Hello New Friends,
I’m looking to get into the Zwift world and have narrowed my new trainer to the Elite Suito or a 2018 Edition KICKR Smart Trainer (Reconditioned) with 1 year warranty from Wahoofitness.com
I’m not very bike technical. I have a Specialized Diverge.
Thanks any advise or help would be greatly appreciated!!
GP
Hi @GP6 and welcome to Zwift forums!
The Kickr is a higher end trainer than the Suito and I think you might be happier with the Kickr. Suito’s seem to have some power issues, there is a long thread on the forums about it. The Kickr doesn’t come with a cassette however, so you need to factor that in and if you don’t have the tools to install it you will need to take it to your local bike shop. Wahoo customer service is great, Elite might not be as good. Wahoo is in the US, Elite is in Italy. Overall, the Kickr is the better trainer on paper, but not without it’s own issues.
Thanks Mike, I talked to Wahoo and since its the higher end Kickr it does come with the cassette. My concern would be that it is refurbished but with 1 year warranty seems like a great deal at $750. I’m leaning towards the kickr… Cant wait to get started, Thanks again.
Wahoo had a few manufacturing issues over the past year or so with the Kickr’s but have since resolved everything so I think you should be in good hands with the refurbished model.
Wahoo Kickr is great; have the first model and the newer one
Wahoo customer service is A1, top of the line.
Bonus: The ability to add a Kickr Climb later down the road when or if you become more serious about training.
*Note: Reliability issues. My Climb has broken 3 times(!) (Granted I climb more in a week than most do in months.) However, Wahoo CS has been great about exchanging it with free S/H. Kickr’s are still running like a champ; never had a problem with them. Make sure to keep the original boxes though.
I’ve been using a kickr for a couple of years now and think it’s great, combined with Zwift it is a world apart from my old cycleops dumb trainer.
I have had a couple of issues, one that customer services sent me a part that I had to replace. But full instructions were provided and fitted without a problem. The second involved shipping and replacing, all done efficiently and without much of a delay.
Despite the issues, given the amount of use it gets, and the way that I was looked after by customer services I wouldn’t think twice about buying another one.
Thanks guys! I’m going to go with the Kickr. See you out there!
-Greg