Kickr Bike Experience - it broke

General Discussion
1

I was thrilled to get my Kickr Bike about 10 days ago right after Christmas.

Setup was impressively easy with minimal assembly required. It probably took 20 minutes to get physically set up. Sizing was also a breeze, with one small area for improvement. The app has you take a picture of your bike, place pins at a few places, and take a couple of measurements. It then tells you how to adjust the bike. I had a problem because I was accidentally entering “100” instead of “1000” millimeters. Sorry, I’m American. Instead of telling me this didn’t make sense, it kept telling me something like “there’s a problem, try again later”. Super frustrating until I figured it out, then finishing just took a couple seconds. This needs to be improved with some bounds checking logic.

Once it was set up, connecting to Zwift was easy of course, and the bike feels very polished and smooth. The motorized flywheel and incline really make it feel much more “real” than my Magnus trainer. It’s not “virtually silent” as they claim, in fact it makes a bunch of different noises based on the speed you pedal. But it’s still pretty quiet and DRAMATICALLY quieter than a wheel-on trainer.

As someone else here has noted, it did feel like the power meter was reading lower than the magnus. I kept getting dropped in rides I used to be able to do without issues. I hadn’t been able to figure out if this was a real problem or not, because after 5-6 rides, it broke. It just started showing “Err 9”. You can pedal it, but the resistance was fixed and the controls unresponsive. The app claimed there was a shifter problem.

Tech support has been solid so far, but they made me put down an additional $1500 deposit to ship me a replacement. I know I will get this back, but given the circumstances - one of the first customers to pay over $3K for this bike, only to have it break the first week - I’m not thrilled by this. Nor am I thrilled it’ll take another week to get me a replacement. They offered me a no-deposit option, but that would have taken more than twice as long.

One interesting fact - after putting my Magnus setup back together, I was immediately back at the front of the pack in my group rides. So the jury is still out on the power meter accuracy.

I knew I was taking a chance on a 1.0 product, but I’m pretty surprised it took such a short time to get burned. I enjoyed my time on the bike, hopefully the new one will be more reliable.

2

Hi

Thank you for this post. It’s highly interesting to me, and I guess it also helps slightly on your frustrations at the moment :wink:

I have had an order placed on the Tacx Bike for a very long time, and I’ve also more or less made my mind up that I’ll also have to order the Wahoo Bike when it becomes available in Europe.

I guess the ongoing delay of the delivery of the Tacx Bike is due to the issues that always shows up with new stuff, especially when mechanical parts are involved, and one of my “excuses” for buying both a Tacx and Wahoo is “at least there´s a chance I have one working when the other one are in for repair” :wink:

So far there´s no problem for me since none of the bikes are available in Denmark, and my old Tacx Neo trainer just requires some cleaning and a new freehub for time to time :grin:

Please update this post when you have news, I think it’s interesting to hear if the power figures are different on the replacement bike, and if it works flawless.

Good luck on your second bike and RIDE ON :grinning:

BooX

3 Likes
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An update, got my replacement bike today, only about 5 calendar days after they sent it. I’m back up and running, things seem like before. I will post again after some time or if I have a significant problem.

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5

Hi

Thanks for the update and nice to hear that the support from Wahoo seems to be really quick.

If just Wahoo would release the bike in Europe, can’t wait :slightly_smiling_face:

BooX

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I just had the same thing happen - error 9 mid-ride & no shifting. The app is telling me that the shifters have been disconnected, but they are still connected! This is so frustrating. I hope that the fix is quick and that I don’t need a whole new bike.

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Let us know what happens. My new bike is still working, no issues.

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What happened with your bike?

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I had to send it back. It took 2 weeks from when I first contacted them about the problem to when I received my new bike. All is great with the second one so far.

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10

I had the same problem with my wahoo bike. Had it about 3 months and now it says the shifters will not connect. Support has been great so far. They sent me new handlebars/shifters but those did not fix the problem. They have to replace the bike. It’s seems like their is some kind of internal design problem with the shifters. Has the replacement bike held up? You get back the 1,500 deposit? Pretty frustrating after spending all that money. I guess this is what happens when you get a first generation new piece of tech.

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Seems like Wahoo is sending out bikes they know have faulty shifters and just waiting for the “inevitable” break down. Then they are replacing the broken bikes with new ones that have the shifter problem fixed. I was considering purchasing one, but I think now I may wait for 2.0, which I bet will not have the shifter problem. Glad they have good customer service, they need it!

12

I’m still trying to buy a Kickr Bike here in Denmark, and is quite frustrated it isn’t available, even with a few rumors around that they break after some time…

A few days ago I visited one of the few Danish dealers who actually has a demo bike, just to mess with my mind, and guess what… the demo bike was in for repair :wink:
So apparently “some” of the bikes has an issue :thinking:

Nice to hear their customer support is great, I´ll still just want to buy one as soon as it becomes available in Denmark :hugs:

BooX

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I got my replacement bike sometime in early January. It has been flawless so far. It took a couple weeks but my deposit was returned without any issues.

14

I just killed my second Wahoo bike. The first one started making a clunking noise 3 days in but remained rideable. Paid a deposit to get the second one shipped straight away, it’s lasted about 3 weeks and the shifters have stopped working. Just setting the ticket up now. It’s a bloody shame as it’s a great bit of kit and much better than my other Wahoo trainers.

15

Summary: First bike died, shifters are in and out on the second bike.

I bought the kickr bike in April. Why did I buy the 1.0? Because 1. I owned the 2nd gen wahoo kickr and was thoroughly satisfied. 2. I am sufficiently familiar with the product upgrade cycle at wahoo to estimate that there will be no upgrades to the bike that will make me regret buying the first one. The 2nd gen Kickr Bikes will likely have more adjustability, higher max power, heavier flywheel, steering capability and steeper incline and decline capability…none of which I am interested in. So I went ahead and purchased the 1st gen.

After a month, bike 1 simply died. I plugged it in, the bike connected to Trainer Road normally, I started to pedal, then the flywheel stuttered, the headunit went dead and the green light on the power block started flashing. I contacted wahoo, they sent a new power block, the issue was unremedied and the entire Bike had to be replaced.

There are two options for replacement, either you ship them the old bike, and once received Wahoo will ship you a new bike (this will take two weeks as they first have to ship you special return boxes which require you to basically break the bike in half to be packed).
Option 2 is that you pay a 1500 dollar deposit and they send the new bike to you immediately. I was loathe to pay an additional deposit when I had already paid 3k for the bike. So I went through the motions and waited. The entire process from ticket to receiving the new bike will take about a month because they will first try to trouble shoot by sending you smaller replacement parts…i.e the power block.

Enter Bike number 2; At this point I was an expert at setting the things up, I got bike #2 up and running in 10 minutes. Yesterday I started getting a shifter error. Mind you the bike starts up just fine, if you are in Trainer Road in erg mode you may not even notice the problem. But in zwift both the shifting controls and the incline controls cut out in about 15 minutes. The “shifter error” basically turns the bike into a Kickr. Everything continues to function, including the controllable resistance, you just cant change the gears or incline.

Unplugging the bike and plugging it back in remedies the issue, but this is highly annoying. I opened a support ticket today…lets see what they say. This seems to be more of a software issue and I am hoping that there is a firmware update that will solve the problem…but I have a nagging suspicion that I will end up with a third bike.

This product, on paper and when it is actually functioning as advertized is excellent. It is ean xtremely quiet, highly adjustable, handsome bit of kit. But if this second bike is replaced and the third one fails I will be requesting a refund and waiting for the second gen bike. If not for wahoo’s responsive and robust support system I would caution against buying it at all.

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For what it’s worth, my replacement bike has worked flawlessly since I got it, and it saw pretty heavy use, too, although it’s been a month since I’ve been on it given the season.

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I am keeping my fingers crossed Rich.

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I’ve just had my Wahoo bike sent back to Wahoo , there are a range of issues when riding in Zwift .

Under reporting of Watts
Variability of Watts reported at a steady RPM
High resistance on upshifts initially

My race results have gone out of the window and I’m averaging 2.7w/ kg rather than my normal Ave 4w/ kg .

Such a shame as in many respects it’s a great bit of kit. Hopefully Wahoo can sort it or replace it . To those of you that have had bikes replaced , did that restore lost Watts ? Thanks

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19

Hi Barry,
out of interest, what made you go for the Wahoo bike? Have you used Wahoo products before?
Cheers

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@Barry_Pope_SAS can answer for himself, but if memory serves me, I misunderstood a post he made in another thread, and he is coming from a Kickr :thinking:

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Having had a 2014 Gen 1 KICKR and then buying a Gen 2 with the climb unit I’ve enjoyed the Wahoo products and had no problems at all . It seemed a natural progression to move to the Wahoo Bike having looked at the other possible options and reading lots of reports and videos . I’m really hoping that there is a solution and the shop still has it and they are working on a theory that it needs a fresh install of Zwift . They believe that Zwift thinks it’s a KICKR unit and not a Wahoo bike . Fingers crossed .