ela002

Hello,

I have a tacx satori which is broken and I need to buy a new trainer.

I have heard a lot of good reviews about kurt kinetic road machine and I wonder how it works if you train climbing at high gears? Satori has resistance selection and the highest is very tough to rotate the pedals. Can you simulate a climb at 60-70rpm with kurt kinetic ?

Thanks

Jsiegs

For fluid trainers like the KK Road, there's a well defined and smooth power curve. There's no way to adjust tension of the trainer, you just change to a harder gear and go "faster". I just checked a few data points from a recent ride on my KK Rock and Roll (same resistance unit as the Road) and at a cadence of low-60s in my 50-11 gear, my power output was about 320-330W. In the same gear at about 70-72 RPM I was about 420-430 W. So you get plenty of resistance.

Since that's a just a random selection of data, you can figure it out for yourself with any gear combo and cadence you want. Use an online gear calc to figure out your speed in a specific gear in a specific cadence. Then take that speed and plug it into the KK power curve: https://www.kurtkinetic.com/powercurve.php

whitemax

You work it and trust me, it'll work you. Great unit if you thinking about a trainer.

Brew1

Where are you located? I have a KK rock & roll that I don't use anymore (1/2 season on it) because I purchased a trainer that both my Wife and I can use.

I'm in SE Wisconsin and if you're close by maybe we could work something out. I dread the thought of trying to ship this somewhere.

ela002

Sorry I am far far away from you.

jrobe

You won't lack for high resistance on a KK trainer. You also won't spend that much time in the hardest gear .

aztimm

How does the KK road machine trainer compare with the CycleOps Fluid trainer? They're similar price.

whitemax

I've been through 2 CycleOps fluid trainers which both started to leak after a couple of season. They were both replaced by CycleOps free of charge with no hassle. Very good machine. The KK is sealed and cannot leak. For this reason, I'd go with the KK.

Vlaam4ever

I see these pop up regularly on slowtwich classified section for < 300 I think I saw one on ebay for ~225+shipping. Lots of good used units out there.

therhodeo

Just a rec from me but if you get a KK trainer, spring for the upgraded flywheel. It really makes doing base or tempo rides alot smoother.

aztimm

So now I've heard that only the KK Rock & Roll trainer is approved for use with carbon bikes. It is a bit more than the Road machine, but I've heard that it is more real-feeling.

Anyone have a Rock & Roll? Thoughts?

Digitalfiend

Yep, I have the Rock and Roll and absolutely love it. It's my first trainer and honestly, I think the only reason I didn't mind doing indoor training this past winter was because of the R&R. Being able to stand without feeling like you're abusing the bike, sway or lean for a bit of variety, etc just makes training indoors that much more tolerable. I also bought the extra flywheel attachment and found myself using that quite a bit.

Another big selling feature for me was the sealed resistance unit. I didn't want to deal with leaking seals, etc. Ironically, my resistance unit was a bit defective from the factory and suffered from vibration and a bit of clunking on spin down. It worked beautifully at speed though. I tried a different bike, two sets of wheels, and differing amounts of preload on the tire/roller connection. Nothing fixed it, so I emailed Kurt and within a week I had a brand new, perfectly smooth, resistance unit at no cost to me other than duty. I'm in Canada and bought the R&R through an authorized E-Bay vendor, so I was expecting a hassle but only received top notch customer service. I can't say anything bad about the R&R or their customer service.

I guess one could argue that the R&R is a little expensive and possibly unnecessary, but for me the R&R made all the difference in the world for motivating me to train (or at least stay reasonably fit) through the winter. I highly recommend it. The good news is that the R&R and Road Machine use the same resistance unit, so either way you'll get a good workout.

As for the carbon fibre issue... I'm sure fixed trainers do put more stress on the seat/chain stays than the R&R but a lot of people use them and I haven't heard of anyone suffering a failure. Honestly, I'd be more worried about an aluminum frame in a trainer. With that said, I still went with the R&R and I can definitely see how it would reduce, though not entirely eliminate, stress on the frame. You can also adjust how much the unit resists swaying by adjusting the amount of compression on the two rear bushings (use a torque wrench, trust me.)