Elite Real Tour - VR Trainer

detones

Considering buying one of these Elite Real Tour Turbo Trainers. As VR Turbos go its relatively not a bad price at €469, though still not cheap by any means. Anybody have any experience of using one, be it good or bad? Reviews for US sites seem ok.

It seems Tacx is more popular here and probably is a better bit if kit, but this model has less demanding PC requirements then the Tacx and it will work on a PC i have. I don't want to have to buy a new PC as well as a turbo. The only limitation i see is that it can only simulate a 5% gradient.

smacl

It seems Tacx is more popular here and probably is a better bit if ki

Maybe, maybe not. I've a tacx flow with steerer, and so far the spring has gone on the steerer, and the brake is getting noisy, possibly on the way out. Reading the tacx forums, the fortius units also appear to have a number of reported problems.

That said, I use mine regularly. In the cold months 4-6 times per week, 45 mins to 2 hours per session, and find it has served me well to date. Personally, I like the steerer, as it means you need a bit more concentration, and can easily create new routes across the VR terrains. One concern on the elite is the 430w limit. What happens if you go over that, and will it damage the unit?

I don't want to have to buy a new PC as well as a turbo.

I'm running the older TTS3 software, which sits nicely on an XP box, 512mb graphics card, 2ghz athlon processors, 2gb ram. This set-up has enough left over to run media player at the same time for some tunes. Not upgrading to TTS4 until I move the PC to Windows 7 and chuck some more RAM in it.

If you're around the D16 area and want to have a go on the tacx flow, drop me a PM.

detones

smacl wrote: »

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I like the steerer, as it means you need a bit more concentration, and can easily create new routes across the VR terrains. One concern on the elite is the 430w limit. What happens if you go over that, and will it damage the unit?

Yeah the steerer seems a nice added bit of realism whcih the Elite does also not have. Regarding the Power, i'm uncertain as to how poerful 430w is relativily and if I would go over this. I'm not that familiar with the whole use of Watts in cycling, but its woth me looking into in case their is a restriction on this trainer.

smacl wrote: »

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If you're around the D16 area and want to have a go on the tacx flow, drop me a PM.

Thanks for the offer, appriciate it, i'm based in North County Dublin so wouldn't be around that way much. Also a friend of mine has the top of the range Tack VR trainer with the Version 4 and they do look the business. Due to my PC restrictions I tried looking around to see if you could buy the older version 3 with a turbo but you can now only get version 4 new. I also considered buying the steerer and turbo and version 3 software seperatily but it would not be cost effective.

smacl

detones wrote: »

Regarding the Power, i'm uncertain as to how poerful 430w is relativily and if I would go over this.

I'm not a competitive cyclist, and would generally finish among the last quarter of entrants on larger sportives. The tacx reports me as going over 500w for short periods on most sessions, with spikes in around 750w. I typically average 230w to 250w in a session, with regular extended periods at 300w. That said, I've no faith in the accuracy of power output on the tacx. Beasty's log probably gives a far better picture of what a competitive amateur cyclist is outputting, though I'm guessing the figures will be higher for a heavier competitive cyclist, as watts per kilo is a commonly used metric.

430w seems a low maximum, but it really depends what happens when more power is applied.

hf4z6sqo7vjngi

If the max is 430w it will limit any sprint or anaerobic work you may want to do on the turbo. Seems a very low maximum.

detones

Ronan Muscular Fax wrote: »

If the max is 430w it will limit any sprint or anaerobic work you may want to do on the turbo. Seems a very low maximum.

Thanks for the replies lads, not sure if this will shed more light on the max power but I found this of the ELite website regarding the max power:
“The magnetic resistance unit with electronic adjustment is one of the most efficient and develops a maximum power of up to approx. 430 Watt (for a weight of 85Kg at a speed of 25km/h).”
So as I say i'm no expert at all when it come to power and cycling but woul this mean, if you are propelling a lump of 85kg (i'm 88kg by the way) faster than 25km/h you will exceed the resistance of the unit? This seems very low.

smacl

detones wrote: »

So as I say i'm no expert at all when it come to power and cycling but woul this mean, if you are propelling a lump of 85kg (i'm 88kg by the way) faster than 25km/h you will exceed the resistance of the unit? This seems very low.

Not quite. It equates more to the maximum amount of resistance the turbo will apply. When you cycle on a turbo the unit is apply braking / resistance to your back wheel, the more resistance / braking it applies, the harder it is to turn the cranks. The effort you have to put in to turn the cranks is another way of saying the power you have to put in where watts is the unit. On many turbos this is stated as equivalent uphill gradient, so for an to 85kg bloke to cycle up a give hill at a given speed requires a certain amount of power, much less on the flat, and practically none going down hill. The 430w might say be equivalent to the 85kg bloke cycling up the sally gap at 20kph. If 430w is the maximum resistance that the unit can apply, if you cycle harder at that point the following may happen;

- You don't meet any additional resistance, so you can't train as hard as you'd like.

- You damage the turbo over time, possibly through overheating etc... you're putting more power in than it can dissipate and that power has to go somewhere.

Note that the tacx unit may well be no better here. Times it says I'm climbing at 20%+ in gears and speeds I know I could not replicate in the real world. 20% climbs up the wall or devil's elbow have me coughing up bits of lung by the time I hit the top, usually in my smallest gear, usually < 10kph. Tacx reckons I can do similar climbs comfortably at 12kph-14kph in a moderate gear, so chances are I've just maxed out the resistance range. (Which could also be why the brake may be on the way out).

detones

Thats for that smacl, as I have now discovered with most things in cycling, the more I look into them the more complicated I realise they are!! I will have to do a bit of research on this before I depart with my hard earned sheckles. It seems the more expensive (way more expensive 1k+) Elite turbo's claim to replicate 20% climbs and I would therefore imagine they have a much higher maximum Watt limit .