Test: The fitness manufacturer Wahoo announced two highlights at the beginning of autumn. With The aim of the Wahoo Kickr Bike Shift and the new Wahoo Kickr Move is to provide a completely new indoor riding experience and thus keep training fun in your own four walls as high as possible. After we had already covered a few kilometers on the Kickr Bike Shift, it was now our turn to try the Wahoo Kickr Move with its movable setup. We'll show you whether the new smart trainer does what it promises.
Even though Wahoo's Kickr smart trainer is still the only model on the market that has Wi-Fi thanks to last year's update, the US manufacturer hasn't rested and came out with another novelty before the upcoming winter season - the Wahoo Kickr Move. According to our own statements, the new model offers “probably the most realistic driving experience of a smart trainer,” which we of course wanted to put to the test.
What does the Move stand for on the new Wahoo Kickr?
We also asked ourselves this question right from the start. The new Kickr's move mechanism works via defined roller wheels that are located in a fixed, slightly curved rail. As the rider changes his position on the saddle, the Kickr Move moves forward and backward with him. Here, forward-backward movement of the trainer's body of over 20cm is possible, which can offer a completely new, far more realistic driving experience - or so the theory goes. In combination with the already familiar right-left movement option thanks to the adjustable Axis Feet, a driving experience is created that is very similar to cycling outdoors.
The new Wahoo Kickr Move in the test
Compared to the previous model, the new Kickr Move has a slightly different design due to the movement function, but you can't really see the Move function at first glance. The setup is relatively quick and hassle-free, meaning we can set off on our first trips.
The new Wahoo Kickr Move impresses with its proven capabilities, such as the integrated Easy Ramp function, which supports acceleration or virtual inclines. Even if you get the impression when setting it up that this is a shaky affair, you feel relatively little when driving normally. Quite the opposite, because the few centimeters of movement mean that the Move function creates a much smoother feeling when you step on it.
The bend of the rail plays an important role here, because small changes in the sitting position on the saddle lead to little movement, while a sprint or an uphill section while standing leads to a much larger range of motion. This is where the Kickr Move can show its full strength and offer a fairly realistic driving experience, but you never have the feeling that you are not firmly clamped onto the trainer. This new feature is worth its weight in gold, especially on longer rides on the exercise bike, because we feel like you don't sit as rigidly on the bike as usual and are therefore significantly less tense, which simply makes the ride in Summer much more pleasant.
If you still want to do without the mechanism, the Wahoo Kickr Move has a locking switch that can be used to deactivate the movement, making it easier to get on the bike and move the trainer, for example when transporting it, and adjust it to the rider's preferences enabled.
