With all the updates to what’s going on with the apps we use for our virtual cycling, I thought it might be good to look at our equipment – oy oy!

Since September 2022 I’ve been using a Schwinn 800IC (aka IC8).

Schwinn 800IC Bike

To date, I’ve used it for over 19,000km of virtual riding, and of course Alison has also used it a fair bit recently.  It’s not exactly a smart trainer as it operates only one way sending power, speed and cadence data via Bluetooth to your chosen virtual riding app. But it doesn’t receive resistance data back, so you can effectively maintain cadence and power for your entire workout and the app will merely increase or decrease your speed in the app according to the gradients.  Which has been fine…

Alison has been sharing the Schwinn with me for the past few months, but has said it would be nice for us to be able to ride together especially in ROUVY’s races and group rides. And now that Alison has finished (she says…) her bodybuilding adventures by going out on a high, she will want to be doing some cycling as well as some slightly less intense weight training. To this end, our next trip to Fuerteventura this month means we’ll be hiring two bikes to ride whilst we’re out there.  And in the Pain Cave, we are planning to sell both the stair stepper and the glute bridge to clear some space.

We thought that if we’re going to buying a second trainer for her, we should probably replace the Schwinn at the same time.  We will need another Apple TV and another 32″ LG TV to go alongside mine, but hey, it’s only money, right?

Coincidentally, ROUVY recently decided to offer the Zwift Ride with Kickr Core V2 no doubt taking advantage of the new ‘partnership’ with Zwift and it’s virtual shifting now being rolled out to ROUVY too.

Zwift Ride with Kickr Core 2 ROUVY Edition

And as a promo, they were offering £200 discount plus the ROUVY sticker kit making for an attractive price of £900. We ummed and ahhed a bit and by the time we decided to buy, we’d lost the discount as it was back to £1,100.

I was already a tad concerned about how sturdy it was an how stable it would be.  So I started looking at reviews and found that actually what appeared to be more stable, classier and possibly better overall for us would be the Wahoo Kickr Bike Shift which is reduced now to £1,800 (or around £1,600 from time to time at dealers).

Wahoo Kickr Bike Shift

So we’re now waiting for Black Friday sales to pick up a matching pair that we can then set up and forget for each of us.  Providing we can find the space.

I do expect our virtual rides to suddenly slow down, though, as it’s always been suggested that the Schwinn’s broadcast power outputs have been a tad complimentary…  It’ll also be intriguing to have to actually change gears to cope with the gradients.