![]() Once you start putting out more power and cranking up the flywheel speed, though, the noise levels do progressively ramp up. At steady power outputs of around 200 watts, it hovers around 68dB, which is actually pretty good. In terms of noise, it’s a similar story to the Tacx Boost I reviewed last year (a non-smart wheel-on trainer with a similar construction). The Tacx Flow Smart is uncomplicated and does the basics well. In practice then, climbing a virtual alpine climb like Alpe du Zwift is an experience not massively dissimilar to what you get with trainers costing a lot more, and that’s impressive at this price. With this setting left as it is, you don’t actually max out the resistance of the Flow Smart until you hit a 12 per cent gradient in Zwift. Likewise, though the maximum virtual gradient of only 6 per cent seems low at first glance, the default trainer difficulty setting of 50 per cent on Zwift makes this less of an issue. More powerful riders are likely to find the Flow Smart wanting for resistance and stability, but it’s also unlikely to feel limiting for beginners or riders who train indoors on a casual or occasional basis (arguably its target audience). Given its maximum power ceiling of 800 watts, the Flow Smart arguably isn’t a trainer designed for heavyweight sprinters anyway. With its low overall weight, it can’t compete with direct-drive trainers for stability – but again, that’s not really to be expected. The 1.6kg flywheel and low maximum resistance are expected at this price point, but the Tacx Flow Smart can still deliver an immersive indoor cycling experience. The lightweight flywheel doesn’t generate much inertia, so accelerations and coasting don’t feel amazing, but otherwise, it’s perfectly fine. With its relatively small, 1.6kg flywheel, ride feel was the area I was expecting the Flow Smart would suffer most, especially in comparison to more expensive smart trainers.Īnd while it’s certainly not up there with the best, it’s more than acceptable considering what it costs. ![]() Once you’ve completed this calibration, though, you shouldn’t need to do it again very often, providing you keep your rear tyre pumped up to the same pressure. ![]() It would be helpful if Tacx’s app could give some indication as to what might be going wrong or at least offer some suggestions about what to do to put things right. Once I’d loosened it off a bit, the app was able to complete the calibration successfully. My search suggested the roller contact with the tyre was either too loose or too tight, and it turned out to be the latter. The first few times I tried it, the app simply returned an error message saying “something went wrong”, but with no indication as to what that “something” might be.Īfter attempting it a few more times and not making any headway, I resorted to consulting Google. ![]() Simon Bromley / Immediate MediaĬalibrating the Flow Smart wasn’t an entirely pain-free process. This app can also be used to update the trainer’s firmware, as required.Ĭalibrating the Tacx Flow Smart takes a bit of guesswork because the Tacx Training app doesn’t offer much guidance. It’s not possible to perform a spin-down calibration for the Flow Smart in Zwift, so you’ll need to use the Tacx Training app instead. The Flow Smart transmits power, speed and cadence data over both ANT+ and Bluetooth.Ĭonnecting to Zwift presented no issues, though I did have a few data dropouts when using ANT+ instead of Bluetooth. This is great if you don’t have a dedicated space (sometimes referred to as a “ pain cave”) to leave it set up. At just 8.49kg, it’s easy to carry and move around, too. Once you’ve finished your ride, the Flow Smart folds away for storage and is compact. The soft-compound rubber will wear more quickly and they’re likely to be more expensive to replace. However, if you have delicate road bike tyres designed for racing, it’s probably not a good idea to use those on a long-term basis. Simon Bromley / Immediate MediaĪs with any wheel-on trainer, you can opt for a turbo trainer-specific tyre, but a hard-compound or winter road bike tyre, pumped up to a high tyre pressure (Tacx recommends 6-8 bar / 87-116psi), will do a similarly good job in my experience. It’s great to see a good quality front wheel riser block included, though in an age of road disc brakes, thru-axle adaptors would be handy too.
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