Turbo Trainer Advice

Turned on my old Kickr Core last night, power adapter lit up fine but lights on the unit wouldn't turn on. Jiggled the power cable to see if it was a loose connection, tried a few other things but nothing at all. 5 minutes later it magically sprung to life and I did a session on it as if normal.

Edit it's now dead

Also separately but connected, I got a second hand Neo SE but need the TA adapters that screw in. They do just these as a kit from EU sources (R2 bikes etc) for about £20 plus post, but checking if anyone has these who's running QR and would be willing to part them out?

I'm after a trainer in the Black Friday sales that me and my partner can both use. Does anyone have any thoughts on the Wattbike Proton and/or Zwift Ride thing?

On the latter you can't "change gear" outside of Zwift. It seems like this wouldn't matter with ERG mode but I've never tried a proper smart trainer. I don't really anticipate that I'll be that into Zwift so let's assume TrainerRoad or something

Ordered that Zwift one with 20% off, let's see how it goes

kinda keen to know how this is, most importantly can you use it without zwift?

I'd avoid trainers with a Zwift Cog. It's the same as peloton ie you are locked in.

That said the Jetblack Victory or whatever it's called you can stick a freehub and cassette on and it's getting rave reviews if you can wait for stock.

That Zwift bike is just a Kickr Core with an adjustable bike frame on top of it so it could take a cassette if I swapped the frame out.

How much does changing gear really matter though? I'm gonna be in ERG mode all the time

It's more the issue the cog (and therefore bike bit) only work with one platform that costs £17 a month or whatever it is.

And regards erg, yeah fine, I just thought Zwift was about free riding with other people and racing etc

Okay so I've got it set up. ERG mode works fine with the Wahoo app on Android.

I don't seem to be able to connect it to my PC through Bluetooth for GoldenCheetah though. Does the Kickr Core need a dedicated ANT+ thing or is Bluetooth fine? I don't think my phone (Pixel 8) has ANT+ support

Maybe the PC just needs to be closer to the trainer

Edit: I am thinking out loud to myself here basically

When trying to connect on the PC, are you also connected on the phone?

I'd have thought KICKR would support Bluetooth AND Ant+. Mine does.

Maybe you can't have both your phone and pc connected. I think some trainers only have one BT channel.

Has anyone used the zwift cog and buttons?
I'm thinking of buying it so I can stop using my nicest bike on the turbo and use my singlespeeded crux instead.

Not yet, but planning to use the clicks with my track bike shortly - I am not bothering with the cog though.

How does that work then?

Ignore me. I'd continue to use the cassette that's on there and then put the shifter button on.

I use a Click with a normal bike (full cassette) but only virtual shifting so the chain is always straight, on the same cog. As the Click is not in the position of your actual shifter it took a bit of getting used to, blindly finding the up or down button with a HR of +185bpm. But now I got the muscle memory and I really like it. It's not groundbreaking but being able to quickly and silently shift anytime you want is nice.

185 bpm? I wish. I'm old and even when I wasn't I think my max hr was limited to about 175.