Price Paid:  $280.00 at REI

Favorite Ride:
Pontiac Lake

Bike Setup:
Trek Fuel 80

Summary:
It has functioned well but has a slight imbalance and make more noise than my Fluid II. Note: I returned my wife’s Fluid II due to a significant imbalance and replaced it with the Road Machine

Strengths:
Durable

Weaknesses:
Noisy

Similar Products Used:
Fluid II

Price Paid:  $300.00 at LBS

Favorite Ride:
Anywhere on road or off

Bike Setup:
Quintana Roo Tequilo 2007, Dura Ace, FSA Carbon Crank, Easton EA50 wheels

Summary:
A potentially good product flawed by substandard manufacturing. I recently purchased the Kurt Kinetic Road Machine after reading a lot of great reviews here and elsewhere. Unfortunately, the product failed to live up to the hype. The Road Machine I purchased came in a sealed bag...which had dust and dirt in with the trainer. When I tried to set up the trainer I discovered that one leg was off by over a quarter of an inch resulting in serious instability. The welds on the leg brackets were visibly misaligned. I shimmed the leg to balance the trainer and put it through several workouts with two different bikes. The resistance of the unit worked as advertised although the difference between the Kurt Kinetic Road Machine and the Cycleops Fluid 2 seemed minimal. Spin down time was only about 10 seconds. The Road machine began making a clicking sound about 20 minutes into the first workout. The clicking retuned each subsequent workout. The skewer included with the Road Machine was poorly threaded, making it difficult to use. The Road Machine was also significantly lounder than the CycleOps Fluid2. Overall, I was quite disappointed in the the Kurt Kinetic Road Machine. I've retuned it to my LBS. I'm going back to the Fluid2.

Strengths:
1. Good, progressive resistance
2. Easy to mount different bikes

Weaknesses:
1. Unstable due to poor quality control
2. Noisier than expected
3. Low quality Skewer

Similar Products Used:
CycleOps Fluid2

Price Paid:  $275.00 at ebay

Favorite Ride:
anywhere outside

Bike Setup:
giant tcr composite
ultegra gruppo
terry falcon

Summary:
this trainer is fantastic!!!!
i bought this to cross-train indoors when it's too nasty outside to ride or go for a run.

Strengths:
everything!
easy set-up

Weaknesses:
none

Similar Products Used:
na

Price Paid:  $375.00 at LBS

Favorite Ride:
Rolling Hills

Bike Setup:
Giant TCR C2, Ultegra Groupo

Summary:
I've had this trainer for 2 years now. I am using it heavily for Winter, early Spring training (about 1 to 1.5 hours on the trainer 4 times a week) or whenever I could not go out on the road. When I set the gear of my bike to the highest setting, the Kinetic offers enough resistance so I could even get out of the saddle and mimick climbing a steep hill.

Compared to my old friction based trainer, this one offers more realistic resistance and is much quieter too. The heat sink cooling the fluid mechanism could get quiet hot during intense training so I directed a small fan (4" blade) for additional cooling.

Strengths:
It appears to be very solid, despite mine being a later version made in China. Very quiet.

Weaknesses:
None

Similar Products Used:
A no name friction based trainer

Price Paid:  $330.00 at Landry's

Favorite Ride:
Minuteman

Summary:
I agree with another reviewer that is disappointed in the Chinese manufacturing quality. This was my first trainer purchase, so I didn't know what to expect. Something in the roller was off balance, resulting in a quiet ride except for the intense vibrations sounding something like a clothes drier. Fortunately Landry's was quick to replace the unit - hopefully when it comes in I won't have the same problem twice.

Weaknesses:
They claim that each unit is tested in the factory. How'd they miss that problem?