With temps taking a dip of over 10 degs in the past week, this weekend was a firm reminder that Autumn is definitely here and Winter isn’t far away. I just get the sense this one is going to be particularly harsh. Just a feeling and based on nothing scientific.
With a dip in temps + frost and ice comes my annual love hate relationship with Zwift. I’m like a broken record. For most of the year I have a Wahoo SYSTM subscription which is really good for the short, sharp sessions I enjoy fitting in around work and family during the week. My Strava feed is littered with indoor sessions. It keeps my fitness topped up. They work well for me but they are very samey. The same video, the same music, the same tongue-in-cheek stories. It begins to get a bit boring and eventually I decide to flick back to Zwift for the Winter.
I recently resumed my Zwift subs and tried a couple of races. My speed, which you need a lot of, for these cheat fests, was pretty blunt so I’ve spent a bit of time just doing workouts to try and get me to a point I can do a race and I’ve enjoyed that. For example, yesterday I rode a Norseman climbing workout. Pretty brutal with 28 intervals to get through but effective I think and will definitely help cope with the surges of Zwift racing in coming weeks.
Broken
It’s not good news on the trainer front. My Wahoo Kickr Core has took a turn for the worst. Recently it began to make some noises as the flywheel span down which got worse quite quickly. A scoot around the internet revealed it was a bearing issue so I invested in a couple of new ones and some tools (6003 bearing remover + drifts) to repair it.
Taking the trainer apart is pretty simple. A few screws to take the cover off reveals the cam-like belt and pulleys including a tensioner with a pathetic, thin, and long 2.5mm bolt. Considering what the tension needs on the belt, the design was a shocker on what you perceive to be quality kit.
Fast forward an hour and the tensioning bolt had unsurprisingly snapped. I managed to get the unit apart quite easily and get the flywheel and bearings replaced. Two 6003 bearings sit either side of the axle. However, getting the flywheel and pulley back on the axle took some brute force. More poor design and then when I got the belt tensioned sufficiently (I used the weight of the trainer to push the tensioner pulley up and tighten it) the flywheel was better but emitted a constant whine now that wasn’t too loud but annoying enough to tell me it still wasn’t sorted so there must be another issue elsewhere.
To be honest I couldn’t be doing with the faff anymore so I just ordered a new trainer. Disappointed with the Wahoo, I’ve gone back to Elite and ordered a Direto XR which is winging it’s way to me as we speak.
I looked at a couple of other trainers. The Elite Suito was my original choice. It’s like a cut-down version of the Elite Direto XR akin to the Kickr Core vs the original Kickr. The deal I got on the Direto, for me, made the upgrade worthwhile. The only other one I looked at was the Saris H3 but it’s a few years old now and the manual calibration put me off so I quickly settled for the Direto.
Time will tell if it was a worthwhile investment but I’m sure being able to play with a new toy will keep my interest on Zwift peaked for a while anyway.
Plenty more hours on the rack beckon
Adios