Budget Vs Premium Zwift Set Ups: What’s The Real Difference?

Indoor Cycling has come a long way since the wheel-on trainers of yesteryear! Dan Lloyd is a convert to indoor smart training using platforms like Zwift regularly both in and out of the winter months to pursue his fitness from the relative comfort and warmth of his own home. If you’re looking to do the same this video is for you! Dan has the scoop on some of the latest indoor trainers and accessories on the market to create your own indoor cycling pain cave, from an entry-level set-up to that of your veteran Zwift racer… don’t forget to take a towel! (https://gcn.eu/GCNTowel 😉)

In association with @Zwift 🤝 https://gcn.eu/Zwift

List of Zwift Ready Trainers:

Wahoo KICKR CORE Zwift One
Wahoo KICKR with Zwift Cog and Click
Wahoo KICKR MOVE with Zwift Cog and Click
JetBlack Victory with Zwift Cog and Click
Van Rysel D100 with Zwift Cog and Click
Elite Direto XR with Zwift Cog & Click
Zwift Hub One*
Zwift Hub*

*Compatible, no longer for sale

⏰ Timestamps ⏰
00:00 – Why Should You Consider Indoor Cycle Training?
01:22 – What Type Of Trainer For Smart Training?
02:54 – An Entry Level Indoor Cycling Set Up
07:32 – Mid Level Indoor Cycling Set Up
08:34 – What About A Dedicated Top End Indoor Cycling Set Up?
10:50 – What Are Your Thoughts?

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How would you rate your indoor training or pain cave set up out of 10? What would be the biggest quality of life improvement for your indoor set up?

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indoor training you either love it or hate it reasons why people love indoor training are quite straightforward uh firstly it is very time efficient secondly you stay warm and dry at least until you start sweating loads it’s quite accessible there is now a huge online community and that in turn means that you can either race or train or just ride for the fun of it the reasons people hate indoor training are well they’re reducing for starters reason I used to hate it was because it was boring unrealistic and very very painful things have changed a lot since then though but many people probably just assume that they still hate indoor training based on previous experience using outdated Tech others just don’t fancy it or are put off by the price however indoor training is one aspect of the cycling industry where functionality of the hardware seems to be increasing at the same time as prices decreasing so coming up I’m going to look at a couple of the more recent budget options when it comes to indoor cycling as well as finding out what I would get if I decided to add a few bells and whistles not that you need bells and whistles indoors I now text my butler on [Music] WhatsApp so what Hardware do you need to start cycling indoors well some some of you remember wheel on trainers from the not too distant past they were bloody awful and that is putting it kindly now a direct drive wheel off trainer feels a 100 times better and can work with indoor training apps like zwift uh they have genuinely been a transformative experience I would say and it’s one that’s now been made simpler to access by adding the zift Cog direct drive trainers have been around for quite a while now over decade and they measure your power which is how hard you’re pedaling they also offer the possibility of linking up with training apps but gone of the days of forking out a grand or more to get started there are smart trainers now available for less than €300 now we’ve had a look at a few options to see what you get for your money before I get into that though I’d just like to be clear that gcn worked with a number of Partners including zwift not only do they help us make the free to view content we make they also support cying more widely the Tour of France fam ax zift Etc and as we work with them I’m going to be trying these trainer setups on the zift platform there are other options out there but zift is the biggest online training platform with by far the most users so it seems like the right place to start okay let’s start then with an entry level option and one that’s actually pretty new to the market it’s next to me here it’s from vanel or Vell and it’s called the D100 you can currently get it in the UK and in Europe for less than 300 quid with the zift Cog and click more on that later on now it’s an example of just how reasonable things are getting when it comes to starting with indoor cycling and a smart trainer now some of you watching this will be aware that I’m a bit of a bargain hunter you could also describe me as tight or simply I don’t like spending money if I don’t have to either way in researching this video I had a quick look on Teemu and Ali Express to see if I could find something of similar function standard to this van risol trainer for a fraction of the price I couldn’t nowhere near actually and given that all the options I found on there came without the cassette they needed I couldn’t find anything that matched this trainer at all now just mentioned the cassette which is these cogs here on this Wahoo trainer because previously you would have to consider that and purchase one to put on the direct drivet trainer for use with your bike and make sure it was specific to the bike you were using either that or you had to constantly remove one from your wheel put on the trainer when you wanted to ride indoors remove it from the trainer and put it back on your bike when you wanted to ride Outdoors which was a pain in the was a pain in the backside however this van rle trainer comes as I said with the zift Cog and click that enables virtual shifting and also allows you to use pretty much any bike on your direct drivve trainer including this pinell which my colleague olle picked up a Facebook Marketplace for less than 500 quid just a few months ago now the fact you can use any bike pretty much on a whift cog and click is a huge upgrade from previous direct drive trainers and this particular trainer from Van R is also very quiet a huge plus I’d say no matter how far away your neighbors are what else do you need to get started well I would strongly recommend a fan a regular desktop or floor standing fan would do just fine plus a mat or an old towel for the floor and then another towel or two to help you manage all the sweat you’ll generate even with a fan and that’s about it so what are the limitations of a setup like this well that depends largely on you and what you plan to do with it this van rle unit tops out at 600 wats does that matter well it sort of depends really if you want to do Sprint training you can produce more than that then maybe same goes if you want to race on zwift uh I tried tried quite hard it has to be said to go over 600 wats and I did manage it and what I found was that what happened was on the screen it just stayed at 600 watts even though I was producing way more power probably like 650 maybe even 670 in reality there are probably quite a few of you watching this who can hit out at over 600 wats for a few seconds but whether or not you need that capability in a trainer then depends on whether or not you’re doing Sprint training or you just want to Sprint to the Finish Line in a zift race if you’re only concerned with doing urance training or even V2 Max training then I would say that 600 wats is more than enough for the vast vast majority of people I mean personally I can’t remember going over 500 watts on an indoor session for quite a few years this trainer is also limited as to what it can replicate in terms of gradients on the climbs in that it’ll only go up to 6% so if you come across something that’s steeper than 6% in your game online it will just stay at that percentage is that an issue again not really I would say for the vast majority of people because you’re still going to be trying hard it’s still going to feel hard in terms of power measurement van R will claim that this trainer is accurate it to plus or minus 5% which admittedly is nowhere near as precise as some other trainers that I’ll be talking about later on but it’s probably still enough to ensure that you’re staying within your training zones another plus to this particular model is it’s foldable and when it is folded it’s quite compact so you could easily put it under a desk or a table if you’re limited on space so if your objective is to give indoor training a try and you’re not a topend race run Swift this trainer is a decent option [Music] so what do you get if you spend a bit more money well there are plenty of options around that also come with the zift Cog and click the jet black Victory comes with one and is available in the USA UK Europe Canada and Australia and will cost you around $400 £400 or £450 it gives you 2% power accuracy a max power of8 1800 watts and the ability to climb 18% gradient which is more than I need SL want the Wahoo kicker core zift one is similar to the jet black both in price and functionality and there’s an option at the moment to get it along with a discounted zift subscription for another 100 quid or so shop around the elite dto XR with zift Cog and click claims to be slightly more accurate again at 1 and a half% and go up even steeper gradients knock yourselves out if that’s what you need or want so what if you’d like to take this to an extreme and get the best indoor setup that you can well one option is to get a dedicated unit such as this the zift ride or this the Wahoo kicker bike there are a couple of real plus points to Dedicated units like these uh the first of those is that you can just leave them set up and ready to go the second is that you can set them up for multiple users so if you’ve got the money and indeed the space they’re definitely well worth considering however if you would like to stick with your normal everyday bike for your indoor training there are some premium options here as well for example the trainer that we use here at gcq which is this Wahoo kicker move uh this is also available with the zift Cog and click and it has a power measurement accuracy of plus or minus 1% which is about as good as it gets whether that be an indoor trainer or an on the- bike power meter or even indeed in a laboratory setting uh it will also measure up to 2,200 Watts which is a figure I am yet to crack just about obviously uh the other key function of this is that there’s 8 in or 20 cm of movement front to rear which is going to add to the comfort of your indoor training and another thing with this is it’s super quiet add in the kick a climb which raises and lowers the front end of your bike according to the gradients you’re riding and the headwind fan which can be controlled via your head unit or just by your own heart rate and you have what I would describe as a very slick setup certainly one that adds to the immersive experience that zift have created with their platform and I would say one that removes some of the mental barriers to getting on your indoor trainer in the first place because whilst yes it will still be hard and painful if you make it so it’s also enjoyable now apart from the fact that a setup like this will set you back in the region of £2,000 I would say the only other drawback is that you really want to have space somewhere in your house so you can leave this whole thing set up at least for the periods in which you’re doing the most amount of indoor training which for most people will be over the winter months so there are a few options for you when it comes to indoor training setups at different price points if you pay more you do get more but at the same time it’s never been cheaper to get started with indoor cycling at the lower end uh incidentally the zwift ride bike which you now see here behind me is compatible with all of the trainers that we featured in this video so it might be a consideration now or if you’re looking to upgrade in the near future also in the description below we’ll put a list of zift compatible trainers so that you know what you’re looking for right I would like to know what trainer setup you’ve got at home and why why are you pleased with it is it because it was financially quite cheap or because it’s great at performance or both uh let us know in the comments because I’m sure there’s a lot of people watching this that will be interested in what you’re using and why you’re so happy with it right that’s all for this video thank you for watching I’ll see you soon