I just purchased the Schwinn IC4. Its the exact same bike as the Bowflex C6 both made by Nautilus. The Schwinn is $799 and I bought a $34 mat. The Bowflex is $899 and comes with a mat. It took me an hour to put together however was very easy with only looking at the instructions once.
The bike connected to Zwift easily like it was designed for it. The pairing was a breeze. It connected, power and speed together, cadence, and Heart rate. I was skeptical of the forearm HR strap but it was comfortable and worked great.
The bike connects to many cycling and spinning apps that I will use, however I love that Zwift sent my data from the bike to all my apps like garmin, strava, Map My ride, etc.
The bike is silent and high quality and the console is nice to see how hard my tension is set along with the all the other metrics. I know it doesn’t automatically raise and lower the tension, but I can do that manually and I don’t mind. I am 48 just looking to ride and burn calories when the weather is not optimal. This is perfect.
Feel free to ask questions and I will try to answer.
Update: This morning I noticed my indicated speed on the bike module said 20mph and yet the Zwift speed only showed 14mph. I am used to trainers feeling like more work than a bike indoors whether a stationary or road bike in a trainer, however it did feel like I was working extremely hard on the low level London Loop and not able to keep up at all.
The speed reported by the bike will rarely match that of Zwifts, the bike does not know about in-game drafting, how different bikes and wheel sets effects speed, and virtual elevation changes.
How in-game speed is determined:
Watts reported, the weight entered, height entered, in-game bike used, in-game drafting (Tri and TT bikes get no drafting boost), in-game wheel set, in-game road surface, and in-game virtual elevation changes your in-game speed is determined.
That makes sense. I know the power and speed on this bike have to be at a level to match the game. The exertion level seemed extra high. I will keep working on this.
I just talked to my friend with a lot of Zwift experience. He said the level of exertion in doors in a lot higher than on a real bike and just takes a few weeks to get used to.
So I will spend some time with it. Overall it’s pretty cool.
Get a big fan and put it on high pointed right at your face. You need help cooling down to lower your perceived effort when riding indoors on a trainer/spin bike.
I just received my IC4 yesterday. Just started using Zwift a couple weeks ago with a Wahoo trainer. I felt the trainer seemed pretty accurate to where I should be at. The IC4 however seemed to turn me into a world class athlete! I was flying by everyone. I passed through a couple of time trials and placed 1st and 2nd (typically with the trainer I’d be somewhere in the hundreds depending on how many riders). One of the trials I did last week I finished in 17 minutes, last night on the IC4 I finished in 7 minutes! I contacted Schwinn support today and they said there was no way to calibrate and that it is a Zwift issue. I sent a message to Zwift customer support to see if they have any insight. If I find there is no solution I think I may have to try to return it as Schwinn says this bike was designed to work with Zwift and that was the main reason I purchased it.
I would like to know if you get it fixed. Mine is pretty normal but on the difficult side now. I have talked to my friends who zwift a lot and the feel my IC4 trainer is normal. They think I just need to get used to indoor cycling.
Hi David Check your weight on that Zwift profile. Make sure it matches your real body weight. If it’s too easy add a bit of body weight to make it harder.
What weight Zwift thinks your matters. See this article.
Thanks Scott, I went from setting up a return for the bike to purchasing some power meter pedals and deciding to keep the bike now using the pedals. The pedals output the same exact wattage as the Wahoo Kickr I was trying out. I did the FTP ramp test with the bike and got 390 and then did the same with the pedals and got 194. So 194 divided by my weight in kg’s I get 2.58 w/kg. With this method of changing weight to get a realistic w/kg output I’d have to take 390 divided by 2.58 = 151.2kg times 2.2 to get 332.6 lbs. I’ll have to try this out to see if it seems accurate. I’ve been following a Schwinn IC4 group on Facebook and seems Schwinn is very aware of the issue and their R&D department is working on a solution.
Hey Scott,
I just got the IC4 bike from Schwinn. I am unable to connect it to zwift at all. The Zwift app just keeps searching for Bluetooth devices. Could you please explain your process for connecting to the app and perhaps any ideas on why it wouldn’t. I’m on an Ipad with iOS 13.3.1.
Of course I found the solution after posting this question. For perhaps other people’s benefit I will explain. I had to go into settings and select the app and allow the app to use Bluetooth. Something I’m used to for privacy but not for Bluetooth. Lesson learned.
Hi there, i recently bought a C6 bowflex. never done anything of riding outside but ive done a lot of stationary.
i recently discovered swift app and im just hooked. really want to keep my bike and make it work. so if you guys find out how to make it work let us know. thanks again
one more thing. you guys bought a trainer? like wohoo trainer? dont see the point. (plz explain it 2 me i dont know)
thank you once again
sorry ben i intended the question to the people having a stationary. i was wondering if they bought the trainer to use it on the stationary for the watts issue… and got me confused hehe
Maybe would you have the URL of that Facebook group about the IC4? I would like to follow it.
Also, can you post what model of power meter pedals you bought? I was having a hard time figuring out what pedals would work with the cranks on the IC4. Thank you.
