Tacx Flow - worth the upgrade?

gunforhire

I've got a CycleOps Magneto at the moment.
It's fine. Works well, no problems and actually creates about 50% more resistance than the road!
However, I'm thinking about selling up and upgrading to the Tacx Flow.
Main benefit would be being able to exercise by Watts rather than HR or speed.
Basically, a more serious turbo trainer.
Anyone else using the Tacx Flow after a trading up?

okenny

have the Flow, have never had anything else, it's fine but I am not sure how useful the watts are....
they seem to jump a lot.....a single gear and particular cadence i.e. 90-92 can still see jumping watt values between 130 and 150...
I would keep my money for other stuff.


I have it hooked up the computer with the VR upgrade, that's pretty cool.

shadowone1

Yes the flow is worth the upgrade. I used the tacx satori all last winter - brilliant turbo but.... when I got the flow I was surprised at the difference between what I considered decent resistance and where it should've been.

Now with the flow I can set the power and feel the pain much more on the Satori. I think Hussler had the flow also and would prob agree with okennys statement about the accuracy of the power output but if you keep the same turbo over the winter then you'll be keeping a constant value so it will feel much harder.

My only criticism of the flow is all the bloody wires and I don't use the cadence sensor as it doesn't on my rear chain stays -

Get the flow and feel the burn

hussler.

Yes the flow is worth the upgrade from a previous basic model.

However, Issues with it....

WIRES EVERYWHERE GRRRR
HR can be a bit random depending on your strap.
Power output makes it look like you could give Lance Armstrong a run for his money....
I found my Flow to be around 80W too high compared to a powertap. However as I only ever use power output whilst on the turbo so what if it says I can hold 320W for an hour, if A few weeks later it says I can hold 330W for an hour then there must be improvement somewhere....Just dont use a powertap and expect to hold 330W out on the road! haha

If you can wait, save a bit more and get the Bushido then I would recommend that.

The bushido is wireless, the HR is accurate, the power is accurate and you can do video rides and watch numbers, graphs and even download your own outdoor rides to ride on the turbo, I did this for IM UK this year, so instead of driving to Bolton to ride the course I could do it in the shed:)

I started on a cycleops fluid 2 then got the Flow and now have the Bushido.

okenny

my flow with 53 on the front chain wheel and 15 on the back at a cadence of 90rpm says 135 watts....what the hell kind of gearing do you have hussler?
no carbon

hussler.

53/39 on front
11/21 on cassette

Ill do 90rpm, on 53/15 on the bushido and see what power im pushing out....135W seems quite low..... yours may be under reading.....dont quote me on that though! lol:)

Jellybaby

It's also affected by how tight you have the roller on the wheel i think ...

hussler.

But if you calibrate it before each session then the resistance is standard......

eva656

I run the training software on my toshiba equip widescreen laptop. It's a dual core penguin with 256mb dedicated video memory. Touch wood, it's let me run every training function I've used so far with no dropped frames or jerky video. As for the power buy cialis online read outs, I think they are consistent within TTS3. The point I was making is they are likely to be inconsistent with powertap and other bespoke power measurement tools. For example, on a 5mile virtual training session, it had me outputting 645 watts!