I’m using the Kickr Snap, but interested in the off-wheel trainers. Can you comment on the difference?
Yeh, that’s pretty much it. It replaces your front wheel and moves you up and down in response to encoded changes in gradient. It’s very smooth. What it doesn’t do is lower your rear though so it’s not a perfect sim of climbing but pretty darn close. The Kickr Bike does actually lower the back end a bit as the front end moves up which would really be ideal but I don’t have a Kickr Bike (until I win the grand prize this year, 
).
It’s amazing to me just how much more engaging a ride can be with it. If you go to any of the other places like Zwift or RGT or Rouvy with real world and virtual climbs the engagement goes up 1000% percent because as the road kicks up so do you and when it goes down so do you. Like I said, I wouldn’t be without it now that I’ve got it
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Like @Glen.Coutts said, it makes it so much more immersive. Try it on Norway and you”ll be desperate for the moment it levels out on that big climb (and the next time, you’ll be dreading the moment it kicks up)
Lots lots harder 
My power numbers went WAY down when I switched to wheel off smart trainer. The reconditioned KICKR units can also be had for a few hundred dollars cheaper (at least in pre-COVID days). The ERG mode is phenomenal to really test yourself and lets your focus way more on riding. It’s also way quieter, and pretty low faff compared to changing wheels to a trainer wheel for on-wheel trainers etc.
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Does the Kickr Climb work with The Sufferfest? I’d always assumed not as there’s no gradient metrics anywhere.
Begs the question then: which trainer style more accurately recreates actual road cycling power generation?
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It works on some (most?) videos. Look for the gradient symbol on the top right of the screen.
See @anon8787683 write up here:
To this list add Norway.
The help article has been updated to include Norway.
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I don’t know - my KICKR now is pretty close to my crank based power meter, but i didn’t have a power meter back in the days of my Kurt Kinetic fluid trainer, so sadly can’t compare. I’m sure some of the other veterans might know.
I think the main issue w/ wheel on trainers is inconsistency - i.e. so much is determined by how hard the wheel is screwed on to the resistance flywheel, if your PSI is exactly the same, if the trainer is calibrated properly etc. etc.
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An actual pain cave room and a 53” tv
B&W sound dock, to properly enjoy the epic Suf soundtracks & to help drown out the suffering sounds. 
and Who Dares
Mounting my Kickr and bike on a home-made rocker plate to simulate motion, and provide a little more compliance in my saddle area. Its only side to side motion, but for me its so much better than my previous rigid set-up.
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Putting cat food right in front of me, so that everytime my head drops, the stink makes me reconsider my form and position! Ha ha ha!
. (Went out of the window as a plan for GOAT!)
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The two most important ones were already mentioned - CLIMB and HEADWIND. They’re both nearly perfect and a great addition, although there are two minor things with HEADWIND that I’d love as a change/upgrade, secretly hoping some of the Wahoo guys are listening 
.
- The rear is height adjustable, while the front is not. It’s not a problem if you have a lot of space in front of your bike, but the closer you are, the more you need to lift the front up to direct airflow at you. So without a DIY redesign, you basically need to put something underneath the front to prop it up (old manuals in my case).
- The fan speed remote control via Wahoo app (and HR/Speed BLE sensors) is great, but it would be nice to have an option for external 3rd party BLE control too. Ideally if there was a developer kit documentation for BLE Services and Characteristics, so we could develop our own. This could be an extra gadget (simple remote), or something that can be automated based on different metrics and data (power, temperature, humidity, …). People can make these tools quite easily these days, as long as they know how to use the BLE interface the way Wahoo app is using, which is not currently documented.
Apart from that, I can share two recent additions
The first one is the road bike dropper post.
Me and my wife are sharing an extra bike, that’s dedicated to a KICKR trainer and never taken outside. It is more or less a compromise sizing wise, but pretty close to ideal for both of us. The only significant metric that was variable was saddle height and setback, which in turn kept other values within ideal range. After some months with 4mm allen bit and torque spanner (and few bolt replacements 
) I’ve finally found a compatible dropper seatpost. While for MTBs there’s of course amazing variety of choice these days, road frames are a bit limited due to the size of a seat tube (27.2mm on this TREK Domane). I’ve finally found the Brand-X Ascend II (ChainReactionCycles / Wiggle’s own brand, manufactured by TranzX) and it works quite well. Ignore the positioning of the remote lever - the only tube with usable diameter in the vicinity was the radiator pipe . Another MTB world difference - handlebars. Anyway - works a charm, all we do bike swapping is press the lever and set the seat height.
http://www.tranzx.com/product_10_dropper_post.html
The second one is USB power source.
Cable management and power is always an issue, especially when you’re using more devices and/or doing longer rides. This one is the standard Anker USB Desktop Charger with various cables available, attached to the Wahoo Indoor Cycling Desk. Simple, but effective, always within reach.
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- Take a great big marker pen
- Write GO on the left Quad
- Write GO HARDER on the right Quad
- When my head drops halfway through a Suf…
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Sonoff Mini R2 and water proof case for it. Total cost ~£8. Put it between wall socket and fan. Allows control of fan by 1) timer 2) phone 3) Apple Watch 4) button (with Zigbee bridge and button). The chip inside is common so you can easily flash it to prevent bricking and it has a LAN mode. You don’t even need the waterproof box if you’re sure it’ll stay dry. Any cheap project box would do. Just the mini would be ~£4.50 on AliExpress. Never used an R1. Can’t see much having changed.
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These switches look great… could be used for so many applications… would be great if there was a way to read HR/Power dates from the SUF app and send on/off commands to the switch, and £8 headwind!
There is in Zwift I think. I also had this idea and thought I was being original but then found out it already existed on another platform. I haven’t looked in detail but I think that’s in that Zwift already have the data centrally and can just expose it there whereas Sufferfest would need to expose it in the iOS/android/PC/Windows App individually. I think you’d probably just need to run ‘home assistant’ in a virtual machine on your PC. There’s already a Zwift ‘integration’ created. Haven’t looked in detail at what it does as I don’t have Zwift. Definitely seen in in the store though. Could simultaneously run Zwift and Sufferfest I suppose. I think people do that anyway. Think you need two ANT+ dongles.
Probably not hard to get the data from an ANT+ USB stick but I was hoping someone else had done the hard work but there’s no integration in Home Assistant already. I searched.
The free Open source software ‘Golden Cheetah’ gets it already and is on github. I was going to look at the code and see how complicated it is to get but realistically I’ll never bother. I’ve installed a small battery powered touch button with a sticky pad on my treadmill (button is Sonoff and needs a Sonoff Zigbee bridge. About £15 but I wanted Zigbee anyway and there’s a cheaper Zigbee USB stick anyway. That way it’d be about £8 but you’d need a computer to plug it into and go through the faff of setting up a ‘Home Assistant’ in a virtual machine).1 click is treadmill fans. 2 clicks are cycling fans. Long click is fans off. I can alternatively use my watch or start a timer before hand. I don’t have a table for my phone. I suspect a Home Assistant integration would be best as then you could take into account Pain Cave temperature and start the fans earlier on a hot day. I should do that. Most of the code already exists. Look up ‘sonoffLAN’ on GitHub. I wonder if Golden cheetah has an external API already… that would be easy. It’s free and runs on PX/Mac and Linux.
Rocker plate. Made 90+ minute sessions far more bearable on the backside.
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