainer and trying to get my head around what controls what at various times. For background, I’m running sufferfest app on an iPad, KICKR core trainer and I have an Elemnt Bolt.
I understand setting the Trainer to ERG mode on the sufferfest app on the iPad (or levels by the look, not that I’ve used those yet). However, on my Elemnt i seem to have options to control levels, target watts or resistance. The once or twice I’ve tried that, while sufferfest app in erg mode) it seems to change to the Elemnt temporarily and then back to iPad ERG control. How do I choose whether the KICKR core is getting controlled from the iPad or the Elemnt?
There are some occasions I’d like to overrule the iPad ERG control and do on the Elemnt (as changing anything on the iPad means stopping riding for a bit to get out of the saddle and be able to reach it).
Can anyone shed some light on how to get the Elemnt to control instead of ERG from iPad - contemplating a 4dp on the weekend, so want to get it sussed before that.
You can’t really control the kickr with the iPad and your ELEMNT at the same time. The trainer will be getting different messages and behave erratically. You can set the ELEMNT to read the data from the kickr in passive mode though. If you want to control the kickr with your ELEMNT then I would disconnect the kickr from The Sufferfest app on the iPad (ie forget the connect) and then use the kickr to select watts/level. You can swap between level and erg on the iPad though so you may not need to mess around with the ELEMNT at all.
Hey. Welcome @adcords Andrew to your new Kickr trainer world
As @Alistair_Brown says - watch out for multiple connections to the same device … I think that is probably going too far in the world of ‘connectivity’
Your smart trainer only wants controlled from one place.
The Sufferfest app will try and control it if you ask it to, but there is then a risk of disconnects if something else grabs the same connection.
I don’t know as much about whether the Elemnt will get upset and throw it’s toys out though.
The issue is both things are trying to talk directly to the trainer. If an elemnt was some sort of virtual SUF app somehow connected to the SUF app and the the comms only went from one place … it would have to be something like that to safely achieve that … and of course the elemnt doesn’t talk to the SUF app.
For what it’s worth I did FF on a tablet yesterday and while level/ERG was a tiny bit harder than in a desktop (keyboard with desktop makes it so easy) it was fine.
I do the warm up in erg, tap the screen and switch to L2 for the rest as the bike gears are fine for the rest for me.
Let us know how you get on Andrew … it will be amazing working from that trainer going fwd as well. Dep on what you’ve come from you may get different ‘numbers’ as well so one to watch out for when pacing.
Enjoy
@adcords Congrats on the new trainer! These gentlemen all had some great advice; having the Kickr connected to too many things can be trouble. It can only be controlled by one thing at a time. At a minimum, you need to be in Passive mode on the Elemnt but I would recommend just keeping that off completely. The last thing you want in a ride like Full Frontal is for the trainer to misbehave.
It’s best to do at least 1 ride in level mode before your test, Primers is a great one, to get a feel for the right level and gearing that you’ll need to hit various power targets.
