Kinetic’s Indoor Trainers Give You Cheap Power and Accurate Speed with inRide

Trainers have never felt quite right to me. Between the angle of the bike, being elevated off the ground, the lack of realistic movement, and no road feedback, I’ve always struggled to properly bond with my trainer.

On the flip side, gathering accurate data indoors is sometimes as elusive as Big Foot–sometimes you swear you saw him clearly, but he’s just not photogenic enough to make out in a snapshot. Power and speed data are the same way.

Except with Kinetic’s line of trainers. New and older, they’ve all got the power. How?

Kinetic’s new inRide power sensor. While it’s available with their new line of fluid trainers–Road Machine, Rock and Roll, and Pro Trainer–you can also purchase it seperately as an add-on for older Kinetic models. The inRide kit uses the small divot in the trainer’s wheel drum as a housing for a magnet that talks to the inRide sensor module mounted to the trainer body. In short, drop in a magnet, stick on the sensor and connect for immediate data.

InRide uses Bluetooth to pair with your Apple devices and track your wattage. This makes it slightly limiting if you don’t have an iDevice, but here’s hoping they expand to include ANT+ in the future. With Bluetooth, however, Kinetic boasts power accuracy within +/- 2% via their power curve metrics, and firmware in the unit will even provide data on speed and cadence.

Kinetic’s newly released inRide power meter trainer accessory retails for about $130 as a bundled upgrade package that includes the power sensor and a HR strap. The Pod only version allows you to upgrade your current kinetic trainer without the HR strap for around $75. If you’re in the market for a new trainer and interested in having power, new Kinetic trainers are offered as a smart packaged bundle with the inRide kit pre-installed for about $30-40 above the base price of the trainer itself.

The Pod only kit comes with the smart sensor, instructions for installation and works with all current and previous versions of Kinetic fluid trainers.

After the brief demo during this year’s 2015 Interbike we are looking forward to hopefully   putting some miles on Kinetic’s new inRide system in a full review. Plus, for those of you following our recent training dairies, you’ve seen our reviews of the Sufferfest road and triathlon training plans. Kinetic has you covered there–we previewed their integrated system that translates the power feedback from inRide directly into the video training programs providing accurate power data to use while Sufferfesting.

And since inRide is part of the trainer, you can switch bikes and get data even for bikes without power, speed, or cadence sensors mounted. We think that makes this system a pretty sweet option for those long rides in the basement or for families with more than one rider, and more than a few bikes.

A fun side note; Kinetic’s engineers also came up with a new tweak to the traditional bottle cages with their new Twenty20 Bottle Cage. The design provides three hole locations for attachment to the frame so users can have a more natural arm motion while retrieving or returning their bottles. The offset holes provide a 20 degree installation to either the left or the right depending on which hand use you reach for hydration. Retailing for about $15 in Green, Black, White and Red. We’re currently giving these a test-ride (or several), and the review will be up shortly. Stay tuned.

For more info on all of the Kinetic line, chek out their website, and keep an eye out for our upcoming reviews.