This is a really helpful thread of discussion for anyone who owns or is thinking about purchasing the Kickr bike.
I purchased mine in Oct. 2021. Because of an unforeseen medical issue, I was unable to really get on it until around January 2022, and then I was having to work myself up slowly through a recovery. Between January 2022 and April of 2022 I’ve put about 1,200 miles on this Kickr.
The only problem I’ve had was an annoying clicking noise that started a few weeks ago. Initially it was intermittent and I just cycled through it. It got worse. A lot worse. It began as a single clicking noise that occurred at 360 degree intervals. Initially I’d hear it for a few rotations, then it would stop. The frequency increased and, a couple days ago, the single click became a triple click, and it was occurring at the same 360 degree interval. It was loud.
This is my first indoor smart trainer, but over the years I’ve experienced lots of bottom bracket bearing failures. The noise issue on my Kickr bike sounded and felt exactly the same. I knew the issue was in what I’d call the bottom bracket area. I could hear and feel it coming from there. Looking through the owner’s manual nothing stood out that I should be doing. So I checked Wahoo’s website. As mentioned earlier in this discussion, there is a much better document there for scheduled maintenance on this machine. If you own a Kickr bike you need that document.
Ended up my noise issue was a simple maintenance issue. Every 96 hours of use you should check your crank tightness. Easy and simple to do. When I performed this check I discovered the pinch bolts were at about 4-5Nm (just by feel) and the fixing bolt had a torque of 0Nm (which means it was loose!). Both of these were looser than they should have been, especially the fixing bolt. I had to rotate the fixing bolt more than 720 degrees of rotation before I even began measuring torque at all! That’s how loose mine was. The maintenance schedule recommends the fixing bolt be tightened to a max of 3Nm. I torqued mine to 2Nm. It recommends the pinch bolts be torqued to a max of 15Nm. I torqued mine to 12Nm, which is pretty tight.
Ran smooth as silk after this maintenance. Took about 5 minutes of time.
I know this is a mechanical device, so eventually there’ll be something else that breaks or needs attention. But, again, I highly recommend downloading the online maintenance schedule for this machine. The owner’s manual is terribly incomplete on this subject.
Overall, I love this Kickr bike. I had a dumb indoor cycling trainer before, and for me to spend more than 20 minutes on that thing felt like an eternity. Hated it! This Kickr bike together with Zwift is far more comparable to actual road cycling than I would have imagined possible. By direct comparison, 20 minutes on this Kickr goes by like nothing!