Dutch e-racing club ‘Zwift Nederland’ reviews the TrueTrainer
Zwift Netherland is the largest active e-racing club and community of the popular indoor training platform Zwift®. Founder and Ride Leader Jacek Karluk tested the TrueTrainer extensively and shared his experiences with us.
- I unpack and assemble the trainer. This is a piece of cake. The foldable legs are making sure that the trainer can also be stored easily and compactly for when you are not going to use it for an extended period of time.
- A big plus is Virtual Gears, which make it possible to virtually use a different cassette and chainrings than are actually on your bike and the cassette. A clever feature that makes it possible to simulate a different groupset (from your other bike, for example) or to climb that virtual mountain a little easier.
- (…) In terms of power accuracy, the trainer clearly passed this test and is therefore very accurate. And that is very important these days as more and more people train with a power meter, of course you want the power you want to train to be correct and also during a race correctly converted to Zwift-speed.
- Then the resistance and slope angle should be 15% up and 15% down with a maximum resistance of 2600 watts. Both are important for realism, after all, you want when you ride up the Alpe du Zwift to actually feel the 12% you see on the screen in terms of resistance. Again, the trainer lives up to expectations and 15% is enough to properly simulate almost all slopes on Zwift.
- Riding the TrueTrainer does indeed feel slightly different, somehow more natural, if difficult to explain why…..it is and remains a feeling. What certainly contributes to the natural feeling is the fact that the trainer can move to the sides, a kind of rocker plate effect that the Kickr also has. This makes cycling a little less static and feels more natural.
- Then the noise produced by the trainer, not unimportant of course (…) After a week and well broken in, the trainer is a lot quieter. A lot quieter….would it still be quieter than the Neo? I hesitate and have to call in an expert to find out. The boss of the house is called in and I ask my wife to listen and give her opinion. In the attached garage where my pain cave resides, in the living room and upstairs near the children’s bedrooms. The expert comes to a clear conclusion, the trainer is even quieter than the Neo on which I currently ride me. For my wife enough reason to let me buy the TrueTrainer…Unfortunately, I will not get the money from her ;)
- After riding the TrueTrainer for a week, I can say that I am positively surprised. The trainer performs beyond my prior expectations and scores many plusses with its extras, not even all of which I have mentioned yet.
Do you want to read the full review? You can read it in the facebook group of Zwift Nederland. Note, you have to be a member of the group and it’s written in Dutch.
