Up until now I only ride MTB.

But with now WFH for the foreseeable future, closed gym etc I’ve been thinking about starting Zwift.

I only have my MTB and guess this probably isn’t the best so was thinking about a budget cx/gravel bike and smart trainer. Thinking cx/gravel bike rather than road bike as I think it’ll be more practical for me in the long run.

So a Merlin Malt-g from the local shop be ok or should I buy a cheap second hand road bike? I know nothing about road bikes, cx/gravel bikes…really nothing. Any reason why a cx/gravel isn’t suitable?

As for smart trainers the refurbished Wahoo Kickr at £650 sounds a lot but would rather get a good one than a limited function basic one.

Any pointers / comments?
Cheers

Any reason why a cx/gravel isn’t suitable?

As for smart trainers the refurbished Wahoo Kickr at £650 sounds a lot but would rather get a good one than a limited function basic one.

No, no reason at all not to use a gravel/cx bike, that’s basically what I do using a Kickr, which has been great for me. They’re also great for back lane / easy bridleway riding and I use it way more than my road bike except on proper dry summer days. I’d buy whatever you think you’re more likely to use out in the real world as well tbh. You can ride a CX bike on the road, you can’t ride a road bike on anything much more technical than a hardpack cycleway off road though.

On the Kickr, the only maintenance in over two years has been changing a couple of drive belts. It just works, changes resistance nicely on Zwift and is great in erg mode for workout stuff. I’m sure other trainers do an equally good job, but I don’t think you can go wrong with a refurbed Kickr. For detailed reviews, dcrainmaker.com.

The only other things to factor in are a bloody great powerful fan and, if you’re using an ANT+ sensor, a long extension cable so you can position it as close to the trainer as possible.

Luxury item for me was the Lifeline Trainer Table from Wiggle, which gives you somewhere to put a monitor / lap-top / water bottle(s) etc.

That’s great, thanks BWD! Although if I have my laptop, Wahoo Kickr, cx bike, fan – what exactly do you mean by ANT sensor? Would a hrm chest strap connect direct to the Kickr?

Feel like I’m asking really basic questions here and no doubt I’d get the answers after a while by some proper googling, so appreciating your help here 👍

ps: there’s no massive reason why you shouldn’t use a mtb on a Kickr or any other direct driver/wheel off trainer at least to start off with. You’ll have lower gearing than on a road/cx bike, but that may not turn out to be an issue depending on what you plan on doing.

That’s great, thanks BWD! Although if I have my laptop, Wahoo Kickr, cx bike, fan – what exactly do you mean by ANT sensor? Would a hrm chest strap connect direct to the Kickr?

No worries. Zwift an connect to the Kickr and other sensors like a heart rate monitor using either bluetooth or a protocol called ANT+ which needs a separate dongle that benefits from being as close to the device as possible. I think the current Kickr stuff will transmit cadence direct from the trainer. If you’re using a HR sensor as well, it’ll connect to your laptop using bluetooth or ANT+. The Wahoo Tickr will do either fwiw.

I’d start with bluetooth, assuming it’s on your laptop, and maybe look at ANT+ if you have any connectivity issues. I found a bluetooth speaker and the Kickr didn’t play nicely together for example, also had a little more cadence reading lag with BT than ANT.

There’s quite a lot of decent basic info online: Zwiftinsider is pretty good:

https://zwiftinsider.com

GCN has dome a few YouTube videos on getting started too.

HTH

I still use my MTB. Always have and always will.
38T on front, gives me 300w at 82rpm.

Kickr Snap here for 3-4 years now. On my 2nd one.

Like a few others here I use an MTB, after all it is what I ride with the gears I have.

I picked up a second hand Wahoo Kickr Core from ebay, matt from equine shop, fan from loft (ex summer heat) and use laptop with bluetooth and it all works fine.

With standard 1×12 have hit 800 watts when asked on training for ten seconds, not seeing it as an issue and saved a few hundred quid on a bike I don’t need.

Of course if you’re trying to justify another bike then go get one 😉 You must .. 🙂

James

I’d definitely just use your MTB, at least to start with.

The refurbed Kickrs are dear, and had some issues, hence the volume of refurbed kit around. I’d be inclined to buy an Elite for a bit less: Direto (£400 new on ebay) or Suito (£550 but which also had some issues mind). You’ll need to budget for a cassette.

In terms of connectivity, recent laptop or an iPad should be fine with the newer trainers – i.e. Kickr, Suito, Direto. They connect by Bluetooth, so no need for dongles.

When I got started I was confused! So hope this helps, and apologies if this is not new to you:

A decent, new-ish Smart trainer (like Kickr, Direto or Suito) connects to the following by bluetooth straight away in Zwift when you start the app on an iPad or laptop*:

– Power Meter (in the trainer)
– Cadence (in the trainer)

So you don’t need to buy anything extra at all for this set up i.e. no dongles.

If you want you can add an HRM. If you choose a Bluetooth HRM, again the Zwift app will automatically find this when it starts. I use a Wahoo Tickr, but other (cheaper) BT HRMs are around.

So if you choose a recent trainer and have an iPad or recent laptop* – with BT 5.0 I think, it all just works.

Good luck!

Some good info on youtube.

and

Cheers guys – very helpful – well now I’m thinking the mtb will do for the time being

Last question for the moment – I’m running SRAM GX Eagle 12 speed – what cassette would be best for putting on an Elite Direto -looks to be shimano freehub?

Cheers