It’s been about five months since the Elite Suito was first announced back in July. The Suito made a name for itself by essentially copying the same Elite formula as a few years ago: Offer a good medium-range product that undercuts everyone else on price. With the Suito the main selling point was that the cassette was included (saving you $50-$70 in costs, depending on whether you had tools) – plus the savings in time/hassle. The only other trainer in the market that did that was the $1,199 Wahoo KICKR.
Atop that, at the time, Elite also threw in a 30-day trial of Zwift – which then was actually unique (now, not so much). It also has a very small footprint for those that wanted to store it away (or under) something. And finally – it was designed to be entirely ready to ride by just pulling it out of the box – no assembly required. Great – so it sounds like the perfect mid-range trainer at $799.
But did it live up to that hype? Well, it probably depends on when exactly you got a Suito. Like every other trainer (or indoor bike) this season, Elite joined the ‘that was rough’ club for early adopters. And I’ll dive into that a bit later on, what went wrong, what’s different now, etc…
But before we do, we’ll run through all the usual in-depth review bits. From accuracy to what’s in the box, and plenty more. As always, once I’m done with this thing I’ll get a shipping label on this loaner unit and it’ll head back to Elite. If you found this review useful, feel free to hit up the links at the end of the review.
(Note: The Elite Suite-T is simply the version of the Elite Suito that doesn’t include a cassette, thus you’ll go buy the cassette yourself. It’s otherwise an identical trainer.)
What’s in the box:
The main ‘thing’ about the Elite Suito is the whole concept of ‘pull it out of the box, start riding’. But they literally mean to just pull it out of the box – no assembly, no dealing with random crap, just pull and pray. I mean, pull and play.
Here’s the components pulled straight out of the box and placed on the ground:
The most notable thing straight away is the cassette on the Suito, complete with its little baggie protecting it. Or maybe it’s protecting you. Probably you.
Typically a cassette will run you about $50-$60, and then you’ll need another $10-$20 in tools to install it if you don’t have them already. Plus any time you want to toss atop that. It’s not a big deal for most people, but it’s also not the best ‘Welcome to your new product’ thing either – especially for cyclists that aren’t as comfortable with shop tools.
The cassette is a Shimano R7000 105 11-speed cassette. So if you have a 10-speed bike, you’ll need to swap it out (but hey, you can sell this one instead). You can install any 9/10/11 speed cassette you want on it.
Next, there’s the free 30-day trial of Zwift. Back in July that was actually fairly unique. Though now this fall we’ve seen Zwift offer that with more and more trainers. My understanding is Wahoo has a virtual gift pack you get when you register a new trainer that also gets you free 30-days of Zwift. Still, I like the little card. It’s the only time you’ll feel like Zwift is paying you with a little credit card, versus you paying them with your credit card.
Next in the package of parts is the front wheel block. This is also included, whereas with most trainers it isn’t. I personally prefer to always ride with a front wheel block, even on trainers that supposedly don’t need one (like a Wahoo KICKR). It’s simply that I like my front wheel to stay put. Wheel risers don’t cost very much ($5-$10 on Amazon), but hey, I’ll take it.
You’ll also see above there’s the quick release skewer, and then inside the bag there’s the thru-axle parts for 142×12.
And then you’ve got the power adapter. Initial production batches shipped with all-too-short 1-meter cables, but later batches changed to 2.5-meter cables.
And finally, there’s some paper stuff. It’s a manual, and some flyers.
Got all that? Good. Let’s get into the setup.
The Basics & Setup:
Now stay with me here – this setup is gonna be pretty complex. It involves three steps:
1) Take plastic bag off cassette
2) Unfold two foldable legs
3) Place skewer through trainer, attach bike
Technically there’s also plugging it in. I’m not sure if that’s counted as a setup or not. Once you’re done, it should roughly look like this:
Of course, your bike might not look as awesome as mine. And if you’re a lucky duck then your cable is the swanky new 2.5m one versus the 1.5m one I initially had. But all said, it should look about the same.
Now, some quick practical tips. First, there’s a handle. I know this sounds obvious but for some totally bizarre reason some companies still don’t include handles on their trainers. How is there not a handle on the Tacx NEO Series trainers – despite being the most expensive mainstream smart trainer on the market?
Next to that handle is the status lights. These show the state of your trainer. Specifically whether or not it’s powered/plugged in, followed by whether or not there’s an ANT+ device, and/or then a Bluetooth Smart device controlling it.
Speaking of power cords, you’ll want to run it through this little safety channel. That keeps it from decapacitating itself when you trip over the cable. Though honestly, I think it’ll probably still decapacitate itself…just at a lower point instead.
And, in case you can’t remember which power adapter is which, here’s a closer look at the specs on this:
Of course, that bit is mostly for my own benefit, when I mix them up and have to refer back to my own review to figure out which is which.
Down along the base are the foldable legs. They’ve got two small lock mechanisms to keep them closed shut:
The idea with the Suito being to fold it up and stick it under something – like a bed. Or a really fancy Victorian couch or something. Regrettably, I have Ikea couches and Ikea beds, and none of them allow anything except puzzle pieces from the toddlers to be slid under them.
So finally, with your bike on it, don’t forget to stick that front wheel block up there:
Or, you could manage to get yourself one of those fancy new Elite steering devices that Zwift doesn’t yet support. Someday…someday.
And now, we start pedaling.
Given the Suito is a smart trainer, it’ll change resistance automatically in a few different ways, primarily driven by different applications/methods. But most of this all boils down to two core methods:
ERG Mode: Setting a specific power level – i.e., 210w. In this mode, no matter what gearing you use, the trainer will simply stay at 210w (or whatever you set it to). Simulation Mode: Simulating a specific outdoor grade – i.e., 10% incline. In this mode, it’s just like outdoors in that you can change your gearing to make it easier or harder. Wattage is not hard-set, only incline levels.
In the case of simulation (aka slope) mode, the Suito can simulate from 0% to 15% incline – which is above the competitors in this price point. The Elite Direto X goes to 18%, the Elite Zumo to 12% the Wahoo KICKR CORE simulates up to 16%, while the Tacx Flux S is down at 10%. Honestly, there’s little reason most of this matters if you use the defaults in Zwift, because it automatically halves the values anyway. A 10% grade feels like a 5% grade. You need to change the ‘Trainer Difficulty’ level to 100% in order to feel it (and most people don’t bother to). Where it can matter though is at low-speed high wattage climbs up those 12% or beyond ascents.
The second mode the trainer has is ERG mode. In that case, the company claims up to 1,900w of resistance at 40KPH. Although, realistically, you don’t care about that. I can only barely (maybe) break 1,000w for a second or two, and even most front of the non-pro pack cyclists aren’t going to top 1,800w. The pros would only be just a bit beyond that. Said differently: Peak numbers in this competition don’t matter. Instead, what matters is actually a harder metric to make clear – which is the ability to simulate high grades and lower speeds (especially if you’re a heavier cyclist).
One core test I do with all trainers though is responsiveness: How quickly does it respond to ERG mode changes? I typically do that with my 30×30 test via TrainerRoad, though it doesn’t really matter what method you use as long as you’re looking at big shifts in wattage:
Note above the super hard to read green-line was actually the target, not the blue line. This is because TrainerRoad, after the workout, only shows the original workout specification, and not the adjusted target value. What you see though is that it’s occasionally a bit wobbly towards the end of each set, but overall about the norm during the sets.
For the Suito it’s taking about 3-4 seconds to stabilize. Usually 3, but sometimes 4. The target power for this interval was 401w (not 428w, that was the original workout, I had scaled it down since I did three trainer rides that day). Either way, that’s acceptable to me and in-line with expectations.
We’ll talk more about accuracy later on in the accuracy section – so what about road feel?
Like I always say – for me personally, it’s hard to separate the fact that I’m riding indoors from outdoors. It’s still a trainer, and I’m still looking at a wall in front of me. My brain can only turn off so much of that. Still, much of the road-like feel is driven by the flywheel, and be it physical or virtual, flywheel sizes tend to be measured in weight. This impacts inertia and how it feels – primarily when you accelerate or otherwise change acceleration (such as briefly coasting).
All that prefacing done, I’d say that it’s roughly the same as the Elite Zumo – which was OK.
I just put the two trainers side by side and went back and forth and best I can tell they’re basically the same. Which makes sense – the flywheel weights are pretty similar between the two.
I think we are seeing trainers at the top end getting better and better, and we are seeing trainers in the middle getting better too. It’s just that there’s still a divide there – primarily driven by that flywheel weight. The heavier the flywheel, the better it’ll feel (in theory anyway).
As for sound? It’s not silent – but is quiet – it’s on par with other ‘quiet but not silent’ trainers in 2019. I cover that in my original overview video here:
As Elite notes in the getting started guide/papers, you’ll want to apply a bit of oil to your chain to go ahead and get the new cassette all happy. If you don’t do that, you’ll find it a bit louder otherwise.
App Compatibility:
The Suito follows the same app compatibility standards as previous Elite products, and essentially follows the industry norms as you’d expect from a high-end trainer. As you probably know, apps like Zwift, TrainerRoad, SufferFest, Rouvy, Kinomap and many more all support most of these industry standards, making it easy to use whatever app you’d like. If trainers or apps don’t support these standards, then it makes it far more difficult for you as the end user.
Thankfully, that’s not the case here. The Suito transmits data on both ANT+ & Bluetooth Smart, as well as allowing interactive resistance control across both ANT+ & Bluetooth Smart. By applying resistance control, apps can simulate climbs as well as set specific wattage targets.
The unit supports the following protocols and transmission standards:
ANT+ FE-C (Trainer Control): This is for controlling the trainer via ANT+ from apps and head units (with cadence/power data). Read tons about it here. ANT+ Power Meter Profile: This broadcasts as a standard ANT+ power meter, with cadence data ANT+ Speed/Cadence Profile: This broadcasts your speed and cadence as a standard ANT+ Speed/Cadence combo sensor Bluetooth Smart Power Meter Profile: This broadcasts as a standard BLE power meter, with cadence data Bluetooth Smart Speed/Cadence Profile: This broadcasts your speed and cadence as a standard BLE combo Speed/Cadence sensor Bluetooth Smart FTMS (Trainer Control): This allows apps to control the Suito over Bluetooth Smart (with cadence/power data)
Between all these standards you can basically connect to anything and everything you’d ever want to. Be it a bike computer or watch, or an app – it’ll be supported. In fact, Elite’s really been one of the leaders in supporting the various standards – including FTMS.
In the above, you’ll note there’s cadence data baked into the various streams. That’s handy if you’re connecting to Zwift on an Apple TV, due to Apple TV’s two concurrent Bluetooth Smart sensor limitation (plus the Apple TV remote). This means you can pair the trainer and get power/cadence/control, while also pairing up a heart rate strap.
For me, in my testing, I used Zwift and TrainerRoad as my two main apps (which are the two main apps I use personally). In the case of Zwift, I used it in regular riding mode (non-workout mode, aka SIM mode) as well as ERG mode (workout mode). Whereas in the case of TrainerRoad I used it in a structured workout mode (ERG mode). I dig into the nuances of these both within the power accuracy section.
Starting with Zwift, you can see the Suito listed as not just a controllable trainer, but also within the regular power meter and cadence section. You’ll want to pair it up as a controllable trainer (which will also pair it as a power meter):
You’ll see the trainer enumerated in a fairly similar manner on TrainerRoad as well:
Also, TrainerRoad’s tips page on using smart trainers in ERG mode:
I’d *strongly* recommend you either read that page, or just simply do two things:
A) Calibrate the Suito: I found it did make a significant difference to do the roll-down, it only takes a few seconds
B) Ensure you’re using the small ring up front: This is for ERG mode specifically, shift into the small ring to get better control
As far as calibration goes, you can complete it easily from most apps – including TrainerRoad and Zwift. You’ll see either a calibration prompt in the app (like TrainerRoad), or a small wrench or such in the settings (like Zwift). For example, here it is doing the spin-down within Zwift on an iPad using Bluetooth Smart:
It’s super easy to do, you just pedal a bit fast for a moment until it reaches a given threshold speed, and then you stop pedaling. It’s going to measure how long it takes to coast to a stop. Super easy.
However, I tried to do it with TrainerRoad using Bluetooth Smart, and that failed:
Hmm, and then I looked closely and it said “Spin up to 4.7MPH”. Which…would most definitely be wrong. So, I ignored it. And just kept on pedaling up to like 28MPH. And then it became happy.
My guess is there’s some minor kinks to work out there between the two companies.
In general, you should calibrate every once in a while (perhaps every few weeks), or anytime you’ve moved the trainer some distance (like to a new home/etc…). Additionally, you should calibrate if you’ve had a major temp swing (such as if it lives in your garage and now the sweat puddle on the floor is frozen). I found this to be the case this past fall when I had warmer days and then shifted to much cooler locations/days (our home and office aren’t A/C equipped).
Again, you can also do these calibrations within Zwift, TrainerRoad, or most any other app. Easy stuff.
Finally, Elite does have their own app that you can use for a handful of functions, but I had no use for it here at any point in the testing cycle. And technically, there are two apps here. The first is their Elite MyE-Training app, which you can do calibrations from within:
And then there’s the new Elite Upgrado app – which actually launched on the Elite Suito a bit over a month ago. This allows you to do firmware updates of the trainer (oddly something relatively new to Elite). Simply crack it open and let it search for nearby trainers:
At present it’ll actually show all nearby Bluetooth Smart power capable devices, which is a filtering issue Elite is working on so that it’ll only show Elite trainers. There were some edge cases where initial filtering wasn’t working, so rather than hold it up for that, they’ll add the filtering later. Fear not, you can’t turn your Wahoo KICKR CORE into an Elite Suito even if you tried.
The actual upgrade process only takes about 4-5 mins, super quick and super easy. Just like most other companies’ trainer update apps:
At present the most current firmware for the Elite Suito is 191 – which is what all my accuracy tests below are on, and my most recent rides as well.
Last but not least there’s a few configuration options within the Elite My E-Training app. Most notable of those options is what Elite calls Power Meter Link (PML). This means it can match up to an external power meter to provide more finite control of the trainer. Personally, I’m not a big fan of power meter matching/linking type technology from any company, as I often find it does weird things around delays in power. I’d rather the darn trainer be accurate to begin with. So I don’t use it.
With all those things covered, let’s get into a look at how accurate the trainer is.
Power Accuracy Analysis:
As usual, I put the trainer up against a number of power meters to see how well it handled everything from resistance control accuracy, to speed of change, to any other weird quirks along the way.
In my case I used one primary bike setup in the following configuration:
Canyon Bike Setup: PowerTap P2 Dual-sided pedals, Quarq DZero
This is all in addition to the trainer itself. Note that because you remove the rear wheel I can’t use something like a PowerTap hub to compare as well (which I would use in power meter testing normally).
Also note that while I have lots of data all the way back to July, I’m just going to focus on the most recent firmware for the accuracy data (though honestly, it didn’t change much before – except fixing a few issues I saw this past summer).
In any case, I was looking to see how it reacted in two core apps: Zwift and TrainerRoad (Bluetooth Smart on Apple TV and iPad). The actual apps don’t typically much matter, but rather the use cases are different. In Zwift you get variability by having the road incline change and by being able to instantly sprint. This reaction time and accuracy are both tested here. Whereas in TrainerRoad I’m looking at its ability to hold a specific wattage very precisely, and to then change wattages instantly in a repeatable way. There’s no better test of that than 30×30 repeats (30-seconds at a high resistance, followed by 30-seconds at an easy resistance).
There’s two ways to look at this. First is how quickly it responds to the commands of the application. So for that, we need to actually look at the overlay from TrainerRoad showing when it sent the command followed by when the Suito achieved that level. Here’s the levels being sent (the blue blocks)) by TrainerRoad (in this case via Bluetooth Smart on iPad) and how quickly the Suito responded to it:
As you can see, it’s close – but still a bit wobbly. Like the Elite Zumo, it doesn’t quite nail the set point s as good as some higher-end trainers. But it’s also not terribly different from other trainers in this ballpark. In a perfect trainer world you’d see the yellow line very close to the blue line. Note – I’m not looking for fake data though, which is when the two precisely match. Your body isn’t a machine, so it’s always going to vary a tiny bit. Also note that being in the smaller chainring (up front) will help in this regard, and is exactly why TrainerRoad recommends using ERG mode in that configuration.
So what about actual power accuracy then? Meaning – how does it compare to other power meters? For that here’s a comparison between a Quarq DZero power meter and a pair of PowerTap P2 pedals (data set here):
As you can see, the three are close – but actually not as close as I expect or usually like to see. The challenge is that I suspect there were multiple errors going on here. The PowerTap P2 pedals for example, if I analyze the left/right split, look oddly separated – far more than they should be (or my balance is). Still, it’s actually in the middle – and on this one the Quarq was high. I saw this happen for about two days of testing that week without any real explanation. And then it went back to normal.
On the bright side, at least all three are consistent throughout the set:
And technically speaking, if you added up the margin of error for all the units, they’re actually almost within that, assuming you use the mean value as the baseline. Not ideal, but one can’t exactly blame the Suito here for what I actually think were very slight errors on Quarq/PowerTap.
Next, let’s shift to a ride on Zwift using standard SIM mode. In this case, I was still comparing against the Quarq and PowerTap P2 pedals, but they seemed better behaved this day. Of note for fun is that I left the two different recordings of the Elite Suito in the graph below. You’ll see one was recorded via ANT+ on an Edge 530, while the other was recorded via Bluetooth Smart on Zwift Apple TV. I noted that merely because even the same trainer will produce two different recorded files due to transmission and recording timing rates. A touch under a single watt in this case. Here’s that data set:
This particular course on Zwift – the Sand to Titans Grove loop has become my defacto Zwift testing grounds. The reason is that it starts off on the flats for a while where you can play around in different gearings (such as high flywheel speed big rings), and then after that you’ll slowly climb over a long series of ever increasing rollers. These rollers are a beast on trainer responsiveness. I’m looking at multiple factors here. For example, how quickly does the trainer respond and match what Zwift shows on the screen (mostly good in this case), and then how accurate is it within that (also largely good here):
Of course, the downside to this course is that visually it makes your head hurt when looking at graphs like the above. It’s just a rollercoaster ride of ups and downs. But if you squint a little bit you can see that they’re all tracking fairly darn closely. But again – you do see those slight differences between the data values recorded from the blue line vs red line (ANT+ vs BLE). Which has nothing to do with Elite per se, and more just the timing nuances of each. It’s like the Matrix: The Red Pill, or the Blue Pill.
But the Suito responded well. For example, check out these two moderate 600w surges I did – it easily nailed the wattage here:
And then again at these 800w sprints I did – it’s virtually identical between the different power sources:
If we look at the Mean/Max graphs for this ride, you’ll see the values are also super close across all the devices (and recording types):
Nobody would quibble about those numbers, that’s for sure.
Oh – wait – cadence you ask? Sure, no problem:
That’s actually…umm…flawless. The ‘drop’ you see around the 2 minute marker is simply where I stopped pedaling a second. But seriously, I actually haven’t seen a cadence chart that good this entire season. Finally, at least someone got it right. They may have wobbly flywheels, but at least the cadence is spot on.
So – where are we accuracy-wise? Basically in a better spot than summer. You’ll remember when I first looked at the Suito back in July there were a few quirks I wanted to see resolved. Specifically I wanted to see the sprints more accurate (Check, done), and I wanted to see ERG mode responsiveness better (Check, better – albeit not perfect). For this price range, the accuracy with the latest firmware (V191 from ~Oct 20th) is perfectly fine in my opinion for both power accuracy and cadence across a broad range of tests and conditions.
(Note: All of the charts in these accuracy sections were created using the DCR Analyzer tool. It allows you to compare power meters/trainers, heart rate, cadence, speed/pace, GPS tracks and plenty more. You can use it as well for your own gadget comparisons, more details here.)
Early Shipping Struggles:
As I’ve noted countless times this indoor trainer season, it’s been a rough one. Nobody has been spared failures in their new products, almost entirely around two core areas:
A) Manufacturing quality control
B) Power/trainer accuracy
And in most cases, most companies decided to take a twofer approach – hitting both issue groups instead of just taking one serving. It didn’t matter whether you were Elite, Tacx, Kinetic, or others. Even Wahoo and 4iiii also ran into struggles this season. It just hasn’t been very strong for all but a handful of trainer models.
Elite Suito users were mixed. Some were perfectly fine, while others had entirely unusable trainers. The source of those issues varied though. Some were manufacturing driven (lack of quality control), while others were software bugs – including one rather unique bug. In any case, here’s the rough rundown of issues people saw:
Accuracy problems: While this was somewhat rare in the grand scheme of things, it did happen. And the cause of the accuracy was oddly an incorrect bit of code within the Elite E-Training app (specifically inside the Advanced Configuration page), that would solidly hose up the trainer. The app has since been updated, and in almost all cases of this Elite was able to get users trainers fixed remotely without having to send them back to Elite.
Ticking noises: Elite says this was caused early in production by a wrong bearing assembly procedure being used. They say it was only present in the first production batches and thus any trainers made since September shouldn’t have this issue.
Wobbling Flywheel: By far this is the most common issue people have seen. However the impact of it varies from totally innocuous to un-ridable. Either way, whichever variant you have you’ll know it within seconds. It doesn’t get worse over time. Essentially the flywheel wasn’t as true as it could be. Mind you, that actually isn’t unusual. For example, Wahoo SNAP’s were known for quite some time to have some trueness issues in their rollers. And you’ll see imperfections in trueness on other trainers too. As long as you, the rider, don’t feel anything – then it doesn’t really matter.
However, in Elite’s case it was impacting rider feel for some people, causing vibrations. Elite says they first made a fix for it in September, but that it didn’t seem to address the problem as well as they thought. They made a secondary change in early October that they believe has fixed it for all units since then. Again, if you’ve got a unit and don’t feel anything – then you’ve got one that’s fine. Overwhelmingly people know right away whether they’ve got a bad unit.
But here was the real challenge for Elite (and every other company): Shipping lead times.
Remember, a unit produced in early October doesn’t mean a unit you buy in Seattle in late October is fixed. Nope. Generally speaking there’s about a 4-6 week delay in distribution from Elite to shops in the US. That includes spending a number of weeks on the water in cargo ships crossing the Atlantic, plus time on both sides funneling through logistics and distribution networks. Thus despite Elite ‘fixing’ the issue in early October – people kept getting less than awesome trainers into November.
And – because when it rains it pours, some retailers would undoubtedly have extra stock still. So they might still be on earlier stock.
That said, Elite has been pretty active in swapping out trainers. Apparently taking a lesson from Wahoo’s grand fiasco last year. If folks that are seeing wobble contact support (or really any hardware issue not solvable on the phone), they’ll get it swapped out immediately. Though even that has caused some confusion.
Elite has switched to a new return/replacement system in the US this year whereby for online retailers are having consumers ship return/RMA trainers directly back to their distributor – rather than the retailer. The reasons are simple:
A) It saves money
B) It saves waste shipping trainers twice (once from consumer to retailer, and then again from retailer to distributor)
So, if an issue arises, the consumer is given details to ship it straight back to the distributor, which in turn directly sends the consumer a trainer. I’ll admit the first time I heard that consumers had to deal directly with distributors, I was a bit annoyed. However, once they explained the logic behind the system and how it works – it makes complete sense. There’s no good reason to double-ship large boxes full of trainers around.
I guess the question is: Is the Suito fixed?
I think so. But I also think there’s still going to be people who are going to get some of that initial stock – especially in North America where it may be sitting on shelves still. Elite’s got a pretty efficient process for dealing with that should you run into a bum unit. But there is that element. Of course, on the flip side it seems we’re still somehow running into people that are having Wahoo KICKR Core issues too – despite being ‘solved’ for many months. So ultimately, I think the key thing is ensuring you’re buying from a retailer who has your back if you run into significant troubles. Though – the comments are pretty strong that both Wahoo and Elite support have been sorting people out fairly well.
Trainer Comparisons:
I’ve added the Elite Suito into the product comparison database, where you can compare it to any trainer that I’ve reviewed or have in the DCR Cave. For the purposes of below, I’ve slated it up against the Elite Zumo, Wahoo KICKR CORE, and Tacx Flux S. Or basically, the least expensive direct drive options for each of the brands. Of course, you can mix and match and create your own product comparison chart in the product comparison tables here. And of course, my complete Winter 2019-2020 Trainer Recommendations Guide as well.
Elite set out this summer/fall to create a Direto redux – at least from a popularity and sales standpoint. You might remember that two years ago when that trainer came out it completely dominated sales in the mid-range, backordered for months. Elite had redefined the pricing for that category and completely owned sales that winter. So much so that the following year Wahoo had to counter with the KICKR CORE at the same price point.
This winter things are a bit different. There are far more competitors in this price range (+/- $100) than there were two years ago. And the offers are somewhat close. Still, I think Elite has differentiated enough. Inclusion of a cassette, and a ‘just pull it out of the box’ mantra makes a lot of sense in this ever-expanding market. People want a high ‘just works’ factor. And on paper, Elite had that.
Unfortunately, in practice for the first few months of the season – it was rather variable due to initial production hardware and software issues. While it does seem that Elite has resolved those issues, it’s also probably not accurate to assume that nobody will still run into units. After all, there are clearly still some earlier production units out there. Elite is handling anybody who runs into issues through simple and quick replacement, but there’s still a chance.
Though – as I’ve said already, given the mess that this season has been for all trainer companies – I’m not really sure that any option is perfect. All options seem to be taken with a small rock sized chance of a bad unit. Of course like years past it’ll continue to get better as production normalizes. And the reality is that the vast majority of people are fine.
In any case – assuming we’re past the worst of the early production issues for Elite and the Suito, I think it’s a really solid mid-range trainer for the price and the simplicity of it.
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Hopefully you found this review/post useful. At the end of the day, I’m an athlete just like you looking for the most detail possible on a new purchase – so my review is written from the standpoint of how I used the device. The reviews generally take a lot of hours to put together, so it’s a fair bit of work (and labor of love). As you probably noticed by looking below, I also take time to answer all the questions posted in the comments – and there’s quite a bit of detail in there as well.
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This is a super basic trainer mat, which is exactly what you'll see me use. All it does is stop sweat for getting places it shouldn't (it also helps with vibrations too).
I use Apple TV for Zwift the vast majority of the time, but also just for watching YouTube/Netflix/etc on the trainer. The Apple TV remote sucks though. This $8 case fixes that, it's a silicone strap that makes it easy to grab, but also has a strap to easily place on the edge of your handlebars. Boom! Note: Not compatible with 2021 Apple TV Edition.
Here's the thing, some people like front wheel blocks, some don't. I'm one of the ones that do. I like my front wheel to stay put and not aimlessly wiggle around. For $8, this solves that problem. Note some trainers do come with them. Also note, I use a riser block with *every* trainer.
I've got three of these $12 fans floating around the DCR Cave, and I frequently use them on rides. They work just fine. Sure, they're not as powerful as a Wahoo Headwind, but I could literally buy 20 of them for the same price.
This desk is both a knock-off of the original KICKR Desk, but yet also better than it. First, it's got wheel locks (so the darn thing stays put), and second, it has two water bottle holders (also useful for putting other things like remotes). I've been using it as my main trainer desk for a long time now and love it. Cheaper is better apparently. Note: Branding varies by country, exact same desk.
This is by far the best value in trainer desks, at only $59, but with most of the features of the higher end features. It's got multi-tier tablet slots, water bottle holders, non-stick surface, adjustable height and more. I'm loving it!
One of the most popular trainer fans out there, rivaling the Wahoo Headwind fan in strength but at a fraction of the price. It doesn't have smartphone/ANT+/Bluetooth integration, but it does have secondary outlets. I've been using it, and a similiar European version lately with great success (exact EU variant I use is automatically linked at left).
I've had this for years, and use it in places where I don't have a big screen or desk, but just an iPad or tablet on my road bike bars.
And of course – you can always sign-up to be a DCR Supporter! That gets you an ad-free DCR, access to the DCR Quarantine Corner video series packed with behind the scenes tidbits...and it also makes you awesome. And being awesome is what it’s all about!
Thanks for reading! And as always, feel free to post comments or questions in the comments section below, I’ll be happy to try and answer them as quickly as possible. And lastly, if you felt this review was useful – I always appreciate feedback in the comments below. Thanks!
Wait a minute. I didn’t realize that Zwift automatically halves the gradients. Now I feel even worse about my ride yesterday! Although having just got my smart trainer on Sunday, I guess it’s best that I figured it out now rather than 6mos down the road. :D
Trainer Difficulty is a funny subject on it’s own, and often misunderstood.
Posts on the Zwift Riders FB group are exhausting in the back and forth that is common. They occur on a nearly weekly basis when the trainer season kicks up (right now) and get heated at times when the pendulum swings to “cheating” claims :P
Just to be clear – it does not make you faster at a given power. It gives you what amounts to a shorter gear, minimizing how much gear changes you have to do. 300W feels and measures as 300W at 0% as well as 100%, and will go up a climb at exactly the same speed. But you will hit 300W at a lower cadence on a given gear, or on a shorter gear at a given cadence, if you put the control to 100%
Robert. not quite. 300W is 300W in a vacuum, but 300W at 25% IRL sure feels different than 300W at -5% IRL even if you have the biggest gear range in the world. Biomechanically, you are activating different muscle groups due to the vast difference in momentum. And yes, I used -5% to highlight another aspect of Trainer Difficulty. It doesn’t just give you “easier gears,” but also harder gears when going downhill virtually. I won’t spin out while descending Radio Tower at 0% Trainer Difficulty. Basically 50% trainer difficulty turns an 12-25t cassette into a 6-50t cassette + differences in biomechanics.
I purchased a Suito one during the Clever Training sale, I think the first or second day. Once I received the Suito I used it for a couple of days and noticed the knocking sound that I am assume is coming from the bearings. I troubleshot the issue with Elite over a couple of days but ultimately had to send it back for warranty replacement. Elite didn’t ask me to send it their distributor, instead I had to send it back to Clever Training. Per USPS it arrived back at Clever Training yesterday, it looks like they only process returns on Tuesday and Thursday so I am hoping that I’ll get a note tomorrow with an update.
I will say this, I have the luxury of waiting. I really REALLY liked the Suito and I have a wheel-on trainer I can still ride now (Tacx Vortex) that has been good to me even though it sounds like an airplane taking off. My original S/N was SUG so I’m really wondering whether I will just need to go through the receive and return twice to get a newer Suito – it seems the anecdotally SUJ and beyond seem to not experience the same issues.
Update, I received a new replacement Suito Saturday and rode it for a bit yesterday. I want to say so far so good but I’m reasonably sure that trainer wasn’t properly changing resistance based on elevation yesterday. I decided to hold judgement until I can be sure. I tried to calibrate the Suito using the training app, it only worked once out of five times. Oh well, may be the trainer gods will be nice to me later today.
I just opened a second warranty exchange for the Suito to Clever Training and specifically asked for a SUJ serial number or later. This time the resistance will not change when using ANT+, this actually happened out of the box and after using my phone to calibrate. I actually think that the ANT+ hardware is broken, all of the functions work over Bluetooth, just not ANT+. The Suito did change resistance when I ran Zwift on my phone with Bluetooth but nothing works with ANT+, which is unacceptable. Hopefully I will get a fast response from CT, they had the replacement Suito out the door the next day after my return.
It *would* be nice if the US vendors would recognize the issues and remove the pre-SUJ stock but I totally get why they aren’t. It would also be nice if CT would just preemptively send me a new Suito out so I don’t have to wait again but given the cluster this has been I have a feeling that I will find out that CT will close for the holidays and I’ll be stuck without the Suito until the beginning of January. Yay.
I hear you man. In the same boat as I posted the other day due to the knocking noise. I’m dealing directly with the distributor though. Sent the unit back 2 days ago. Emailed them with my tracking number and hoping they would consider sending one out before they get mine. Really hate being down from training for at least a few weeks.
New update, sooooooo I got back from Elite that they felt my issue was Zwift-related. Initially that kinda drove me nuts but they asked that I test with MyETraining. I couldn’t figure out a way to test free riding in their app without paying for it so I grabbed Rouvy (which I had wanted to test) and fired it up and guess what? Their free ride integration _did_ work with ANT+. Huh. So at this point I kinda had to agree that it was Zwift. I did more testing, finally getting frustrated and uninstalled, then reinstalled Zwift. Surprisingly this worked and ANT+ worked! Yay. The Suito is great, I think I have ridden it almost every day since it magically started working.
That is, it worked until Saturday. I live in Texas and ride in my garage. Our temps have been all over the place this winter (one day it’s almost 80 deg. F, the next day it is snowing and 30 deg. F) and my garage bounces from ~58 deg to ~68 deg. I hadn’t calibrated the trainer since the original issues and decided to do so before Stage 2 of TdZ (after warming up for 10 minutes). That was a bad move. I calibrated the trainer using my computer over ANT+, the calibration worked, and I started TdZ but soon noticed that I had no resistance. I bailed out and recalibrated the trainer using my phone over BLE and tested in Zwift again – no resistance. I uninstalled Zwift, reinstalled Zwift, tested but no resistance. I uninstalled Zwift again, making sure I deleted all of the user files, reinstalled, same thing – no resistance.
At that point I opened up Rouvy again, thinking that if it worked that at least that was another data point. This time however Rouvy didn’t work in free ride. I got out an iPad and tested Zwift using BLE FTMS and still didn’t get resistance. That was concerning.
Now it’s like 2 hours later than I had wanted to ride, my lame attempt at pre-workout nutrition somewhat ruined. I decided to test using my Android phone with BLE FTMS and the trainer gods smiled upon me as I experienced resistance.
So where does this leave me. I’m a software architect by trade and a tinkerer by choice. The calibration, at first glance, seems to be the culprit, my first calibration value was over 10K, my second calibration value over BLE though was <10K which I thought was odd. The subsequent ANT+ and BLE calibrations were all over 10K. My hypothesis at this point is this – I am wondering whether the trainer warmup needs to be longer and whether I am just doing something wrong. I'm going to test more today and hope for the best.
Hey, have you managed to resolve the issue with lost resistance? I have initially paired the trainer via iPhone app, done a free ride of 11mins in Garmin FR945 Bike Indoors activity, and then calibrated in My ETraining app twice. However, after that I started having issues (the resistance disappears during workout in Garmin, Zwift pairs with the trainer but does not read neither speed nor power (no resistance). I tried pairing again, but that does not resolve the issue. Im starting to assume the unit may have hardware issues. Any suggestions before I contact my retailer? Thanks.
One of the things I got in my Suito was a little card indicating I needed to put some oil on the cassette. I remember this being an issue for some people.
That is odd to me. Lube belongs on the chain generally, and is not often done on the cassette itself. I’d be curious to learn why they suggest it in this case?
Hi
I´ve made a own workout on zwift, it´s with 3*15min intervals and freeride in the beginning and the end. The odd thing in my opinion is that the freeride shows actual power and the on the intervals it shows just the power i had aimed for even if i made small surges. Here´s the the training: ´ link to strava.com
Also what i noticed that the cadence is fluctuating from time to time. I´ve been emailing with elite and already changed the board because i couldn´t get firmware upgraded, always stopped and told to get in contact with support. Otherwise when training on zwift and on the grouprides/competitions it´s very good and nothing to complain about after i got the new board with the upgraded firmware, just little confusing with the erg workouts
I had one of the early units and had to return it. I was relieved and grateful that Elite stood behind their product, and would make me buy their products again even though support was a bit slower than ideal.
Second unit has been great so far and i would say this review describes my experience. I think the one area for improvement is a 1-2s improvement in erg resistance speed as noted. I road feel fine and find it very quiet – although limited experience of the high end benchmarks.
@Ray, i had the same issue about low speeds in trainerroad calibration. Via a support ticket TrainerRoad said they had not yet bought this trainer to set up the calibration process.
In the end I pulled the switch on a Zumo (or at least I believe Santa did and it’s currently sitting under my Christmas tree). Reading this versus yours and GP lama’s review of the Zumo I’m hoping I’m not going to regret it and have to send it back with the elves. I’m thinking it’s probably ok as I can install a cassette and pricing in the UK made the Zumo a good £125 cheaper. Thanks again Ray for the great reviews.
Is there any serial number info relating to early (less than awesome) units? It would be useful to know if you where potentially getting a less than awesome unit when at the store.
I’ve been using my Suito for about two weeks now as I recover from knee surgery, so I’ve yet to do anything terribly hard for it (only steady rides at up to 200 watts). The power control seems good to me, though I haven’t tested against my power meter. Cadence has been all over the place, though, to the point that I popped a cadence monitor on my crank arms just to make sure I hadn’t lost my mind. Cadence monitor keeps me at a consistent reading (within my normal variation), but the Suito sees frequent drops of 10-20 RPMs and sometimes even more. Improved marginally with a calibration, but still not great. Otherwise, extremely happy. Good value.
Yes i´ve noticed just the same that the cadence is jumping sometimes but usually only on lower watts, today i tested against vector3 in a 2h groupride on zwift and W was exactly the same even thou in the end i made 10 sec sprints and V3 showd 700-1000W but suito only 600-700W and top cadence on those were 140 vs 120.
I had purchased the Suito from Clevertraining on the big sale and ended up with a bad flywheel and crunching noise. CT directed me to their person who handles Elite, Todson. Had to send a video of the issue, but it was all taken care of quick and easy…probably the easiest return I have ever had. Granted, the wait for shipping and receiving was a bit, but that is what it is. New one showed up yesterday, no issues at all, jumped on Zwift and had a blast. Elite is doing a great job taking care of those with issues, at least they did for me. Thank you for the great review Ray!
Including an 11 speed cassette is no use to those of us still on 10 speed setups. Not only is it more hassle, it’s also a complete waste of money. So we need a no cassette option too.
Lol, marketing doesn’t work this way. The cassette is a promotion and helps get buyers to convert on the product. If they didn’t include it, they wouldn’t sell as many. They get these at cost.
I am having some issues with the setup using a 10-speed Shimano Cannondale. I can’t tell if I have a bad unit or if the cassette needs no spacers, one, or two. Currently, I have no spacers on it and the gears were jumping unpredictably. Any thoughts?
I also have a wobbly flywheel. Sent a video to Clever Training who passed it on to Elite. The said it was “under the allotted tolerance” and that the warranty would not cover it. Are they basically admitting they sold me a bad trainer but refusing to fix it?
If you’re using the Suito with a 10-speed Shimano, then you should really swap out the cassette for a 10-speed cassette. Otherwise, you’ll see what you’re seeing in terms of unpredictability. Mostly, the experience will suck. No amount of spacer shifting will change that unfortunately. The good news is that cassettes are cheap, and 10-speed ones especially since places are mostly just trying to off-load them.
On the flywheel, it really just depends on how much wobble. Many trainers actually have very slight wobble with flywheels or the machining of the trainer roller. I roughly draw the line as: If you visually notice it when putting a camera behind you pointed at it, but can’t otherwise feel it – it’s fine. Whereas if it’s something you actually feel in terms of wobble – then that’s different.
Though first, I’d strongly recommend getting the right cassette on there, otherwise it’s going to likely cover up any real issues due to the imperfection there.
Thanks Ray! I did swap out the stock 11-speed cassette with the 10-speed from the actual wheel. I was ready to accept the slight flywheel wobble, but then I got the dreaded knocking noise. After sending in a video of the knocking, Elite/Clever Training agreed to swap out that trainer for a new one.
I received the following instructions from Elite on performing the power calibration:
– power off the trainer
– power off all your devices (smartphone, tablet, pc, Garmin heart rate monitor ..)
– restart ONLY your Android phone
– power on the trainer
– do a 10 minutes training and check if you have disconnections during the training (you should see the data freeze)
– run the calibration
I followed this procedure but engaged a much higher gear to obtain a much higher speed than previously and this worked.
The trouble with the Elite app is that it says to increase speed without saying to what level. I had successfully performed the calibration with Zwift which had told me what speed to reach and also provided an indicator of speed as I pedalled. I then used approximately the same gear I had used in Zwift within Elite and that resulted in a successful calibration. In future I will just use Zwift for calibration – it’s much more user friendly.
I found out that when using an external watch or bike computer (in my case: Garmin Fenix) to record an indoor ride with the Suito, the wheel circumference setting should be the actual wheel circumference / 24.8. Thus for a standard wheel this is about 84 mm.
Initially I had not set this and got an average speed of ~100km/h…
So I did buy one of these trainers and I got a Hardware Rev 1 model and have every single problem under the sun with mine, except accuracy. There is a extreme wobble in the fly wheel which rocks the whole bike and a horribly loud knocking noise that developed after about 100 miles. In my attempts to deal with Elite I am offered zero warranty information and am told to deal with the shop I bought it at. The shop will swap it out or refund for me, but my issue here is Elite had no interest in fixing the issue or replacing the launch unit. I am incredibly torn if I want to refund the unit and not deal with Elite at this point or gamble on a second unit since I liked the features mine had.
I got a unit in September from an online retailer. Had the ticking or knocking noise periodically. Didn’t effect the ride but was annoying just the same. I followed the info in this review. Contacted the online retailer, found out the number of the distributor and contacted them. They had me send them an email with my name, address, serial number of the unit, description of the problem and a video of it happening. In less than 24 hours they responded with an email that had a prepaid UPS shipping label and instructions of what to do. Once they receive the defective unit they will send a new one. The only part that sucks is that the distributor is in Nevada, I’m in NY and this is a very busy time for UPS this time of the year. I just finished week 3 with a Trainer Road program and now I have to put it on hold until I get the new unit. Too bad they couldn’t send a new one out once they had a tracking number of the unit I sent back today.
I shipped the unit back December 14th. It arrived in Nevada December 23rd. They just sent it out today the 27th and it is due to arrive here January 8th. Almost a month with no trainer due to distance and the holiday’s. Glad I am getting a new unit but not happy with the overall process.
I bought my Suito from Clever Training. I have the short cord…so it is an earlier manufacture of the unit. I know that Ray says we will know if we have a defective unit—but I’m just not sure. I can’t tell if some of the noise is the quirks of my bike in certain gears or the actual ticking noise described. This is my first smart trainer. Could I get some guidance on how to know? I’ve also had some times in ERG mode during training workouts on ZWIFT—which I get to where I suddenly can’t pedal because of the resistance. I have calibrated with the Elite app. Any help/ advice would be appreciated!
how much QC/real world testing do these manufacturers do before officially releasing something? Do they even discuss that? Seems to me they just release trainers without at least 10 ppl testing it. There’s always a common problem. The worst to me was Tacxs slippage issue with the earlier Neos (admittedly, I do believe that’s a design limitation, but I couldnt accept the fact Im riding a dud and they supposedly fixed it with a new 2T)
I’m heavily considering this alongside with the Kickr Core. Seems to me Wahoo and Elite have less issues the Tacx after spending a ton of time on various groups on FB and reading comments on Reddit, here, message boards, etc
A shop is offering me the BF price for the Suito and I found another shop that may be selling the Core for under what Wahoos been allowing. I think ultimately if the latter gives me that same deal I might grab it.
Count me in on the Wahoo issues, since Nov 4th I am on my 3rd unit….not bad for a problem that was supposably solved last year? I was thinking of swapping out the wahoo for this but it doesnt look anymore promising.
Yes, a Campy freehub body would be required and is available from Elite, but there’s no need to do that as all 11-speed drive train cassettes have the same cog spacing. I’m running Campy Record 11-speed on the cassette that came with my Suito and it works just fine.
I have the same setup as you and ended up spending a bit more and getting a polar oh1+. It sends signal to both apple tv and garmin at the same time and is way more accurate than the garmin watch alone. Think chest strap, without having to wear a chest strap. all that being said you can make a connection by using a PC with an ant+ stick and bluetooth back through to your appleTV, but to me this seemed like way too much work for sub-par results.
I bought a Suito from Zwift’s shop on black friday. I’ve had it for 2-3 weeks and it has performed really well, but unfortunately after about 5 hours of riding it developed the ticking noise. It still rides fine but I definitely wouldn’t feel confident about the long-term life of it if the internals are making such a noise. After contacting Elite and later Zwift, with a pretty easy and positive experience they are going to ship me a new one immediatley upon me returning the original. Mine came with hardware version 2 (it seemed like 1 and 2 had the problem) so I’ve asked if there’s anything they can do to verify the new one they send me is a later production model. Overall I would say that its a great trainer for the money, but like with the Kickr core last year has had production problems with the earlier models, but kudos to Elite (and Zwift) for being good at replacing these models quickly.
I bought a Suito two weeks ago. Hardware revision 3, Serial no SUK, arrived with latest firmware. I was really pleased with it, no wobble in the flywheel, accurate power well within spec, quick response in ERG mode – but it took it three hours to start making the dreaded knocking noise. First I thought it was the quick release. Did it tighter but didn’t help. The shop sent me a replacement immediately. Very smooth experience. Just two days later it’s now waiting for me at home. I’m hoping that this one will work with no issues as I really like it. But we’ll see
Did my first ride on the replacement trainer yesterday. Again a SUK serial no, hardware revision 3, with latest firmware v191 already on it. Did some ERG mode and free riding in Zwift. Looking good. Noticeably less vibration with high flywheel speeds. No knocking noise. Did around 35k on it. Knock on wood. It seems to be a flawless unit. Very happy with it so far.
Update: I recieved my replacement from Zwift today and despite them saying they would send me a later production model, I somehow got one that is even older. Serial SUH, Hardware Version 1, with the super small power cable. I’m not holding out hope of this one lasting me more than a few rides. With how many people who still seem to be getting the first two hardware versions (which had all the problems) I’m at a point where I don’t think I can recommend this trainer to anyone unless they can guarentee they’re getting a later model.
I can safely report that my replacement Suito is working without any issues after many hours of training. No knocking, no accuracy issues. Calibration values in Elite My E-Training always somewhere around 10200 which is coherent with what the sticker on the trainer says.
There is some wobble at high flywheel speeds when letting the trainer spin down, but I don’t notice it during training except maybe for some increased vibration at super high flywheel speeds when sprinting.
I have no prior experience with other direct drive trainers. But given what Ray wrote here and in other reviews, I believe that it is perfectly within what can be considered normal for a unit in this price range. It doesn’t seem to interfere with the accuracy of the data either.
So at least to me it looks like Elite have sorted this out. But I still find it rather incredible that apparently pretty much every manufacturer of these devices throws new models on the market while there are still some pretty major issues to be sorted out. That at least is my impression from following Ray’s site for a while now. It does happen elsewhere. But you get the impression that with these trainers it is the rule rather than the exception.
Purchased Elite Suito in mid December for plug and play features. Box came without power cord (important part of plug and play lol) or front wheel holder. Distributor shipped it right away. Upon initial testing I’ve noticed flywheel wobble. Are all these products have shit quality control/design like that including KICKR?
Had my Suito for a week, revision hardware 3. No wobble or noise, but the wattages are completly off. 170 watt on my 4iiii is 135 on the Suito, 290 watt on 4iiii is 210 on the Suito. Calibration offset is waaay higher than the sticker indicates. The body was already damaged after three rides. All and all a bad experience.
There are multiple forums adressing the wattage issue, where most people notice that the Suito underreports wattage, which gets worse above the 200 watt. If the offset was always the same I could live with, but it all over the place. Seems like Elite still has issues getting the Suito stable. Mine is going back.
I’m having the same wattage issue. The Suito reads about 12-15% under my Quark, which has always read consistently with Vector 3 and my InPower. I’ve just set the Suito to 85% of target power and lived with it.
True, but the deviation increases when power goed up, it is 30% below 170w, and up to 50% above 220w. After an hour deviation goes down a bit. You can adjust every powerzone and it will be semi-okay, but that is a lot of hassle for something that should just work.
Did you get the power issue solved, and did you calibrate the unit?
I ask because I am interested in the Suito and don’t have a Powermeter to check it’s measuring correct.
I did calibrate the unit, and am still having the issue. I don’t zwift or anything so it doesn’t really bother me if I can still use it in ERG mode so haven’t pursued a fix.
Multiple calibrations, issue remained. You feel it right away, it runs too tight. Had contact with elite support but it is quite slow. I am now returning the unit in exchange for a new one. Hope that one is better, but seeing the growing number of complaints online I am a bit pesimistic.
I have finally received a new Suito replacement. N-series SUL. Firmware 191, hardware 4. Works fine, without noise or vibration. Slope changes faster than the previous one. If you endure like this, it seems that all the problems have been fixed
Consodering purchasing the Suito, having trouble figuring out if it will work with my dale synapses 142x9mm quickrelease or the dropouts. Any help would be much appreciated!
Coming from running I’m completely new to cycling. Due to a tight budget I bought a 2nd-hand bicycle, which must be around 30-40 years old. It’s a KOGA Miyata equipped with Shimano 600 and a 6-speed cassette. Would this be compatible with an Elite Suito, a Kickr Core or one of the other trainers?
I know this is probably a stupid noob question, but google couldn’t help me and I hope someone here knows the answer.
You probably need to go with a wheel-on trainer for your set up. The good news is that wheel-on trainers work well and can be had for a very good price. If you use something like ZWIFT, look for a trainer that transmit data to ZWIFT, or other similar app. Good luck and Happy New Year.
probably asked a few times already, but still not sure what to do. I hope you could help me out!
I’m still doubting between the Kickr Core & Elite Suito trainer
I’m quite new to trainers but have done already quite some research and I think both trainers are the best choice for mid-high end trainers.
i’m looking for a descent (well-built, stable) and accurate trainer. i would use it to train it for a Granfondo in Europe, or just to zwift on rainy days.
is the Kickr Core worth the 200 (€ / $ – including cassette) more?
the Kickr Core is an older model – released 2018 and has the name of a quiet 2017 model. do we expect a new release (very) soon from Wahoo?
Elite has it’s child-diseases but unlike the positive reviews, I still read a lot of users that want to change their Suito for a Core.
Hey Ray, hoping you can help. I have a second Suito (first one had a wobbly flywheel) and I notice that I get some shimmy/wobble on the front end of my bike when I coast. I notice during spin downs as well but wonder if this is a normal occurrence with direct drive trainers. I had been using a wheel-on trainer (M2) which felt more secure by design and I was using a Cycelops riser block as well, likely more sturdy than the Elite riser ion the Suito box.
Hmm, I wouldn’t expect front-end wobble to be honest. It’s really just best to look at the rear flywheel and see if that’s causing the wobble.
The CycleOps riser block is pretty massive (assuming it’s the one I think you’re using), in comparison to the more simplistic Elite one. You can certainly use the CycleOps one just fine though!
I returned my first Suito because of flywheel wobble. At higher Speeds I had vibrations in the saddle, at low speeds it came to the front of the bike. Shimmy on the handlebars. Thats because of different eigenfrequencies in the set up. Higher frequencies/rpms excitate stiffer parts, lower frequencies weaker parts. I assume this phenomenon is coming from the flywheel wobble.
I got a chance to pedal the Suito for 30 minutes on Zwift. I had trainer difficulty at 100%. What I notice is there is almost no momentum carried into the start of a climb. I am comparing this with the Tacx Neo 2 which seems to have a much more realistic feel through out Zwift terrain. That said the Suito offers a much better package with foldable legs and handle.
A large part of that is due to the flywheel, which in the NEO series is massive by comparison to the Suito (technically, it’s a virtual flywheel in the NEO series).
Best wishes for 2020, among them: functioning Elite Suito !
Mine is ok (long cord), bought in France via internet retailer and really happy ! Yet, a few days after my purchase while using My E-training app to command the HT, I noticed a real difference in watt…(I use my Assioma Duo like to my Garmin 935 in parallel): my Assioma pedals announced 310 while the Workout session was around 285.
Not able to sustain such level and quite disturbing. I didn’t want to “cheat” by decreasing either the FTP in E-Training parameter or the % of difficulty during the session (still in the app) so I tried to use the “PML” the Power Meter Link. A function that saved me !
You get access to this parameter in “advanced configuration” section of the app and you have to provide the number that is written upon the box of your pedals (in my case, the data is sent from the left one, so this number) and restart.
Since then, I am so glad to get the same figures on my watch/pedal that I have on my trainer/cellphone.
I rely more on my pedal as they will the ones which comes along races. I need to know my limits based on their metrics, even if wrong. Because the brain can be blurry sometimes in races and I don’t know if I will be able to calculate what was my training level on my trainer and so on.
Hey, I consider to buy a Elite Suito but I noticed that the first models had some problems. Is it too early to buy the Suito or do you think that the issues have been solved by now?
Riding this since a few days. During zwift workout I and easily pedal 260 watts where 110 is required?? Could never do this with my tacx vortex… Anyone has a solution?
Hi Ray, HNY
I get the impression that most of the issues seem to be in US shipped models, or is that over-generalising?
Do you have any detail on which shipping number(s) are faulty?
As we approach sale season in Europe early January, I just want to avoid any hassle factor. If I buy at a retailer is it easy to spot the SN on the box etc? any tell-tale signs?
Definitely been European folks as well. I think the earlier ones were more likely to be impacting US folks due to the lag time. Meaning, those early batches were shipped in August or so for US folks getting them in early October. Versus European folks getting them in October were basically built the week prior. As such, they were getting the more recent changes outlined above.
I don’t think there’s any difference these days in buying them between the units.
Hi, do you have any idea why I have problems fitting my boost bike with an nx eagle cassette on the trainer? The cassette sits way too close to the frame, the whole shifting is about one cog off. I used the suito boost adapter for non drive side and the correct supplied one for the drive side. I used the two supplied spacers to fit the cassette to the freehub, without them the cassette doesn’t tighten, just the smallest cog.
The problem is that I can’t shift and the small cog rubs on my frame…
I tried Spin-down on Zwift with the Suito. But it doesn’t work. I basically get to the required 37km/h in 4 pedalstrokes and then stop pedalling. Always fails. Any ideas?
My understanding is that it depends on which platform Zwift you’re using, and which connectivity type. You can see in the screenshots I got it to succeed (iPad via Bluetooth Smart).
I’m happy to report, 2 months after getting my Suito trainer replaced by Elite it’s still working A-OK!
No more knocking sounds or flywheel wobble.
Happy Zwifting!
Hi, I am a new Suito owner and this is my first experience with a direct drive trainer. I have only ridden it for about an hour to try and get a feel for it. I have read through all the comments. A couple of questions.
I think that I am experiencing some flywheel wobble. I notice it when I let it spin down – the bike rocks back and forth. At first I thought I was a little bit dizzy but I did it a few times to check. How much wobble is too much? Could this wobble be caused by something else? (ie. poor install, etc) Should I also notice this wobble at speed?
The bike I am using is a 1X setup with a wide range cassette. I have just used the included cassette on the Suito so far and the shifting is terrible. Is this expected? I have a spare wide range cassette that I will install to see if it cleans up the shifting – i don’t want to adjust the derailleur each time i install the bike on the trainer or put the wheel back on. Is this goal reasonable?
I wouldn’t expect wobble by poor installation, unless somehow your bike skewer isn’t straight (plausible, but also unlikely – but it’s worth a quick check – it happens once or twice a year for me).
The shifting being crap if using a 1X would however be expected, since that’s a totally different beast. You’d want to swap the cassette, else it’ll be crap each time.
My recommendation would be:
1) Swap the cassette for the spare you have (be mindful of the spacers being installed per manual*)
2) That should resolve the shifting
3) And might even resolve wobble to be honest, it’s possible
4) If you still get wobble after that, and you can feel the wobble, I’d reach out to Elite support
*For spacers, I don’t know your cassette off-hand, but if the spacers are installed correctly (as in, whether or not to have them per the manual), then the shifting should line up identically so it’ll match indoors/outdoors.
I contacted Elite and uploaded a video to them. Their response was that this is “normal wobble inside our tolerance”. They also said “the wobble is used to have a better feeling during training”. So Elite is marketing the wobble as a feature. I have noticed that I cannot keep the top-tube of my bike stable when riding on the trainer, but when I am outside with a regular wheel, I can keep it stable.
Is this what everyone’s Suito does? If your Suito does not have this wobble, perhaps it is defective? :)
As for the shifting, I switched to the wide-range cassette with very little improvement. My bike is a 142mm thu-axle so I require an adapter on either side. With these adapters, the smallest cog is shifted by just under 2mm closer to the frame (outward). Needless to say, the shifting is still not great and I cannot get into the smallest cog. After adjusting the derailleur, the shifting is fine. I wonder if these adapters have wide tolerances? The setup is a SRAM 1X. The adapter on the cassette side needs to balanced in the hole when installing the bike as it falls out from the slightest movement. The adapter on the other side fits quite a bit tighter.
I ended up returning the Suito and went with the Wahoo. After a few rides on the Wahoo, it doesn’t wobble/vibrate like the Suito did (maybe a slight vibration at high speeds), and it is really quiet. I didnt think the Suito was loud, but the Wahoo is quite a bit quieter. It also feels like the build quality is better on the Wahoo. However, I really like the Suito design – the folding, size, handle are perfect. FYI, my Suito was a SUI serial number (hardware version 2) if that helps anyone.
As for the shifting, still a problem on the Wahoo – it is likely my rear wheel/hub/cassette has different spacing than most. I have to adjust the derailleur just as I had to on the Suito. The spacers for the Wahoo fit better and do not fall out the Suito’s so at least that improved.
Hi
I have been looking for someone who has tried both the wahoo core and elite suito. I like you am drawn to the Elite for similar reasons. However need something pretty straight forward. Due to current climate won’t be able to pop into store for support.
Questions
Was the elite suito noisy
Was the wahoo core noticeably quieter
Which one was easier to set up and start riding (connectivity etc)
Was setting up the extra wahoo components straight forward and did you find all you needed in the box (excluding cassette)?
Thank you.
The Suito isn’t super noisy. It’s less noisy than most trainers made prior to 2018. The Wahoo KICKR CORE is pretty close to silent. Just drivetrain noise.
The Suito takes 30 seconds to take out of the box and unfold. Setup done.
The CORE you’ll need to attach the legs (3-5 mins if you do it right the first time), then install a cassette (60 seconds if you’ve done it before, probably 5-15 mins if you’ve never done it).
Hi there
I’m trying to get HR data embedded in my workouts with the Suito; I have Garmin Forerunner 935 and, since it has only wrist HRM, I have then tried to use at the same time an old Suunto HR belt (from Sunto Quest, which I believe run on ANT) but I have yet to figure out how to get the belt data read and embedded in Suito my workouts.
Am I right that Suito itself cannot connect to the HR Ant belt and then send the data to e.g Zwift or Elite my-Etraining app via Bluetooth? If so would it work if I get a Ant USB stick in computer running Zwift and connect both the Suito and the HR belt to Zwift?
So the Suunto HR belt actually uses private-ANT, and not ANT+. Which means it’s unfortunately kinda useless here. So set that aside for now. It had a good life though.
The FR935 actually can ‘re-broadcast’ your HR over ANT+, so that’ll solve that issue for now. You can enable that within the sensor settings on your watch. You can either turn it on anytime you want, or just when you enter workout mode.
It doesn’t connect via Bluetooth Smart unfortunately, but does ANT+ – so no good for your smartphone, but will work for your computer.
Thanks Ray,
very clear on the Suunto side now.
What I do not understand is why the 935 cannot send data over Bluetooth, given that it does so when I use the Garmin Connect app on my iPhone. Is it a kind of proprietary protocol and so 935 cannot send the data to other apps, like Zwift or Elite myETraining?
The data isn’t sent via the Bluetooth Smart HR device profile, just the ANT+ heart rate device profile. It’s unclear whether the FR935 could support the standard BT profile broadcasting as well, since that might record a slightly different chipset to be able to dual-broadcast. Not clear. The newer ones seem like they might have the right chipset, but it’s not enabled in software at this point.
Ok. I’m a bit unsure if I should invest in a HR belt to use Bluetooth smart for transferring data to the Zwift/my e-Training SW (advantage is that this will work on devices that do not support ANT+, like ioS ones) or spend much less for a ANT+ dongle for PC only.
For the ANT+ dongle option, I’m concerned that some SW (e.g. my e-Training, which is free for one year) will not work with simultaneous Bluetooth and ANT+ data streams.
I would be interested to know if any of you has experience in using mixed type of data with those SWs; guess the alternative is to collect data for the same workout on different SWs and merge them later on one (whenever possible), something that honestly i’d like to avoid doing regularly.
I figure I should update.. After zero help from elite, only mixed responses of I should deal with the retailer..retailer did not understand elite warranty system.. But the retailer did help… By offering an exhange and ultimately a refund due to being out of stock.. I moved on and just paid the extra to get a Kickr, I really wanted to give the elite a try due to it folding and the decent price point.
So, the saga continues. I finally got the replacement unit from the distributor last week after being without my unit for over a month due to shipping from NY to Nevada and getting one back during the holidays. I swapped out the cassette with a Shimano 11-34 to match my Domane. Brought it to my Trek dealer to make sure everything was good. There were some different issues with the replacement. This unit had some fly wheel wobble which the original one didn’t (returned that due to the knocking issue) as well as a grinding feel/noise while using the large chain ring up front in some of the smaller cogs in the rear. No cross chaining causing this. They were stumped and spent over an hour making sure the the set up was correct regarding cassette spacing, derailleur tuning, etc.. They were literally laughing at the little card enclosed showing to lube the cassette. They felt that was pretty pathetic and never heard of putting oil on a cassette. Today I called the distributor again with my complaints. At first they told me to send them an email again with video of the issue. I mentioned that I was concerned that maybe I got a replacement that was old as far as production and I was told that wasn’t likely be he could tell if I gave him the serial number (SUI192259). I did and was put on hold for a little while. When he came back he said it looks like I did in fact wind up with a replacement from the generation with issues. UNFREAKINGBELIEVABLE!!!!! Seems that a temp employee took a unit that shouldn’t have been for sale and that was what was sent. He told me the only inventory they currently have is new and since the corrections. They agreed they made a mistake and told me to forget about sending a video. They also said after I told them I’m not going through the same cluster f%^k regarding shipping that they would send one out today and I didn’t have to send the second defective one back until I get the new one. Although I asked them to expedite the shipping they couldn’t and it went ground. I’m told I will get it next week. Seems that this time it’s all on the distributor and not Elite. This still has left a very bad taste in my mouth for the whole situation though. There better not be ANY issue with this unit or I am demanding refund and will look towards a Saris H3, Wahoo Kickr or a Tacx Neo2.
I received my 2nd replacement yesterday. Much better this time since I didn’t have to send the defective one back first. Sent out Friday and received on a Wednesday. I sent the defective one back today. Did a 1 hour TrainerRoad program today and I’m happy to report everything went well. Virtually no flywheel wobble, no grinding noise/feel in any gear, seemed overall much quieter and I even noticed the feel was better. By that I mean that when I drop significantly in power during the session and change to an easier gear it doesn’t seem to let loose when spinning like it used to. I used to have to stop pedaling a bit and let the flywheel catch up to the slower pace otherwise it would be “loose” feeling and sloppy. Now, the resistance feels more like it should and seems to catch up much quicker to the drop. Keeping my fingers crossed that nothing changes for the worse as the days go by. BTW, serial number starts on theis one with SUJ.
The Elite suito fit in the suitcase. Did you try to travel in the plane with it?
More globally, how should we carry home trainer in a plane ? Is it allowed in the cabin?
It’d easily fit in a suitcase. Using checked luggage there’d be no problems at all, it’s well under the standard 50lbs/22kg weight limit most airlines use. Bringing it in the cabin would likely be challenging – mostly because most security screening services would see the cassette and it’s sharp edges as a problem.
I’m on my second Suito. To be fair, the distributor replaced the first one really quickly. It sounded like one of those rock polishers you might of had when you were a kid. I missed a week of training and was excited about pulling the replacement out of the box.. until I pedaled and heard the exactly same damn sound!
I set it up anyway. Let’s be clear: set up is a HUGE HASSLE. It is simply not true that it is easy to set up. Yes, you can pull it out of the box and start pedaling but that’s it.
Why is it so hard to set up? There are no instructions for example, how to pair it, that they have apps, what the apps actually do, how to use it with a Garmin, for example, and a whole host of other issues.
If you use Zwift, perhaps it’s easier, but I don’t. I just want to load my own training plans into the software and use it on ERG mode. Guess what? You have to pay Elite annually for this privilege.
So we’re clear, I’m a 30-year software guy so it isn’t like I don’t know my way around technology but literally, there are no instructions at all.
This is a device with significant quality issues and poor/no instructions.
“Let’s be clear: set up is a HUGE HASSLE. It is simply not true that it is easy to set up. Yes, you can pull it out of the box and start pedaling but that’s it.
Why is it so hard to set up? There are no instructions for example, how to pair it, that they have apps, what the apps actually do, how to use it with a Garmin, for example, and a whole host of other issues.”
To be fair, zero trainers explain this in the market. None. The assumption these days is largely that you use 3rd party apps and know how to use it. Not sure that’s the right assumption, but that’s the case nonetheless across all brands.
Hi Rob! I am looking forward to buying a Suito, but your review came to my attention. Isn’t it possible to use the trainer in ERG mode, commanded by workouts loaded on Garmin head units? Do you really have to pay for a software? Can’t Garmin Edges control the trainer?
Thanks for all your comments done here, useful as always.
I was in the market for a new trainer in nov-dec, and based on the specs Suito fits (suits :) my needs very well.
I’m currently using a non-smart Tacx Vortex (shows watts, can erg, but no FE-C, and I could not catch broadcasted wattage data unfortunately (one of my main issues))
I was considering the Tuo as well, but as there’s no review yet anywhere, (and those always stated at 4-6 weeks availablity at rosebikes) i moved to direct drive, hence the Sutio. (why to pay 500Eur for a kickr snap if suito is there for 600)
Now what I see from comments that the Suito initial problems are not quite sorted out, there are still cases where users experiencing nasty things. May bugetary cap was 600 EUR. Stretched.
I was planning to grab a Bushido on sale for appx 300-350 but those sold out very quickly.
Then I’ve changed my cap to 500 eur. Which was the Smart Votex, The Kickr Snap and the Tuo. And as Ray pointed out in the review, from the wheel on’s snap is kind of the best.
Suito came into the picture as for only 100 Eur more (or 60-70 if I sell the 11 speed cogs i don’t need), i can get a GOOD direct drive trainer. Now it’s seems more likely risky than good for sure.
I’m doing erg / level mode training, like trainerroad, sufferfest, I might use zwift as well. I’m not super stong or anything like that. Paincave is in basement, so noise is kinda secondary. Less calibration for direct drive was appealing as i have no other powermeter.
What is the most vise decision assuming the my narrowed down makerket is now:
Kick on 10% for 450 EUR – not direct drive but let’s just grab the extra money and spend elsewhere
Suito on minor sale 570 EUR – as described above, unknown risks (Europe, Hungary)
Direto X for 660 EUR on minor sale- Adding an other extra 10% on budget. Is the direto X is risk free?
I’m using my Suito 11s 105 cassette with two different bikes, which are setup with 10s Ultegra and 11s latest 105.
The 105 cassette from my bike has the same range as the one on the Suito and naturally it works well. My Ultegra also works fine, especially when using the small chainring and central part of the sprocket. If you want to use all the combinations on the 10s bike it can start to be a bit noisy, symptom that you probably shouldn’t do that (or if you really want then some rear derailleur indexing is needed every time you change from trainer to bike and viceversa). I cannot comment on the eventual side effects of using a non-matching combination of sprocket/chain/derailleur (shorter component lifetime?) but 10s and 11s should be very similar, especially the central block.
At least that is my experience. The end result may depend also on other factors, so it might work for me and not for someone else.
Received my Elite Suito about 2 months ago and overall I am really enjoying it. I had a question I was hoping the community could help me understand if I am experiencing a bug of some sort or if this is behavior when you use it this way.
I am using my trainer with Zwift connected via bluetooth and recording on my forerunner 945 via ant+ to ensure all the stats go to garmin correctly. Overall this has worked well the last 2 months but I started experimenting using ERG mode for my Zwift workouts which I really prefer but that seems to have brought a new issue.
When recording with ERG mode on, the speed reported back to my garmin via ant+ is way low. If I just turn it off for a couple seconds and turn it on, the speed then seems to start reporting correctly for that wattage. As soon as zwift changes the target wattage to something else, the speed is off again. The speed reporting to zwift via bluetooth seems to be fine throughout this but I’m wordering because it knows that ERG mode is on, while my garmin doesn’t since it doesn’t have control of the trainer?
I’d really like the distance / speed correct to garmin since that is where I’m monitoring my progress, especially for when I bike outdoors without zwift. Is this a bug or just a side-effect when using 2 computers to capture from my trainer.
I have been using the Elite Suito for the month of January with Zwift. I have a Trek Emonda with Dura Ace 11 speed Di2 drive train. I am using the included Shimano 105 11 speed cassette. Did not have to adjust any der trim. The Zwift trainer difficulty is set at 75%. The Suito trainer has performed well without issue (very quiet and smooth). Spin down calibration was done with Zwift. FWIW my power has been 0 – 1000 watts. I do like how compact this trainer is with the legs folded in.
Think the Suito would be a good match with an MTB 1x? Ordered a 148×13 adapter, not easy to find those. Ordered from an internet retailer in US for 619$, delaer said he just got a fresh batch of these, so fingers crossed it’s one of the newer ones.
Hi. I am in the market for an Elite Suito and live in the US as well. Of course I am trying to find the best deal online. Do you mind telling me where you purchased yours from.
Thanks
Scott
Hi, I am using this trainer for a while now. With ZWIFT everything is fine.
But I also want to record to my Polar watches (V800 oder Vantage V). Problem is: I cannot enter a wheel circumfence of 84, as the minimum value to enter is 1000. So I get horrible high speed values and I am messing up all my statistics. Same is with my WAHOO ELEMNT BOLT. I cannot enter values <1000.
Is there any solution to that? I do not know why ELITE is using such terrible small values.
I connect to my watches via BLE (Polar does not speak ANT+), but that should be irrelevant.
I bought a Suito a few days ago. Hardware revision 4.
There had been an obvious flywheel wobble. The vibrations came at approx 45 km/h. Higher and lower speeds are alright. Had to return it. Was not what i expected for 600€. Maybe I give another one a second try.
Hi. I just purchased one. I have a 10 speed and got a Shimano CS 5700. When I put one spacer on the cassette seems too lose like there’s play but when I put 2 spacers on the cassette seems to tight. My smaller gears were making noise. Any one else have this problem or know if it’s suppose to be one or two spacers
Thanks
Hi Scott, I had the same feeling. I hadn’t been sure where this rattling came from. With one ring it had been too loose. With two rings I had to readjust my gears. Strange.
Same issue here with hardware revision 4. Some wobbling in the flywheel but noise from small gears at high flywheel speed are det main problem. Boss and casette seems to wobble a bit to. I had to adjust gears as well. Fine in big gears 1-4 and small ring at front. Im considering sending it back to the shop.
Thanks Jan. I put the 2 spacers back on and yes it seem like I have to readjust my gears. I read somewhere with the Shimano 105 series you need 2 spacers
Yeah, different cassettes have slightly different spacing. And it’s not uncommon at all to find that ones bike will be indexed slightly differently than a trainer with a different or more heavily used cassette. Finally, it’d oddly also not unheard of to find bike shops that incorrectly put X number of spacers on a bike during initial build-up. You’d never know, because they indexed the gears ‘correctly’ for the incorrect spacers. It’s only when you put it on a correctly spacered trainer that it all falls apart. I’d say I see this 1-2 times a month in comments here.
Point being, sometimes it takes a bit of tweaking to get both sides of the equation happy – no matter the trainer brand.
that makes sense.
I´m still Looking for a solution concerning the “chain noise” at high Speeds. Shifting is fine now, but the noise makes me nervous.
My advice, return the Trainer if possible if you´re not feeling comfortable with it. Elite Needs to learn, not sending trainers with poor quality to their costumers. Each bike wheel got less wobble than that trainer. Except this wobble which I suppose everey suito got more or less, this Trainer would be perfect. So sad… :-(
Unfortunately there is no real alternative for me. So I kept my second. With some, somehow acceptable wobble. More or less…
I’ve just got a Suito and, whilst I think it’s great, I’ve noticed an issue with the Bluetooth and ANT+ signals. I’m finding a massive difference in the power reading between the two. Using Bluetooth it comes out at around 10W less than my Rotor Inpower cranks (as expected) but using ANT+ it’s 30-40W down and fluctuates wildly?
Any thoughts? Does the Suito need calibrating on each different transmition mode for example?
How can assess which hardware version do I have? Is there any label on the box / on the trainer? Can someone send me a photo of such information? Many thanks in advance.
Aga
I must be unlucky as my first unit was pretty bad, wobbly flywheel and vibrations at high speed, but the second was even worse – scratch marks on the unit straight out of the box, chalk marks on the flywheel (looks like they’ve tried to re-true it perhaps?) and a lot of noise and vibrations especially on the smaller end of the cassette. This is in Europe, so either it’s a new unit and they’ve not fixed the issues, or I suspect they’re maybe even sending out refurbished units to fulfill new orders. Sending back and won’t be trying a third.
Using this trainer with TrainerRoad. In ERG mode it is recommended to use the small ring up front if 2 rings and generally the middle cog in the rear to keep the chain straight. With ERG you aren’t supposed to change gears as the unit will increase or decrease resistance to maintain the target power. I find this set up doesn’t feel as good as using the big ring up front with the rear cog in the general area of the middle. The small ring up front set up almost seems to “loose” so to speak and makes it difficult to maintain proper cadence (at least 85 recommended) and have the target power. Why do they recommend the small ring up front and what do you experience related to this?
@ Jeff, in my understanding there is no absolute recommendation to use big vs small chainring (assuming obvious things being comparable, like proper chain alignment). The most accepted recommendation is to use a gearing that simulate the actual terrain you would like to train on, namely flat vs hill, as the flywheel momentum can differ considerably. In that sense a small chainring better simulate the road feel of a hill while the big chainring a flat course; which is probably also why it feels easier with big chainring, as the high momentum of the flywheel “helps” to stay on top of the target power once we reach it. Ultimately I think it’s better for me to mix chainring modes, unless I’m 100% sure that I won’t do any hilly races, in which case staying most of the time on big chainring would make sense. I’m only looking from a time trial perspective, i guess other races have inevitably much more elements that influence power. Finally, different trainers have different flywheels and i assume that those differences will be more evident on some machines.
Here is an interesting video where Shane Miller addresses similar topic, with the help of a Kickr Core (which has a heavier flywheel than Suito): link to youtu.be
Thanks Teo. Good link. I also found this one from the other link. link to youtube.com I seem to have found I actually can make the small ring up front work out well. It really just comes down to getting used to how ERG works and learning to let it do what it is supposed to do. So I can use either the small ring or large ring and make it work. The small amount of time I’ve ridden outdoors (new to my bike) I have been in the large ring unless climbing so I guess I need to decide if there is a down side to using the trainer with the small ring like they recommend while I am in the large ring more so with my terrain so far. I suppose a bigger body of outdoor work this upcoming season will help me figure that out.
Hi everyone, I am considering buying this trainer. Has anyone bought one this late in the year. Is anyone still experienced having to send them back because of the issues ?
Hi Rae and everyone else, If you have an issue with the Suito trainer, is there anybody you can contact in Australia? I’ve corresponded with Chainreactions and without much a-do, they say just send it back. I have a suspicion I’m doing something wrong and can fix it with somebody on the phone. Chainreactions don’t have anybody able to offer that service.
The issue is that my Suito measures me pedalling powers of 1700 Watt when I’m not doing anything at all. It sends the same power to my Garmin and the myE Training app. My iPhone doesn’t say it’s connected to the Suito anymore with bluetooth.
Should I try to contact a local agent who can help. Or just send back to UK?
Hi Michiel, best is to contact Elite support in Italy directly if they’re are still working these days. I received an answer after 3 days. They are willing to helpz
I have a question regarding my Suito but it might apply to all direct drive trainers.
The trainer works fine, but the spindown value seems to drift up gradually since I got it. I started at 10400 and I’m now at 11100.
I understand that this is an abstract value for the time it takes the trainer to spin down, so maybe it’s just bearings and the freewheel and the drivetrain in general settling in? I’m expecting that it will probably stabilize at some point, hopefully at least.
But did you see this with other trainers as well out of the box?
Typically speaking spindown/calibration values are a factor of many things, often including temperature, bearings, etc… Gaetano, one of the lead engineers at Elite, had commented back on the previous Suito hands-on post that unless it’s over 20,000, to not worry about it: link to dcrainmaker.com
In the UK, the Direto X and Suito are virtually the same price (if you ignore the price of a cassette). On paper it seems the former is the better trainer, but would you say the Suito is a better bet given it is a later model?
I purchased Suito just recently, in preparation of the ‘off season due to pandemy’ and it seems to be one of the newer batches (SUL serial number, 2,5 m cable, recent firmware right on the start and hardware revision 4 according to Upgrado app)
This is first time experience for me on a direct drive trainer (apart from some bike expos) and I’m not sure about noise level of my Suito.
When it is in spindown phase I hear, sometimes, a gentle knocking sound(?)/rubbing sound, especially in high cadences. Not sure if this is related to belt (so some lubing maybe).
Definitely nothing excessive like the youtube materials I saw on the subject of Suito knocking sound with first batches.
As I have no experience in DD trainer (or any other trainer at all) I’m not sure what can be treated as ‘within tolerances of manafacturing’ or what is definitely ‘return immediately’ type of thing, especially that with ongoing situation returning wouldn’t be as smooth as during ‘business as usual’.
There’s minor wheel wobble (but that is something I have expected, trainers are not build with aerospace industry tolerances).
I’m also facing issues with indexing of gears and drive train noise related to that (I’ve lubed my chain extra for the trainer), but that is still in tweaking process, hopefully I’ll sort it out
Can you share your experience on the above(noise level/some knocking sound?)
Apart from above doubts it works quite good and I don’t see issues within Zwift, power and reaction to ERG mode is okay for someone who experiences this for the first time.
Hi Convi
Thank you very much for the in-depth review. I’ve ordered & awaiting delivery (Last one in their stores). I’m hoping it’s the SUL series too. Hope the noise disappears with continued use.
Good Luck.
BW
Abi
Minor remark from my side, don’t use wheel block on a road bike*700c wheels, standard) because it screws up level of your bike (my butt learnt it the hard way, was wondering what was causing it), it seems Suito has same heigh of mounting points as a wheel, so no riser is needed
I have used it today for the very first time and it has taken me 10 seconds to realize tha something was weird with the block, I have removed it and go for a 2h30′ ride. I have later checked, and the height of the rear hub in the Suito is the same as the front one without any block. So strange that the wheel block is included unless you are going to ride a 26″ MTB…
Thanks for the thorough review. I’ve had my Suito for about eight weeks now and have been fairly happy with it. However, I have noticed considerable difference in power numbers between the Suito and my Quarq DZero. The Suito consistently reads 15% lower than the Quarq. Today while riding in Zwift/Watopia, the Suito fluctuated between 350W and 100W (without noticeable difference in effort), while the DZero remained at ~200W. I did a spindown with the my ETraining app (Zwift no longer has the littler wrench to allow calibration), which led to no improvement. The firmware is up to date. Has anyone else had these issues? Any suggestions?
I bought a Suito last week and everything seems to work well apart from my speed, I seem to be cycling always faster than 100 km/h(sometimes 300 km/h), power wattage and cadence seems to be normal.
I set up wheel circumference like in the manual(2090mm divided by 24,8= 84mm), so I typed in 84 in their ‘my E Training’ app for wheel circumference. Also on my Wahoo Bolt I get same numbers. In Zwift speed seems normal(because it takes speed from wattage & cadence I assume) but I sometimes can barely spin my pedals because there’s so much resistance.
Also did some calibrations but they fail most of the time(sometimes it gives me a spindown calibration of 10740(which seems normal).
You should put the actual circumference into the my E-training app. The 24.8 factor is for non-Elite apps, e.g. Garmin etc.
See link to elitesrl.zendesk.com
The problem is in Polar watches you cannot enter a circumference lower than 1000 … So you alway get way to high speed and distance values. Is there any reason for that crappy 84mm??
Ever since I purchased my Elite Suito in December 2019 it has a tendency to make an awful screeching sound every now and again. Similar to sound of metal on metal. It is a really alarming sound and must be bad for the trainer. Until this week it hadn’t happened that regularly but I started using Zwift this week and it has happened a lot more.
It normally happens when I try to start pedalling after I have previously stopped pedalling and whilst the resistance on the trainer is high. For instance, today on Zwift, the gradient increased to 15% and the resistance from the trainer became very high. I wasn’t on top of the gear so I stopped pedalling for a couple of seconds. When I tried to start pedalling again, the screeching noise started and the resistance was very, very high. Normally if I stop pedalling and wait for 10 seconds I can start pedalling again with no issue. However today, the noise came back every single time I started pedalling. I had to end my ride and reconnect the trainer.
I can’t seem to find anyone else who has had this problem before. Any ideas?
Other than this, the trainer has been working fine. I calibrate it regularly and the firmware is up to date. I use it, at least 5+ hours a week, on TrainerRoad in ERG mode with no problems.
I’ve contacted Elite Support so hoping they’ll be able to help but any help here would be appreciated.
Sadly I can’t comment as my purchase is yet to be delivered. As store can’t comment on time lines, I have gone for the Wahoo Kickr and received promptly.
Thank you to all who have commented. Good luck with the Elite Suito.
BW
I’m not entirely sure how trainers work but I think I have located the issue.
I unscrewed the small plastic cover on the rear left side (from looking behind the trainer towards your handlebars). It exposes part of a silver wheel (is this the flywheel, or is the flywheel the large black wheel?). If I turn the pedals, this silver wheel seems to have a flat spot. I think this might be the issue.
I opened Trainer Road, paired the trainer, and toggled the resistance in TR. I could then see what I assume is the brake mechanism moving towards the silver wheel to engage resistance. Whilst turning the pedals and increasing the resistance, the brake mechanism was touching the silver wheel, and the grinding / screeching noise started.
I assume the silver wheel is untrue and this is causing it to interact with the brake mechanism in a faulty manner at high resistances. I am guessing this is something I cannot fix myself and the wheel / trainer must be replaced. Still waiting to here back from Elite but not hopeful that I’ll be able to get a replacement trainer during the current Covid crisis.
I had one of the very first units. Last days of August. Now it is reporting 20-30% lower power or not engaging the correct resistance AND it started screeching. Especially when I ramp up to 100rpm ish.
I contacted the online store I bought it from. I wish you all guys luck. It’s so annoying. I don’t want to put more pressure on the Italian support and the system, but at the same time, I also don’t want to ride outside and be a potential safety issue here. Really not a great time for it to be breaking.
Hi there. How quiet is the Elite range in comparison to the others? I see the KICKR is much quieter now than it used to be. Also, the weight of the KICKR flywheel has some merit. Do you consider it a factor? Thanks. Jimmy.
With the front wheel set on the wheel block the bike tilts up with the height of the block (aprox 1 – 1.5 cm). Did you notice this? I noticed it with the saddle and when holding the hands on handlebar.It is not the same as if i would have the bike on the wheels, i mean not straight. What can be done?…i mean i dont want to raise the back and put things under my mat:).
Have a nice day
I simply don’t use the block, because it changes geometry to ‘constant climbing’ and had butt aches due to that. Without the block my saddle is perfectly level, as on my bike, and therefore it is much comfier.
Is there a way to get a solid axle, closed with regular nuts on the Elite Suito? I have this trainer and a fixed gear bike, and the QR that comes in the set doesn’t hold the bike strong enough. Is there a way to fix this?
Hey guys – i’ve recently bought a Suito from one of the cycle shops here in Denmark. I’ve noticed a slight knocking sound, especially when in spin down.
I checked my serial number and it starts SUB. Is this one of the really early releases? It has the larger cable however.
Thanks
I also had this. Some knocking at first, then i could also see that the flywheel and cassette were slightly wiggly while pedaling. Now i think the big nut on the left side of the trainer is slightly loose and I should probably tighten it.
Does anyone know what size the nut is? I need to buy a wrench for this
Would that happen to be from Boerkop Cykler?
I recently bought a Suito from them and got a S/N starting with SUB which judging by this comment thread might be causing all my problems.
Hi Jesper.
I actually bought the trainer from Cykelexperten. I’m wondering if Denmark got a batch of the early versions of the trainer, although i’m not sure what the SUB serial number refers to. Are you having similar problems?
I’ve got a Suito that I bought in October 2019. It’s had a slight knocking sound from the beginning but I wasn’t too bothered by out. Now it seems to be getting worse though – to a degree where it’s probably freaking out the neighbors…
I also checked the power against my 4iiii PM (after calibrating both) and the Suito reads noticeably lower (see image). I think I’ll have to get in touch with Elite and make a warranty claim, after this whole confinement thing is over of course, otherwise I have no means of training at all….:/
For everyone who has knocking sounds, or flywheel wiggle / movement.
I had the same, and it was getting worse and worse. The issue in my case was that the nut holding the whole flywheel on the trainer and the cassette and axle was getting loose. This happens, for instance, if you (like me) store your bike vertically on the trainer after workouts so it takes less space. Whenever you do that, actually, whenever you lower your bike back, you apply a force on this nut that untightens it bit by bit, and the knocking / wiggle intensifies.
The size of the nut is 30mm and you can tighten it with a spanner or an adjustable wrench. For me it fixed the issue, and the trainer rides like it is brand new. I got it on late Sept / early Oct 2019, model with longer cable (but supposedly, the model without the fixed bearing installation procedure – which was mid Oct as far as I read).
Hope this will be useful for someone. Ride on!
For everyone who has knocking sounds, or flywheel wiggle / movement.
I had the same, and it was getting worse and worse. The issue in my case was that the nut holding the whole flywheel on the trainer and the cassette and axle was getting loose. This happens, for instance, if you (like me) store your bike vertically on the trainer after workouts so it takes less space. Whenever you do that, actually, whenever you lower your bike back, you apply a force on this nut that untightens it bit by bit, and the knocking / wiggle intensifies.
The size of the nut is 30mm and you can tighten it with a spanner or an adjustable wrench. For me it fixed the issue, and the trainer rides like it is brand new. I got it on late Sept / early Oct 2019, model with longer cable (but supposedly, the model without the fixed bearing installation procedure – which was mid Oct as far as I read).
I have also had weird power readings (lower generally) and a power curve that didn’t resemble the one in my 4iiii PM. After i upgraded the FW on the Suito to the latest one using the Upgrado app, it was fixed.
Hope this will be useful for someone. Ride on!
For everyone who has knocking sounds, or flywheel wiggle / movement.
I had the same, and it was getting worse and worse. The issue in my case was that the nut holding the whole flywheel on the trainer and the cassette and axle was getting loose. This happens, for instance, if you (like me) store your bike vertically on the trainer after workouts so it takes less space. Whenever you do that, actually, whenever you lower your bike back, you apply a force on this nut that untightens it bit by bit, and the knocking / wiggle intensifies.
The size of the nut is 30mm and you can tighten it with a spanner or an adjustable wrench. For me it fixed the issue, and the trainer rides like it is brand new. I got it on late Sept / early Oct 2019, model with longer cable (but supposedly, the model without the fixed bearing installation procedure – which was mid Oct as far as I read).
I have also had weird power readings (lower generally) and a power curve that didn’t resemble the one in my 4iiii PM. After i upgraded the FW on the Suito to the latest one using the Upgrado app, it was fixed.
Hope this will be useful for someone. Ride on!
For everyone who has knocking sounds, or flywheel wiggle / movement.
I had the same, and it was getting worse and worse. The issue in my case was that the nut holding the whole flywheel on the trainer and the cassette and axle was getting loose. This happens, for instance, if you (like me) store your bike vertically on the trainer after workouts so it takes less space. Whenever you do that, actually, whenever you lower your bike back, you apply a force on this nut that untightens it bit by bit, and the knocking / wiggle intensifies.
The size of the nut is 30mm and you can tighten it with a spanner or an adjustable wrench. For me it fixed the issue, and the trainer rides like it is brand new. I got it on late Sept / early Oct 2019, model with longer cable (but supposedly, the model without the fixed bearing installation procedure – which was mid Oct as far as I read).
I have also had weird power readings (lower generally) and a power curve that didn’t resemble the one in my 4iiii PM. After i upgraded the FW on the Suito to the latest one using the Upgrado app, it was fixed.
Hope this will be useful for someone. Ride on!
I have the knocking sound and it seems to get worse unfortunately…the nut on the trainer looks and feels rock-solid, though. How loose was it on yours? Could you turn it by hand?
If with the bike on the trainer, you can move the flywheel using just some small force at the saddle, then it is a loosen nut.
I think the nut has some locking paste (at least it felt like it). So it didn’t seem loose when I tried to tighten it by hand, but when I used a spanner it would obviously feel it was. It tightens clockwise, and you will feel when it’s tightened again, if that’s the issue. You don’t need much force on the spanner, I would assume the torque you need is around 15-20 Nm.
My advice is to tighten it with the bike off the trainer.
thanks for your reply. No, the flywheel does not move on mine…so the sound must be caused by something else….I’ll have to see what Elite support is saying it seems :/
How much flex is everyone seeing in their Suito units?
I’ve come from a tacx flux which is like a brick. The suito feels solid as a unit on its own – as soon as a bike is added the unit has a crazy amount of flex (however the legs are staying still). When riding the flex of the unit almost goes against the flex/movement of the bike and it feels horrible!
The bike is attached firmly, the unit is flat and stable on the ground – but the turbo itself almost feels like 2 separate entities allowing this flex to occur.
If the flex includes the flywheel moving side to side (which I suppose it does from your description, because I could also feel mine wiggling in the opposite direction of my pedaling – very annoying), then I would first check if the 30mm but on the opposite side of the cassette is still tight. Like I said earlier, this thing gets untightened.
Let me know what you find after having a look at it, and I hope it’s that, since it’s a super easy fix.
Here it is. Note that it is better in my opinion to tighten it with the bike taken off the trainer. (In my pic the bike is still there stored vertically)
Sabin alex – thanks for the info.
That 30mm nut is tight (by hand) – don’t actually have a wrench big enough to check further. I feel like when mine flexes its the whole unit (top half) flexing against the legs. Just tried to check adjustments underneath and it seems to have 7mm allen keys!!! I have hundreds of allen keys, none that are 7mm – argh.
Mine is definitely more than just the flywheel moving.
Be interested to see how everyone else gets on.
I have been reading all the thread and have a question for you. Is one of you experiencing power dropouts using the Suito ?
First thought was connectivity but after tweaking the WIFIsetting to avoid interference, I still see those dropouts.
The odd thing is that it only occurs for power data. HR or cadence are fine with no dropouts. Yet, power reading seems fairly accurate.
But it affects my training sessions cause the dropouts affect the power average and my training app consider that I am training lower then expected especially while using ERG mode.
My Suito is with serial SUK and hw4. thanks for your feedbacks.
Regards, Jerome
I have bought a Suito. Also because it had a good review here. The machine is good unless you want to race on Swift. I get too low power output all the time. Racing on Swift is thus no fun. I read on other forums that this is a common problem for the Suito. Apparently one of the few that works correctly was reviewed here.
The only solution is to use your own power meter.
Have you updated the firmware to the latest one? I also had this issue and it was fixed by the latest firmware. Get the Upgrado app and let me know if that solves it. Also, use the myElite app to perform a spindown calibration afterwards (make sure you use the trainer for 10 mins before calibration).
PS: make sure your phone screen won’t turn off during the firmware upgrade. It took 5-10 minutes for me.
I bought this trainer based on a couple of reviews, assuming the hardware and software issues were solved by now. I’m on hardware revision 004 and latest firmware (5.20). The trainer is a mess unfortunately….
As you can read here, a lot of users on zwift have the same problem: low power readings at higher power output. link to forums.zwift.com
I’ve used the DC rainmaker app to compare reading from my new FSA powerbox to the one month old trainer. Did a calibration before the test. Used Jon’s mix on zwift to compare both..
All is fine below 200-250W.
@450W, it reads 10% lower than my FSA powerbox (power2max, supposed to be very accurate)
@750W, it reads 20-26% lower….
Problem has apparently been reported to Elite, they should be working on it, but there is no timeline. Who knows if they’ll be able to solve it, maybe the hardware is flawed.
I am getting exactly the same results as Patrick, with calibration after warm-up. My unit is from last October, though. Its knocking sound is also getting worse, so I’ll probably have to contact Elite support once this whole confinement thing is over…
After warming up for 12min at a decent intensity (>200W).
If you read the comments on the Zwift, you’ll notice that a lot of people have exactly the same issue. One guy reports that he gets decent values after 60min of riding. But high wattages are still a bit low.
I’ve got your app for 24 hours, so I’ll try to do another test tonight. But even if it’s a bit better, it’s still way off and completely unacceptable…
Lars, are you following the zwift forum thread as well? Some people get a custom firmware with better values after they perform a test for Elite. Another guy is working on a JSON file himself, he might be able to help people out.
Someone tested the powerlink, but that seems to have issues as well. The manual is also not very clear on powerlink and how it works. I might give that a try.
Hi there, no, not following the Zwift forum thread…but I’ll see if I can find it. I have a 4iiii PM on my Trainer-bike, so I am just connecting that to Zwift instead of the Trainer which solves the issue. Unless I totally misunderstand things, that kind of makes Powerlink redundant, right?
Still, my original plan was to put that PM onto another bike and just rely on the trainer power data…that won’t work though with the Suito underreading…
Linking my PM to zwift is an option. But that only works in level mode, not in ERG mode I suppose?
I was planning to put my alu gravel on the trainer and use the carbon race bike with PM for outdoor training. The alu bike has shorter cranks that put less stress on my knees, so I prefer to do HIIT with that bike. But if the values are too far off, I’ll have to use the same bike for training inside and outside.
That will at least get me very coherent data! Or I can get another trainer if I can still return it….
ah, sorry, had overlooked that link…to be honest, in my experience if you want consistent data the only reliable way is to use the same bike (or PM) for everything unfortunately.
The Suito is my second smart trainer and it behaves just the way yours does when compared to my 4iiii PM. I had an Elite Rampa before and that was measuring way too high.
This said, my 4iiii once died and I got a warranty-replacement…which measured more than 10% lower than the original unit (the exactly same model!) I just got a Stages unit (on sale) for my other road bike and have not had a chance to check it yet against the 4iiii as I am living in Spain and not allowed to ride at the moment…but I strongly suspect there will be some variance as well….I like tracking my progress using power data but I am not taking things too seriously….if I were I would probably use PM pedals and swap them between bikes or something along those lines….
I ride gravel & road with both bikes, so pedal pm is not an option. I bought the FSA powerbox with a power2max crank meter, it’s supposed to be quite accurate.
But using the same bike might be the best bet. I’m planning to use Xert for training indoors and outdoors. It calculates your form based on your power data. So having consistent data is quite important, or it’s pointless to train with Xert I guess…
I’ll stick to the powerbox for everything for now!
is it possible for you to help to bring clarification? Maybe some short E-Mail to Elite from your side helps. Maybe they are already working on an update.
Keep up that good work. you´re my first and last reference before buying new electronic bike stuff.
Ray, sorry, I may have missed something above but are you saying it’s better to do the spin down before any pedalling or after warming the trainer up by pedalling for 15” or so?
I am on my 3rd Suito. The knocking isn’t present finally. I have tried updating the firmware on the app for a while now and it always says there is no new update. When I ride with TrainerRoad I am having this particular issue. As long as I am putting force into the pedals the cadence is fine. The moment I start to spin differently, such as pulling with my calf and hamstrings or spinning light and quick the cadence number drops considerably. My cadence is actually faster and my power numbers are fine but the cadence output number drops like a brick. When I then go back to putting force in the pedals it works its way back up. At the end of a portion during training and it gives you your data I shake my head because it is lower than I know it should be. Any thoughts?
I just realized my knocking sound goes away or at least is reduced if I move my weight a little to the left or right. Obviously that’s not really a sustainable riding position but seems to indicate that the sound has something to do with the distribution of weight on the axle…has anybody notices the same effect?
Hi Lars,
I have noticed the same when the nut holding the flywheel was loose. (See one of my previous comments.)
Make sure that 30mm nut is tightened before going for warranty.
ok, thanks, the nut feels rock-solid when I try to move it by hand…but I will have another look and see if I can find a spanner that size…power readings are still off, though…
On my second suito after the first one stopped working, but power output has been a nightmare. My weekly 4 x 8 intervals are sometimes waaaay to hard (I stop at around 2 minuten), other days it is easy doable.
My 4iiii PM comparison on the DC analyzer shows that above 300W the suito is measuring more than 10% too low. But not always,…it is 50/50 with this device.
I purely use it for training but even that isn’t possible with the inconsistency. Bought this device because of the good review here and other places, bit is has been disappointing. Everything is calibrated and updated, doesn’t help a thing. I showed Elite all my measurements, but I only get a standard reply back that is behavior is normal (having a standard reply on an issue like this isn’t good news). The Zwift forum is full of similar complaint, no solution in sight. Guess I’m out 600 bucks.
Regarding power inconsistency: you can enable Power Meter Link in the Elite software. The Suito will then use your 4iiii PM as power measurement source (and thus will ignore the internal power estimation). That’s what I do with my Stages PM, always consistent training!
@Koen Can you help me? When Powermeter Link is established, is the external power meter also used for ERG-Mode? That would be nice to know, because I find the internal power estimation quite slow when it comes to sprint sections.
I am thinking to buy some SRM x Pedals but this would only be useful when they are used by the SUITO in ERG Mode.
@Dirk: Yes the measurement of the external power meter is also used in ERG mode. However, the ERG response (how fast you are locked onto the new power target) will likely be SLOWER when using PML than when using the Suito internal power meter, as there is an extra feedback loop to match the power levels.
I agree that the Suito is not very fast in adjusting to power targets in ERG, but it is no issue for me for intervals longer than 30s. So sprinting may still be an issue for you
Powerlink is not a option for me, as I use an old bike on the trainer and I dont want to swap cranks everytime. But I have to take back my earlier statement on the device. While Elite was first reluctant to help me out with the inconsistent numbers. But after sharing some more measurements with them that showed the inconsistencies I got a manual (and individual) update.
After this update I calibrated, followed the steps from Ray’s “Troubleshooting Power Meter and Trainer Accuracy Issues” and it was smooth sailing. I did multiple rides and it was spot on with my 4iiii power. It also has a far more natural feel. Spinning around 190 watts (zone 2 for me) felt sluggish at first, now it feels like the easy spin it actually is. VO2 MAX intervals were impossible at first, now they just hurt as they should.
Hi DC and guys,
So my view on the elite suito. Good product….unless you are a sprinter…and apparently I was! My oldest son decided to join me cycling indoor which is great, which gave me an excuse to shop for my first direct drive. I had been on a wahoo kikr snap for 8 months. Heavy middle of the pack rider in B on zwift, but peaking at 1400 watts in sprints with an average of 1100 watts over 15s. There are reviews about the kikr snap being sometimes inaccurate as a wheels on…and I got this one replaced after a few months for this exact problem, another story. I was calibrating my kikr snap for every race. Now with the elite suito…I peak at 1000Watts if I am very lucky…and REALLY struggle to maintain anything above 700 watts in sprints…which has forced me to change my tactics and start a sprint on the 500m for every race to keep a 700 watts average. Upgrado is telling me I have the latest firmware…I have tried calibrating via etraining and zwift. I am convinced something is not right at all. I will log a ticket with Elite…not the end of the world I do not plan to send it back, I am not a professional racer and this is a middle of the range product…but a bit annoying! I have no powermeter so I imagine this is going to be a hassle to prove anything. I can not believe I have lost 400W of power in sprints…when all the other power data in race are quite similar to the kikr snap measurements-thank you!
I was wondering if anyone with experience of the Kickr Core and the Suito might be able to give me some advice regarding sound levels when the trainers are in use.
I know that the Core is quieter but, Is there an appreciable difference between them?
I live in an appartment and have a soon to be one year old child, so for me sound levels are pretty important.
There is a difference, though I think it’s unlikely to make a meaningful difference once you have a fan unless you’re in the same room as the child, or, on older wooden floors in an apartment that might be more prone to having vibrations resonate.
The main difference is honestly more around the power and road feel, which is better on the CORE.
Hi! Very interested… just one quick question: how can the cassette in the trainer be a simple plug-in for any bike? No rear shifter adjustment required? Looks like a dream…
As long as you’ve got an 11-speed cassette on there (SRAM/Shimano), it’ll align perfectly (also, as long as your bike mechanic that built said bike put the spacer in the right spot).
If you’ve got another speed (e.g. 9/10/etc..), then you’ll need to swap the cassette out.
Hi Ray, what specific spacer are you referring to? I am always have adjust the derailleur when moving the bike between Suito and road…now I wonder if that’s spacer-related but there aren’t really any spacers around the cassette that I can think of….
Actually to clarify, on an 11-speed bike, there would be no spacer. The spacer should be there for other speeds. It’s in the box for cassettes, and sometimes people/mechanics will assume it needs to go on the cassette. There’s enough space to make it work physically, and thus people install it – do all the normal gear alignment stuff, but if you swap to a different wheel or trainer, then it goes askew.
It’d be virtually impossible to see unless you took off the full cassette on your regular wheel.
I really wanted to like this trainer, I thought plenty of time had passed to get everything sorted out. I bought one of these Suito’s in NZ in July 2020. 2.5m electric cable. SUEXXX model number. Hardware level 4.
BUT, it has the wobbly flywheel. So much so that my bike wobbles when the trainer is spinning down after I stopped pedalling.
I’m sending it back. Unfortunate.
I also found the cadence particularly inaccurate, fluctuating up and down by 10rpms or so when pedaling constantly, also registering as still pedaling constantly for several seconds after have entirely stopped actually pedalling. Jumps to 40rpm when you just do the first pedals at less than 10.
Sincere, severe, disappointment, I wanted it to work.
Hi,
First and foremost, thanks for a great site and useful reviews.
Would you say it’s worth to upgrade from a fluid wheel-on trainer to the Suito?
In my case, the Elite Qubo Fluid.
What’s the benefits with upgrading to a Direct Drive?
I have a Ultegra 11sp 11-28, I know I am ok there with casette set from the Elite.
I have a Di2 shifter, is that compatible with the Elite Suito using with Zwift?
Multiple users of the Suito still report issues regarding ERG mode. I received my Suito last week and ran through all of the settings and configurations mentioned in this and several other internet forums. After multiple frustrating attempts, I reached out to Elite and below is their response.
“About power fluctuations:
Please take note that Suito has an high precision power calculation that consider the inertia of the flywheel and also the way and how smooth you pedaling is, a fluctuation on the power is so completely normal, and it does not indicate a trainer issue but it is the consequence of its high precision
A fluctuation on the power (sometimes it could be up to 20-25W) is completely normal and caused by the above consideration”
They sent a link to their white paper on the issue which I have included in the comment form.
Being a user of the wheel-on Cycleops PowerSync Pro the past 3 years, I just don’t understand this response. Shouldn’t their ERG algorithms smooth this out? ERG mode with the Suito simply is unusable in it’s current state, which is a bummer because I perform over 80% of my indoor training in this mode. If I would’ve known about this before purchasing, I definitely would’ve steered clear of this trainer. Thanks for your time. I appreciate any response you could provide.
Update: After further back-and-forth with Elite, I believe the issue comes down to Power Smoothing. Despite having Zwift set to 3s Avg for Power Display, the Suito has a separate configuration for Power Smoothing. However, Elite says that this can only be set(through their app) if I already have an integrated power meter on by bike(which I don’t).
Do you know of any other ways to smooth the power from the Suito?
I had the same doubts you have. Especially when I saw the flat powerline of friends using a wahoo trainer. This is also not possible as there have be fluctuations. Still I’m confused as they should be as high as you mentioned.
Can you only see these fluctuations or can you also feel them?
Jan,
In my experience, I can only see the fluctuations and not feel them. Below is a link to a good YouTube video on how power smoothing should work. With Wahoo trainers it’s as simple as an option within their app. So far. Elite has been unable to instruct me how to do this on the Suito trainer. I still have an open ticket and hoping to get this resolved soon.
If anyone else knows how to do this, please let us know. I could be missing something, but I’ve read a lot message boards without getting the final solution.
I don´t think that there is such a function. But your video link calms me down. Before that I thought Wahoo is somehow able to regulate power more precisly than Elite. Doesn´t seem like this. It´s just a matter of presentation of data. The not smoothed power is closer to the truth. So I wouldn´t bother too much.If you cannot return, try to forget about it and enjoy. By the way wahoo got a 0% installment payment right now.
I´m more concerned about the power delta for higher wattages with Suito.
Hi,
I want to buy Suito mainly for a reason, I need to replicate my outdoor training, so controlling the suito from my computer garmin edge 530, mainly loading a a training.
Is that possible ? Can I use at the same time my power meter on the bike as the source power ? What the suito will replicate, the slope or the power ?
Ahh, good catch. Didn’t fully remove that yet. But, you save 10% with Clever Training still for a little bit longer here with coupon code DCR10BTF, but unfortunately it’s out of stock. :-/
I am having multiple Suito issues, the main one being that the Suito likes to say I am doing between 10-20 watts more than what both my V3 and 4iiii power meters read (both of which read the same watts).
Suito is telling me that it is because of where the watts are being recorded and offered this solution: “A difference of around 15W may be due to where the power is measured (the power sensor measures it on the crank while we measure it on the hub)”.
That seems like a bit of a tall tale given the tests run on the review don’t show this.
They have offered to change the “map” to account for this wattage difference – can anyone explain this and whether I should do this or push the issue further with them given there doesn’t seem to be any evidence to support wattage differences depending on where the power meter is?
thats just the other way round most other Suito users are experiencing. I Think normally the Suito shows too less wattage.
I was looking for information about drivetrain loss in a bicycle and found this one: link to rohloff.de
Unfortunately it´s in German. I´m trying to explain.
The difference between the wattage measured on the crank and the trainer is mainly the drivetrain loss. As all the moveable bearings and seals generate losses. The mentioned publication states that the drivetrain efficiency is normally between 96 and 98 % (Bild 3). Let´s assume you measure 200 Watts on the crank, then the measured wattage of the trainer should be between 4 and 8 Watts less. 192-196 Watts. I think the stated 15 Watts from Elite is way too much.
What about calibration. Did you try to calibrate. If it makes no difference I would ask for this mapping. The should decrease the power of the suito by 10 Watts.
Your opinion Ray?
Hi there! This may be a really silly question but would you recommend getting this trainer if you have an 8 speed bike? I know it has an 11 speed cassette. Would it work if I bought a new 8 speed cassette or just used spacers ?
Thanks for your help!
Emma, never a silly question, i read from the beginning and DC recommends that you change it for a cog which is fitted on yours. So no it wont work with spacers.
Vincenzo/Emma, I have the same question as Emma, I have also an (old) bike with an 8-speed cassette. I’ve asked Elite about it and the answer was: “Some of our customers already tried to set that cassette on the freehub, but it might not work fine.”. So, I’m afraid it’s not gone work. with the Suito and buying a new bike is not an option at the moment. And I can’t find the recommendation of DC to change the 11-speed for an 8-speed.
Just bought one, but the free Zwift trial doesn’t seem to be working… I tried to register my serial number on the link provided in the box by Elite, but it doesn’t like my number. Has anyone else had a similar issue (I’m in the UK).
I’ve raised a ticket with Elite, so hopefully I get a response soon!
Thanks, but I don’t actually have the code. The only thing that came in the box was a link to the elite website, which then presumably generates the code for use in Zwift.
Hello, so I decided to share my experience with Suito as well, mostly for reference purposes.
TL;DR: Having issues with knocking sounds on a 2020 unit (hw revision 006). No significant flywheel wobble. Readings kinda all over the place, probably a feature, not a bug though.
I purchased my unit from a large online retailer here in Czech Republic, approximately two weeks ago (Oct 2020). According to Upgrado app, my unit is a 006 hardware revision, firmware version 191, serial no. beginninng with SUI. So this should be one of the newest iterations (even the name of the product in the eshop was “Elite Suito 2021”).
Initial setup was ok-ish, had to swap cassette for 10s (team Tiagra here), had to calibrate the trainer in Elite app as calibration in Zwift always fails. In general, Elite apps and the rest of UX don’t feel very polished – Elite, please fire the person who translated the user manual to Czech, it is embarrasing.
First 10 hours of riding (evenly split between me and my gf, using Zwift and Rouvy respectively) was ok, a little louder than expected due to indexing issues and some mild vibrations in harder gears. No significant flywheel wobble. Power and cadence readings in Zwift are quite volatile, in line with Elite`s statement someone posted above – there is not a lot of smoothing going on, the trainer kinda overreacts to every imperfection in my pedalling technique (Zwift regularly shows jumps in RPM from 50 to 90 and back all in one second, in ERG mode, when I am pedalling “smoothly”). But hey, it more or less works and virtual trainings are fun, right?
However, after 10 hours of riding, the trainer started to exhibit those dreaded knocking sounds. There is no specific pattern (yet) and the knocks are not very frequent, but i am getting worried. Does anybody else experience this with a newer unit like mine?
To sum my rant up – not very happy with Suito so far, knocking sounds are apparently still a thing, even on the newest units. Should have probably bought Kickr Core when they were still in stock.
Hello Martin,
Also a SUI-Version here.
I got rid of the knocking sound (and a loose axle) by thightening the big nut located in the left side with a 30mm spanner.
Unfortunately my unit produces vibrations which can be noticed in the whole apartment (and probably also the neighbors) at certain speeds.
Elite says ‚they cannot hear an unnormal sound in the video I sent‘. Yeah, because vibrations are pretty hard to record…
Anybody has a solution for vibrations?
Hello Tobias, thanks for the tip. By “the left side”, you mean left when viewed from the back side of the trainer, right? As for the vibrations, my unit vibrates as well, finetuning indexing helped a bit, I think…
Update to the knocking sounds issue mentioned in my original post above:
I got in touch with Elite support team. At first, they denied hearing anything unusual in the videos I sent them. I insisted that there is something wrong with my trainer and after that, they sent me a fix I was supposed to try (see attached screenshot, basically just tightening both sides of wheel axis, similar to fix Tobias posted above).
Unfortunately, I only have tools to tighten the left side of the trainer – the right side requires larger spanner which I don’t have atm and also removing the freehub which I am kinda afraid to do because of voiding the warranty. Anyhow, tightening the left nut did not work for me and the knocking sounds are still present :(
Is this unit compatible with a 12 speed cassette (SRAM Force 10-28T)?
My old bike is 10spd, and would probably live on the trainer most of the time.
Occasionally (e.g. online competitions) I may wish to use my new bike, which is SRAM Force 12-Speed. I’m aware I’d have to get out the spanners, to at least change the cassette, maybe the freehub body? What would be required to change over?
I have “stupid” question. I use Elite Qubo Fluid, i dont use Zwift or another program, simply – pedals with powermeter, fil/music – go. To use Elite Suito do i have to use programs like zwift ??
did you pair the Suito as a “power source”?
Little spanner is on the “pairing page” where you connect to smart trainer, HR monitor, power & cadence meter, in about 10 o’clock pos
Would this be a good trainer for a lighter (124 lb/56 kg) rider who doesn’t put out a lot of power, eg 3.2 watts/kg? In reading your reviews and GP Lama I wonder if you guys are at all unconsciously biased towards bigger/more powerful riders when you talk about road feel, sprinting, erg mode etc. I could be totally wrong because I have never ridden a smart trainer but it crosses my mind if smaller/less powerful riders might have different preferences.
With much luck, I managed to get my hands on a Suito trainer. Availability is a nightmare right now.
Rather unbelievably, the trainer came with a CS-R9000 Dura-Ace cassette factory-installed. Fancy that!
I think it”s a wonderfull machine .
But I love to bike the Tacx trainer routes.
Do you know how to put the difficulty level in this app.
I really got know idea how to put it to get as realistic as possible..
It is put on 37 % but I never have biked in the mountains ( Holland has no real mountains)
Friendly regards Theo
Heeft er iemand ervaring met het fietsen van de Tacx routes op een Elite Suito?
Hoe moet ik mijn difficulty instelling zetten bij instellingen (trainer) ?
Als ik hem op 100% zet krijg ik mijn pedalen niet rond. Op 50% is het voor mijn gevoel ook nog te zwaar.
Nou fiets ik buiten altijd vlak omdat er geen heuvels in leefomgeving zijn dus kan ik het ook niet goed inschatten.
Hij staat nu op 37% maar is dat een beetje realistisch.
Bij Futurumshop konden ze het me ook niet vertellen.
Daar zeiden ze dat het per persoon verschilt maar dat is onzin natuurlijk. Weerstand berg op is voor iedereen
hetzelfde toch ?
Definitely would not recommend it. It’s nice when it works but in my experience most of the time it doesn’t. My first unit (bought in October 2019) had the well-documented knocking sound. Elite told me to exchange it on warranty through my retailer…took many months, blood, sweat and tears t finally get a new one.
The new unit is supposedly the latest hardware version which supposedly should not have any problems but has a very similar knocking sound, just worse. This time it is accompanied by a very strong vibration through the drive train. I am really dreading going through the whole warranty process again but will have to do it at some point. I’ll probably wait until it’s warm enough to ride outside again and until then just make do with the faulty unit….
The problem is: on the web you’ll likely get feedback from people with bad experiences. My Suito works fine … except power reading, which are a bit to low (not relevant for me since I have a powermeter on my bike). A friend of mine has one, which is also fine (but he’s not so keen on exact power values).
So, it depends on your expectations and of course on the money you want to spend. In my opinion, the Suito is a very good trainer for the money. I’ve a lot of fun with it on Zwift. I’ve no hardware issues. The screw of the freewheel hub was a bit loose, thats all. If you get one, check that all screws an the cassette are tight.
Yes I agree, more likely to hear from issues rather than praise. I’ve been a power meter user for 7 years so for me it is important that accuracy is at least reliable. I also need the unit to be reliable.
What I’m reading is older units could have issues but I was hoping for some positive feedback from owners of newer units.
If power is important to you, you‘d better buy a trainer with a built in powermeter (unless you’ve got one one the bike). The Suito has not. But you will have to spend more money.
I’ve had my Suito for 4 months now, zwifting every day with no problem. As for the power, checking it against my Assioma pedals I can say it’s more or less correct (but a bit lagging) but if you want real precision you might want to look elsewhere.
It‘s about 10-15% too low. On my bike I have a left only 4iiii pm. I connect via ANT+ dongle to my iMac. The power readings fit very well to my experience compared to my MTB with a Quarq crank.
It’s true that people are more likely to post if there is an issue…but after my own problems I have obviously done a lot of research to figure out how to fix them and I think there are significantly more Suito users with problems than users of other trainers. If you buy one of course there is a very high chance it will be fine…but I think the risk of getting a faulty unit is higher than for other brands or even other Elite models.
My replacement unit is hardware version 4 according to the app which should be fine but shows worse problems than the first one I had (which was a fairly early production model), and there are many others who had issues with replacement units as well, so to me it seems the issues have not been entirely resolved.
Same here Brought mine in Nov ’20
I see power differences of 10-15% as well compared to my Assioma DUO’s
…again I am pairing up the pedals to the Suito so not a big issue (other than knowing) – and I then have consistency to my power reading on the road.
However even paired up I see issues with latency in the power reading primarily on sprints and up to 5min efforts…so here the fix is to pair the pedals directly to Zwift…
For me to many workarounds for something the competitors can make work—so go with something else … although seems to be sellers market these days !
I decided to go with the Kickr Core. It’s already making a noise like someone is tapping it with a hammer on each pedal stroke! (Not the bike, I tried different bikes). Disappointing but seems to be working ok. Why can’t people just make things that work.
Stay way from the Elite Studio unit. Pay the extra money and get something that works.
I been fighting trying to get my unit working correctly and Elite support wants me to replace it. The problem with the replacement it is at my cost for shipping and they currently have none in stock. Elite support it not being helpful past the point to just state to replace it and contact where I got it from.
Problems encountering:
Major issues where Power meter and resistances fails. Few note issues in the past 3 weeks.
I’m also having approximately 10% lower power readings comparing my 4iiii PM to Suito. Trainer is calibrated as instructed. I have searched for help from Elite support but they say it is as it is :(
Yesterday while chating with my neighbor about the issue he offered me to try his trainer (Tacx Neo) with my bike in order the compare my PM to Tacx. (His dual Stages PM matches hisTacx perfectly) My readings on Tacx were also nearly spot on with my PM. I did a 35 min. workout where avg. power data of my PM-Garmin duo also matched Zwift avarege of Tacx (only 1 watt difference)
I did the same Zwift workout at home with my Suito and the deviance at avarege power data wash 18 watts. I’ve already spotted (and felt due to ERG mode) aprox. 20 watts of difference during the work out anyway.
This morning, in some point of my training plan I was supposed to do 280 watts at 70 rpm. My PM- Garmin duo was reading 350 watts/70rpm while Suito insisted it was only 280 watts. Eventually my legs got toasted (ERG mode was on) and I stopped pedaling.
So I checked the internet and found out that I’m not alone in this. There’re more than 200 messages about the subject in Zwift forums.
Unfortunately I strongly NOT recommend this “trainer” for training purposes :(
My Suito I received 4 weeks ago is 5-20% below my Assioma powermeter redings. In my case it correlates with the speed of the flywheel, getting better with faster flywheel speed (downhill simulation).
If you want to race on Zwift or other platforms you better by another model. To find out you better not rely only on tests by influencers, who get hand selected or massaged equipment send over by the manufacturer.
I had to learn my lesson here. Boards like in Zwift are probably a good source for finding out about power accuracy.
“To find out you better not rely only on tests by influencers, who get hand selected or massaged equipment send over by the manufacturer.”
I always laugh when I see this sorta line. Seriously folks, if you’ve read any reviews here you’d know quite well that universally the early units I get are virtually always worse than what everyone else gets. Mainly, cause the bugs I find eventually get fixed. Atop that, if there’s anything I’ve seen – it’s that none of the trainer companies bother to try and send us ‘massaged’ units. For two reasons:
A) If they did, then frankly, they suck at it. Since the vast majority of the time I see issues with trainers. Especially in 2019-2020 – it was a disaster on that front from all the companies and most units.
B) That’s not really the way trainers work. There’s no ‘special algorithm’ or not. It’s the same code and same algorithm across the board. Now, where you could get differences is in quality assurance aspects. Some companies run units through test cycles. Some do it for all units, some do it for some units. Some do it for all units for the first few months and then over time decrease the % checked if quality is high.
Ultimately, no trainer is perfect. If you don’t believe, pick any other trainer you want, and you’ll find a Zwift forums or TrainerRoad thread on that trainer’s issues. And in a year where all these companies have *NEVER* made more trainers than ever before, yes, statistically speaking you’re going to see more people posting issues, because there’s more trainers being made (3-5x more trainers than normal).
Which isn’t to say that people aren’t seeing issues, I have no doubt that if someone is seeing 20% low, then something is wrong. Though, I would say I rarely see actual charts with those claims (as is the case here). But to say, if everyone was seeing that issue, then honestly we’d see comments every day here. Instead, it’s just a couple comment a month. And given Elite is probably making somewhere in the range of 10K-15K Suito units a month, that’s not bad at all. For refence, I see more people commenting on Wahoo KICKR/CORE defective units per month.
Thanks. Yes, number of claims needs to be put into context.
But I still would not rule out that a manufacturer could prefer selecting a device in specification for external accuracy testing especially if QA is less reliable.
Of course, but looking at all my testing over the last 2-3 years, they clearly aren’t. Since I’d guess 9 out of 10 trainers have ‘failed’ testing on the first pass. With almost every company requiring sending me out more than one unit for almost every model since (or, having to send multiple firmware releases to fix).
after more than one year of using my second Elite Suito (first one had the knocking sound issue), I’ve recently bought a set Favero Assioma (Duo) pedals. Cross checking the measurements between the Assiomas and the Suito on Zwift, I can now verify what I long suspected. My Suito underreads in Zwift. The higher the wattage, the bigger the deviation. At 200W, the Suito underreads by about max 10W. At 300W, it’s already about 20-30W. At 550W, it deviates by 50-100W (e.g. 536W vs 469W). Avg Power over 40min was roughly 6.5% lower on the Suito. I’m connecting it via Bluetooth. About to try it with ANT+ to see whether it makes a difference but it shouldn’t.
What is puzzling to me, however: On Elite’s MyETraining, the Suito tracks the wattage much closer to the Assiomas, more or less within the range of its higher tolerance of 2.5%. It slightly overshoots sprint efforts by 10-30W. So it must be a software issue rather than the hardware and it must have something to do with how the Suito’s readings are translated into Zwift.
Has anyone else experienced this? Does anyone know a solution to this? Having more or less reliable power readings on Zwift without having to use a powermeter on my bike is why I originally bought this thing. That doesn’t work. I own Hardware revision No3, latest Firmware.
Looks like you are still one of the lucky guys with your power accuracy.
Your under-reading is at least in line with other product tests (17 Watt below average by German Tour magazin) and user feedback I am reading e.g. on Zwift.
I purchased my Suito over a month ago (HW release 5, newest firmware updated) and found an average under reading of about 15% increasing rather with wheel speed then with power compared to Assioma. An no matter if I am using Zwift, Rouvy or doing the Elite test protocol with MyETraining and also regardless of Ant+ or BLE. I went down the usual path, got quick support from Elite, did there test protocol run, got back a specific .JSON file, deployed it and things got even worth. After reading about lots of similar experience on the SWIFT board I finally decided not to continue beta testing for Elite and returned the trainer to the Internet Shop, because it was clearly out of spec. I then purchased the DiretoXR for an additional 100€ and all my troubles where gone. I have the direto now for a week checked accuracy 3 times and it was always within -1% compared to Assioma. By the way, it is amazing how much more realistic the riding feels. With Suito I had delays of about 3s with Rouvy and now I can adjust power in real time with the changing grade. Changes in resistance are more smooth, so my troubles with Suito in adjusting gears smoothly are gone as well.
I can obviously do that, yes. But I want to use the built in power measurement feature that the Suito has, because I want to use my second road bike on this trainer, without having to transfer my pedals over to that bike every single time.
Also: I paid for this feature and the manufacturer promised me a device with accurate power readings within a 2.5% tolerance window. But I can’t seem to recreate this.
I’m suspecting, as many others have, that the calibration and the resulting power curve is to blame with my Suito. But I don’t know how to solve that issue. If it was consistently underreading by a certain wattage, I’d be OK with it. But it dramatically underreads the higher the power. It gets to a point, where the trainer brings me to a halt in ERG mode when having to do sprints, bc it never gets to 830W, where my Assiomas record 1000W.
Couln’t agree more. What sense would that make to save 100€ on a trainer which has no internal power measurement (calculates power) and then add 600€ for an Assioma PM to fix the power issue the Suito has because Elite saved the internal PM to get the price down.
I’m a bit confused. Review of DCRainmaker is super positive about accuracy but a lot of comments of recent versions show problems with calibration, accuracy, … ?
Following conclusion is correct for me: i have the trainer for over a year now and i’m happy with the purchase. At that time i paid about 550euros including the cassette.
I’m glad i can train indoors and track my fitness and power evolution.
Are the power readings a bit off? Maybe yes, maybe no. But as I’m not competing online i dont really care that much.
Do you want an accurate trainer for sure? Pay more to be sure.
Do you want a direct drive trainer that’s affordable, consider this one.
Yeah I’ll 2nd this, bought mine in October 2019. Works great. I actually just bought Assiomo Uno pedals last week so I can monitor my power when I bike outside now and compared to my suito. While working out, the numbers were jumping around near each other, when i look at the average power for the pedals versus the trainer after 40 minutes, they were 1 watt apart, that’s good enough for me. I did not run it through any analyzers to compare differences, I’ll leave that stuff to Ray and his great reviews. For me it’s close so I’m happy.
If my unit got anywhere close to the accuracy that Ray reports in his review, I’d be super happy. Also, if it was delivering lower readings but by a consistent margin, I’d be ok with it as well. But it isn’t.
I’ve opened a ticket with Elite and sent them the required training set recorded in Elite’s MyETraining app. I warmed the Suito up, calibrated it with the Elite app, did a zero offset with my Assiomas. The Suito remains 7.5% average off at 200W, at 400W it’s already an average of 10% lower. At 450 it’s 15%. Elite suggests that this is normal when adding the power meters’ tolerances plus friction losses in the drivetrain.
This in depth review is all you need, if you can get your hands on a series production media loaner. If you can not and you bother if Suito is undercutting power by 10-30% you better pay attention to reviewers base on trainers purchased through the standard channels. Or you pay attention to those end user who use a PM to check accuracy instead of comparing it with their gut feelings.
I gave up with my Suito after efforts together with Elite support failed to bring the Suito closer to specification.
What I figured out is, that almost all reviews based on media loaners see more or less perfect power accuracy and in contrast reviews and tests with trainers purchased through standard channels see an Suito power accuracy issue Elite must have at least with parts of their production up to now.
The review discrepancy is probably not very surprising for most, because why should the manufacturer not send out accurate trainers for serial production devices accuracy testing if they can?
It is further interesting that end user who are happy with Suito power accuracy mainly compare it with their gut feeling whereas users who compare it with a power meter seem to confirm the issues.
And high end trainers use internal power meters to ensure consistent accuracy Suito is just calculation power. May be quite challenging to achieve claimed 2.5% consistently with serial production QA.
I agree that it is not very feasible for an influencer getting a deal with manufacturers to purchase anonymously and get money back after review is completed.
DCR is very transparent and always emphasizing that he is just testing media loaners. I guess you have to keep that in mind when it comes to power accuracy.
Again, as discussed earlier* – there’s an overwhelming pile of evidence that companies – including Elite – either don’t QA units sent to media, or if the do, they suck horribly at it. For the vast majority of trainers I receive, there’s issues that have to be resolved in firmware or hardware updates.
In fact, one can look at the Suito with exactly that. If you look at my first look post, you’ll see issues that I found/saw, that were eventually fixed in firmware before this review some months later.**
You can also look at most trusted reviewers in this space, and most of us are finding real issues with trainers/bikes at launch. Tacx, Elite, Wahoo, Saris, Wattbike, Stages. And we write about them as such.
I know that doesn’t help your specific accuracy issue, but that’s the simple reality. And while there are some reporting accuracy issues on the Suito, I’d point out, there are people reporting accuracy issues on every trainer on the market. Sometimes it’s a fundamental accuracy issue – and sometimes it’s a one-off issue, and sometimes it’s just user error or the power meter their using is incorrect.
Certainly, Sebastian’s numbers of 15% off are concerning – but without exact data sets it’s hard to know. His note above about it being very close in one app, but not another, leads me to believe it’s probably actually not a trainer hardware thing, but something else at play (because simply put, that’s not how trainers work). There can be weird bugs in Zwift with Bluetooth vs ANT+, we saw that a couple years back in fact, with every different values. But I haven’t seen it recently. That said, Zwift breaks things on an astoundingly regular basis, as we saw just last week when they managed to impact the accuracy of virtually all Tacx wheel-on trainers, boosting the power numbers incorrectly.
Ray, you may have forgotten, that I did send you my .fit files showing 15% low values in average immediately after you explained before that you did not see the data. Your response was, that you find it interesting and want to look into it deeper.
And, sorry but I think it is a bit naive if you really think that marketing staff does not care what influencers will tell about their products. They are aware that you love power accuracy testing. If manufacturers can tune the media loaner to achieve good results majority definitely will do. That you still can discover issues especially with early models is not contradicting.
I don’t doubt Ray’s reviews. In fact, I read just about all of his reviews on direct drive trainers to know what to buy and – like he said – he had issues with pretty much all of them. So I knew that – given my budget – an entry level direct drive trainer was going to be a leap of faith anyhow. Looking back, I’d probably never buy a device that just hit the market again – no matter how good reviews are. Historically, almost every manufacturer has to sort out issues at least for the first six months upon release, it seems.
Upon further testing I can now safely say that my Suito is just as off in Elite’s My E-Training as it is in Zwift. To Elite’s credit I have to say, their customer service is helpful and super quick. They’ve asked that I do a test of various 45sec intervalls at different resistance levels at a given flywheel speed. It appears that the higher the resistance level the worse the deviation gets. Slow flywheel speeds seem to be worse than high speeds. Considering that ERG mode workouts are usually conducted on the small ring at lower flywheel speeds, that explains why my Suito feels much worse on hard ERG sessions compared to my power meter pedals than it does when doing a free ride. I received a custom firmware. It did not solve the issue. Sprints still underread by quite a margin. But now it also overreads in other situations. My Suito has a slightly wobbly flywheel. I don’t know if that contributes to the issue. I never found it so bad that it really bothered me, but it is noticeable. Maybe it somehow affects the spindown calibration. Spindown time went up by about a second since I got it from 9600ms on the factory sticker to about 10.800ms now, which makes sense. That only tells me that it runs smoother after the bearings and everything have seen a bit of use.
Credit where credit is due: I’m happy to report that Elite solved my problems. Customer Service was A+. We went through four custom firmwares, I completed their testing procedure every time (warm up, calibration, about 10 different resistance levels and flywheel speeds in Elite My E-Training). The 4th firmware update has now made my Suito as accurate as it will ever be for a unit at this price point – at least in my opinion. I confirmed the results with several ERG workouts and free rides and for me the experience has vastly improved. I’m particularly happy that in ERG mode, it is now super consistent and tracks my power meter very closely. The power zones do now feel like the way they should and it doesn’t underread at high power levels as dramatically as it did before.
Accuracy is now well within 2.5%, if I’m being realistic and taking my Assiomas accuracy tolerance + possible drivetrain losses into account.
Sprints are still where the Suito is most challenged, which is understandable I guess. It takes a while longer to pick up the sudden increase and decrease in wattage. There is some lag compared to the pedals. That’s completely normal taking into account that the Suito calculates wattage based on flywheel speed and resistance level. It doesn’t bother me. At peak sprint power and depending on how sudden the acceleration is, the Suito has a hard time tracking my Assiomas closely. It sometimes underreads and sometimes overshoots by up to about 5%. But that’s fine for me anyway. For what it costs compared to more expensive devices, I am now happy with its performance and confident enough in the numbers that it delivers.
Totaly agree. I well manged company would definitly select a sepcific trainer before sending it to media/press.
Compared to power meter pedals mine is also 10-20 % to low.
Before contacting Elite support I´m going to double check the accuray of my pedals.
Thanks for the sweet review and just picked mine up and began using it! A quick question – all seems to work fine including shifting etc., but the flywheel on the trainer isn’t perfectly aligned with the frame of the bike – it looks light off to the left relative to the frame when looking directly from the back of the bike.
Is this normal? It’s my first trainer so I just want to be sure all is okay. I installed per instructions with the spacer and skewer in the right 130mm config for my bike if that matters.
I noticed that the firmware of the Suito now has jumped to V196 (up from V191 in my case). I cannot find any update information from Elite. Anyone noticed any changes?
I’m also in the “do not recommend this device” camp.
I bought Elite Suito trainer in December 2020, also based on how positive this review was, but in reality it is far from great.
First of all, immediately after first use it was noticeable there is some “clicking” present in the trainer, if you ride slowly or just spin the flywheel by hand.
This clicking goes away away once the speed increases, but…
If you ride the trainer at higher speeds, it vibrates A LOT, and it is very noisy, basically you can hear it vibrate through whole house.
It is easily louder than my old 20 years old Tacx Swing “wheel on” trainer.
Sent a few videos to Elite… support said they cant hear anything unusual… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The only way to keep the noise and vibrations bearable is to ride in small ring with very low flywheel speed. So I did that most of the time.
But second problem is the accuracy. This trainer is far from accurate. At best I could get my unit to +-8%, no matter how I performed the calibration.
This problem was most noticeable during intervals when compared to my Assioma pedals.
During work interval, resistance the Suito provides is too high. Lets say 300W on Suito is 325W as measured on Assiomas.
During rest interval its the other way around, 200W on Suito would be ~185W on Assiomas.
And that is not all, there is also a huge temperature influence.
When the unit is “cold”, lets say after a 10min warm up ~200W. The first interval is way harder, than it should be, but after completing 2-3 intervals, when the trainer properly warms up, resistance is lower, and also the power difference between the trainer and Assioma power meter is reduced.
So all in all a complete mess.
Just to be clear, I also compared Assiomas to my friends Wahoo Kickr, and the numbers were spot on +-0.5% at most.
Reading feedback from other users here it seems that Elite can do “custom” calibration file for each unit, and get it very close to promised +-2% range.
But out of the box, the units can be, and mostly is, way off mark.
I’m almost 100% sure all the review units have undergone this special calibration routine, and maybe even some special QC to cherry pick the most silent unit.
But if you are a regular Joe, your mileage may vary.
Bellow are some of the rides I did comparing Suito to the Assiomas if anyone is interested:
Anyone have had problem to display power from the trainer?
I was buying secondhand trainer that was working at the seller (tested it myselves) but at home I can´t get the power to be displayed in any of my differencet devices/applicaitons (Garmin 530/945, Trainerorad, Zwift, Tacx desktop, Elites own my training.
Any recommendation to fault trace before contacting the Elite support…
Hey bro, I just gotta say you are the best in the business with assessing athlete equipment. Your reviews remove a lot of guesswork when determining what to buy. While I don’t buy as often as I would like (the chief financial officer controls the figurative and literal purse) I read your reviews a lot. And, I point people toward you for information when they are looking for something to buy. Keep killing it.
Hi Ray, I want to retire my Kickr Snap V2 – between the Suito and Direto XR, which one would you recommend? Is it possible to control the resistance on the Suito using the powerdata from my Assiomas + Edge 830. And are the power fluctuations in ERG (you also mentioned them in your Direto XR review) and clicking noise from the bearing fixed? Thanks for your input.
If anyone with an Elite Suito is having issues with power or cadence accuracy I recommend using the Power Meter Link feature (assuming your bicycle has a power meter)..
Hi Mr DC, I am just testing an ELITE SUito and first two rides comparing with Assioma I see big differences on power…. and they start after the first 10 minutes warm up. Differences get worst with power increase.
I did a firmware update, did all and many calibrations of both power meters.
I’ve used it in erg mode in 36/17 gear.
I have added a picture for illustration.
Do you have any idea why this is happen. We can expect some differences but not of this extent.
I have also checked the foruns and there are many hits with this issue. It looks like Elite sends individual patches for the most inststents :-)
DO you have any tip that might help to overcome this?
Thanks in advance
BR
Nuno.
If you use Assioma PM pedals you can tell Suito to use their power values instead. I am doing this with a 4iiii PM crank. So I don‘t have to bother with the inconsistent values of the Suitos calculated power. Also in Strava, Rouvy etc. you can use your Assioma PM pedals as power source. There is no real need for Suito‘s guessing.
Thank you for your answer.
I kknow and’ve used it already. It works fine although I want to use another bike fixed in the trainer that doen’t have PM. I had a cycleops 400 pro that I could manage to keep working this long even without support and upgrades anymore. Unfortunately it tool its last breath last week. Without Joule 3.0 controling all the features, that beauty become just a piece of metal with no use.
I’ll try Elite’s support though. If they are unable to solve the problem, I will move to another level of trainer. It is a pitty since the Suito is a very good piece of HW.
tks again
Nuno
Well it’s 2024 and after reading this review I bought 2 and they are pure junk please people run away from these things no matter what anyone who get paid to review says, they are awful. Horrible calibration app of that doesn’t work. Rouvy with the reality level set at 150%, it’s highest setting to make it harder and in my big ring in the front and my small cog in the back, on the steepest climb( I could find; I can still push up it. I mean my sarif wheel on Smart trainer is so much better than this in accuracy for climbing or anything else including stability. And I only paid $250 for that M2. This is unusable for training. I’m a climber but I’m not that powerful. Again the problems on these trainers are not worked out, they are junk. I bought two of them for two different homes based on this review and both of them are pure crap. I get no response when I try and get technical support, as well as the fact where I bought them all sales were final, but only on these smart trainers, not the other brands 🤔. Oh I forgot to mention they’re so unstable even when set up perfectly….. and I’m 155 lbs. If you use their hor training app and put it in its hardest training mode manually on a hill, then is the only way it will work. But then, you find out when you get out of the saddle that the belt slips on the flywheel. It’s so bad it’s like not having your tire tightened down on a wheel on trainer. If you are crazy enough to buy one in the United States, at least buy it from Amazon with prime support so you can return it… and you will.
Experiences vary, and I can’t imagine why you’re having such a bad experience.
In our household, we have a Wahoo Kickr (original), a Suito and a Direto.
All work just fine. The Direto is clearly the best – best feel, and most consistent power readings. However, we haven’t found anything wrong with the Suito, and use it regularly with Rouvy- both workouts (erg) and free riding (sim mode). It can provide substantial resistance, e.g. on some of the 20% climbs you come across occasionally. We (my wife and I) are not power riders – I’m 67kg, and more of a climber.
I cannot imagine why your experience is so different. Perhaps you got very unlucky with two bad examples, or perhaps there is something about how you’ve set them both up. Have you used any other direct drive trainers (from other brands), and with a similar sensor and app set-up to how you are using the Suitos?
Yeah, what you’re describing Ge, doesn’t fit into anything that anyone else has described in the last half-decade. There’s certainly minor areas to complain about, but as you can see with the 300+ comments here, what you’re seeing doesn’t align with that.
Given it seems to work just fine with their app, but you’re having problems with Rouvy, it probably makes sense to reach out to them. Alternatively, you can try free trials of other apps (perhaps give Zwift or FulGaz a quick check), to see if the problem persists there.
Well unfortunately my experience is similar to one form Ge Hu.
This trainer is one of the worst.
I’m on my second one after warranty claim one year ago, because my first one vibrated a lot form the beginning and then it started to creak like crazy after one year of use.
The creaking usually started after 30-40 minutes of workout, sometimes even sooner if the intensity of the workout was high.
After replacement arrived all was good for half a year, and now the replacement started to creak from time to time, and it is getting worse. There are several reports of this online…
Second thing the accuracy is very poor, it is not even close to +-2%.
I did measurements on both trainers comparing them to Assioma pedals, and no matter how you do the calibration it will be off in some areas.
The accuracy is affected very much by the flywheel speed.
Here is the testing I did on my first unit.
I made this ERG workout with varying levels of resistance from 60-580W: link to imgur.com
Then I repeated this workout at 15, 25, 35 and 45kph flywheel speed, always with 90rpm cadence.
I compared Suito measured power with Assioma pedals.
Below you can see how the power output compares (numbers show % difference, positive is overreading, negative is underreading).
It is far from advertised +-2%: link to imgur.com
And it is worse because this trainer lacks basic temperature compensation.
After the flywheel heats up, the resistance can easily drop additional 5%.
If you do some 4-6min VO2max ERG mode intervals, the power is dropping very noticeably during each interval. You end interval with 10-20W lower power than in the beginning. And each consecutive interval starts with a few W lower power, due to heat soak of the flywheel.
So if the beginning of first 4min interval starts with 350W, the last minute of 4th interval is 320W…
In my view this trainer is not usable for any serious training. And on top of it the durability is extremely poor. Worst purchase I ever did.
But to be clear, your issues are actually quite differnt than Ge’s.
Also, this trainer was from the era were temp comp was a thing that you had to mitigate with doing a 15 minute warm-up calibration. It’s a 2019 sub-$800 trainer, not a 2022-2024 trainer.
I’m not saying it’s what people should be paying good money for today, but for the $250 they paid, it’s far better than other $250 options (like a Tacx Flow).
The warmup before calibration does not solve temp compensation.
Suggested warmup is easy pedaling for 10minutes at ~150W.
That barely does anything when it comes to higher power intervals, flywheel is not even warm to the touch after this “warmup”.
(I also tried doing warmups at higher power, but that just shifts the problem to different part of power curve).
And if you look at my measurements, you will see it is not just temperature issue.
It is also affected a lot by flywheel speed and it is completely unpredictable.
When you combine flywheel speed and lack of temp compensation, it is very clear that his device hardly ever achieves +-5% accuracy.
I forgot to mention belt slipping issues at high torque and low flywheel speed.
But I got used to avoiding riding in that area.
And another thing is very unstable ANT+ connection.
I rarely manage to finish a training session without at least one or two dropouts, yeah it only lasts 10-15s usually. But when you do a EGR mode workout, it is very annoying.
Tested it with Wahoo Bolt, Karoo, Garmin Forerunner, and ANT+ dongle on a PC placed 20cm away from the trainer, always the same… just drops out randomly.
For 250€ you could forgive those kind of issues.
It would be a decent choice for a beginner user, but almost everybody who owns this trainer paid at least 500€ for it, even today it is still over 400€ with all the discounts.
I paid 600€ for it in 2021, Kikcr Core and Direto were 750€ at the same time.
And I think we all agree the performance of those trainers is miles better in all areas.
Anyway, if I was aware of the accuracy issues I would never even consider buying this device… not to mention everything else (vibrations, belt slipping, ANT+ connection, creaking…)
Hi Guys, thanks for comments I will try all suggestions and glad to hear that lots of people have them that work fine with Rouvy. First, I have to get them to respond to my ticket immediately opened with them. DC I did not do a good enough job of explaining how it worked with their training program: It worked by sliding the manual slider in their myETraing app (most of the app requires a $ subscription) but the free: /trainings/Level Mode. I can successfully manually adjust the resistance up or down and up to a very difficult or easy level. But, again in Rouvy at least going from one extreme of the manual “reality” only 30%-150% does not provide near the resistance that my wheel-on Saris M2 smart trainer does. Again, I guess it is okay here to say near enough if I am in my smallest cog in back and the big ring in front and sitting on a steep mountain grade like Rouvy’s virtual lookout mountain course here in Colorado. 🤣. Also as someone said, yes of course it is subjective but then immediately after my post there are a couple of more poor souls noted here that they were “lucky” enough with these units with similar experiences to mine.
Well, I guess I ask for it like I said, when i bought from someone with no return policy for these particular trainers 🤣.
Thanks DC of course I will try with Zwift (the go to as a control group) and I will do that today. That said, it really doesn’t solve my problem being a huge fan of real courses that Rouvy provides.
I wonder if part of the problem of these smart trainers is the subjectivity of all the parameters that could be worked out with decent OEM software that allows you to simply, manually calibrate the smart trainers to a given resistance range of the rider in the units firmware up-front.
I actually thought that is what their program was allowing me to do when I did the “Level Mode”.
Of course I did the calibration test in that app and warmed up (which is kinda silly because of the physics involved as someone else here commented.)
It just seems pretty silly that allowing user manual calibration of resistance level setting in the home app first of all smart trainer manufacturers would not be the first thing they would offer to get rid of a giga of help desk tickets. Maybe it is goofy on my part to think that is possible.
Thanks for your great reviews that have helped us so much over the many years now. Still the best out there by far.
Addendum to my last wandering hard to follow post: The point I was trying to express again is, for all these makers of these smart trainers, why wouldn’t the first thing they do is make their trainer calibration app have a user configurable resistance range setting from (just for the sake of me being clueless as to the range it would need to be…say) -100 to +100 at a given elevation grade.
Then, could you not use the stats from your power meter on a course you have ridden that is the same course you are riding in the program; and use those stats and that smart trainer’s u.c.r.r. program to correct for either side of the interacting software systems calibration errors?
I know nothing about this software standard but doubt that it is very robust between course designers and trainer manufactures anyway….
Has anyone ever seen the Elite Suito damaging the carbon on their rear dropouts?
The yellow bike is my old bike and the dropouts wore down so much I couldn’t use the bike anymore. Granted, I had this bike for ~5-years and it saw a lot of hours on the trainer, but I really wouldn’t have expected it to actually break down the carbon to this extent. Wanting to know if it was the trainer causing the issue, I tried using my new bike (black bike) on the trainer for a 2-hour Endurance ride and was not surprised to see it doing the exact same thing. Obviously, I have stopped using the trainer as I don’t want a repeat of the yellow bike.
I confirmed I had the right adapter length for the dropouts, and Elite tried sending me a non-knurled adapted, but the damage persisted.
Here is what they said:
“Suito don’t damage a carbon frame. We sold more than 300000 trainers and we have never received a reclaim caused by the adapter that broke a frame.”
– “The carbon frame of your bike isn’t damaged. That sign is only aesthetical, it isn’t visible on the external part of the bike and it is only caused by the paint removed.”
– “Also the wheel can remove the paint in the internal part of the frame, not only the trainer.”
– “we sold a lot of Suito and there are no reclaims connected to damaged bike due to the trainer”
I don’t know about you all, but it looks to be that this isn’t just aesthetic damage and I’ve never seen this damage after taking my wheels off.
Just trying to gauge how common this is and what people did about it.
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Wait a minute. I didn’t realize that Zwift automatically halves the gradients. Now I feel even worse about my ride yesterday! Although having just got my smart trainer on Sunday, I guess it’s best that I figured it out now rather than 6mos down the road. :D
Trainer Difficulty is a funny subject on it’s own, and often misunderstood.
Posts on the Zwift Riders FB group are exhausting in the back and forth that is common. They occur on a nearly weekly basis when the trainer season kicks up (right now) and get heated at times when the pendulum swings to “cheating” claims :P
Just to be clear – it does not make you faster at a given power. It gives you what amounts to a shorter gear, minimizing how much gear changes you have to do. 300W feels and measures as 300W at 0% as well as 100%, and will go up a climb at exactly the same speed. But you will hit 300W at a lower cadence on a given gear, or on a shorter gear at a given cadence, if you put the control to 100%
Robert. not quite. 300W is 300W in a vacuum, but 300W at 25% IRL sure feels different than 300W at -5% IRL even if you have the biggest gear range in the world. Biomechanically, you are activating different muscle groups due to the vast difference in momentum. And yes, I used -5% to highlight another aspect of Trainer Difficulty. It doesn’t just give you “easier gears,” but also harder gears when going downhill virtually. I won’t spin out while descending Radio Tower at 0% Trainer Difficulty. Basically 50% trainer difficulty turns an 12-25t cassette into a 6-50t cassette + differences in biomechanics.
I purchased a Suito one during the Clever Training sale, I think the first or second day. Once I received the Suito I used it for a couple of days and noticed the knocking sound that I am assume is coming from the bearings. I troubleshot the issue with Elite over a couple of days but ultimately had to send it back for warranty replacement. Elite didn’t ask me to send it their distributor, instead I had to send it back to Clever Training. Per USPS it arrived back at Clever Training yesterday, it looks like they only process returns on Tuesday and Thursday so I am hoping that I’ll get a note tomorrow with an update.
I will say this, I have the luxury of waiting. I really REALLY liked the Suito and I have a wheel-on trainer I can still ride now (Tacx Vortex) that has been good to me even though it sounds like an airplane taking off. My original S/N was SUG so I’m really wondering whether I will just need to go through the receive and return twice to get a newer Suito – it seems the anecdotally SUJ and beyond seem to not experience the same issues.
Update, I received a new replacement Suito Saturday and rode it for a bit yesterday. I want to say so far so good but I’m reasonably sure that trainer wasn’t properly changing resistance based on elevation yesterday. I decided to hold judgement until I can be sure. I tried to calibrate the Suito using the training app, it only worked once out of five times. Oh well, may be the trainer gods will be nice to me later today.
I just opened a second warranty exchange for the Suito to Clever Training and specifically asked for a SUJ serial number or later. This time the resistance will not change when using ANT+, this actually happened out of the box and after using my phone to calibrate. I actually think that the ANT+ hardware is broken, all of the functions work over Bluetooth, just not ANT+. The Suito did change resistance when I ran Zwift on my phone with Bluetooth but nothing works with ANT+, which is unacceptable. Hopefully I will get a fast response from CT, they had the replacement Suito out the door the next day after my return.
It *would* be nice if the US vendors would recognize the issues and remove the pre-SUJ stock but I totally get why they aren’t. It would also be nice if CT would just preemptively send me a new Suito out so I don’t have to wait again but given the cluster this has been I have a feeling that I will find out that CT will close for the holidays and I’ll be stuck without the Suito until the beginning of January. Yay.
I hear you man. In the same boat as I posted the other day due to the knocking noise. I’m dealing directly with the distributor though. Sent the unit back 2 days ago. Emailed them with my tracking number and hoping they would consider sending one out before they get mine. Really hate being down from training for at least a few weeks.
New update, sooooooo I got back from Elite that they felt my issue was Zwift-related. Initially that kinda drove me nuts but they asked that I test with MyETraining. I couldn’t figure out a way to test free riding in their app without paying for it so I grabbed Rouvy (which I had wanted to test) and fired it up and guess what? Their free ride integration _did_ work with ANT+. Huh. So at this point I kinda had to agree that it was Zwift. I did more testing, finally getting frustrated and uninstalled, then reinstalled Zwift. Surprisingly this worked and ANT+ worked! Yay. The Suito is great, I think I have ridden it almost every day since it magically started working.
That is, it worked until Saturday. I live in Texas and ride in my garage. Our temps have been all over the place this winter (one day it’s almost 80 deg. F, the next day it is snowing and 30 deg. F) and my garage bounces from ~58 deg to ~68 deg. I hadn’t calibrated the trainer since the original issues and decided to do so before Stage 2 of TdZ (after warming up for 10 minutes). That was a bad move. I calibrated the trainer using my computer over ANT+, the calibration worked, and I started TdZ but soon noticed that I had no resistance. I bailed out and recalibrated the trainer using my phone over BLE and tested in Zwift again – no resistance. I uninstalled Zwift, reinstalled Zwift, tested but no resistance. I uninstalled Zwift again, making sure I deleted all of the user files, reinstalled, same thing – no resistance.
At that point I opened up Rouvy again, thinking that if it worked that at least that was another data point. This time however Rouvy didn’t work in free ride. I got out an iPad and tested Zwift using BLE FTMS and still didn’t get resistance. That was concerning.
Now it’s like 2 hours later than I had wanted to ride, my lame attempt at pre-workout nutrition somewhat ruined. I decided to test using my Android phone with BLE FTMS and the trainer gods smiled upon me as I experienced resistance.
So where does this leave me. I’m a software architect by trade and a tinkerer by choice. The calibration, at first glance, seems to be the culprit, my first calibration value was over 10K, my second calibration value over BLE though was <10K which I thought was odd. The subsequent ANT+ and BLE calibrations were all over 10K. My hypothesis at this point is this – I am wondering whether the trainer warmup needs to be longer and whether I am just doing something wrong. I'm going to test more today and hope for the best.
Hey, have you managed to resolve the issue with lost resistance? I have initially paired the trainer via iPhone app, done a free ride of 11mins in Garmin FR945 Bike Indoors activity, and then calibrated in My ETraining app twice. However, after that I started having issues (the resistance disappears during workout in Garmin, Zwift pairs with the trainer but does not read neither speed nor power (no resistance). I tried pairing again, but that does not resolve the issue. Im starting to assume the unit may have hardware issues. Any suggestions before I contact my retailer? Thanks.
One of the things I got in my Suito was a little card indicating I needed to put some oil on the cassette. I remember this being an issue for some people.
Yup, just like this. :)
I knew there was a photo I took this afternoon I meant to include…
That is odd to me. Lube belongs on the chain generally, and is not often done on the cassette itself. I’d be curious to learn why they suggest it in this case?
Hi
I´ve made a own workout on zwift, it´s with 3*15min intervals and freeride in the beginning and the end. The odd thing in my opinion is that the freeride shows actual power and the on the intervals it shows just the power i had aimed for even if i made small surges. Here´s the the training: ´
link to strava.com
Also what i noticed that the cadence is fluctuating from time to time. I´ve been emailing with elite and already changed the board because i couldn´t get firmware upgraded, always stopped and told to get in contact with support. Otherwise when training on zwift and on the grouprides/competitions it´s very good and nothing to complain about after i got the new board with the upgraded firmware, just little confusing with the erg workouts
I had one of the early units and had to return it. I was relieved and grateful that Elite stood behind their product, and would make me buy their products again even though support was a bit slower than ideal.
Second unit has been great so far and i would say this review describes my experience. I think the one area for improvement is a 1-2s improvement in erg resistance speed as noted. I road feel fine and find it very quiet – although limited experience of the high end benchmarks.
@Ray, i had the same issue about low speeds in trainerroad calibration. Via a support ticket TrainerRoad said they had not yet bought this trainer to set up the calibration process.
Hi Ray! Could you please tell me more about that steering stuff under your front wheel? Couldn’t find it on Elite’s website ;)
KR,
Andras
In the end I pulled the switch on a Zumo (or at least I believe Santa did and it’s currently sitting under my Christmas tree). Reading this versus yours and GP lama’s review of the Zumo I’m hoping I’m not going to regret it and have to send it back with the elves. I’m thinking it’s probably ok as I can install a cassette and pricing in the UK made the Zumo a good £125 cheaper. Thanks again Ray for the great reviews.
Is there any serial number info relating to early (less than awesome) units? It would be useful to know if you where potentially getting a less than awesome unit when at the store.
que unidades o que nº de series son los afectados y que unidades son ya correctas?
I’ve been using my Suito for about two weeks now as I recover from knee surgery, so I’ve yet to do anything terribly hard for it (only steady rides at up to 200 watts). The power control seems good to me, though I haven’t tested against my power meter. Cadence has been all over the place, though, to the point that I popped a cadence monitor on my crank arms just to make sure I hadn’t lost my mind. Cadence monitor keeps me at a consistent reading (within my normal variation), but the Suito sees frequent drops of 10-20 RPMs and sometimes even more. Improved marginally with a calibration, but still not great. Otherwise, extremely happy. Good value.
Yes i´ve noticed just the same that the cadence is jumping sometimes but usually only on lower watts, today i tested against vector3 in a 2h groupride on zwift and W was exactly the same even thou in the end i made 10 sec sprints and V3 showd 700-1000W but suito only 600-700W and top cadence on those were 140 vs 120.
dry question: better suito or direto x?
Indeed. DiretoX are coming down to EUR649 or even 629. Suito’s price range that I’ve seen at most stores I scan is now 585 to 629.
Which one’s the better one?
I had purchased the Suito from Clevertraining on the big sale and ended up with a bad flywheel and crunching noise. CT directed me to their person who handles Elite, Todson. Had to send a video of the issue, but it was all taken care of quick and easy…probably the easiest return I have ever had. Granted, the wait for shipping and receiving was a bit, but that is what it is. New one showed up yesterday, no issues at all, jumped on Zwift and had a blast. Elite is doing a great job taking care of those with issues, at least they did for me. Thank you for the great review Ray!
Including an 11 speed cassette is no use to those of us still on 10 speed setups. Not only is it more hassle, it’s also a complete waste of money. So we need a no cassette option too.
Lol, marketing doesn’t work this way. The cassette is a promotion and helps get buyers to convert on the product. If they didn’t include it, they wouldn’t sell as many. They get these at cost.
I am having some issues with the setup using a 10-speed Shimano Cannondale. I can’t tell if I have a bad unit or if the cassette needs no spacers, one, or two. Currently, I have no spacers on it and the gears were jumping unpredictably. Any thoughts?
I also have a wobbly flywheel. Sent a video to Clever Training who passed it on to Elite. The said it was “under the allotted tolerance” and that the warranty would not cover it. Are they basically admitting they sold me a bad trainer but refusing to fix it?
If you’re using the Suito with a 10-speed Shimano, then you should really swap out the cassette for a 10-speed cassette. Otherwise, you’ll see what you’re seeing in terms of unpredictability. Mostly, the experience will suck. No amount of spacer shifting will change that unfortunately. The good news is that cassettes are cheap, and 10-speed ones especially since places are mostly just trying to off-load them.
On the flywheel, it really just depends on how much wobble. Many trainers actually have very slight wobble with flywheels or the machining of the trainer roller. I roughly draw the line as: If you visually notice it when putting a camera behind you pointed at it, but can’t otherwise feel it – it’s fine. Whereas if it’s something you actually feel in terms of wobble – then that’s different.
Though first, I’d strongly recommend getting the right cassette on there, otherwise it’s going to likely cover up any real issues due to the imperfection there.
Thanks Ray! I did swap out the stock 11-speed cassette with the 10-speed from the actual wheel. I was ready to accept the slight flywheel wobble, but then I got the dreaded knocking noise. After sending in a video of the knocking, Elite/Clever Training agreed to swap out that trainer for a new one.
In the manual it says to use both spacers for 10 speed.
I received the following instructions from Elite on performing the power calibration:
– power off the trainer
– power off all your devices (smartphone, tablet, pc, Garmin heart rate monitor ..)
– restart ONLY your Android phone
– power on the trainer
– do a 10 minutes training and check if you have disconnections during the training (you should see the data freeze)
– run the calibration
I followed this procedure but engaged a much higher gear to obtain a much higher speed than previously and this worked.
The trouble with the Elite app is that it says to increase speed without saying to what level. I had successfully performed the calibration with Zwift which had told me what speed to reach and also provided an indicator of speed as I pedalled. I then used approximately the same gear I had used in Zwift within Elite and that resulted in a successful calibration. In future I will just use Zwift for calibration – it’s much more user friendly.
Firmware 191, Hardware 3
I cant use zwift for calabration :-(
I found out that when using an external watch or bike computer (in my case: Garmin Fenix) to record an indoor ride with the Suito, the wheel circumference setting should be the actual wheel circumference / 24.8. Thus for a standard wheel this is about 84 mm.
Initially I had not set this and got an average speed of ~100km/h…
Source: link to elitesrl.zendesk.com
So I did buy one of these trainers and I got a Hardware Rev 1 model and have every single problem under the sun with mine, except accuracy. There is a extreme wobble in the fly wheel which rocks the whole bike and a horribly loud knocking noise that developed after about 100 miles. In my attempts to deal with Elite I am offered zero warranty information and am told to deal with the shop I bought it at. The shop will swap it out or refund for me, but my issue here is Elite had no interest in fixing the issue or replacing the launch unit. I am incredibly torn if I want to refund the unit and not deal with Elite at this point or gamble on a second unit since I liked the features mine had.
I got a unit in September from an online retailer. Had the ticking or knocking noise periodically. Didn’t effect the ride but was annoying just the same. I followed the info in this review. Contacted the online retailer, found out the number of the distributor and contacted them. They had me send them an email with my name, address, serial number of the unit, description of the problem and a video of it happening. In less than 24 hours they responded with an email that had a prepaid UPS shipping label and instructions of what to do. Once they receive the defective unit they will send a new one. The only part that sucks is that the distributor is in Nevada, I’m in NY and this is a very busy time for UPS this time of the year. I just finished week 3 with a Trainer Road program and now I have to put it on hold until I get the new unit. Too bad they couldn’t send a new one out once they had a tracking number of the unit I sent back today.
I shipped the unit back December 14th. It arrived in Nevada December 23rd. They just sent it out today the 27th and it is due to arrive here January 8th. Almost a month with no trainer due to distance and the holiday’s. Glad I am getting a new unit but not happy with the overall process.
I bought my Suito from Clever Training. I have the short cord…so it is an earlier manufacture of the unit. I know that Ray says we will know if we have a defective unit—but I’m just not sure. I can’t tell if some of the noise is the quirks of my bike in certain gears or the actual ticking noise described. This is my first smart trainer. Could I get some guidance on how to know? I’ve also had some times in ERG mode during training workouts on ZWIFT—which I get to where I suddenly can’t pedal because of the resistance. I have calibrated with the Elite app. Any help/ advice would be appreciated!
Ray –
how much QC/real world testing do these manufacturers do before officially releasing something? Do they even discuss that? Seems to me they just release trainers without at least 10 ppl testing it. There’s always a common problem. The worst to me was Tacxs slippage issue with the earlier Neos (admittedly, I do believe that’s a design limitation, but I couldnt accept the fact Im riding a dud and they supposedly fixed it with a new 2T)
I’m heavily considering this alongside with the Kickr Core. Seems to me Wahoo and Elite have less issues the Tacx after spending a ton of time on various groups on FB and reading comments on Reddit, here, message boards, etc
A shop is offering me the BF price for the Suito and I found another shop that may be selling the Core for under what Wahoos been allowing. I think ultimately if the latter gives me that same deal I might grab it.
Can the pre-installed cassette be swapped for a Campa cassette and if it can, does it require a different freehub body? Grazie!
Ray,
Count me in on the Wahoo issues, since Nov 4th I am on my 3rd unit….not bad for a problem that was supposably solved last year? I was thinking of swapping out the wahoo for this but it doesnt look anymore promising.
Yes, a Campy freehub body would be required and is available from Elite, but there’s no need to do that as all 11-speed drive train cassettes have the same cog spacing. I’m running Campy Record 11-speed on the cassette that came with my Suito and it works just fine.
I have the Suito synced to an Apple 4K TV and use it for Zwift
How do I connect it to my heart rate
I have a Garmin 920XT
Thanks
I have the same setup as you and ended up spending a bit more and getting a polar oh1+. It sends signal to both apple tv and garmin at the same time and is way more accurate than the garmin watch alone. Think chest strap, without having to wear a chest strap. all that being said you can make a connection by using a PC with an ant+ stick and bluetooth back through to your appleTV, but to me this seemed like way too much work for sub-par results.
I bought a Suito from Zwift’s shop on black friday. I’ve had it for 2-3 weeks and it has performed really well, but unfortunately after about 5 hours of riding it developed the ticking noise. It still rides fine but I definitely wouldn’t feel confident about the long-term life of it if the internals are making such a noise. After contacting Elite and later Zwift, with a pretty easy and positive experience they are going to ship me a new one immediatley upon me returning the original. Mine came with hardware version 2 (it seemed like 1 and 2 had the problem) so I’ve asked if there’s anything they can do to verify the new one they send me is a later production model. Overall I would say that its a great trainer for the money, but like with the Kickr core last year has had production problems with the earlier models, but kudos to Elite (and Zwift) for being good at replacing these models quickly.
I bought a Suito two weeks ago. Hardware revision 3, Serial no SUK, arrived with latest firmware. I was really pleased with it, no wobble in the flywheel, accurate power well within spec, quick response in ERG mode – but it took it three hours to start making the dreaded knocking noise. First I thought it was the quick release. Did it tighter but didn’t help. The shop sent me a replacement immediately. Very smooth experience. Just two days later it’s now waiting for me at home. I’m hoping that this one will work with no issues as I really like it. But we’ll see
Did my first ride on the replacement trainer yesterday. Again a SUK serial no, hardware revision 3, with latest firmware v191 already on it. Did some ERG mode and free riding in Zwift. Looking good. Noticeably less vibration with high flywheel speeds. No knocking noise. Did around 35k on it. Knock on wood. It seems to be a flawless unit. Very happy with it so far.
Update: I recieved my replacement from Zwift today and despite them saying they would send me a later production model, I somehow got one that is even older. Serial SUH, Hardware Version 1, with the super small power cable. I’m not holding out hope of this one lasting me more than a few rides. With how many people who still seem to be getting the first two hardware versions (which had all the problems) I’m at a point where I don’t think I can recommend this trainer to anyone unless they can guarentee they’re getting a later model.
I can safely report that my replacement Suito is working without any issues after many hours of training. No knocking, no accuracy issues. Calibration values in Elite My E-Training always somewhere around 10200 which is coherent with what the sticker on the trainer says.
There is some wobble at high flywheel speeds when letting the trainer spin down, but I don’t notice it during training except maybe for some increased vibration at super high flywheel speeds when sprinting.
I have no prior experience with other direct drive trainers. But given what Ray wrote here and in other reviews, I believe that it is perfectly within what can be considered normal for a unit in this price range. It doesn’t seem to interfere with the accuracy of the data either.
So at least to me it looks like Elite have sorted this out. But I still find it rather incredible that apparently pretty much every manufacturer of these devices throws new models on the market while there are still some pretty major issues to be sorted out. That at least is my impression from following Ray’s site for a while now. It does happen elsewhere. But you get the impression that with these trainers it is the rule rather than the exception.
Purchased Elite Suito in mid December for plug and play features. Box came without power cord (important part of plug and play lol) or front wheel holder. Distributor shipped it right away. Upon initial testing I’ve noticed flywheel wobble. Are all these products have shit quality control/design like that including KICKR?
Sergio, where did you buy your trainer?
Had my Suito for a week, revision hardware 3. No wobble or noise, but the wattages are completly off. 170 watt on my 4iiii is 135 on the Suito, 290 watt on 4iiii is 210 on the Suito. Calibration offset is waaay higher than the sticker indicates. The body was already damaged after three rides. All and all a bad experience.
There are multiple forums adressing the wattage issue, where most people notice that the Suito underreports wattage, which gets worse above the 200 watt. If the offset was always the same I could live with, but it all over the place. Seems like Elite still has issues getting the Suito stable. Mine is going back.
I’m having the same wattage issue. The Suito reads about 12-15% under my Quark, which has always read consistently with Vector 3 and my InPower. I’ve just set the Suito to 85% of target power and lived with it.
True, but the deviation increases when power goed up, it is 30% below 170w, and up to 50% above 220w. After an hour deviation goes down a bit. You can adjust every powerzone and it will be semi-okay, but that is a lot of hassle for something that should just work.
Did you get the power issue solved, and did you calibrate the unit?
I ask because I am interested in the Suito and don’t have a Powermeter to check it’s measuring correct.
Thanks
David
I did calibrate the unit, and am still having the issue. I don’t zwift or anything so it doesn’t really bother me if I can still use it in ERG mode so haven’t pursued a fix.
Multiple calibrations, issue remained. You feel it right away, it runs too tight. Had contact with elite support but it is quite slow. I am now returning the unit in exchange for a new one. Hope that one is better, but seeing the growing number of complaints online I am a bit pesimistic.
Glad Is still have the old Tacx for now :)
My Suito since November 15 is in the factory for warranty and today they have not returned it to me. I’m desperate
I have finally received a new Suito replacement. N-series SUL. Firmware 191, hardware 4. Works fine, without noise or vibration. Slope changes faster than the previous one. If you endure like this, it seems that all the problems have been fixed
Returned mine today under warranty, they said it takes about 4 weeks to get it back from elite. Not the best period for elites image.
Consodering purchasing the Suito, having trouble figuring out if it will work with my dale synapses 142x9mm quickrelease or the dropouts. Any help would be much appreciated!
142mm x 9mm QR is not a real axle standard.
– – –
130mm x 9mm Quick Release for rim brake road bikes
135mm x 9mm Quick Release for some early road disc brake bikes and many old MTB disc and rim brake bikes
142mm x 12mm Thru Axle is the new road disc bikes and middle age MTB disc brake bikes
AFAIK, this trainer can handle the 3 real standards I listed.
Coming from running I’m completely new to cycling. Due to a tight budget I bought a 2nd-hand bicycle, which must be around 30-40 years old. It’s a KOGA Miyata equipped with Shimano 600 and a 6-speed cassette. Would this be compatible with an Elite Suito, a Kickr Core or one of the other trainers?
I know this is probably a stupid noob question, but google couldn’t help me and I hope someone here knows the answer.
leV,
You probably need to go with a wheel-on trainer for your set up. The good news is that wheel-on trainers work well and can be had for a very good price. If you use something like ZWIFT, look for a trainer that transmit data to ZWIFT, or other similar app. Good luck and Happy New Year.
Thanks a lot for the quick info Ernesto and a happy new year to you too! :-)
hello,
probably asked a few times already, but still not sure what to do. I hope you could help me out!
I’m still doubting between the Kickr Core & Elite Suito trainer
I’m quite new to trainers but have done already quite some research and I think both trainers are the best choice for mid-high end trainers.
i’m looking for a descent (well-built, stable) and accurate trainer. i would use it to train it for a Granfondo in Europe, or just to zwift on rainy days.
is the Kickr Core worth the 200 (€ / $ – including cassette) more?
the Kickr Core is an older model – released 2018 and has the name of a quiet 2017 model. do we expect a new release (very) soon from Wahoo?
Elite has it’s child-diseases but unlike the positive reviews, I still read a lot of users that want to change their Suito for a Core.
but what would be your choice at this moment?
Hey Ray, hoping you can help. I have a second Suito (first one had a wobbly flywheel) and I notice that I get some shimmy/wobble on the front end of my bike when I coast. I notice during spin downs as well but wonder if this is a normal occurrence with direct drive trainers. I had been using a wheel-on trainer (M2) which felt more secure by design and I was using a Cycelops riser block as well, likely more sturdy than the Elite riser ion the Suito box.
Hmm, I wouldn’t expect front-end wobble to be honest. It’s really just best to look at the rear flywheel and see if that’s causing the wobble.
The CycleOps riser block is pretty massive (assuming it’s the one I think you’re using), in comparison to the more simplistic Elite one. You can certainly use the CycleOps one just fine though!
Hi Joe,
I returned my first Suito because of flywheel wobble. At higher Speeds I had vibrations in the saddle, at low speeds it came to the front of the bike. Shimmy on the handlebars. Thats because of different eigenfrequencies in the set up. Higher frequencies/rpms excitate stiffer parts, lower frequencies weaker parts. I assume this phenomenon is coming from the flywheel wobble.
I got a chance to pedal the Suito for 30 minutes on Zwift. I had trainer difficulty at 100%. What I notice is there is almost no momentum carried into the start of a climb. I am comparing this with the Tacx Neo 2 which seems to have a much more realistic feel through out Zwift terrain. That said the Suito offers a much better package with foldable legs and handle.
A large part of that is due to the flywheel, which in the NEO series is massive by comparison to the Suito (technically, it’s a virtual flywheel in the NEO series).
Hello everyone,
Best wishes for 2020, among them: functioning Elite Suito !
Mine is ok (long cord), bought in France via internet retailer and really happy ! Yet, a few days after my purchase while using My E-training app to command the HT, I noticed a real difference in watt…(I use my Assioma Duo like to my Garmin 935 in parallel): my Assioma pedals announced 310 while the Workout session was around 285.
Not able to sustain such level and quite disturbing. I didn’t want to “cheat” by decreasing either the FTP in E-Training parameter or the % of difficulty during the session (still in the app) so I tried to use the “PML” the Power Meter Link. A function that saved me !
You get access to this parameter in “advanced configuration” section of the app and you have to provide the number that is written upon the box of your pedals (in my case, the data is sent from the left one, so this number) and restart.
Since then, I am so glad to get the same figures on my watch/pedal that I have on my trainer/cellphone.
I rely more on my pedal as they will the ones which comes along races. I need to know my limits based on their metrics, even if wrong. Because the brain can be blurry sometimes in races and I don’t know if I will be able to calculate what was my training level on my trainer and so on.
In a word: thanks (PML and DCRainmaker!)
Hey, I consider to buy a Elite Suito but I noticed that the first models had some problems. Is it too early to buy the Suito or do you think that the issues have been solved by now?
Hello,
Riding this since a few days. During zwift workout I and easily pedal 260 watts where 110 is required?? Could never do this with my tacx vortex… Anyone has a solution?
Greetz,
JN
Hi Ray, HNY
I get the impression that most of the issues seem to be in US shipped models, or is that over-generalising?
Do you have any detail on which shipping number(s) are faulty?
As we approach sale season in Europe early January, I just want to avoid any hassle factor. If I buy at a retailer is it easy to spot the SN on the box etc? any tell-tale signs?
cheers
Definitely been European folks as well. I think the earlier ones were more likely to be impacting US folks due to the lag time. Meaning, those early batches were shipped in August or so for US folks getting them in early October. Versus European folks getting them in October were basically built the week prior. As such, they were getting the more recent changes outlined above.
I don’t think there’s any difference these days in buying them between the units.
Hi, do you have any idea why I have problems fitting my boost bike with an nx eagle cassette on the trainer? The cassette sits way too close to the frame, the whole shifting is about one cog off. I used the suito boost adapter for non drive side and the correct supplied one for the drive side. I used the two supplied spacers to fit the cassette to the freehub, without them the cassette doesn’t tighten, just the smallest cog.
The problem is that I can’t shift and the small cog rubs on my frame…
Hi,
I’m running a second SUITO (the first one was replaced by ELITE – Ticking noises…).
I cannot calibrate it via Zwift…why?
I tried Spin-down on Zwift with the Suito. But it doesn’t work. I basically get to the required 37km/h in 4 pedalstrokes and then stop pedalling. Always fails. Any ideas?
My understanding is that it depends on which platform Zwift you’re using, and which connectivity type. You can see in the screenshots I got it to succeed (iPad via Bluetooth Smart).
Works in wahoo and Cyclops only
I’m happy to report, 2 months after getting my Suito trainer replaced by Elite it’s still working A-OK!
No more knocking sounds or flywheel wobble.
Happy Zwifting!
Hi, I am a new Suito owner and this is my first experience with a direct drive trainer. I have only ridden it for about an hour to try and get a feel for it. I have read through all the comments. A couple of questions.
I think that I am experiencing some flywheel wobble. I notice it when I let it spin down – the bike rocks back and forth. At first I thought I was a little bit dizzy but I did it a few times to check. How much wobble is too much? Could this wobble be caused by something else? (ie. poor install, etc) Should I also notice this wobble at speed?
The bike I am using is a 1X setup with a wide range cassette. I have just used the included cassette on the Suito so far and the shifting is terrible. Is this expected? I have a spare wide range cassette that I will install to see if it cleans up the shifting – i don’t want to adjust the derailleur each time i install the bike on the trainer or put the wheel back on. Is this goal reasonable?
I wouldn’t expect wobble by poor installation, unless somehow your bike skewer isn’t straight (plausible, but also unlikely – but it’s worth a quick check – it happens once or twice a year for me).
The shifting being crap if using a 1X would however be expected, since that’s a totally different beast. You’d want to swap the cassette, else it’ll be crap each time.
My recommendation would be:
1) Swap the cassette for the spare you have (be mindful of the spacers being installed per manual*)
2) That should resolve the shifting
3) And might even resolve wobble to be honest, it’s possible
4) If you still get wobble after that, and you can feel the wobble, I’d reach out to Elite support
*For spacers, I don’t know your cassette off-hand, but if the spacers are installed correctly (as in, whether or not to have them per the manual), then the shifting should line up identically so it’ll match indoors/outdoors.
Thanks for your comments. A couple of updates.
I contacted Elite and uploaded a video to them. Their response was that this is “normal wobble inside our tolerance”. They also said “the wobble is used to have a better feeling during training”. So Elite is marketing the wobble as a feature. I have noticed that I cannot keep the top-tube of my bike stable when riding on the trainer, but when I am outside with a regular wheel, I can keep it stable.
I have included a link to the video below.
link to we.tl
Is this what everyone’s Suito does? If your Suito does not have this wobble, perhaps it is defective? :)
As for the shifting, I switched to the wide-range cassette with very little improvement. My bike is a 142mm thu-axle so I require an adapter on either side. With these adapters, the smallest cog is shifted by just under 2mm closer to the frame (outward). Needless to say, the shifting is still not great and I cannot get into the smallest cog. After adjusting the derailleur, the shifting is fine. I wonder if these adapters have wide tolerances? The setup is a SRAM 1X. The adapter on the cassette side needs to balanced in the hole when installing the bike as it falls out from the slightest movement. The adapter on the other side fits quite a bit tighter.
Thanks again.
Final update (in this thread).
I ended up returning the Suito and went with the Wahoo. After a few rides on the Wahoo, it doesn’t wobble/vibrate like the Suito did (maybe a slight vibration at high speeds), and it is really quiet. I didnt think the Suito was loud, but the Wahoo is quite a bit quieter. It also feels like the build quality is better on the Wahoo. However, I really like the Suito design – the folding, size, handle are perfect. FYI, my Suito was a SUI serial number (hardware version 2) if that helps anyone.
As for the shifting, still a problem on the Wahoo – it is likely my rear wheel/hub/cassette has different spacing than most. I have to adjust the derailleur just as I had to on the Suito. The spacers for the Wahoo fit better and do not fall out the Suito’s so at least that improved.
Hi
I have been looking for someone who has tried both the wahoo core and elite suito. I like you am drawn to the Elite for similar reasons. However need something pretty straight forward. Due to current climate won’t be able to pop into store for support.
Questions
Was the elite suito noisy
Was the wahoo core noticeably quieter
Which one was easier to set up and start riding (connectivity etc)
Was setting up the extra wahoo components straight forward and did you find all you needed in the box (excluding cassette)?
Thank you.
BW
Abi
The Suito isn’t super noisy. It’s less noisy than most trainers made prior to 2018. The Wahoo KICKR CORE is pretty close to silent. Just drivetrain noise.
The Suito takes 30 seconds to take out of the box and unfold. Setup done.
The CORE you’ll need to attach the legs (3-5 mins if you do it right the first time), then install a cassette (60 seconds if you’ve done it before, probably 5-15 mins if you’ve never done it).
Cheres.
Hi there
I’m trying to get HR data embedded in my workouts with the Suito; I have Garmin Forerunner 935 and, since it has only wrist HRM, I have then tried to use at the same time an old Suunto HR belt (from Sunto Quest, which I believe run on ANT) but I have yet to figure out how to get the belt data read and embedded in Suito my workouts.
Am I right that Suito itself cannot connect to the HR Ant belt and then send the data to e.g Zwift or Elite my-Etraining app via Bluetooth? If so would it work if I get a Ant USB stick in computer running Zwift and connect both the Suito and the HR belt to Zwift?
So the Suunto HR belt actually uses private-ANT, and not ANT+. Which means it’s unfortunately kinda useless here. So set that aside for now. It had a good life though.
The FR935 actually can ‘re-broadcast’ your HR over ANT+, so that’ll solve that issue for now. You can enable that within the sensor settings on your watch. You can either turn it on anytime you want, or just when you enter workout mode.
It doesn’t connect via Bluetooth Smart unfortunately, but does ANT+ – so no good for your smartphone, but will work for your computer.
Thanks Ray,
very clear on the Suunto side now.
What I do not understand is why the 935 cannot send data over Bluetooth, given that it does so when I use the Garmin Connect app on my iPhone. Is it a kind of proprietary protocol and so 935 cannot send the data to other apps, like Zwift or Elite myETraining?
The data isn’t sent via the Bluetooth Smart HR device profile, just the ANT+ heart rate device profile. It’s unclear whether the FR935 could support the standard BT profile broadcasting as well, since that might record a slightly different chipset to be able to dual-broadcast. Not clear. The newer ones seem like they might have the right chipset, but it’s not enabled in software at this point.
Ok. I’m a bit unsure if I should invest in a HR belt to use Bluetooth smart for transferring data to the Zwift/my e-Training SW (advantage is that this will work on devices that do not support ANT+, like ioS ones) or spend much less for a ANT+ dongle for PC only.
For the ANT+ dongle option, I’m concerned that some SW (e.g. my e-Training, which is free for one year) will not work with simultaneous Bluetooth and ANT+ data streams.
I would be interested to know if any of you has experience in using mixed type of data with those SWs; guess the alternative is to collect data for the same workout on different SWs and merge them later on one (whenever possible), something that honestly i’d like to avoid doing regularly.
I’d go with a dual HR strap instead – any day. It’ll work for whatever you want down the road.
I figure I should update.. After zero help from elite, only mixed responses of I should deal with the retailer..retailer did not understand elite warranty system.. But the retailer did help… By offering an exhange and ultimately a refund due to being out of stock.. I moved on and just paid the extra to get a Kickr, I really wanted to give the elite a try due to it folding and the decent price point.
So, the saga continues. I finally got the replacement unit from the distributor last week after being without my unit for over a month due to shipping from NY to Nevada and getting one back during the holidays. I swapped out the cassette with a Shimano 11-34 to match my Domane. Brought it to my Trek dealer to make sure everything was good. There were some different issues with the replacement. This unit had some fly wheel wobble which the original one didn’t (returned that due to the knocking issue) as well as a grinding feel/noise while using the large chain ring up front in some of the smaller cogs in the rear. No cross chaining causing this. They were stumped and spent over an hour making sure the the set up was correct regarding cassette spacing, derailleur tuning, etc.. They were literally laughing at the little card enclosed showing to lube the cassette. They felt that was pretty pathetic and never heard of putting oil on a cassette. Today I called the distributor again with my complaints. At first they told me to send them an email again with video of the issue. I mentioned that I was concerned that maybe I got a replacement that was old as far as production and I was told that wasn’t likely be he could tell if I gave him the serial number (SUI192259). I did and was put on hold for a little while. When he came back he said it looks like I did in fact wind up with a replacement from the generation with issues. UNFREAKINGBELIEVABLE!!!!! Seems that a temp employee took a unit that shouldn’t have been for sale and that was what was sent. He told me the only inventory they currently have is new and since the corrections. They agreed they made a mistake and told me to forget about sending a video. They also said after I told them I’m not going through the same cluster f%^k regarding shipping that they would send one out today and I didn’t have to send the second defective one back until I get the new one. Although I asked them to expedite the shipping they couldn’t and it went ground. I’m told I will get it next week. Seems that this time it’s all on the distributor and not Elite. This still has left a very bad taste in my mouth for the whole situation though. There better not be ANY issue with this unit or I am demanding refund and will look towards a Saris H3, Wahoo Kickr or a Tacx Neo2.
I received my 2nd replacement yesterday. Much better this time since I didn’t have to send the defective one back first. Sent out Friday and received on a Wednesday. I sent the defective one back today. Did a 1 hour TrainerRoad program today and I’m happy to report everything went well. Virtually no flywheel wobble, no grinding noise/feel in any gear, seemed overall much quieter and I even noticed the feel was better. By that I mean that when I drop significantly in power during the session and change to an easier gear it doesn’t seem to let loose when spinning like it used to. I used to have to stop pedaling a bit and let the flywheel catch up to the slower pace otherwise it would be “loose” feeling and sloppy. Now, the resistance feels more like it should and seems to catch up much quicker to the drop. Keeping my fingers crossed that nothing changes for the worse as the days go by. BTW, serial number starts on theis one with SUJ.
The Elite suito fit in the suitcase. Did you try to travel in the plane with it?
More globally, how should we carry home trainer in a plane ? Is it allowed in the cabin?
It’d easily fit in a suitcase. Using checked luggage there’d be no problems at all, it’s well under the standard 50lbs/22kg weight limit most airlines use. Bringing it in the cabin would likely be challenging – mostly because most security screening services would see the cassette and it’s sharp edges as a problem.
I’m on my second Suito. To be fair, the distributor replaced the first one really quickly. It sounded like one of those rock polishers you might of had when you were a kid. I missed a week of training and was excited about pulling the replacement out of the box.. until I pedaled and heard the exactly same damn sound!
I set it up anyway. Let’s be clear: set up is a HUGE HASSLE. It is simply not true that it is easy to set up. Yes, you can pull it out of the box and start pedaling but that’s it.
Why is it so hard to set up? There are no instructions for example, how to pair it, that they have apps, what the apps actually do, how to use it with a Garmin, for example, and a whole host of other issues.
If you use Zwift, perhaps it’s easier, but I don’t. I just want to load my own training plans into the software and use it on ERG mode. Guess what? You have to pay Elite annually for this privilege.
So we’re clear, I’m a 30-year software guy so it isn’t like I don’t know my way around technology but literally, there are no instructions at all.
This is a device with significant quality issues and poor/no instructions.
“Let’s be clear: set up is a HUGE HASSLE. It is simply not true that it is easy to set up. Yes, you can pull it out of the box and start pedaling but that’s it.
Why is it so hard to set up? There are no instructions for example, how to pair it, that they have apps, what the apps actually do, how to use it with a Garmin, for example, and a whole host of other issues.”
To be fair, zero trainers explain this in the market. None. The assumption these days is largely that you use 3rd party apps and know how to use it. Not sure that’s the right assumption, but that’s the case nonetheless across all brands.
How hard would it be to put a set of links onto a page? There’s really no excuse for this.
Hi Rob! I am looking forward to buying a Suito, but your review came to my attention. Isn’t it possible to use the trainer in ERG mode, commanded by workouts loaded on Garmin head units? Do you really have to pay for a software? Can’t Garmin Edges control the trainer?
Hey Ray and Folks,
Thanks for all your comments done here, useful as always.
I was in the market for a new trainer in nov-dec, and based on the specs Suito fits (suits :) my needs very well.
I’m currently using a non-smart Tacx Vortex (shows watts, can erg, but no FE-C, and I could not catch broadcasted wattage data unfortunately (one of my main issues))
I was considering the Tuo as well, but as there’s no review yet anywhere, (and those always stated at 4-6 weeks availablity at rosebikes) i moved to direct drive, hence the Sutio. (why to pay 500Eur for a kickr snap if suito is there for 600)
Now what I see from comments that the Suito initial problems are not quite sorted out, there are still cases where users experiencing nasty things. May bugetary cap was 600 EUR. Stretched.
I was planning to grab a Bushido on sale for appx 300-350 but those sold out very quickly.
Then I’ve changed my cap to 500 eur. Which was the Smart Votex, The Kickr Snap and the Tuo. And as Ray pointed out in the review, from the wheel on’s snap is kind of the best.
Suito came into the picture as for only 100 Eur more (or 60-70 if I sell the 11 speed cogs i don’t need), i can get a GOOD direct drive trainer. Now it’s seems more likely risky than good for sure.
I’m doing erg / level mode training, like trainerroad, sufferfest, I might use zwift as well. I’m not super stong or anything like that. Paincave is in basement, so noise is kinda secondary. Less calibration for direct drive was appealing as i have no other powermeter.
What is the most vise decision assuming the my narrowed down makerket is now:
Kick on 10% for 450 EUR – not direct drive but let’s just grab the extra money and spend elsewhere
Suito on minor sale 570 EUR – as described above, unknown risks (Europe, Hungary)
Direto X for 660 EUR on minor sale- Adding an other extra 10% on budget. Is the direto X is risk free?
Tacx flux S for 550 EUR as a runner up.
Any ideas. I feel kinda lost.
Thanks and Regards,
Viktor
I bought a Suito yesterday. Hardware revision 4.
It work well no any problem.
Hi Koson,
Where can i find version? Is there any label on the box?
Aga
So do you have to have a power meter to be able to use this with TR or Zwift? Or will those programs still control the W’s?
I’m confused.
No extra power meter needed.
Cool thank you. Want my wife to be able to use zwift, but she doesn’t have a PM.
Also, her bike is 10spd (annoying), and mine 11. Am I gonna have to change cassette every time? I fear I already know the answer…
I’m using my Suito 11s 105 cassette with two different bikes, which are setup with 10s Ultegra and 11s latest 105.
The 105 cassette from my bike has the same range as the one on the Suito and naturally it works well. My Ultegra also works fine, especially when using the small chainring and central part of the sprocket. If you want to use all the combinations on the 10s bike it can start to be a bit noisy, symptom that you probably shouldn’t do that (or if you really want then some rear derailleur indexing is needed every time you change from trainer to bike and viceversa). I cannot comment on the eventual side effects of using a non-matching combination of sprocket/chain/derailleur (shorter component lifetime?) but 10s and 11s should be very similar, especially the central block.
At least that is my experience. The end result may depend also on other factors, so it might work for me and not for someone else.
Yeah, I’d say Teo has pretty much nailed how that’ll work functionality-wise.
It’s doable to use the same cassette on 10/11sp bikes concurrently (my tri bike is a 10spd, so I do it occasionally), but it’s not ideal.
Received my Elite Suito about 2 months ago and overall I am really enjoying it. I had a question I was hoping the community could help me understand if I am experiencing a bug of some sort or if this is behavior when you use it this way.
I am using my trainer with Zwift connected via bluetooth and recording on my forerunner 945 via ant+ to ensure all the stats go to garmin correctly. Overall this has worked well the last 2 months but I started experimenting using ERG mode for my Zwift workouts which I really prefer but that seems to have brought a new issue.
When recording with ERG mode on, the speed reported back to my garmin via ant+ is way low. If I just turn it off for a couple seconds and turn it on, the speed then seems to start reporting correctly for that wattage. As soon as zwift changes the target wattage to something else, the speed is off again. The speed reporting to zwift via bluetooth seems to be fine throughout this but I’m wordering because it knows that ERG mode is on, while my garmin doesn’t since it doesn’t have control of the trainer?
I’d really like the distance / speed correct to garmin since that is where I’m monitoring my progress, especially for when I bike outdoors without zwift. Is this a bug or just a side-effect when using 2 computers to capture from my trainer.
Thanks
I have been using the Elite Suito for the month of January with Zwift. I have a Trek Emonda with Dura Ace 11 speed Di2 drive train. I am using the included Shimano 105 11 speed cassette. Did not have to adjust any der trim. The Zwift trainer difficulty is set at 75%. The Suito trainer has performed well without issue (very quiet and smooth). Spin down calibration was done with Zwift. FWIW my power has been 0 – 1000 watts. I do like how compact this trainer is with the legs folded in.
Hi,
Thanks for the review.
Think the Suito would be a good match with an MTB 1x? Ordered a 148×13 adapter, not easy to find those. Ordered from an internet retailer in US for 619$, delaer said he just got a fresh batch of these, so fingers crossed it’s one of the newer ones.
148×12, typo
Hi. I am in the market for an Elite Suito and live in the US as well. Of course I am trying to find the best deal online. Do you mind telling me where you purchased yours from.
Thanks
Scott
link to bikecloset.com
Hi,
It goes on sale for 619$ +40$ shipping, every 3rd day. Get it when you see the deal.
I just got mine yesterday. So far so good.
Its now €579 in the Netherlands, sounds like a nice upgrade from my old Tacx iGenius.
Hi, I am using this trainer for a while now. With ZWIFT everything is fine.
But I also want to record to my Polar watches (V800 oder Vantage V). Problem is: I cannot enter a wheel circumfence of 84, as the minimum value to enter is 1000. So I get horrible high speed values and I am messing up all my statistics. Same is with my WAHOO ELEMNT BOLT. I cannot enter values <1000.
Is there any solution to that? I do not know why ELITE is using such terrible small values.
I connect to my watches via BLE (Polar does not speak ANT+), but that should be irrelevant.
I bought a Suito a few days ago. Hardware revision 4.
There had been an obvious flywheel wobble. The vibrations came at approx 45 km/h. Higher and lower speeds are alright. Had to return it. Was not what i expected for 600€. Maybe I give another one a second try.
Hi. I just purchased one. I have a 10 speed and got a Shimano CS 5700. When I put one spacer on the cassette seems too lose like there’s play but when I put 2 spacers on the cassette seems to tight. My smaller gears were making noise. Any one else have this problem or know if it’s suppose to be one or two spacers
Thanks
Hi Scott, I had the same feeling. I hadn’t been sure where this rattling came from. With one ring it had been too loose. With two rings I had to readjust my gears. Strange.
Same issue here with hardware revision 4. Some wobbling in the flywheel but noise from small gears at high flywheel speed are det main problem. Boss and casette seems to wobble a bit to. I had to adjust gears as well. Fine in big gears 1-4 and small ring at front. Im considering sending it back to the shop.
Thanks Jan. I put the 2 spacers back on and yes it seem like I have to readjust my gears. I read somewhere with the Shimano 105 series you need 2 spacers
Thanks
Yeah, different cassettes have slightly different spacing. And it’s not uncommon at all to find that ones bike will be indexed slightly differently than a trainer with a different or more heavily used cassette. Finally, it’d oddly also not unheard of to find bike shops that incorrectly put X number of spacers on a bike during initial build-up. You’d never know, because they indexed the gears ‘correctly’ for the incorrect spacers. It’s only when you put it on a correctly spacered trainer that it all falls apart. I’d say I see this 1-2 times a month in comments here.
Point being, sometimes it takes a bit of tweaking to get both sides of the equation happy – no matter the trainer brand.
Hi DCM,
that makes sense.
I´m still Looking for a solution concerning the “chain noise” at high Speeds. Shifting is fine now, but the noise makes me nervous.
My advice, return the Trainer if possible if you´re not feeling comfortable with it. Elite Needs to learn, not sending trainers with poor quality to their costumers. Each bike wheel got less wobble than that trainer. Except this wobble which I suppose everey suito got more or less, this Trainer would be perfect. So sad… :-(
Unfortunately there is no real alternative for me. So I kept my second. With some, somehow acceptable wobble. More or less…
I’ve just got a Suito and, whilst I think it’s great, I’ve noticed an issue with the Bluetooth and ANT+ signals. I’m finding a massive difference in the power reading between the two. Using Bluetooth it comes out at around 10W less than my Rotor Inpower cranks (as expected) but using ANT+ it’s 30-40W down and fluctuates wildly?
Any thoughts? Does the Suito need calibrating on each different transmition mode for example?
Regards
Steve
Hi,
How can assess which hardware version do I have? Is there any label on the box / on the trainer? Can someone send me a photo of such information? Many thanks in advance.
Aga
I must be unlucky as my first unit was pretty bad, wobbly flywheel and vibrations at high speed, but the second was even worse – scratch marks on the unit straight out of the box, chalk marks on the flywheel (looks like they’ve tried to re-true it perhaps?) and a lot of noise and vibrations especially on the smaller end of the cassette. This is in Europe, so either it’s a new unit and they’ve not fixed the issues, or I suspect they’re maybe even sending out refurbished units to fulfill new orders. Sending back and won’t be trying a third.
I‘m sure they didn’t fix. Maybe they improved a little.
Using this trainer with TrainerRoad. In ERG mode it is recommended to use the small ring up front if 2 rings and generally the middle cog in the rear to keep the chain straight. With ERG you aren’t supposed to change gears as the unit will increase or decrease resistance to maintain the target power. I find this set up doesn’t feel as good as using the big ring up front with the rear cog in the general area of the middle. The small ring up front set up almost seems to “loose” so to speak and makes it difficult to maintain proper cadence (at least 85 recommended) and have the target power. Why do they recommend the small ring up front and what do you experience related to this?
@ Jeff, in my understanding there is no absolute recommendation to use big vs small chainring (assuming obvious things being comparable, like proper chain alignment). The most accepted recommendation is to use a gearing that simulate the actual terrain you would like to train on, namely flat vs hill, as the flywheel momentum can differ considerably. In that sense a small chainring better simulate the road feel of a hill while the big chainring a flat course; which is probably also why it feels easier with big chainring, as the high momentum of the flywheel “helps” to stay on top of the target power once we reach it. Ultimately I think it’s better for me to mix chainring modes, unless I’m 100% sure that I won’t do any hilly races, in which case staying most of the time on big chainring would make sense. I’m only looking from a time trial perspective, i guess other races have inevitably much more elements that influence power. Finally, different trainers have different flywheels and i assume that those differences will be more evident on some machines.
Here is an interesting video where Shane Miller addresses similar topic, with the help of a Kickr Core (which has a heavier flywheel than Suito): link to youtu.be
Thanks Teo. Good link. I also found this one from the other link. link to youtube.com I seem to have found I actually can make the small ring up front work out well. It really just comes down to getting used to how ERG works and learning to let it do what it is supposed to do. So I can use either the small ring or large ring and make it work. The small amount of time I’ve ridden outdoors (new to my bike) I have been in the large ring unless climbing so I guess I need to decide if there is a down side to using the trainer with the small ring like they recommend while I am in the large ring more so with my terrain so far. I suppose a bigger body of outdoor work this upcoming season will help me figure that out.
Hi everyone, I am considering buying this trainer. Has anyone bought one this late in the year. Is anyone still experienced having to send them back because of the issues ?
Hi Rae and everyone else, If you have an issue with the Suito trainer, is there anybody you can contact in Australia? I’ve corresponded with Chainreactions and without much a-do, they say just send it back. I have a suspicion I’m doing something wrong and can fix it with somebody on the phone. Chainreactions don’t have anybody able to offer that service.
The issue is that my Suito measures me pedalling powers of 1700 Watt when I’m not doing anything at all. It sends the same power to my Garmin and the myE Training app. My iPhone doesn’t say it’s connected to the Suito anymore with bluetooth.
Should I try to contact a local agent who can help. Or just send back to UK?
Hi Michiel, best is to contact Elite support in Italy directly if they’re are still working these days. I received an answer after 3 days. They are willing to helpz
Hi Jan, do you have an e-mail address of them? Many many thanks for your help!
Hi Michiel,
try this one:
support@elitesrl.zendesk.com
thanks Jan, will send them an e-mail.
Hi Ray,
I have a question regarding my Suito but it might apply to all direct drive trainers.
The trainer works fine, but the spindown value seems to drift up gradually since I got it. I started at 10400 and I’m now at 11100.
I understand that this is an abstract value for the time it takes the trainer to spin down, so maybe it’s just bearings and the freewheel and the drivetrain in general settling in? I’m expecting that it will probably stabilize at some point, hopefully at least.
But did you see this with other trainers as well out of the box?
Typically speaking spindown/calibration values are a factor of many things, often including temperature, bearings, etc… Gaetano, one of the lead engineers at Elite, had commented back on the previous Suito hands-on post that unless it’s over 20,000, to not worry about it: link to dcrainmaker.com
Great review, as always.
In the UK, the Direto X and Suito are virtually the same price (if you ignore the price of a cassette). On paper it seems the former is the better trainer, but would you say the Suito is a better bet given it is a later model?
Thank you.
BW
Abi
I purchased Suito just recently, in preparation of the ‘off season due to pandemy’ and it seems to be one of the newer batches (SUL serial number, 2,5 m cable, recent firmware right on the start and hardware revision 4 according to Upgrado app)
This is first time experience for me on a direct drive trainer (apart from some bike expos) and I’m not sure about noise level of my Suito.
When it is in spindown phase I hear, sometimes, a gentle knocking sound(?)/rubbing sound, especially in high cadences. Not sure if this is related to belt (so some lubing maybe).
Definitely nothing excessive like the youtube materials I saw on the subject of Suito knocking sound with first batches.
As I have no experience in DD trainer (or any other trainer at all) I’m not sure what can be treated as ‘within tolerances of manafacturing’ or what is definitely ‘return immediately’ type of thing, especially that with ongoing situation returning wouldn’t be as smooth as during ‘business as usual’.
There’s minor wheel wobble (but that is something I have expected, trainers are not build with aerospace industry tolerances).
I’m also facing issues with indexing of gears and drive train noise related to that (I’ve lubed my chain extra for the trainer), but that is still in tweaking process, hopefully I’ll sort it out
Can you share your experience on the above(noise level/some knocking sound?)
Apart from above doubts it works quite good and I don’t see issues within Zwift, power and reaction to ERG mode is okay for someone who experiences this for the first time.
Hi Convi
Thank you very much for the in-depth review. I’ve ordered & awaiting delivery (Last one in their stores). I’m hoping it’s the SUL series too. Hope the noise disappears with continued use.
Good Luck.
BW
Abi
Minor remark from my side, don’t use wheel block on a road bike*700c wheels, standard) because it screws up level of your bike (my butt learnt it the hard way, was wondering what was causing it), it seems Suito has same heigh of mounting points as a wheel, so no riser is needed
I have used it today for the very first time and it has taken me 10 seconds to realize tha something was weird with the block, I have removed it and go for a 2h30′ ride. I have later checked, and the height of the rear hub in the Suito is the same as the front one without any block. So strange that the wheel block is included unless you are going to ride a 26″ MTB…
Thanks for the thorough review. I’ve had my Suito for about eight weeks now and have been fairly happy with it. However, I have noticed considerable difference in power numbers between the Suito and my Quarq DZero. The Suito consistently reads 15% lower than the Quarq. Today while riding in Zwift/Watopia, the Suito fluctuated between 350W and 100W (without noticeable difference in effort), while the DZero remained at ~200W. I did a spindown with the my ETraining app (Zwift no longer has the littler wrench to allow calibration), which led to no improvement. The firmware is up to date. Has anyone else had these issues? Any suggestions?
where is the screw adjustment for the belt on Suito ?????
I bought a Suito last week and everything seems to work well apart from my speed, I seem to be cycling always faster than 100 km/h(sometimes 300 km/h), power wattage and cadence seems to be normal.
I set up wheel circumference like in the manual(2090mm divided by 24,8= 84mm), so I typed in 84 in their ‘my E Training’ app for wheel circumference. Also on my Wahoo Bolt I get same numbers. In Zwift speed seems normal(because it takes speed from wattage & cadence I assume) but I sometimes can barely spin my pedals because there’s so much resistance.
Also did some calibrations but they fail most of the time(sometimes it gives me a spindown calibration of 10740(which seems normal).
Anybody got any ideas on how to fix this?
Anybody got
You should put the actual circumference into the my E-training app. The 24.8 factor is for non-Elite apps, e.g. Garmin etc.
See link to elitesrl.zendesk.com
The problem is in Polar watches you cannot enter a circumference lower than 1000 … So you alway get way to high speed and distance values. Is there any reason for that crappy 84mm??
Ever since I purchased my Elite Suito in December 2019 it has a tendency to make an awful screeching sound every now and again. Similar to sound of metal on metal. It is a really alarming sound and must be bad for the trainer. Until this week it hadn’t happened that regularly but I started using Zwift this week and it has happened a lot more.
It normally happens when I try to start pedalling after I have previously stopped pedalling and whilst the resistance on the trainer is high. For instance, today on Zwift, the gradient increased to 15% and the resistance from the trainer became very high. I wasn’t on top of the gear so I stopped pedalling for a couple of seconds. When I tried to start pedalling again, the screeching noise started and the resistance was very, very high. Normally if I stop pedalling and wait for 10 seconds I can start pedalling again with no issue. However today, the noise came back every single time I started pedalling. I had to end my ride and reconnect the trainer.
I can’t seem to find anyone else who has had this problem before. Any ideas?
Other than this, the trainer has been working fine. I calibrate it regularly and the firmware is up to date. I use it, at least 5+ hours a week, on TrainerRoad in ERG mode with no problems.
I’ve contacted Elite Support so hoping they’ll be able to help but any help here would be appreciated.
Sadly I can’t comment as my purchase is yet to be delivered. As store can’t comment on time lines, I have gone for the Wahoo Kickr and received promptly.
Thank you to all who have commented. Good luck with the Elite Suito.
BW
Update:
I’m not entirely sure how trainers work but I think I have located the issue.
I unscrewed the small plastic cover on the rear left side (from looking behind the trainer towards your handlebars). It exposes part of a silver wheel (is this the flywheel, or is the flywheel the large black wheel?). If I turn the pedals, this silver wheel seems to have a flat spot. I think this might be the issue.
I opened Trainer Road, paired the trainer, and toggled the resistance in TR. I could then see what I assume is the brake mechanism moving towards the silver wheel to engage resistance. Whilst turning the pedals and increasing the resistance, the brake mechanism was touching the silver wheel, and the grinding / screeching noise started.
I assume the silver wheel is untrue and this is causing it to interact with the brake mechanism in a faulty manner at high resistances. I am guessing this is something I cannot fix myself and the wheel / trainer must be replaced. Still waiting to here back from Elite but not hopeful that I’ll be able to get a replacement trainer during the current Covid crisis.
I had one of the very first units. Last days of August. Now it is reporting 20-30% lower power or not engaging the correct resistance AND it started screeching. Especially when I ramp up to 100rpm ish.
I contacted the online store I bought it from. I wish you all guys luck. It’s so annoying. I don’t want to put more pressure on the Italian support and the system, but at the same time, I also don’t want to ride outside and be a potential safety issue here. Really not a great time for it to be breaking.
Hi there. How quiet is the Elite range in comparison to the others? I see the KICKR is much quieter now than it used to be. Also, the weight of the KICKR flywheel has some merit. Do you consider it a factor? Thanks. Jimmy.
Hello everyone,
With the front wheel set on the wheel block the bike tilts up with the height of the block (aprox 1 – 1.5 cm). Did you notice this? I noticed it with the saddle and when holding the hands on handlebar.It is not the same as if i would have the bike on the wheels, i mean not straight. What can be done?…i mean i dont want to raise the back and put things under my mat:).
Have a nice day
I simply don’t use the block, because it changes geometry to ‘constant climbing’ and had butt aches due to that. Without the block my saddle is perfectly level, as on my bike, and therefore it is much comfier.
Have the teething issues with this one been addressed? I am thinking of getting one.
Hello
Is there a way to get a solid axle, closed with regular nuts on the Elite Suito? I have this trainer and a fixed gear bike, and the QR that comes in the set doesn’t hold the bike strong enough. Is there a way to fix this?
Thanks
Hey guys – i’ve recently bought a Suito from one of the cycle shops here in Denmark. I’ve noticed a slight knocking sound, especially when in spin down.
I checked my serial number and it starts SUB. Is this one of the really early releases? It has the larger cable however.
Thanks
Hey Chris,
I also had this. Some knocking at first, then i could also see that the flywheel and cassette were slightly wiggly while pedaling. Now i think the big nut on the left side of the trainer is slightly loose and I should probably tighten it.
Does anyone know what size the nut is? I need to buy a wrench for this
Would that happen to be from Boerkop Cykler?
I recently bought a Suito from them and got a S/N starting with SUB which judging by this comment thread might be causing all my problems.
Hi Jesper.
I actually bought the trainer from Cykelexperten. I’m wondering if Denmark got a batch of the early versions of the trainer, although i’m not sure what the SUB serial number refers to. Are you having similar problems?
I’ve got a Suito that I bought in October 2019. It’s had a slight knocking sound from the beginning but I wasn’t too bothered by out. Now it seems to be getting worse though – to a degree where it’s probably freaking out the neighbors…
I also checked the power against my 4iiii PM (after calibrating both) and the Suito reads noticeably lower (see image). I think I’ll have to get in touch with Elite and make a warranty claim, after this whole confinement thing is over of course, otherwise I have no means of training at all….:/
P.S. my trainer has an SI serial number
For everyone who has knocking sounds, or flywheel wiggle / movement.
I had the same, and it was getting worse and worse. The issue in my case was that the nut holding the whole flywheel on the trainer and the cassette and axle was getting loose. This happens, for instance, if you (like me) store your bike vertically on the trainer after workouts so it takes less space. Whenever you do that, actually, whenever you lower your bike back, you apply a force on this nut that untightens it bit by bit, and the knocking / wiggle intensifies.
The size of the nut is 30mm and you can tighten it with a spanner or an adjustable wrench. For me it fixed the issue, and the trainer rides like it is brand new. I got it on late Sept / early Oct 2019, model with longer cable (but supposedly, the model without the fixed bearing installation procedure – which was mid Oct as far as I read).
Hope this will be useful for someone. Ride on!
For everyone who has knocking sounds, or flywheel wiggle / movement.
I had the same, and it was getting worse and worse. The issue in my case was that the nut holding the whole flywheel on the trainer and the cassette and axle was getting loose. This happens, for instance, if you (like me) store your bike vertically on the trainer after workouts so it takes less space. Whenever you do that, actually, whenever you lower your bike back, you apply a force on this nut that untightens it bit by bit, and the knocking / wiggle intensifies.
The size of the nut is 30mm and you can tighten it with a spanner or an adjustable wrench. For me it fixed the issue, and the trainer rides like it is brand new. I got it on late Sept / early Oct 2019, model with longer cable (but supposedly, the model without the fixed bearing installation procedure – which was mid Oct as far as I read).
I have also had weird power readings (lower generally) and a power curve that didn’t resemble the one in my 4iiii PM. After i upgraded the FW on the Suito to the latest one using the Upgrado app, it was fixed.
Hope this will be useful for someone. Ride on!
For everyone who has knocking sounds, or flywheel wiggle / movement.
I had the same, and it was getting worse and worse. The issue in my case was that the nut holding the whole flywheel on the trainer and the cassette and axle was getting loose. This happens, for instance, if you (like me) store your bike vertically on the trainer after workouts so it takes less space. Whenever you do that, actually, whenever you lower your bike back, you apply a force on this nut that untightens it bit by bit, and the knocking / wiggle intensifies.
The size of the nut is 30mm and you can tighten it with a spanner or an adjustable wrench. For me it fixed the issue, and the trainer rides like it is brand new. I got it on late Sept / early Oct 2019, model with longer cable (but supposedly, the model without the fixed bearing installation procedure – which was mid Oct as far as I read).
I have also had weird power readings (lower generally) and a power curve that didn’t resemble the one in my 4iiii PM. After i upgraded the FW on the Suito to the latest one using the Upgrado app, it was fixed.
Hope this will be useful for someone. Ride on!
For everyone who has knocking sounds, or flywheel wiggle / movement.
I had the same, and it was getting worse and worse. The issue in my case was that the nut holding the whole flywheel on the trainer and the cassette and axle was getting loose. This happens, for instance, if you (like me) store your bike vertically on the trainer after workouts so it takes less space. Whenever you do that, actually, whenever you lower your bike back, you apply a force on this nut that untightens it bit by bit, and the knocking / wiggle intensifies.
The size of the nut is 30mm and you can tighten it with a spanner or an adjustable wrench. For me it fixed the issue, and the trainer rides like it is brand new. I got it on late Sept / early Oct 2019, model with longer cable (but supposedly, the model without the fixed bearing installation procedure – which was mid Oct as far as I read).
I have also had weird power readings (lower generally) and a power curve that didn’t resemble the one in my 4iiii PM. After i upgraded the FW on the Suito to the latest one using the Upgrado app, it was fixed.
Hope this will be useful for someone. Ride on!
I have the knocking sound and it seems to get worse unfortunately…the nut on the trainer looks and feels rock-solid, though. How loose was it on yours? Could you turn it by hand?
Hi Lars,
If with the bike on the trainer, you can move the flywheel using just some small force at the saddle, then it is a loosen nut.
I think the nut has some locking paste (at least it felt like it). So it didn’t seem loose when I tried to tighten it by hand, but when I used a spanner it would obviously feel it was. It tightens clockwise, and you will feel when it’s tightened again, if that’s the issue. You don’t need much force on the spanner, I would assume the torque you need is around 15-20 Nm.
My advice is to tighten it with the bike off the trainer.
thanks for your reply. No, the flywheel does not move on mine…so the sound must be caused by something else….I’ll have to see what Elite support is saying it seems :/
How much flex is everyone seeing in their Suito units?
I’ve come from a tacx flux which is like a brick. The suito feels solid as a unit on its own – as soon as a bike is added the unit has a crazy amount of flex (however the legs are staying still). When riding the flex of the unit almost goes against the flex/movement of the bike and it feels horrible!
The bike is attached firmly, the unit is flat and stable on the ground – but the turbo itself almost feels like 2 separate entities allowing this flex to occur.
Hi Mike,
If the flex includes the flywheel moving side to side (which I suppose it does from your description, because I could also feel mine wiggling in the opposite direction of my pedaling – very annoying), then I would first check if the 30mm but on the opposite side of the cassette is still tight. Like I said earlier, this thing gets untightened.
Let me know what you find after having a look at it, and I hope it’s that, since it’s a super easy fix.
Sabin, can you pace a photo of the mentioned nut? I am a (un)handyman. So just trying not to mess it up :-)
Hi Sebastian,
Here it is. Note that it is better in my opinion to tighten it with the bike taken off the trainer. (In my pic the bike is still there stored vertically)
Sabin alex – thanks for the info.
That 30mm nut is tight (by hand) – don’t actually have a wrench big enough to check further. I feel like when mine flexes its the whole unit (top half) flexing against the legs. Just tried to check adjustments underneath and it seems to have 7mm allen keys!!! I have hundreds of allen keys, none that are 7mm – argh.
Mine is definitely more than just the flywheel moving.
Be interested to see how everyone else gets on.
Well, I seem to be missing a couple of bolts – this surely can’t be helping my stability!
Hi guys,
I have been reading all the thread and have a question for you. Is one of you experiencing power dropouts using the Suito ?
First thought was connectivity but after tweaking the WIFIsetting to avoid interference, I still see those dropouts.
The odd thing is that it only occurs for power data. HR or cadence are fine with no dropouts. Yet, power reading seems fairly accurate.
But it affects my training sessions cause the dropouts affect the power average and my training app consider that I am training lower then expected especially while using ERG mode.
My Suito is with serial SUK and hw4. thanks for your feedbacks.
Regards, Jerome
I have bought a Suito. Also because it had a good review here. The machine is good unless you want to race on Swift. I get too low power output all the time. Racing on Swift is thus no fun. I read on other forums that this is a common problem for the Suito. Apparently one of the few that works correctly was reviewed here.
The only solution is to use your own power meter.
Hi Jan,
Have you updated the firmware to the latest one? I also had this issue and it was fixed by the latest firmware. Get the Upgrado app and let me know if that solves it. Also, use the myElite app to perform a spindown calibration afterwards (make sure you use the trainer for 10 mins before calibration).
PS: make sure your phone screen won’t turn off during the firmware upgrade. It took 5-10 minutes for me.
I bought this trainer based on a couple of reviews, assuming the hardware and software issues were solved by now. I’m on hardware revision 004 and latest firmware (5.20). The trainer is a mess unfortunately….
As you can read here, a lot of users on zwift have the same problem: low power readings at higher power output.
link to forums.zwift.com
I’ve used the DC rainmaker app to compare reading from my new FSA powerbox to the one month old trainer. Did a calibration before the test. Used Jon’s mix on zwift to compare both..
All is fine below 200-250W.
@450W, it reads 10% lower than my FSA powerbox (power2max, supposed to be very accurate)
@750W, it reads 20-26% lower….
Problem has apparently been reported to Elite, they should be working on it, but there is no timeline. Who knows if they’ll be able to solve it, maybe the hardware is flawed.
So beware before buying this trainer!
Just to clarify, on the calibration of the trainer – did you do it before any pedaling, or after letting the trainer warm-up for about 10-15 mins?
I am getting exactly the same results as Patrick, with calibration after warm-up. My unit is from last October, though. Its knocking sound is also getting worse, so I’ll probably have to contact Elite support once this whole confinement thing is over…
After warming up for 12min at a decent intensity (>200W).
If you read the comments on the Zwift, you’ll notice that a lot of people have exactly the same issue. One guy reports that he gets decent values after 60min of riding. But high wattages are still a bit low.
I’ve got your app for 24 hours, so I’ll try to do another test tonight. But even if it’s a bit better, it’s still way off and completely unacceptable…
Lars, are you following the zwift forum thread as well? Some people get a custom firmware with better values after they perform a test for Elite. Another guy is working on a JSON file himself, he might be able to help people out.
Someone tested the powerlink, but that seems to have issues as well. The manual is also not very clear on powerlink and how it works. I might give that a try.
Hi there, no, not following the Zwift forum thread…but I’ll see if I can find it. I have a 4iiii PM on my Trainer-bike, so I am just connecting that to Zwift instead of the Trainer which solves the issue. Unless I totally misunderstand things, that kind of makes Powerlink redundant, right?
Still, my original plan was to put that PM onto another bike and just rely on the trainer power data…that won’t work though with the Suito underreading…
The zwift link is in my first post.
Linking my PM to zwift is an option. But that only works in level mode, not in ERG mode I suppose?
I was planning to put my alu gravel on the trainer and use the carbon race bike with PM for outdoor training. The alu bike has shorter cranks that put less stress on my knees, so I prefer to do HIIT with that bike. But if the values are too far off, I’ll have to use the same bike for training inside and outside.
That will at least get me very coherent data! Or I can get another trainer if I can still return it….
ah, sorry, had overlooked that link…to be honest, in my experience if you want consistent data the only reliable way is to use the same bike (or PM) for everything unfortunately.
The Suito is my second smart trainer and it behaves just the way yours does when compared to my 4iiii PM. I had an Elite Rampa before and that was measuring way too high.
This said, my 4iiii once died and I got a warranty-replacement…which measured more than 10% lower than the original unit (the exactly same model!) I just got a Stages unit (on sale) for my other road bike and have not had a chance to check it yet against the 4iiii as I am living in Spain and not allowed to ride at the moment…but I strongly suspect there will be some variance as well….I like tracking my progress using power data but I am not taking things too seriously….if I were I would probably use PM pedals and swap them between bikes or something along those lines….
I ride gravel & road with both bikes, so pedal pm is not an option. I bought the FSA powerbox with a power2max crank meter, it’s supposed to be quite accurate.
But using the same bike might be the best bet. I’m planning to use Xert for training indoors and outdoors. It calculates your form based on your power data. So having consistent data is quite important, or it’s pointless to train with Xert I guess…
I’ll stick to the powerbox for everything for now!
Hi Ray,
is it possible for you to help to bring clarification? Maybe some short E-Mail to Elite from your side helps. Maybe they are already working on an update.
Keep up that good work. you´re my first and last reference before buying new electronic bike stuff.
Best regards,
Jan
Ray, sorry, I may have missed something above but are you saying it’s better to do the spin down before any pedalling or after warming the trainer up by pedalling for 15” or so?
I’d do it after 10-15 mins, based on my testing. I don’t think with the Suito you need to do it every time. I’d try and do it every 1-2 weeks though.
I am on my 3rd Suito. The knocking isn’t present finally. I have tried updating the firmware on the app for a while now and it always says there is no new update. When I ride with TrainerRoad I am having this particular issue. As long as I am putting force into the pedals the cadence is fine. The moment I start to spin differently, such as pulling with my calf and hamstrings or spinning light and quick the cadence number drops considerably. My cadence is actually faster and my power numbers are fine but the cadence output number drops like a brick. When I then go back to putting force in the pedals it works its way back up. At the end of a portion during training and it gives you your data I shake my head because it is lower than I know it should be. Any thoughts?
Same on my trainer. I have up hope to get a solution soon. Bought an extra cadence sensor.
I just realized my knocking sound goes away or at least is reduced if I move my weight a little to the left or right. Obviously that’s not really a sustainable riding position but seems to indicate that the sound has something to do with the distribution of weight on the axle…has anybody notices the same effect?
Hi Lars,
I have noticed the same when the nut holding the flywheel was loose. (See one of my previous comments.)
Make sure that 30mm nut is tightened before going for warranty.
ok, thanks, the nut feels rock-solid when I try to move it by hand…but I will have another look and see if I can find a spanner that size…power readings are still off, though…
On my second suito after the first one stopped working, but power output has been a nightmare. My weekly 4 x 8 intervals are sometimes waaaay to hard (I stop at around 2 minuten), other days it is easy doable.
My 4iiii PM comparison on the DC analyzer shows that above 300W the suito is measuring more than 10% too low. But not always,…it is 50/50 with this device.
I purely use it for training but even that isn’t possible with the inconsistency. Bought this device because of the good review here and other places, bit is has been disappointing. Everything is calibrated and updated, doesn’t help a thing. I showed Elite all my measurements, but I only get a standard reply back that is behavior is normal (having a standard reply on an issue like this isn’t good news). The Zwift forum is full of similar complaint, no solution in sight. Guess I’m out 600 bucks.
To summarize: Please don’t buy this device.
Regarding power inconsistency: you can enable Power Meter Link in the Elite software. The Suito will then use your 4iiii PM as power measurement source (and thus will ignore the internal power estimation). That’s what I do with my Stages PM, always consistent training!
@Koen Can you help me? When Powermeter Link is established, is the external power meter also used for ERG-Mode? That would be nice to know, because I find the internal power estimation quite slow when it comes to sprint sections.
I am thinking to buy some SRM x Pedals but this would only be useful when they are used by the SUITO in ERG Mode.
@Dirk: Yes the measurement of the external power meter is also used in ERG mode. However, the ERG response (how fast you are locked onto the new power target) will likely be SLOWER when using PML than when using the Suito internal power meter, as there is an extra feedback loop to match the power levels.
I agree that the Suito is not very fast in adjusting to power targets in ERG, but it is no issue for me for intervals longer than 30s. So sprinting may still be an issue for you
Koen, a lot of thanks for your answer.
Powerlink is not a option for me, as I use an old bike on the trainer and I dont want to swap cranks everytime. But I have to take back my earlier statement on the device. While Elite was first reluctant to help me out with the inconsistent numbers. But after sharing some more measurements with them that showed the inconsistencies I got a manual (and individual) update.
After this update I calibrated, followed the steps from Ray’s “Troubleshooting Power Meter and Trainer Accuracy Issues” and it was smooth sailing. I did multiple rides and it was spot on with my 4iiii power. It also has a far more natural feel. Spinning around 190 watts (zone 2 for me) felt sluggish at first, now it feels like the easy spin it actually is. VO2 MAX intervals were impossible at first, now they just hurt as they should.
Hi DC and guys,
So my view on the elite suito. Good product….unless you are a sprinter…and apparently I was! My oldest son decided to join me cycling indoor which is great, which gave me an excuse to shop for my first direct drive. I had been on a wahoo kikr snap for 8 months. Heavy middle of the pack rider in B on zwift, but peaking at 1400 watts in sprints with an average of 1100 watts over 15s. There are reviews about the kikr snap being sometimes inaccurate as a wheels on…and I got this one replaced after a few months for this exact problem, another story. I was calibrating my kikr snap for every race. Now with the elite suito…I peak at 1000Watts if I am very lucky…and REALLY struggle to maintain anything above 700 watts in sprints…which has forced me to change my tactics and start a sprint on the 500m for every race to keep a 700 watts average. Upgrado is telling me I have the latest firmware…I have tried calibrating via etraining and zwift. I am convinced something is not right at all. I will log a ticket with Elite…not the end of the world I do not plan to send it back, I am not a professional racer and this is a middle of the range product…but a bit annoying! I have no powermeter so I imagine this is going to be a hassle to prove anything. I can not believe I have lost 400W of power in sprints…when all the other power data in race are quite similar to the kikr snap measurements-thank you!
Hi DC,
I found a Drivo I unit (the white one) at a lower price than a Suito, which one would chose ?
Thanks for your reply.
PO
Note that I don’t need the Suito’s 11-speed cassette since i’ve got 10-speed set.
I was wondering if anyone with experience of the Kickr Core and the Suito might be able to give me some advice regarding sound levels when the trainers are in use.
I know that the Core is quieter but, Is there an appreciable difference between them?
I live in an appartment and have a soon to be one year old child, so for me sound levels are pretty important.
p.s as always an excellent review, thanks Ray
There is a difference, though I think it’s unlikely to make a meaningful difference once you have a fan unless you’re in the same room as the child, or, on older wooden floors in an apartment that might be more prone to having vibrations resonate.
The main difference is honestly more around the power and road feel, which is better on the CORE.
Thank you very much for the reply
Hi! Very interested… just one quick question: how can the cassette in the trainer be a simple plug-in for any bike? No rear shifter adjustment required? Looks like a dream…
As long as you’ve got an 11-speed cassette on there (SRAM/Shimano), it’ll align perfectly (also, as long as your bike mechanic that built said bike put the spacer in the right spot).
If you’ve got another speed (e.g. 9/10/etc..), then you’ll need to swap the cassette out.
Hi Ray, what specific spacer are you referring to? I am always have adjust the derailleur when moving the bike between Suito and road…now I wonder if that’s spacer-related but there aren’t really any spacers around the cassette that I can think of….
Actually to clarify, on an 11-speed bike, there would be no spacer. The spacer should be there for other speeds. It’s in the box for cassettes, and sometimes people/mechanics will assume it needs to go on the cassette. There’s enough space to make it work physically, and thus people install it – do all the normal gear alignment stuff, but if you swap to a different wheel or trainer, then it goes askew.
It’d be virtually impossible to see unless you took off the full cassette on your regular wheel.
Ah, right, I know which one you mean, thanks! Yes, I have 11 speed bikes, so don’t use it.
Thanks!
I really wanted to like this trainer, I thought plenty of time had passed to get everything sorted out. I bought one of these Suito’s in NZ in July 2020. 2.5m electric cable. SUEXXX model number. Hardware level 4.
BUT, it has the wobbly flywheel. So much so that my bike wobbles when the trainer is spinning down after I stopped pedalling.
I’m sending it back. Unfortunate.
I also found the cadence particularly inaccurate, fluctuating up and down by 10rpms or so when pedaling constantly, also registering as still pedaling constantly for several seconds after have entirely stopped actually pedalling. Jumps to 40rpm when you just do the first pedals at less than 10.
Sincere, severe, disappointment, I wanted it to work.
Welcome to the world of SUITO!
And it seems like there is no Software update coming…
Can’t decide between the suito and the tacx flux 2. What’s everyone’s recommendation?
Well, I have the same question? Did you buy which one?
Hi,
First and foremost, thanks for a great site and useful reviews.
Would you say it’s worth to upgrade from a fluid wheel-on trainer to the Suito?
In my case, the Elite Qubo Fluid.
What’s the benefits with upgrading to a Direct Drive?
Hello Ray,
I have a Ultegra 11sp 11-28, I know I am ok there with casette set from the Elite.
I have a Di2 shifter, is that compatible with the Elite Suito using with Zwift?
Thanks, and greetings from the Puget Sound area…
Ray,
Multiple users of the Suito still report issues regarding ERG mode. I received my Suito last week and ran through all of the settings and configurations mentioned in this and several other internet forums. After multiple frustrating attempts, I reached out to Elite and below is their response.
“About power fluctuations:
Please take note that Suito has an high precision power calculation that consider the inertia of the flywheel and also the way and how smooth you pedaling is, a fluctuation on the power is so completely normal, and it does not indicate a trainer issue but it is the consequence of its high precision
A fluctuation on the power (sometimes it could be up to 20-25W) is completely normal and caused by the above consideration”
They sent a link to their white paper on the issue which I have included in the comment form.
link to elitesrl.zendesk.com
Being a user of the wheel-on Cycleops PowerSync Pro the past 3 years, I just don’t understand this response. Shouldn’t their ERG algorithms smooth this out? ERG mode with the Suito simply is unusable in it’s current state, which is a bummer because I perform over 80% of my indoor training in this mode. If I would’ve known about this before purchasing, I definitely would’ve steered clear of this trainer. Thanks for your time. I appreciate any response you could provide.
Update: After further back-and-forth with Elite, I believe the issue comes down to Power Smoothing. Despite having Zwift set to 3s Avg for Power Display, the Suito has a separate configuration for Power Smoothing. However, Elite says that this can only be set(through their app) if I already have an integrated power meter on by bike(which I don’t).
Do you know of any other ways to smooth the power from the Suito?
Thank you for sharing!
I had the same doubts you have. Especially when I saw the flat powerline of friends using a wahoo trainer. This is also not possible as there have be fluctuations. Still I’m confused as they should be as high as you mentioned.
Can you only see these fluctuations or can you also feel them?
Jan,
In my experience, I can only see the fluctuations and not feel them. Below is a link to a good YouTube video on how power smoothing should work. With Wahoo trainers it’s as simple as an option within their app. So far. Elite has been unable to instruct me how to do this on the Suito trainer. I still have an open ticket and hoping to get this resolved soon.
If anyone else knows how to do this, please let us know. I could be missing something, but I’ve read a lot message boards without getting the final solution.
Forgot the link:
link to youtu.be
Hi Scott,
I don´t think that there is such a function. But your video link calms me down. Before that I thought Wahoo is somehow able to regulate power more precisly than Elite. Doesn´t seem like this. It´s just a matter of presentation of data. The not smoothed power is closer to the truth. So I wouldn´t bother too much.If you cannot return, try to forget about it and enjoy. By the way wahoo got a 0% installment payment right now.
I´m more concerned about the power delta for higher wattages with Suito.
Hi,
I want to buy Suito mainly for a reason, I need to replicate my outdoor training, so controlling the suito from my computer garmin edge 530, mainly loading a a training.
Is that possible ? Can I use at the same time my power meter on the bike as the source power ? What the suito will replicate, the slope or the power ?
Thanks, Gian Claudio
Hi,
Wondering how I can get 10% the Elite Suito trainer through Backcountry/Competitive Cyclist, which you mention at the end of your review?
The review was very helpful. I really liked all the tech data and analyses!
Thanks,
Jeff
Ahh, good catch. Didn’t fully remove that yet. But, you save 10% with Clever Training still for a little bit longer here with coupon code DCR10BTF, but unfortunately it’s out of stock. :-/
Hi,
I am having multiple Suito issues, the main one being that the Suito likes to say I am doing between 10-20 watts more than what both my V3 and 4iiii power meters read (both of which read the same watts).
Suito is telling me that it is because of where the watts are being recorded and offered this solution: “A difference of around 15W may be due to where the power is measured (the power sensor measures it on the crank while we measure it on the hub)”.
That seems like a bit of a tall tale given the tests run on the review don’t show this.
They have offered to change the “map” to account for this wattage difference – can anyone explain this and whether I should do this or push the issue further with them given there doesn’t seem to be any evidence to support wattage differences depending on where the power meter is?
Thanks!
Hi Daamo,
thats just the other way round most other Suito users are experiencing. I Think normally the Suito shows too less wattage.
I was looking for information about drivetrain loss in a bicycle and found this one:
link to rohloff.de
Unfortunately it´s in German. I´m trying to explain.
The difference between the wattage measured on the crank and the trainer is mainly the drivetrain loss. As all the moveable bearings and seals generate losses. The mentioned publication states that the drivetrain efficiency is normally between 96 and 98 % (Bild 3). Let´s assume you measure 200 Watts on the crank, then the measured wattage of the trainer should be between 4 and 8 Watts less. 192-196 Watts. I think the stated 15 Watts from Elite is way too much.
What about calibration. Did you try to calibrate. If it makes no difference I would ask for this mapping. The should decrease the power of the suito by 10 Watts.
Your opinion Ray?
Hi there! This may be a really silly question but would you recommend getting this trainer if you have an 8 speed bike? I know it has an 11 speed cassette. Would it work if I bought a new 8 speed cassette or just used spacers ?
Thanks for your help!
Emma, never a silly question, i read from the beginning and DC recommends that you change it for a cog which is fitted on yours. So no it wont work with spacers.
Vincenzo/Emma, I have the same question as Emma, I have also an (old) bike with an 8-speed cassette. I’ve asked Elite about it and the answer was: “Some of our customers already tried to set that cassette on the freehub, but it might not work fine.”. So, I’m afraid it’s not gone work. with the Suito and buying a new bike is not an option at the moment. And I can’t find the recommendation of DC to change the 11-speed for an 8-speed.
Just bought one, but the free Zwift trial doesn’t seem to be working… I tried to register my serial number on the link provided in the box by Elite, but it doesn’t like my number. Has anyone else had a similar issue (I’m in the UK).
I’ve raised a ticket with Elite, so hopefully I get a response soon!
I redeemed the ticket from my account in Zwift. link to support.zwift.com
Thanks, but I don’t actually have the code. The only thing that came in the box was a link to the elite website, which then presumably generates the code for use in Zwift.
Hi All,
Just setting up my Suito and pairing it with Garmin as well.
Had some huge speed readings so just wondering what you’d put as the manual wheel size on the speed/cadence sensor?
Thanks,
Chris
I don’t remember how I calculated it but I read something in the manual. I have 84 mm and it seems to be accurate.
Hello, so I decided to share my experience with Suito as well, mostly for reference purposes.
TL;DR: Having issues with knocking sounds on a 2020 unit (hw revision 006). No significant flywheel wobble. Readings kinda all over the place, probably a feature, not a bug though.
I purchased my unit from a large online retailer here in Czech Republic, approximately two weeks ago (Oct 2020). According to Upgrado app, my unit is a 006 hardware revision, firmware version 191, serial no. beginninng with SUI. So this should be one of the newest iterations (even the name of the product in the eshop was “Elite Suito 2021”).
Initial setup was ok-ish, had to swap cassette for 10s (team Tiagra here), had to calibrate the trainer in Elite app as calibration in Zwift always fails. In general, Elite apps and the rest of UX don’t feel very polished – Elite, please fire the person who translated the user manual to Czech, it is embarrasing.
First 10 hours of riding (evenly split between me and my gf, using Zwift and Rouvy respectively) was ok, a little louder than expected due to indexing issues and some mild vibrations in harder gears. No significant flywheel wobble. Power and cadence readings in Zwift are quite volatile, in line with Elite`s statement someone posted above – there is not a lot of smoothing going on, the trainer kinda overreacts to every imperfection in my pedalling technique (Zwift regularly shows jumps in RPM from 50 to 90 and back all in one second, in ERG mode, when I am pedalling “smoothly”). But hey, it more or less works and virtual trainings are fun, right?
However, after 10 hours of riding, the trainer started to exhibit those dreaded knocking sounds. There is no specific pattern (yet) and the knocks are not very frequent, but i am getting worried. Does anybody else experience this with a newer unit like mine?
To sum my rant up – not very happy with Suito so far, knocking sounds are apparently still a thing, even on the newest units. Should have probably bought Kickr Core when they were still in stock.
Hello Martin,
Also a SUI-Version here.
I got rid of the knocking sound (and a loose axle) by thightening the big nut located in the left side with a 30mm spanner.
Unfortunately my unit produces vibrations which can be noticed in the whole apartment (and probably also the neighbors) at certain speeds.
Elite says ‚they cannot hear an unnormal sound in the video I sent‘. Yeah, because vibrations are pretty hard to record…
Anybody has a solution for vibrations?
Hello Tobias, thanks for the tip. By “the left side”, you mean left when viewed from the back side of the trainer, right? As for the vibrations, my unit vibrates as well, finetuning indexing helped a bit, I think…
Update to the knocking sounds issue mentioned in my original post above:
I got in touch with Elite support team. At first, they denied hearing anything unusual in the videos I sent them. I insisted that there is something wrong with my trainer and after that, they sent me a fix I was supposed to try (see attached screenshot, basically just tightening both sides of wheel axis, similar to fix Tobias posted above).
Unfortunately, I only have tools to tighten the left side of the trainer – the right side requires larger spanner which I don’t have atm and also removing the freehub which I am kinda afraid to do because of voiding the warranty. Anyhow, tightening the left nut did not work for me and the knocking sounds are still present :(
Is this unit compatible with a 12 speed cassette (SRAM Force 10-28T)?
My old bike is 10spd, and would probably live on the trainer most of the time.
Occasionally (e.g. online competitions) I may wish to use my new bike, which is SRAM Force 12-Speed. I’m aware I’d have to get out the spanners, to at least change the cassette, maybe the freehub body? What would be required to change over?
Hi
I have “stupid” question. I use Elite Qubo Fluid, i dont use Zwift or another program, simply – pedals with powermeter, fil/music – go. To use Elite Suito do i have to use programs like zwift ??
Best Regards
Hi,
I note the review says that you can calibrate the Elite Suito in Zwift.
When the trainer is paired with Zwift, I do not find the little spanner icon on Zwift to allow for calibration.
Not sure if I am missing something or doing something wrong?
did you pair the Suito as a “power source”?
Little spanner is on the “pairing page” where you connect to smart trainer, HR monitor, power & cadence meter, in about 10 o’clock pos
Is there a fix for the ticking noise or does one have to live with it?
Hi Jack, see followup to my post above
HI,
thanks for the review. Would a 8 speed cassette work on the Elite Suito?
/Björn
No, the Suito only supports 9/10/11/12 speed cassettes, not 8-speed ones. Here’s the snippet from their specs document on their site.
Hello, I am between the Elite Suito and Tacx Flux 2 Smart.
Can you please help me with advise, orientation?
Thank you
Ray,
Would this be a good trainer for a lighter (124 lb/56 kg) rider who doesn’t put out a lot of power, eg 3.2 watts/kg? In reading your reviews and GP Lama I wonder if you guys are at all unconsciously biased towards bigger/more powerful riders when you talk about road feel, sprinting, erg mode etc. I could be totally wrong because I have never ridden a smart trainer but it crosses my mind if smaller/less powerful riders might have different preferences.
Respectfully,
Russell
With much luck, I managed to get my hands on a Suito trainer. Availability is a nightmare right now.
Rather unbelievably, the trainer came with a CS-R9000 Dura-Ace cassette factory-installed. Fancy that!
Wow, lucky guy. Mine came with a bore 105, which I had to replace, because I am still on 10-speed.
Simple question…. would you buy the Elite Suito or the Saris H3?
Bonus points and a possible gold star if you explain why.
I think it”s a wonderfull machine .
But I love to bike the Tacx trainer routes.
Do you know how to put the difficulty level in this app.
I really got know idea how to put it to get as realistic as possible..
It is put on 37 % but I never have biked in the mountains ( Holland has no real mountains)
Friendly regards Theo
Heeft er iemand ervaring met het fietsen van de Tacx routes op een Elite Suito?
Hoe moet ik mijn difficulty instelling zetten bij instellingen (trainer) ?
Als ik hem op 100% zet krijg ik mijn pedalen niet rond. Op 50% is het voor mijn gevoel ook nog te zwaar.
Nou fiets ik buiten altijd vlak omdat er geen heuvels in leefomgeving zijn dus kan ik het ook niet goed inschatten.
Hij staat nu op 37% maar is dat een beetje realistisch.
Bij Futurumshop konden ze het me ook niet vertellen.
Daar zeiden ze dat het per persoon verschilt maar dat is onzin natuurlijk. Weerstand berg op is voor iedereen
hetzelfde toch ?
Met vriendelijke groet Theo.
Hi
Read the full review word for word but we are now in 2021. ?
Would people recommend this unit? I’m thinking of getting one.
Definitely would not recommend it. It’s nice when it works but in my experience most of the time it doesn’t. My first unit (bought in October 2019) had the well-documented knocking sound. Elite told me to exchange it on warranty through my retailer…took many months, blood, sweat and tears t finally get a new one.
The new unit is supposedly the latest hardware version which supposedly should not have any problems but has a very similar knocking sound, just worse. This time it is accompanied by a very strong vibration through the drive train. I am really dreading going through the whole warranty process again but will have to do it at some point. I’ll probably wait until it’s warm enough to ride outside again and until then just make do with the faulty unit….
Sorry to hear your problems. Is this related to an earlier version? Do these issues exist with new stock?
The problem is: on the web you’ll likely get feedback from people with bad experiences. My Suito works fine … except power reading, which are a bit to low (not relevant for me since I have a powermeter on my bike). A friend of mine has one, which is also fine (but he’s not so keen on exact power values).
So, it depends on your expectations and of course on the money you want to spend. In my opinion, the Suito is a very good trainer for the money. I’ve a lot of fun with it on Zwift. I’ve no hardware issues. The screw of the freewheel hub was a bit loose, thats all. If you get one, check that all screws an the cassette are tight.
Yes I agree, more likely to hear from issues rather than praise. I’ve been a power meter user for 7 years so for me it is important that accuracy is at least reliable. I also need the unit to be reliable.
What I’m reading is older units could have issues but I was hoping for some positive feedback from owners of newer units.
Still on the fence.
If power is important to you, you‘d better buy a trainer with a built in powermeter (unless you’ve got one one the bike). The Suito has not. But you will have to spend more money.
Hi Dirk
In your experience, how much lower does the Suito measure power compared to your power meter.
I am convinced mine is under reading but do not have a power meter to compare against.
I’ve had my Suito for 4 months now, zwifting every day with no problem. As for the power, checking it against my Assioma pedals I can say it’s more or less correct (but a bit lagging) but if you want real precision you might want to look elsewhere.
Thanks for the replies, good to get real world experience.
It‘s about 10-15% too low. On my bike I have a left only 4iiii pm. I connect via ANT+ dongle to my iMac. The power readings fit very well to my experience compared to my MTB with a Quarq crank.
It’s true that people are more likely to post if there is an issue…but after my own problems I have obviously done a lot of research to figure out how to fix them and I think there are significantly more Suito users with problems than users of other trainers. If you buy one of course there is a very high chance it will be fine…but I think the risk of getting a faulty unit is higher than for other brands or even other Elite models.
My replacement unit is hardware version 4 according to the app which should be fine but shows worse problems than the first one I had (which was a fairly early production model), and there are many others who had issues with replacement units as well, so to me it seems the issues have not been entirely resolved.
Same here Brought mine in Nov ’20
I see power differences of 10-15% as well compared to my Assioma DUO’s
…again I am pairing up the pedals to the Suito so not a big issue (other than knowing) – and I then have consistency to my power reading on the road.
However even paired up I see issues with latency in the power reading primarily on sprints and up to 5min efforts…so here the fix is to pair the pedals directly to Zwift…
For me to many workarounds for something the competitors can make work—so go with something else … although seems to be sellers market these days !
Jens
I decided to go with the Kickr Core. It’s already making a noise like someone is tapping it with a hammer on each pedal stroke! (Not the bike, I tried different bikes). Disappointing but seems to be working ok. Why can’t people just make things that work.
Stay way from the Elite Studio unit. Pay the extra money and get something that works.
I been fighting trying to get my unit working correctly and Elite support wants me to replace it. The problem with the replacement it is at my cost for shipping and they currently have none in stock. Elite support it not being helpful past the point to just state to replace it and contact where I got it from.
Problems encountering:
Major issues where Power meter and resistances fails. Few note issues in the past 3 weeks.
link to forum.elite-it.com
link to forum.elite-it.com
link to forum.elite-it.com
– Bluetooth doesn’t work properly. Many forms about this problem also. Recommendation is to use ANT
Thank you,
DMmor
I’m also having approximately 10% lower power readings comparing my 4iiii PM to Suito. Trainer is calibrated as instructed. I have searched for help from Elite support but they say it is as it is :(
Yesterday while chating with my neighbor about the issue he offered me to try his trainer (Tacx Neo) with my bike in order the compare my PM to Tacx. (His dual Stages PM matches hisTacx perfectly) My readings on Tacx were also nearly spot on with my PM. I did a 35 min. workout where avg. power data of my PM-Garmin duo also matched Zwift avarege of Tacx (only 1 watt difference)
I did the same Zwift workout at home with my Suito and the deviance at avarege power data wash 18 watts. I’ve already spotted (and felt due to ERG mode) aprox. 20 watts of difference during the work out anyway.
This morning, in some point of my training plan I was supposed to do 280 watts at 70 rpm. My PM- Garmin duo was reading 350 watts/70rpm while Suito insisted it was only 280 watts. Eventually my legs got toasted (ERG mode was on) and I stopped pedaling.
So I checked the internet and found out that I’m not alone in this. There’re more than 200 messages about the subject in Zwift forums.
Unfortunately I strongly NOT recommend this “trainer” for training purposes :(
My Suito I received 4 weeks ago is 5-20% below my Assioma powermeter redings. In my case it correlates with the speed of the flywheel, getting better with faster flywheel speed (downhill simulation).
If you want to race on Zwift or other platforms you better by another model. To find out you better not rely only on tests by influencers, who get hand selected or massaged equipment send over by the manufacturer.
I had to learn my lesson here. Boards like in Zwift are probably a good source for finding out about power accuracy.
“To find out you better not rely only on tests by influencers, who get hand selected or massaged equipment send over by the manufacturer.”
I always laugh when I see this sorta line. Seriously folks, if you’ve read any reviews here you’d know quite well that universally the early units I get are virtually always worse than what everyone else gets. Mainly, cause the bugs I find eventually get fixed. Atop that, if there’s anything I’ve seen – it’s that none of the trainer companies bother to try and send us ‘massaged’ units. For two reasons:
A) If they did, then frankly, they suck at it. Since the vast majority of the time I see issues with trainers. Especially in 2019-2020 – it was a disaster on that front from all the companies and most units.
B) That’s not really the way trainers work. There’s no ‘special algorithm’ or not. It’s the same code and same algorithm across the board. Now, where you could get differences is in quality assurance aspects. Some companies run units through test cycles. Some do it for all units, some do it for some units. Some do it for all units for the first few months and then over time decrease the % checked if quality is high.
Ultimately, no trainer is perfect. If you don’t believe, pick any other trainer you want, and you’ll find a Zwift forums or TrainerRoad thread on that trainer’s issues. And in a year where all these companies have *NEVER* made more trainers than ever before, yes, statistically speaking you’re going to see more people posting issues, because there’s more trainers being made (3-5x more trainers than normal).
Which isn’t to say that people aren’t seeing issues, I have no doubt that if someone is seeing 20% low, then something is wrong. Though, I would say I rarely see actual charts with those claims (as is the case here). But to say, if everyone was seeing that issue, then honestly we’d see comments every day here. Instead, it’s just a couple comment a month. And given Elite is probably making somewhere in the range of 10K-15K Suito units a month, that’s not bad at all. For refence, I see more people commenting on Wahoo KICKR/CORE defective units per month.
Thanks. Yes, number of claims needs to be put into context.
But I still would not rule out that a manufacturer could prefer selecting a device in specification for external accuracy testing especially if QA is less reliable.
Of course, but looking at all my testing over the last 2-3 years, they clearly aren’t. Since I’d guess 9 out of 10 trainers have ‘failed’ testing on the first pass. With almost every company requiring sending me out more than one unit for almost every model since (or, having to send multiple firmware releases to fix).
It’s somewhat astonishing actually…
Hi everyone,
after more than one year of using my second Elite Suito (first one had the knocking sound issue), I’ve recently bought a set Favero Assioma (Duo) pedals. Cross checking the measurements between the Assiomas and the Suito on Zwift, I can now verify what I long suspected. My Suito underreads in Zwift. The higher the wattage, the bigger the deviation. At 200W, the Suito underreads by about max 10W. At 300W, it’s already about 20-30W. At 550W, it deviates by 50-100W (e.g. 536W vs 469W). Avg Power over 40min was roughly 6.5% lower on the Suito. I’m connecting it via Bluetooth. About to try it with ANT+ to see whether it makes a difference but it shouldn’t.
What is puzzling to me, however: On Elite’s MyETraining, the Suito tracks the wattage much closer to the Assiomas, more or less within the range of its higher tolerance of 2.5%. It slightly overshoots sprint efforts by 10-30W. So it must be a software issue rather than the hardware and it must have something to do with how the Suito’s readings are translated into Zwift.
Has anyone else experienced this? Does anyone know a solution to this? Having more or less reliable power readings on Zwift without having to use a powermeter on my bike is why I originally bought this thing. That doesn’t work. I own Hardware revision No3, latest Firmware.
Hi Sebastian,
Looks like you are still one of the lucky guys with your power accuracy.
Your under-reading is at least in line with other product tests (17 Watt below average by German Tour magazin) and user feedback I am reading e.g. on Zwift.
I purchased my Suito over a month ago (HW release 5, newest firmware updated) and found an average under reading of about 15% increasing rather with wheel speed then with power compared to Assioma. An no matter if I am using Zwift, Rouvy or doing the Elite test protocol with MyETraining and also regardless of Ant+ or BLE. I went down the usual path, got quick support from Elite, did there test protocol run, got back a specific .JSON file, deployed it and things got even worth. After reading about lots of similar experience on the SWIFT board I finally decided not to continue beta testing for Elite and returned the trainer to the Internet Shop, because it was clearly out of spec. I then purchased the DiretoXR for an additional 100€ and all my troubles where gone. I have the direto now for a week checked accuracy 3 times and it was always within -1% compared to Assioma. By the way, it is amazing how much more realistic the riding feels. With Suito I had delays of about 3s with Rouvy and now I can adjust power in real time with the changing grade. Changes in resistance are more smooth, so my troubles with Suito in adjusting gears smoothly are gone as well.
Why did you just not connect your Assioma pedals to zwift and use their power readings?
I have a Suito as well and use my 4iiii powermeter crank for power in Zwfit. Works very well.
I can obviously do that, yes. But I want to use the built in power measurement feature that the Suito has, because I want to use my second road bike on this trainer, without having to transfer my pedals over to that bike every single time.
Also: I paid for this feature and the manufacturer promised me a device with accurate power readings within a 2.5% tolerance window. But I can’t seem to recreate this.
I’m suspecting, as many others have, that the calibration and the resulting power curve is to blame with my Suito. But I don’t know how to solve that issue. If it was consistently underreading by a certain wattage, I’d be OK with it. But it dramatically underreads the higher the power. It gets to a point, where the trainer brings me to a halt in ERG mode when having to do sprints, bc it never gets to 830W, where my Assiomas record 1000W.
Couln’t agree more. What sense would that make to save 100€ on a trainer which has no internal power measurement (calculates power) and then add 600€ for an Assioma PM to fix the power issue the Suito has because Elite saved the internal PM to get the price down.
I’m a bit confused. Review of DCRainmaker is super positive about accuracy but a lot of comments of recent versions show problems with calibration, accuracy, … ?
Following conclusion is correct for me: i have the trainer for over a year now and i’m happy with the purchase. At that time i paid about 550euros including the cassette.
I’m glad i can train indoors and track my fitness and power evolution.
Are the power readings a bit off? Maybe yes, maybe no. But as I’m not competing online i dont really care that much.
Do you want an accurate trainer for sure? Pay more to be sure.
Do you want a direct drive trainer that’s affordable, consider this one.
Yeah I’ll 2nd this, bought mine in October 2019. Works great. I actually just bought Assiomo Uno pedals last week so I can monitor my power when I bike outside now and compared to my suito. While working out, the numbers were jumping around near each other, when i look at the average power for the pedals versus the trainer after 40 minutes, they were 1 watt apart, that’s good enough for me. I did not run it through any analyzers to compare differences, I’ll leave that stuff to Ray and his great reviews. For me it’s close so I’m happy.
If my unit got anywhere close to the accuracy that Ray reports in his review, I’d be super happy. Also, if it was delivering lower readings but by a consistent margin, I’d be ok with it as well. But it isn’t.
I’ve opened a ticket with Elite and sent them the required training set recorded in Elite’s MyETraining app. I warmed the Suito up, calibrated it with the Elite app, did a zero offset with my Assiomas. The Suito remains 7.5% average off at 200W, at 400W it’s already an average of 10% lower. At 450 it’s 15%. Elite suggests that this is normal when adding the power meters’ tolerances plus friction losses in the drivetrain.
This in depth review is all you need, if you can get your hands on a series production media loaner. If you can not and you bother if Suito is undercutting power by 10-30% you better pay attention to reviewers base on trainers purchased through the standard channels. Or you pay attention to those end user who use a PM to check accuracy instead of comparing it with their gut feelings.
I gave up with my Suito after efforts together with Elite support failed to bring the Suito closer to specification.
What I figured out is, that almost all reviews based on media loaners see more or less perfect power accuracy and in contrast reviews and tests with trainers purchased through standard channels see an Suito power accuracy issue Elite must have at least with parts of their production up to now.
The review discrepancy is probably not very surprising for most, because why should the manufacturer not send out accurate trainers for serial production devices accuracy testing if they can?
It is further interesting that end user who are happy with Suito power accuracy mainly compare it with their gut feeling whereas users who compare it with a power meter seem to confirm the issues.
And high end trainers use internal power meters to ensure consistent accuracy Suito is just calculation power. May be quite challenging to achieve claimed 2.5% consistently with serial production QA.
I agree that it is not very feasible for an influencer getting a deal with manufacturers to purchase anonymously and get money back after review is completed.
DCR is very transparent and always emphasizing that he is just testing media loaners. I guess you have to keep that in mind when it comes to power accuracy.
Again, as discussed earlier* – there’s an overwhelming pile of evidence that companies – including Elite – either don’t QA units sent to media, or if the do, they suck horribly at it. For the vast majority of trainers I receive, there’s issues that have to be resolved in firmware or hardware updates.
In fact, one can look at the Suito with exactly that. If you look at my first look post, you’ll see issues that I found/saw, that were eventually fixed in firmware before this review some months later.**
You can also look at most trusted reviewers in this space, and most of us are finding real issues with trainers/bikes at launch. Tacx, Elite, Wahoo, Saris, Wattbike, Stages. And we write about them as such.
I know that doesn’t help your specific accuracy issue, but that’s the simple reality. And while there are some reporting accuracy issues on the Suito, I’d point out, there are people reporting accuracy issues on every trainer on the market. Sometimes it’s a fundamental accuracy issue – and sometimes it’s a one-off issue, and sometimes it’s just user error or the power meter their using is incorrect.
Certainly, Sebastian’s numbers of 15% off are concerning – but without exact data sets it’s hard to know. His note above about it being very close in one app, but not another, leads me to believe it’s probably actually not a trainer hardware thing, but something else at play (because simply put, that’s not how trainers work). There can be weird bugs in Zwift with Bluetooth vs ANT+, we saw that a couple years back in fact, with every different values. But I haven’t seen it recently. That said, Zwift breaks things on an astoundingly regular basis, as we saw just last week when they managed to impact the accuracy of virtually all Tacx wheel-on trainers, boosting the power numbers incorrectly.
* link to dcrainmaker.com
** link to dcrainmaker.com
Ray, you may have forgotten, that I did send you my .fit files showing 15% low values in average immediately after you explained before that you did not see the data. Your response was, that you find it interesting and want to look into it deeper.
And, sorry but I think it is a bit naive if you really think that marketing staff does not care what influencers will tell about their products. They are aware that you love power accuracy testing. If manufacturers can tune the media loaner to achieve good results majority definitely will do. That you still can discover issues especially with early models is not contradicting.
I don’t doubt Ray’s reviews. In fact, I read just about all of his reviews on direct drive trainers to know what to buy and – like he said – he had issues with pretty much all of them. So I knew that – given my budget – an entry level direct drive trainer was going to be a leap of faith anyhow. Looking back, I’d probably never buy a device that just hit the market again – no matter how good reviews are. Historically, almost every manufacturer has to sort out issues at least for the first six months upon release, it seems.
Upon further testing I can now safely say that my Suito is just as off in Elite’s My E-Training as it is in Zwift. To Elite’s credit I have to say, their customer service is helpful and super quick. They’ve asked that I do a test of various 45sec intervalls at different resistance levels at a given flywheel speed. It appears that the higher the resistance level the worse the deviation gets. Slow flywheel speeds seem to be worse than high speeds. Considering that ERG mode workouts are usually conducted on the small ring at lower flywheel speeds, that explains why my Suito feels much worse on hard ERG sessions compared to my power meter pedals than it does when doing a free ride. I received a custom firmware. It did not solve the issue. Sprints still underread by quite a margin. But now it also overreads in other situations. My Suito has a slightly wobbly flywheel. I don’t know if that contributes to the issue. I never found it so bad that it really bothered me, but it is noticeable. Maybe it somehow affects the spindown calibration. Spindown time went up by about a second since I got it from 9600ms on the factory sticker to about 10.800ms now, which makes sense. That only tells me that it runs smoother after the bearings and everything have seen a bit of use.
I’ll get back to Elite and see what they say.
Credit where credit is due: I’m happy to report that Elite solved my problems. Customer Service was A+. We went through four custom firmwares, I completed their testing procedure every time (warm up, calibration, about 10 different resistance levels and flywheel speeds in Elite My E-Training). The 4th firmware update has now made my Suito as accurate as it will ever be for a unit at this price point – at least in my opinion. I confirmed the results with several ERG workouts and free rides and for me the experience has vastly improved. I’m particularly happy that in ERG mode, it is now super consistent and tracks my power meter very closely. The power zones do now feel like the way they should and it doesn’t underread at high power levels as dramatically as it did before.
Accuracy is now well within 2.5%, if I’m being realistic and taking my Assiomas accuracy tolerance + possible drivetrain losses into account.
Sprints are still where the Suito is most challenged, which is understandable I guess. It takes a while longer to pick up the sudden increase and decrease in wattage. There is some lag compared to the pedals. That’s completely normal taking into account that the Suito calculates wattage based on flywheel speed and resistance level. It doesn’t bother me. At peak sprint power and depending on how sudden the acceleration is, the Suito has a hard time tracking my Assiomas closely. It sometimes underreads and sometimes overshoots by up to about 5%. But that’s fine for me anyway. For what it costs compared to more expensive devices, I am now happy with its performance and confident enough in the numbers that it delivers.
Totaly agree. I well manged company would definitly select a sepcific trainer before sending it to media/press.
Compared to power meter pedals mine is also 10-20 % to low.
Before contacting Elite support I´m going to double check the accuray of my pedals.
Thanks for the sweet review and just picked mine up and began using it! A quick question – all seems to work fine including shifting etc., but the flywheel on the trainer isn’t perfectly aligned with the frame of the bike – it looks light off to the left relative to the frame when looking directly from the back of the bike.
Is this normal? It’s my first trainer so I just want to be sure all is okay. I installed per instructions with the spacer and skewer in the right 130mm config for my bike if that matters.
Thanks!
I noticed that the firmware of the Suito now has jumped to V196 (up from V191 in my case). I cannot find any update information from Elite. Anyone noticed any changes?
link to forum.elite-it.com
Incline channel for rizer
Hi!
I’m also in the “do not recommend this device” camp.
I bought Elite Suito trainer in December 2020, also based on how positive this review was, but in reality it is far from great.
First of all, immediately after first use it was noticeable there is some “clicking” present in the trainer, if you ride slowly or just spin the flywheel by hand.
This clicking goes away away once the speed increases, but…
If you ride the trainer at higher speeds, it vibrates A LOT, and it is very noisy, basically you can hear it vibrate through whole house.
It is easily louder than my old 20 years old Tacx Swing “wheel on” trainer.
Sent a few videos to Elite… support said they cant hear anything unusual… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The only way to keep the noise and vibrations bearable is to ride in small ring with very low flywheel speed. So I did that most of the time.
But second problem is the accuracy. This trainer is far from accurate. At best I could get my unit to +-8%, no matter how I performed the calibration.
This problem was most noticeable during intervals when compared to my Assioma pedals.
During work interval, resistance the Suito provides is too high. Lets say 300W on Suito is 325W as measured on Assiomas.
During rest interval its the other way around, 200W on Suito would be ~185W on Assiomas.
And that is not all, there is also a huge temperature influence.
When the unit is “cold”, lets say after a 10min warm up ~200W. The first interval is way harder, than it should be, but after completing 2-3 intervals, when the trainer properly warms up, resistance is lower, and also the power difference between the trainer and Assioma power meter is reduced.
So all in all a complete mess.
Just to be clear, I also compared Assiomas to my friends Wahoo Kickr, and the numbers were spot on +-0.5% at most.
Reading feedback from other users here it seems that Elite can do “custom” calibration file for each unit, and get it very close to promised +-2% range.
But out of the box, the units can be, and mostly is, way off mark.
I’m almost 100% sure all the review units have undergone this special calibration routine, and maybe even some special QC to cherry pick the most silent unit.
But if you are a regular Joe, your mileage may vary.
Bellow are some of the rides I did comparing Suito to the Assiomas if anyone is interested:
link to zwiftpower.com
link to zwiftpower.com
link to zwiftpower.com
link to zwiftpower.com
So to sum it up. Avoid like plague (erm or should I say Covid?).
Anyone have had problem to display power from the trainer?
I was buying secondhand trainer that was working at the seller (tested it myselves) but at home I can´t get the power to be displayed in any of my differencet devices/applicaitons (Garmin 530/945, Trainerorad, Zwift, Tacx desktop, Elites own my training.
Any recommendation to fault trace before contacting the Elite support…
Hey bro, I just gotta say you are the best in the business with assessing athlete equipment. Your reviews remove a lot of guesswork when determining what to buy. While I don’t buy as often as I would like (the chief financial officer controls the figurative and literal purse) I read your reviews a lot. And, I point people toward you for information when they are looking for something to buy. Keep killing it.
Hi Ray, I want to retire my Kickr Snap V2 – between the Suito and Direto XR, which one would you recommend? Is it possible to control the resistance on the Suito using the powerdata from my Assiomas + Edge 830. And are the power fluctuations in ERG (you also mentioned them in your Direto XR review) and clicking noise from the bearing fixed? Thanks for your input.
If anyone with an Elite Suito is having issues with power or cadence accuracy I recommend using the Power Meter Link feature (assuming your bicycle has a power meter)..
link to elitesrl.zendesk.com
Question of the day:
Elite Zumo 350,00
Elite Direto X 455,00
Elite Suito 520,00
Tacx Flux S 540,00
Elite Direto XR 670,00
Prices in EUR. Which one?
Just to add more info; the cassette thing is not important and the bike is a road thru-axle.
Can i use a Shimano cassete 12s on the suito with my bike a rival deraileur???
Hi Mr DC, I am just testing an ELITE SUito and first two rides comparing with Assioma I see big differences on power…. and they start after the first 10 minutes warm up. Differences get worst with power increase.
I did a firmware update, did all and many calibrations of both power meters.
I’ve used it in erg mode in 36/17 gear.
I have added a picture for illustration.
Do you have any idea why this is happen. We can expect some differences but not of this extent.
I have also checked the foruns and there are many hits with this issue. It looks like Elite sends individual patches for the most inststents :-)
DO you have any tip that might help to overcome this?
Thanks in advance
BR
Nuno.
If you use Assioma PM pedals you can tell Suito to use their power values instead. I am doing this with a 4iiii PM crank. So I don‘t have to bother with the inconsistent values of the Suitos calculated power. Also in Strava, Rouvy etc. you can use your Assioma PM pedals as power source. There is no real need for Suito‘s guessing.
Hi,
Thank you for your answer.
I kknow and’ve used it already. It works fine although I want to use another bike fixed in the trainer that doen’t have PM. I had a cycleops 400 pro that I could manage to keep working this long even without support and upgrades anymore. Unfortunately it tool its last breath last week. Without Joule 3.0 controling all the features, that beauty become just a piece of metal with no use.
I’ll try Elite’s support though. If they are unable to solve the problem, I will move to another level of trainer. It is a pitty since the Suito is a very good piece of HW.
tks again
Nuno
Well it’s 2024 and after reading this review I bought 2 and they are pure junk please people run away from these things no matter what anyone who get paid to review says, they are awful. Horrible calibration app of that doesn’t work. Rouvy with the reality level set at 150%, it’s highest setting to make it harder and in my big ring in the front and my small cog in the back, on the steepest climb( I could find; I can still push up it. I mean my sarif wheel on Smart trainer is so much better than this in accuracy for climbing or anything else including stability. And I only paid $250 for that M2. This is unusable for training. I’m a climber but I’m not that powerful. Again the problems on these trainers are not worked out, they are junk. I bought two of them for two different homes based on this review and both of them are pure crap. I get no response when I try and get technical support, as well as the fact where I bought them all sales were final, but only on these smart trainers, not the other brands 🤔. Oh I forgot to mention they’re so unstable even when set up perfectly….. and I’m 155 lbs. If you use their hor training app and put it in its hardest training mode manually on a hill, then is the only way it will work. But then, you find out when you get out of the saddle that the belt slips on the flywheel. It’s so bad it’s like not having your tire tightened down on a wheel on trainer. If you are crazy enough to buy one in the United States, at least buy it from Amazon with prime support so you can return it… and you will.
Experiences vary, and I can’t imagine why you’re having such a bad experience.
In our household, we have a Wahoo Kickr (original), a Suito and a Direto.
All work just fine. The Direto is clearly the best – best feel, and most consistent power readings. However, we haven’t found anything wrong with the Suito, and use it regularly with Rouvy- both workouts (erg) and free riding (sim mode). It can provide substantial resistance, e.g. on some of the 20% climbs you come across occasionally. We (my wife and I) are not power riders – I’m 67kg, and more of a climber.
I cannot imagine why your experience is so different. Perhaps you got very unlucky with two bad examples, or perhaps there is something about how you’ve set them both up. Have you used any other direct drive trainers (from other brands), and with a similar sensor and app set-up to how you are using the Suitos?
Yeah, what you’re describing Ge, doesn’t fit into anything that anyone else has described in the last half-decade. There’s certainly minor areas to complain about, but as you can see with the 300+ comments here, what you’re seeing doesn’t align with that.
Given it seems to work just fine with their app, but you’re having problems with Rouvy, it probably makes sense to reach out to them. Alternatively, you can try free trials of other apps (perhaps give Zwift or FulGaz a quick check), to see if the problem persists there.
Well unfortunately my experience is similar to one form Ge Hu.
This trainer is one of the worst.
I’m on my second one after warranty claim one year ago, because my first one vibrated a lot form the beginning and then it started to creak like crazy after one year of use.
The creaking usually started after 30-40 minutes of workout, sometimes even sooner if the intensity of the workout was high.
After replacement arrived all was good for half a year, and now the replacement started to creak from time to time, and it is getting worse. There are several reports of this online…
Second thing the accuracy is very poor, it is not even close to +-2%.
I did measurements on both trainers comparing them to Assioma pedals, and no matter how you do the calibration it will be off in some areas.
The accuracy is affected very much by the flywheel speed.
Here is the testing I did on my first unit.
I made this ERG workout with varying levels of resistance from 60-580W:
link to imgur.com
Then I repeated this workout at 15, 25, 35 and 45kph flywheel speed, always with 90rpm cadence.
I compared Suito measured power with Assioma pedals.
Below you can see how the power output compares (numbers show % difference, positive is overreading, negative is underreading).
It is far from advertised +-2%:
link to imgur.com
And it is worse because this trainer lacks basic temperature compensation.
After the flywheel heats up, the resistance can easily drop additional 5%.
If you do some 4-6min VO2max ERG mode intervals, the power is dropping very noticeably during each interval. You end interval with 10-20W lower power than in the beginning. And each consecutive interval starts with a few W lower power, due to heat soak of the flywheel.
So if the beginning of first 4min interval starts with 350W, the last minute of 4th interval is 320W…
In my view this trainer is not usable for any serious training. And on top of it the durability is extremely poor. Worst purchase I ever did.
But to be clear, your issues are actually quite differnt than Ge’s.
Also, this trainer was from the era were temp comp was a thing that you had to mitigate with doing a 15 minute warm-up calibration. It’s a 2019 sub-$800 trainer, not a 2022-2024 trainer.
I’m not saying it’s what people should be paying good money for today, but for the $250 they paid, it’s far better than other $250 options (like a Tacx Flow).
The warmup before calibration does not solve temp compensation.
Suggested warmup is easy pedaling for 10minutes at ~150W.
That barely does anything when it comes to higher power intervals, flywheel is not even warm to the touch after this “warmup”.
(I also tried doing warmups at higher power, but that just shifts the problem to different part of power curve).
And if you look at my measurements, you will see it is not just temperature issue.
It is also affected a lot by flywheel speed and it is completely unpredictable.
When you combine flywheel speed and lack of temp compensation, it is very clear that his device hardly ever achieves +-5% accuracy.
I forgot to mention belt slipping issues at high torque and low flywheel speed.
But I got used to avoiding riding in that area.
And another thing is very unstable ANT+ connection.
I rarely manage to finish a training session without at least one or two dropouts, yeah it only lasts 10-15s usually. But when you do a EGR mode workout, it is very annoying.
Tested it with Wahoo Bolt, Karoo, Garmin Forerunner, and ANT+ dongle on a PC placed 20cm away from the trainer, always the same… just drops out randomly.
For 250€ you could forgive those kind of issues.
It would be a decent choice for a beginner user, but almost everybody who owns this trainer paid at least 500€ for it, even today it is still over 400€ with all the discounts.
I paid 600€ for it in 2021, Kikcr Core and Direto were 750€ at the same time.
And I think we all agree the performance of those trainers is miles better in all areas.
Anyway, if I was aware of the accuracy issues I would never even consider buying this device… not to mention everything else (vibrations, belt slipping, ANT+ connection, creaking…)
Total Support!
Same issues with accuracy. Approximately 20% too high and making noise after 30 minutes of workout.
10% too high
Correction
Just return the Suito and bought a Tacks 2T Neo and life is good.
Hi Guys, thanks for comments I will try all suggestions and glad to hear that lots of people have them that work fine with Rouvy. First, I have to get them to respond to my ticket immediately opened with them. DC I did not do a good enough job of explaining how it worked with their training program: It worked by sliding the manual slider in their myETraing app (most of the app requires a $ subscription) but the free: /trainings/Level Mode. I can successfully manually adjust the resistance up or down and up to a very difficult or easy level. But, again in Rouvy at least going from one extreme of the manual “reality” only 30%-150% does not provide near the resistance that my wheel-on Saris M2 smart trainer does. Again, I guess it is okay here to say near enough if I am in my smallest cog in back and the big ring in front and sitting on a steep mountain grade like Rouvy’s virtual lookout mountain course here in Colorado. 🤣. Also as someone said, yes of course it is subjective but then immediately after my post there are a couple of more poor souls noted here that they were “lucky” enough with these units with similar experiences to mine.
Well, I guess I ask for it like I said, when i bought from someone with no return policy for these particular trainers 🤣.
Thanks DC of course I will try with Zwift (the go to as a control group) and I will do that today. That said, it really doesn’t solve my problem being a huge fan of real courses that Rouvy provides.
I wonder if part of the problem of these smart trainers is the subjectivity of all the parameters that could be worked out with decent OEM software that allows you to simply, manually calibrate the smart trainers to a given resistance range of the rider in the units firmware up-front.
I actually thought that is what their program was allowing me to do when I did the “Level Mode”.
Of course I did the calibration test in that app and warmed up (which is kinda silly because of the physics involved as someone else here commented.)
It just seems pretty silly that allowing user manual calibration of resistance level setting in the home app first of all smart trainer manufacturers would not be the first thing they would offer to get rid of a giga of help desk tickets. Maybe it is goofy on my part to think that is possible.
Thanks for your great reviews that have helped us so much over the many years now. Still the best out there by far.
Addendum to my last wandering hard to follow post: The point I was trying to express again is, for all these makers of these smart trainers, why wouldn’t the first thing they do is make their trainer calibration app have a user configurable resistance range setting from (just for the sake of me being clueless as to the range it would need to be…say) -100 to +100 at a given elevation grade.
Then, could you not use the stats from your power meter on a course you have ridden that is the same course you are riding in the program; and use those stats and that smart trainer’s u.c.r.r. program to correct for either side of the interacting software systems calibration errors?
I know nothing about this software standard but doubt that it is very robust between course designers and trainer manufactures anyway….
Has anyone ever seen the Elite Suito damaging the carbon on their rear dropouts?
The yellow bike is my old bike and the dropouts wore down so much I couldn’t use the bike anymore. Granted, I had this bike for ~5-years and it saw a lot of hours on the trainer, but I really wouldn’t have expected it to actually break down the carbon to this extent. Wanting to know if it was the trainer causing the issue, I tried using my new bike (black bike) on the trainer for a 2-hour Endurance ride and was not surprised to see it doing the exact same thing. Obviously, I have stopped using the trainer as I don’t want a repeat of the yellow bike.
I confirmed I had the right adapter length for the dropouts, and Elite tried sending me a non-knurled adapted, but the damage persisted.
Here is what they said:
“Suito don’t damage a carbon frame. We sold more than 300000 trainers and we have never received a reclaim caused by the adapter that broke a frame.”
– “The carbon frame of your bike isn’t damaged. That sign is only aesthetical, it isn’t visible on the external part of the bike and it is only caused by the paint removed.”
– “Also the wheel can remove the paint in the internal part of the frame, not only the trainer.”
– “we sold a lot of Suito and there are no reclaims connected to damaged bike due to the trainer”
I don’t know about you all, but it looks to be that this isn’t just aesthetic damage and I’ve never seen this damage after taking my wheels off.
Just trying to gauge how common this is and what people did about it.