Kurt Kinetic shows off updated trainers

August 29, 2013 by |Blog » Trainers|Comments (15)

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This week here at Eurobike Kurt Kinetic has debuted their latest updates to their existing trainer lineup.  While none of these changes are massive, nor are they new products, I figured I’d take a second to give you the rundown on where things stand.

The two models that got updates are the Rock and Roll trainer, and the Road Machine trainer.  I’ve got one of the Road Machine trainers and love it as a less expensive option, primarily because of the ability to use it with TrainerRoad and Kinetic inRide support.

The Rock and Roll trainer is of course the one that actually allows you to rock side to side – like you would on a real bike.  Whereas the Road Machine is static like a normal trainer.  Both the Road Machine and the Rock and Roll trainer are compatible with the Kinetic inRide Bluetooth Smartpower system that I reviewed last winter.  Both trainers are fluid based, thus they don’t have a resistance control mechanism, but rather speed drives the amount of resistance.  More speed, more resistance…more sweat.

Starting with the Rock and Roll trainer, they’ve taken in the width of the legs a bit – simply so that they don’t stick off the side of the trainer mat.  Secondly, they’ve pulled in the resistance unit closer to, up, and a bit under the bike more.  This helps minimize the length footprint of the trainer, but more importantly they were able to get rid of the vertical bouncing that some folks had during hard sprint efforts.

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By bringing the resistance unit up, they’ve also raised the height of the wheel slightly.  In turn, the unit now works with 29ers (mountain bike type).

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Next, you can see they’ve made the grips much cleaner and easier to tighten down than previous ones.

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They’ve also changed the feet on the trainer to match the grips and then removed the bottom (rear) bar that was horizontal sorta below the resistance unit.  They found the unit was just as stable without it, and they could further reduce the footprint down to make it slide easier under most peoples beds.

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Also of note is that they’ve recently made available the Kinetic Traxle in three varieties: Fine, Medium, and Course.  Thru axles are for mountain bikes that may have a thru axle rear wheel.  They can be left in the bike both on the trainer as well as outside.

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While the resistance unit itself has remained the same (thus all power curves remain the same), they did update the little knob on the back.

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These units are all available now and over the coming weeks to distributors and retailers.  The price has gone up slightly though – about $10.

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Welcome to Eurobike week! This week during Eurobike I’ll be tweeting from the exhibition show floor quite a bit, as well as posting frequently. Here’s a quick and handy link to all Eurobike-related posts.

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15 Comments

  1. morey000
    August 29, 2013 at 1:11 pm #1

    Nice that KK finally spiffied up their stands a bit. I love their resistance units, but the stands have been behind the Cyclops design now for a few years.

    The old road machine had multiple holes in the legs, to reposition for wheel size. Kinda’ a pain in the butt, as you need to have two wrenches to do it (er… my daughter likes to play on my trainer sometimes… with her 24 inch tires). Not clear how the new stand is adjustable in this regard.

    Cyclops wheel resistance yellow locking handle still looks like it functions better than the new KK green knob. oh well. thanks for the photos.

    Reply
  2. Max Zevin
    August 29, 2013 at 1:57 pm #2

    Hey Ray,

    I’m thinking about switching from the powerbeam pro to the Rock n’ Roll + inride or the Kickr. The powerbeam has been a nightmare. My question relates to the pro flywheel. For someone who does indoor training on an extremely frequent basis, is getting the pro flywheel worth it, or will the standard trainer serve me just fine?

    Reply
  3. Aldo
    August 30, 2013 at 3:12 pm #4

    6 years with the Road Machine and no complains about it (well, I did have to change the resistance unit because of a failure, not related to leaking, but they changed without any questions). Seems like the Pro version has a better feel when it comes to coasting. But the Road version is hard enough for going at least until 40km/h (25mph) without problems (because I never actually went over this during my workouts, so I can´t tell how they behave above that, but it seems like they hold fine even faster than this).

    Reply
  4. Chris Pugrud
    August 30, 2013 at 5:58 pm #5

    Any word on an upgrade kit so I can just buy a new frame and mount my resistance until to the new Rock and Roll?

    The new models aren’t even showing up on the website yet.

    Reply
  5. Serge
    October 7, 2013 at 8:46 am #6

    Hey Ray, what’s your take on carbon frames and static trainers? I have KK road machine and don’t really care about rocking so i don’t wanna upgrade to rock’n’roll, but I am not sure if there is any damage to the frame…

    Reply
    • Mike Pass
      October 13, 2013 at 3:19 pm #7

      FWIW, I have been using a KK road machine with my Wilier Cento for four years and have hammered the heck out of it without any frame damage. Carbon is very tough. (I’m light @ 140 lbs.)

      Reply
    • Ray Maker
      October 13, 2013 at 5:59 pm #8

      There’s no issues. It’s a bit of a rumor based in part on a few random magazine articles a number of years ago. Nobody in the trainer industry I’ve talked to has ever seen an issue in real-world normal use, and the same goes for bike companies. If it were, we wouldn’t see pro teams with sponsored carbon bikes warming up on trainers. ;)

      Reply
  6. Tim Senovic
    January 26, 2014 at 1:22 pm #9

    I’m relatively new to the sport, going into the second year for triathlons, and I’m looking for a trainer for the off season. Which trainer would be best to get between the Kinetics by Kurt, Cycleops fluid2, or Wahoo KickR if price isn’t an option

    Reply
  7. Paul Coluccio
    May 1, 2014 at 6:39 am #10

    My girlfriend and I have been using the Rock and Roll consistently (3-5x/week) for almost 7 years, and the frame has just this year developed a crack. I think that’s pretty good durability. We’ll see how good KK is w/warranty service. I like using the Pro flywheel for long steady efforts, the extra mass is much harder to get up to speed, and once up to speed it provides a nice bit of extra stability to the effort-great if you want to simulate climbing or time trialling. I don’t use it for short intervals (30sec-3minutres) though b/c by the time I get up to speed the interval’s half over !

    Reply
  8. Ismo
    July 26, 2016 at 5:10 am #11

    Seems that Kinetic will update the trainers with Smart Control Power Units this fall.
    link to kurtkinetic.com
    link to kurtkinetic.com

    Any plans for a review?

    Reply
  9. DaveQB
    March 23, 2017 at 11:04 pm #14

    “More speed, more resistance…more sweet”

    Are you dreaming of cookies again Ray? :)

    Reply