Description Critics love it. Riders adore it. You’ll wonder what you did without it. Join the pack on the world’s best fluid trainer. Quiet. Smooth. And completely leak-proof. It’s the most realistic ride out the...
Bike Setup: My indoor training/beater bike is a NOS Casati Gold Line (Columbus SPX)with old Campy and Mavic Open Pros.
Summary: I just took delivery of my new Kurt Kinetic Road Machine and did a 45 minute workout. I have traditionally preferred rollers over trainers, and did not often use the Performance Travel Trak Trainer (Fluid)that I've had since the mid 90's. However, 30-45 minutes on the rollers is about all that I can tolerate due to the concentration needed, and I want to be able to comfortably be able to do longer inside workouts, so I figured it was tie to get a new up to date trainer.
My first impression was that the Kinetic has a good clamping system that is a big improvement over the old, lower end system on the Travel Trak. Sadly, other than that, the cheaper, older Travel Trak does not fall short in any notable way to the Kinetic.
The Kinetic performed fine and the quality was what I'd anticipated. It's just that once you take away the marketing hype, a trainer is a trainer. The Kinetic is smooth and stable, but so was the old, cheap thing I was using. The kinetic wins in terms of the bike mounting hardware and process, and the old cheap thing wins in terms of price and noise level. Yes I can't believe it either, but the Performance trainer is quieter by more than a little bit. Additionally, the Performance fluid module does not heat up nearly as much as the kinetic's does and I'm certain that they improved the bike clamping system by now.
I'm not a fan of Performance products, and I actually try to avoid the place, but as I said before, a trainer is a trainer.
The kinetic is good and I liked it, but I'd say that the level of difference from one fluid trainer to the next is probably not enough to agonize over. Go with the one that looks the best to you and costs the least. Unless you get a lemon, you'll probably find it to be adequate.
Strengths: *coast down
*smoothness
*Stability
Weaknesses: None...Well, maybe the Neon Lime Green color!
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
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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
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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
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