By the way, I think pulling the power cable out from the turbo can pull on the cover, potentially causing the cover to come out of alignment. I’ve taken to unplugging at the wall socket instead.

The t2240 is definitely built to a budget price but frankly for £190 before discounts it’s had me riding exactly 992km more than I would have done without it. Better than a gym membership for me.

They all seem to have “the ratchety creak” after a while and that’s probably the well-known issue with the plastic roller and metal sheath starting to separate. There are some posted fixes for out of warranty turbos or you could try to exchange, although I’d expect a replacement to do the same thing sooner rather than later.

like alpgirl and timidwheeler I was getting some *other* horrible noises from my t2240, which I discovered was due to the plastic body over the electromechanical section coming slightly askew and fouling a moving part. The plastic has a crappy twist-lock fit secured with a t20 torx self-tapping screw. I loosened that and was able to re-engage the twist-fit. That noise has gone now.

Tacx neo on order now though ;)

Amazon have just dropped the price of the Neo again to £864, although delivery is currently listed at 1-3 months..

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/B0112VE4NO

(NB I’m referring to the sale from Amazon themselves. There’s a couple of cheaper sellers but they look dodgy to me)

@ mossimus – that was me. Saw you gaining but had a few challenges tonight with the resistance of the turbo lagging a long way behind the gradient of the course. Made it hard to put power down on the flat. I look forward to the rematch :wink:

(BTW for those of us with semi-anonymous STW logins, can we keep IRL names off the public forum please :-) )

@jambo/nathb – ah, I hadn’t realised that (Mac user here). I’ve edited my post to remove the erroneous final comment. The rest still stands. He’ll still have to wait for the ant+ dongle or use mobile link to bridge from bluetooth to wifi (!)

@theotherjonv – if you’re getting a Smart then you don’t actually need the speed/cadence sensor. You can certainly use them, but the Tacx flow provide this data as well (you only NEED the speed/cadence sensor if you’re using a dumb trainer, like your old one).

@molgrips – have sent an email to address in your profile.

I’ve an airnimal joey with 24″ wheels that I used to use when travelling overseas a lot. Don’t travel as much now so might be time to sell if you’re interested. Have kojack slicks, MTB knobbliest and something a bit in between…

@zilog – I went with a separate (dual-sided) power meter plus the T2240 and had change left over compared to the Neo. I’m happy with my choice as I also now get power readings when riding outdoors, but I thought the Neo was good. Ideally I’d have both the Neo and the power meter ;)

Agree that they really should invest in the Zwift UI – you have to start a ride to make any changes, you can’t finish a ride without quitting the app etc etc. However given that they seem to be struggling with their success on the main game aspects, with crashes and glitches now there are lots of people on simultaneously, hopefully they’ll sort their scalability out first before polishing the interface

@snap – cheapest option for a basic smart meter (i.e. adjusts resistance according to virtual terrain and provides power readings to the game) is the Tacx T2240 @ £189 from Halfords. It’s what a lot of people use here and it works fine.

You can spend a lot more for three main things –
1. Higher resistance settings (T2240 will simulate up to 6% gradient; some go to 20% gradient or more); this does NOT affect zwift – it will still slow you down appropriately up virtual hills based on your weight (W/kg), even if the trainer has reached its max resistance as the only thing zwift cares about is your power output, not the trainer resistance).
2. direct drive, instead of wheel-on, with more realistic road feel (higher real/simulated inertia)
3. simulation of road feel and actually driving the wheel downhill (sounds like a gimmick but was fun when I tried it)

I had a demo on a £1000 Tacx Neo and while on paper a LOT better, it was nothing like £800 worth better (IMO of course)!

All zwift really cares about is your power output. That, plus the weight and height you enter (don’t cheat), are all the game uses to calculate your speed.

Unless you have a power meter or smart trainer that measures power for you, Zwift needs a way to “estimate” the power you’re putting out.

One way to do that is use your wheel speed PLUS an estimate of how much power is required to drive your turbo/rollers at that speed.

So.. now we cut to the chase – unless your rollers are in the list of supported devices that Zwift “knows” you’ll need a power meter as well. Alternatively, a smart trainer (the Tacx Flow at £190 from halfords is currently the cheapest).

Here’s the list https://support.zwift.com/hc/en-us/articles/203152565-Which-trainers-does-Zwift-support-

Also, with your current set-up you’d need an ANT+ USB stick to talk to the Garmin Cadence/Speed sensors. However, if you go with the Tacx Flow smart trainer you’d be able to use Bluetooth.

See zwift thread. It’s made a huge difference for my motivation to ride bikes and made it so easy to just do it, instead of using weather/sociable hours/family time/cleaning faff as an excuse

@dogthomson – you don’t *need* anything else (T2240, with latest firmware which you can upload from the ipad, plays nicely with the ipad over bluetooth – controls the resistance etc) but a bluetooth HR monitor would be useful too.

I’ve just used that setup for my second Zwift race, having previously used my iMac, and it works really well. Just used my daugther’s music stand to hold the ipad!

This is the HR strap I’m using: Link to CRC

@Pierre – please report back when you’ve compared the power from Stages to the power from Tacx Flow (T2240). I’ve got the same trainer but no power meter and I too suspect it may be a bit high. The specs say this base model only has “<10% accuracy” tolerance so individual units could differ quite a lot.

Don’t forget though that the drive train typically accounts for ~5W of loss, so power at the crank *should* be a little higher than the power at the rear wheel.

The cadence on-screen SHOULD match the cadence on the trainer – BUT I think you need to use the Cadence from the Tacx (which broadcasts speed, cadence and power on both ANT+ and Bluetooth channels). What I’ve noticed is that the Tacx Cadence readings from my unit is only accurate above ~50rpm, below that it’s all over the place (probably sampling rate).

Yep, run the firmware update on the trainer from the app and it’s all Bluetooth enabled. I’ve removed my ant dongle to double check

My first race tonight as well – KISS. Another Cat D here, but with >125 miles on Zwift this week I’m hoping I’ll come out of this winter fitter than I have been for years!

As an, ahem, heavier bloke I find drafting quite hard to finesse. When crossing a gap I’m finding it hard to judge power to catch but then fall in behind the rider in front, rather than carry on past them. Also, when we go downhill I seem to carry a lot more momentum than some of the other riders so again need to rein it in a bit.

More practice required

Just got a Tacx flow smart from Halfords with BC discount down from 189 to 172. Official name is Tacx flow smart T2240. Only Halfords and decathlon seem to sell it, so relatively little online. Halfords review section very positive and listed as zwift compatible so at that price seemed worth a shot.

Started on zwift this week with a non smart cyclops that I’ve tried to motivate myself to use in the past but couldn’t cope with the boredom. Zwift certainly helps pass the time and provides some structure but I also wanted the gradient and erg mode so bought this…

Haven’t had a proper session yet, just calibrated the unit , updated the firmware and tested that the ant+ fec stuff worked.

So far so good. Hopefully not too good to be true at that price.

BC only £20/year for “fan” membership. Not guaranteed though that they’d honour it on top of the 10% off that I’ve got as an emailed code.

Yes, they mailed me a 10% off code. I probably won’t use it (can’t quite bring myself to spend even £800 on a trainer). PM me and I’ll email it to you.

That Halfords price is on top of the standard discount – i.e. discounted down from £1050

Where did you get the Neo? Halfords 10% off plus a potential further 10% off if I collect in store (if they’ll accept my BC card on top of the discounted price) is the best I can see..

90 on a 57 here too. Use it with regular drops (for me it’s a glorified all-weather road bike for the crappy country roads around here). Might want a bit shorter if using off road. I did try with woodchippers but as that wasn’t really how I ended up using the bike, I swapped to drops.

Joolsburger – what’s the effective top tube on that frame?

I’m just going through this with my 11yo, coming off an XS Anthem. He’s 4’10” and leg wise small (vs. XS) adult bikes look fine but the reach looks to be a stretch. The effective top tube on the Anthem is only 510mm.

Leku – you might find the top tube too long on those bikes

Another vote for Anthem. BTW the XS frame is tiny. My 10yo was on one when barely out of booster seat (~135cm)

Cross post with br. Yes, car allowance policy rules may well say something like “4 door car no older than 5 years” but if you already have a suitable car you can just pocket the post-tax cash each month.

In many cases “car allowance” is just another category of salaried pay that appears in the left column of your payslip along with “basic”, “overtime”, “bonus” etc. The taxman doesn’t care what it’s called and it’s taxed and NId the same as any other PAYE income including employers NI. The only real difference is that the portion of your salary designated as “car allowance ” probably won’t be eligible for matched pension contributions or other benefits calculated relative to basic pay.

If your settings are for some reason mis-set as US, then the dates you typed are 10th March 2016 and 10th October 2016, so if you “dragged them out” then excel would assume you want dates 7 months apart

However, if you’re using the “+7” formula you ought to be ok.

try typing the date as 10-Mar-16 and see which way it formats it when you hit return – if it goes to 3/10/16 then the settings have gone all merkin on you.

Only ever travelled there on business but didn’t find it a particularly cash-centric culture. Some taxis didn’t take cards. I usually took a few hundred quid in yen and put the rest on cards.

Does your railcard also do local underground? If not get a suica card, just like an Oyster card. You can also use it like a pre paid debit card in quite a few places. http://www.jreast.co.jp/e/pass/suica.html

Have you checked if your phone will work over there?

I just bought 4x 12 bottle cases of their American style IPA. Really very good for £1.09/330ml bottle. Quite close to Sierra Nevada, which I like, IMO…

Another vote for (race) BMX. Amazing for skills, race discipline and fun. Far more friendly crowd at my lad’s club than some of the more traditional road/cross centric clubs we tried. My 11yo started at 9 (which is comparatively late; they start from 4/5). He can manual, jump and whip his way round the track and have a huge amount of fun. The local club also have them at the velodrome and even have watt bike sessions for the older kids. He even gets on a road bike occasionally..

I’m 5″11 “and a bit” (about 182cm I think) and contrary to the above I’m very happy on the 57cm. Now I’ve got fairly long legs for the height (34″) and my use case is pretty much “all weather riding on crappy tarmac” so not much off-road but with a 90cm stem it’s perfect for me and with a 70cm stem I’d be pretty happy off-road too. One advantage of the larger frame is the taller headtube. Also, I’d have 90’s style MTB seat post showing if I was on the 55.5cm…

To the poster above who commented on the alloy nipples on the kinesis wheels – I agree. I just spent an hour replacing two spokes and all the nipples (with black brass) on my front cross light after two nipples sheared in quick succession. That’s two years of riding though in crappy conditions so they were all very corroded… I’ll have to do the rear too.

NB as a note to others they are 14mm nipples and the only place I could find black brass 14mm nipples ONLINE without going to US was a seller on eBay in Poland.

Got any connections on Facebook to your father/his family? Been on ancestry.com doing some research?

Xyratex/Seagate shutting up shop in Havant. Engineering team there isn’t what it used to be from earlier cuts but have a look on LinkedIn at who is still there or was there until last couple of years as they might still be local. As above though the skills you seek would typically be spread across 2-3 people in larger companies like this..

I live nearby. There’s ridiculously little bridleway in this part of Staffordshire. Cannock about 30mins away will be your best bet for bang for the buck if you’re time limited. Otherwise head up to peak or across to Derby.

Are there different speed limits for vans (e.g. T5) vs. Cars?

no problems for my 10 year old on the red although I fell off.

He did the black too (I also fell off there).

He is better than me though..

(and I probably wouldn’t fall off if I wasn’t trying to keep up ;) )

That’s what I use mine for; only ever really ridden it off road for short stretches of gravelled byway. I’m a similar height to you but quite long in the leg/short in the body. I ride a 57 with a 90cm stem. TBH it’s a bit short and high compared to a “real” road bike but I did a 50mile (ahem) sportive on mine on Sunday in a fairly respectable (for a middle aged biffer) time.

I just got a new 5s on contract on EE for £174 (that’s the delta over 24 months vs a SIM only deal so I’m sure you can argue the point)

My 10 year not such an avid reader, but currently absolutely enjoying “The Last Wild” series by Piers Torday