Originally Posted by
brawlo
The KKRM is fit for purpose. It's a big step up from a spin bike for the purposes of cycling and staying fit. When you start talking about controllability, then you step up into a completely new ball park of trainers and a completely different price point. The KK is quiet (that's possibly it's biggest sell over it's equally capable competition) and not much more than a cheap spin bike and you get a power output via your speed that you can translate from their graph. For less that $100 if you have an apple device, you get a digital output of power, speed, etc. It will still work well for Zwift due to it's predictable power curve. If you want all the bells and whistles of a controllable trainer, then you're up into $1k+ territory. Horses for courses.
You've got to be specific here; "spin bike" doesn't mean anything, and the Road Machine, Smart version or otherwise, is a huge step *down* from the Cyclops Phantom 5 (as pictured upthread). No question about that.
As for electronically controlled trainers, you can grab an Elite Qubo Digital Smart B+ from Nashbar right now for $450, while a Road Machine Smart is going for $400 at REI. I can't imagine being so short sighted as to choose the Kurt just to save $50.
If we're talking Zwift, the $400 Road Machine brings no more than I can get from a $310 Cycleops Fluid2 off Amazon, or a $150 Nashbar Traveltrac.
This is Kurt Kinetic's problem; they're simply are outfeatured at the pricepoint, or matched at lower ones. That's a big problem as I see it.