It is all done automatically for you.
I ride with the cycleops unit, with a dedicated bike
As far as a bike goes. All my road bikes are in $10,000 range. Well cared for. The cycle shop knows me well. They took an old, 15 year old carbon bike and placed some old Shimano derailleur and components on the frame.
All works well. They did this for $400 big ones. There is no reason to spend $5000 bucks on a bike and put it on your indoor watt machine. They are plenty of good old bikes on Craig’s list or such to dedicate to an indoor platform, or rather a dedicated bike to sit on your CycleOps, , and yes you do have to pay your $15 a month subscription for Zwift.
The Zwift is a good platform to train on. I do most of my easy rides on the Zwift and then do my long hard rides outside, , I will at times sit on my Zwift trainer for 8 to 10 hours. I used the Zwift for the long rides as well while training for the Race Across The West. 930 miles. HooDoo 500. And the Alpine 208. In the summer heat it is hard to be out for 8 hours when you do not need to be out there.
Bill, the OP is talking about the IC4, it’s like a spin bike that broadcasts power via bluetooth. They aren’t talking about a road bike on a smart trainer…
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They are both good and both will work with Zwift. The IC4 is $300-400 more but comes with a digital monitor to view stats, 3 lb weights and holder, SPD and caged pedals, heavier flywheel, and more experienced brand in the space. However, it depends if those things add up to something of value to you. The Echelon is a steal IMHO at $400-500 and you can add your own clips, cheap weights, and use 3rd party apps to view on a phone or table instead of a small readout monitor and connect to Zwift easily and cheaply as well. Also these aren’t “budget” spin bikes since there are tons out there in the $200+ category. I’d say these are the entry level bluetooth enabled spin bikes.
The Qdomyos-Zwift app lets you capture Echelon bike power and transmit it to Zwift. Costco has the Echelon 4s on sale occasionally for $799. An upcoming version of the Qdomyos-Zwift app is supposed to allow Zwift to control resistance based on the grade as well.