Ordered the bike near 3 weeks ago. But, it’s also a good bike for working with apps today. Massive review, thanks Ray! Hi Ray, did you get the TT bars and have a look at them? Whether internal power/etc supports that – I’ve got no idea. Wahoo wahoofitness.com. Then you’ve got the choice of attaching the tablet holder or not. However, I wouldn’t say that it’s a massive difference to the Wahoo KICKR Bike or Tacx NEO Bike. Is there a possibility to change saddles quick like an a normal bike with 2 different seat posts? However it MIGHT be helpful if at some stage you were to ‘poke’ stages. It doesn’t cost you anything extra, but your purchases help support this website a lot. Do you have a tip how to create a bike fitting for the SB20? Brian can you confirm if ERG mode is improved with latest firmware update? How long was it at the freight company? I hear the whining noise in “Simulation”, “Egr”, and “Level” modes of operation. It’s basically the same exact problem that Tacx had with their beefed up NEO 2T internals, and to a lesser degree some of the challenges Wahoo had initially too in ERG mode on the KICKR Bike. And of course – you can always sign-up to be a DCR Supporter! Whichever path, Stages have been capturing watts for over a decade and doing it well. In terms of road-like feel of that flywheel, it’s pretty good. This is one of the ones where the power between the two actually was further apart at first glance. Unlike all the other bikes on the market, Stages is actually measuring power, not just doing the math on it. Ergonomically fit and engineered for simplicity and function, the SC3 seamlessly and wirelessly connects to your technology via Bluetooth® and ANT+™. Is this normal? Sure, you might know them as a power meter company, but the rest of the world knows them as an indoor bike company, both with their own lineup of bikes, but also for numerous high profile brands too. I’ve had the bike set up with two main configs over the past month: Config 1: With Favero Assioma Duo pedals I’m headed to Paris – what do you recommend for training or sightseeing? With Stages? In fact, I’d argue it’s the quietest smart bike out there. Super functional and stable. 2) Saddle position (forward/back/tilt) The biggest beast in fact – coming in at a whopping 50 pounds (22.7kg) The KICKR bike flywheel is a mere 5.9KG and the WattBike Atom’s is 9.3kg. no they’re independent left right power meters that work together as one unit when properly paired. Is it easy to follow along with instructors and get the maximum benefit from the class? And is the flywheel thing something they could hypothetically update in future via a software update? Want to compare the features of each product, down to the nitty-gritty? That gets you an ad-free DCR, access to the DCR Quarantine Corner video series packed with behind the scenes tidbits...and it also makes you awesome. Either way, Stages support has been exceptional in addressing any concerns. CT finally got back to me. I’d also question how successful that’ll be. my girlfriend and me want to share an indoor bike. Usually by the time you clear 700w or so you’ll see more divergence in the max peak-power simply due to timing and recording rates. Seems awful expensive for a magnetic trainer. Only need power and cadence on Garmin to get my training load. I mean the programmes that really follow your input on the pedals. hi I am wondering if you had a chance to test the new fw v1.10.0. Stages said that they’re working on the stability/smoothing aspects already (which should just be a software fix), and so hopefully we’ll see that simmer down a bit going forward. But again, we’ll see. A set of those is on the way to me as we speak. This would explain the issue you are having logging into the indoor cycling support portal. What do you think about ATOMX? Also think the link app is a bit dodgy at the moment. a couple of suggestions/things to look out for. You can create numerous virtual bikes. It doesn’t fight me anymore while trying to get to equilibrium when the target power changes. Use Backcountry.com or Competitive Cyclist with either the coupon code DCRAINMAKER for first time users saving 15% on applicable products. It sounds like things have largely stabilized. and Off-topic: There will be a second bike, probably Nohrd or potentially Peloton if I can manage to get it here. It was a really tough for me, but I caved to meet my wife more than half way. I’m not sure if that’s simply because Favero smooths slightly more (something I’ve shown in other reviews). I’m not sure about #2, but I have seen weird interactions between Zwift and stageslink depending on which app you start first (e.g. (Yes, I realize I could tweak trainer difficulty, but I’d rather replicate my sub-1:1 road bike setup.). Though, I think that was slightly less impacting to customers than not. It also seems to be a lot better at keeping the power close to the target range. You can use it as well for your own gadget comparisons, more details here.). Stages Cycling is the only company … the cadence feels higher than what is reported and resistance low. Thanks All of my time is on TrainerRoad using ERG mode, so far the experience is disappointing with the high levels of drift above and below the target power. As you probably know, apps like Zwift, TrainerRoad, SufferFest, Rouvy, FulGaz, Kinomap, and many more all support most of these industry standards, making it easy to use whatever app you’d like. For me, in my testing, I used Zwift and TrainerRoad as my two main apps (which are the two main apps I use personally). I would not call it smooth or quiet though. Thanks for reading! Having a secondary app (ie the stages apps) could be the cause of your issues. There’s three ports on each side, two of which are open on each side. The Peloton Bike now starts at $1,895 (which is a significant drop from the original $2,245), which you can pay in monthly installments of $49. https://support.wahoofitness.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001671264-What-Software-and-Apps-are-Available-for-the-KICKR-, https://support.strava.com/hc/en-us/articles/220633087-Wahoo-Fitness-and-Strava, Outside the Box Quick Tip on Tire Inflation. There was promise of firmware upgrades but for the time being mine is collecting dust. But this bike is replacing your outdoor bike, and on that bike you’ve got a specific gearing setup you’re used to. I had a call with them and all their engineers about it this morning. The meters keep connecting but always reading “0” for power. the optimum cadence seems higher on the SB20 (around 98-100) as opposed to the Neo (90-95). So without switching to Zwift/Trainerroad – what are people recommending for controlled structured workouts (erg) imported from my TrainingPeaks plan?? There’s three per side, and you can see that one port on each side is already utilized. For me personally, it’s pretty easy to feel the variations in comparison to most other trainers in terms of ERG stability. Most of the time. No problem, I’ve got plenty of those. I was just wondering if you were planning to update your smartbike shootout anytime soon. Recommended Settings- The Sufferfest. However, I’m happy to say that the Stages Bike mirrors that of the Wattbike Atom and there’s no thigh-gap issue. Mark is not alone. I did actually talk about the firmware updater process up above with the cranks. I don’t work for Stages (or get paid by them or anything else), so that’s really in their wheelhouse to solve. While not a big deal, it’d be cool if that data was transmitted and then recorded by apps or bike computers, just like it is on a real bike. I wonder whether #3 is related to #1, but that’s just speculation. Of course, where the gap for them is, is the software. Well, in my case I’ve been doing a lot of TrainerRoad workouts the last month, and unequivocally the answer is: It’s not a smooth operator. They’re looking at options in a future firmware update to offer a more restrictive ERG mode type thing. I have the Ant receiver strap to the cross bar on the bike with a 3m usb cable to the mac to make sure I don’t get any dropouts as had some on my first ride. I upgrade and downgrade to/from beta to get back and forth and validate certain features enabled or disabled on various builds, hence the variations on screenshots. It takes 8/9 days to get a response to a ticket and any other e-mail follow up is just ignored. I actually got this from a support agent when i had difficulty in logging in to the support system. I can’t trust anything that Stages Support says. Like Wahoo and Tacx, Stages also only puts ruler measurements on the right side of the bike (plus the top for the saddle fore/aft). My question is whether that’s 2 amps per port, or for both ports combined. I’ve sorted it all by world geography, in an attempt to make it easy to figure out where I’ve been. I mean, sure, you see slight divergences of a couple of watts here and there. In the case of Zwift, I used it in regular riding mode (non-workout mode, aka SIM mode), whereas in the case of TrainerRoad I used it in a structured workout mode. So if I’ve got a target power of 313w, it’ll range anywhere between ~285w and 335w. As I’m trying to get all these bikes back to their manufactures this month, I actually just shot the intro and outtro portion of the video this morning (plus the photos I’ll need). The technical issues you are seeing isn’t something I ran into (yet, I noted pretty clearly I didn’t recommend it for ERG mode focused people), and honestly looking back at 6-7 months of comments, whatever your seeing doesn’t seem to align with what others are seeing. Because when the app discovered my bike, it put down ANT IDs for cranks which I dont have – trying to get the app to see the new cranks was impossible, many repeated failed attempts, in the end I used the old stages power app to update the firmwares on the cranks, then paired them using that, then had to remove the bike from the new app, re-add it, and even then, the firmware had to be updated using the new app because it wouldn’t register the fact the cranks were 1.6.8 even though they were. What are your least favorite countries/places? . there’s nothing stopping you from pairing to both zwift app and garmin. However, what Stages lacks compared to Wahoo is a sizing/fit guide. True Kinetix Bike: I’ve had this bike for a bit, then returned it while they sorted out technical issues. In part because it’s a very simple design where there’s not a lot of places things can go wrong. I used the stage link app to configure but when i ride the screen is garbled. Just to round out this question, it wouldn’t be possible for Stages to do the road-feel like bits that Tacx does, since they can’t stutter the flywheel since it’s not electromagnetic. So if you’ve had support tickets open with stages, you might want to frequently check their status. Same story for road surface simulation. Solving these problems often requires ‘Try’ reply and ‘Try’ again, sometimes more than once. I’m happy to poke them, but passive aggressive comments on a Sunday directed to me isn’t the best way to go about it. The Stages Bike’s origins are clearly from their commercial gym lineup – but it also pulls from the company’s power meter heritage too. 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