Turbo Trainer Advice

You strike me as someone who would have an opinion on things.

Trainers. What's your poison?

I have a Tacx Vortex smart, but I would like to change it for either the new Tacx direct drive (Fuse?) or the Kickr 2 due to the direct drive aspect of both.

Jet black whisper drive £399 (20% off) at Evans. I have one. It's wattage cottage approved.

https://www.evanscycles.com/jet-black-whisperdrive-ddm-trainer-app-EV229311

If you're in the UK there's the Tacx Flow T2240 (which has power output and automatic resistance control) from Halfords http://www.halfords.com/cycling/turbo-trainers/trainers/tacx-flow-t2240-smart-turbo-trainer. Normally its £200 but £189 at the moment and another 10% off is possible.

Got it in one. All it does is ping when someone you follow starts riding. Although I have notifications turned off!

How much better of an experience is a fixed smart trainer versus rollers with a power meter?
I've been using tacx galaxia rollers for a year now and quite enjoy putting in 30-40 minutes on them, but starting to feel like I'm missing out on this whole zwift gamification. Getting a power meter would be a nice bike upgrade but I presume it's a shit experience in zwift when the only way I can add resistance is gearing up?

I don't suppose anyone has tried both the Kickr and Kickr 2 and can weigh in on whether the newer version is worth £350 over the older one?

I now remember why I didn't have the nVidia drivers installed on my turbo PC - blue screens the thing regularly. I've reverted back to stock Windows VGA drivers so my Zwift experience is done for now. I doubt I'll bother trying to find a new video card for it.

I am in the same position, interested in your decision.

The major difference is you can't adjust resistance with rollers, that and if you go too deep you can fall off them. I wouldn't be able to replicate my turbo training on rollers because there isn't a way of putting in more effort, just spinning faster.

Would anyone be interested in my Vortex Smart?

Yes.

If i can stop myself buying something with direct drive that is.

How much are you thinking? Im seriously considering buying the TacX Flow while its still under £200 quid.

I think I've got the box, let me check when I get home tonight.

Apparently it is because it no longer has an accelerometer to calculate power, which is inaccurate at very high speed. https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2016/08/wahoo-fitness-kickr2-2016-new-trainer.html

I'd also like to register an interest in the Vortex pending price

Thanks for this. I think the safety aspect is a good point, whenever I do sprints on the rollers I have to hold back to avoid falling off.
Think a proper smart trainer is the way forward and probably more economical than getting into the power meter feature/accuracy contest.
That tacx neo though...

The cheapest decent power trainers are something like these:
I'm using a kickr snap at the moment and it's pretty good.

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/tacx-vortex-smart-trainer/
http://www.wiggle.co.uk/wahoo-kickr-snap-smart-turbo-trainer/
http://www.wiggle.co.uk/kinetic-rock-and-roll-ii-smart-trainer/

Is this Tacx Vortex any good? Because there is a huuuge price difference to other smart trainers. Is it just because it has no direct drive?

The RRP is £400, the same as other smart trainers.

I have one, I like it. It works. But I have no other smart trainers to compare it so for all I know it's a pile of shit. Beats riding old school "dumb" trainer by a long shot though.

At £400 though, why not buy a Powertap wheel and a cheap turbo?
You can then train with power everywhere and have a turbo setup with power.

£250 is what I paid. And this controls resistance automatically so you can close your eyes and hit your power numbers without having to fuck around with gears or even looking at your garmin/computer. Quite nice.

Would £200 be outrageous for mine?