Indoor smart bikes that allow you to coast.
 

Are there any indoor smart bikes that allow you to coast?

I don’t think there are any that don’t. Smart bikes.

Kickr Bike coasts on downhills.

One of the differences between indoor riding and outdoor riding is that coasting indoors is only rarely something that happens. When you go to the top of a huge mountain in zwift, then you can usually coast back down. But if you are going down a small hill that isn't particularly steep, it's quite possible you will just stop. In trainerroad, they will pause the workout most of the time. I suspect on a peloton bike you can soft pedal and it will effectively coast in zwift or other road simulators. I don't think a peloton is ideal, but if other people are going to ride it and they want a peloton, you can make it work.

Wahoo Kickr bike will coast down the shallowest of hills.
The flywheel has a motor in it and just keeps turning.


Barry

That's pretty interesting about the kickr bike. Using a motor as a brake is a good idea. There is a smart trainer that has a motor, I can't remember which. You can also use it without power, since it uses the motor as a generator.
IRL, you can coast on the flat too, but in zwift you will quickly come to a stop. Is that fixed with the kickr bike?

1-2% and it’ll coast all day in Fulgaz. I’m not a zwift user and can’t comment.

Barry

Not in my experience with Zwift. Your avatar coasts to a stop pretty much like in real life. The difference is that your trainer flywheel stops much quicker so it feels harder when you start to pedal again as you accelerate the flywheel from a standstill. The Kickr bike and high-end Tacx trainers and bike solve this issue by actively driving the flywheel when coasting for a more accurate simulation of inertia. The more traditional approach was to use a heavier flywheel mass, but that makes it harder to control changes in power e.g. when following intervals.

In practice I find that the Kickr bike still has less inertia than when riding on the road. Maybe the flywheel motor is limited in it's driving power or maybe the control firmware still needs some work, but overall it's pretty good.

In relation to your other thread, all the major indoor smart bikes allow you to coast. They just vary in how the flywheel is controlled during the coast-down. The Kickr Bike And Tacx Bike both have motor-driven "virtual" flywheels which more accurately simulate your inertia. Others like the Stages SB20 and original Wattbike Atom have a traditional heavy fixed inertia flywheel. But they all allow you to coast.

A heavy flywheel CAN make it hard to get started again after coasting if it's come to a complete stop. Sometimes my trainer (not a smartbike) feels like it has a brake on the flywheel (even on the flats) when I try to get it started moving again.

Of the current popular Smart Bikes I think only the Stages SB20 has a traditional heavy flywheel. Most others, like the Kickr Bike and Tacx Bike have motor driven flywheels to avoid this problem. So when you coast downhill the flywheel keeps spinning and when you coast on the flat the flywheel spins down to match your virtual road speed.

Maybe this is a dumb question, but why do you want to coast on your indoor trainer?

You had to ask....

I hop off and go for a whizz while the bike continues to coast down the virtual hill.

Barry

OK, that was funny. But seriously. . .

In a race, I make an effort over the top to stick with a pack or bridge up to a group, I like to take a 2-3 second microrest.

Aha - that makes some sense.

Because a previous crappy cheap trainer that I couldn't fit myself to ended up injuring me when I wasn't able to adjust my position every now and then because I could'nt stop pedaling. However, I realise now that the problem was that the handlebars were much too far away from me to allow me to make micro seating adjustments on the fly.

i actually now have a Peloton at my place and am finding it absolutely fine, comfort-wise. I'm finding that I prefer to use it over my KickR with road bike attached. Fairly sure I will hang onto it after the trial period expires, but I won't be keeping up the subscription thing.

For me it's pretty much the same reasons why I would sometimes want to coast on my outdoor bikes.

Yes, the Garmin/Tacx "Bike Smart" will allow you to coast when running on AC power. The unit will also function without a power source, but to coast it needs to be plugged in. I have one and it's excellent.

I use the feature to take short breaks when doing long downhills. But most of the time I'm pedaling. Just nice that the bike/avatar won't come to a stop when doing so.

Zwift doesn't allow you to coast at any speed less than ~17mph if putting out 0 watts. Lots of conjecture on why they instituted this rule. Although if you have a trainer or bike that has a motor for coasting downhills, then effectively the trainer is putting out watts so the autobraking by Zwift doesn't occur.

I'll have to test that. I've never coasted that slow so I'll give it a shot next ride. Interesting...

If you climb a decent hill and at less than 17mph, a somewhat natural IRL experience at the top when you hit flat or go back down might be to take a little break.

I might think that those that also partake of the longer (eg. 100+ km) endurance rides, and as field is strung out and if you're solo, not having to pedal 100% of the time over the 2.5hr experience would be nice. Fwiw, a 17mph pace for a solo riding 65kg rider is about 2wkg, so there should definitely be a market for this. IMO they should drop the rule to say 10mph.

Let's face it: who, IRL, pedals 100% of the time? Nobody. So yeah, let's mimic real life a little better.

One of the volunteers on the second day of a 600km brevet handed out water on a fairly busy cycling route. They said they could tell when one of the people on the ride was approaching because they coasted down a hill that the volunteer could see. The people out on a day ride pedaled.