JetBlack Volt EMS Direct Drive Smart Turbo Trainer

Product Information

Overall, if you’re looking for a direct drive smart trainer on a tight budget, the Pinnacle HC Turbo Home Trainer is well worth consideration. However, the one strength of the Hammer series has always been just how darn good it is at ERG mode. If TrainerRoad were ever to acquire a trainer, I’m pretty sure they’d acquire the Saris Hammer series. Seriously. There’s no trainer that works better on TrainerRoad than the H3. Period. If you live in TrainerRoad, then you’ll love just how good the H3 feels. So smooth, so purposeful as it shifts between intervals. If I wasn’t so lazy moving around trainers, I’d probably ride the H3 anytime I rode TrainerRoad. For the money, there’s no smart trainer on the market which delivers as much functionality as the Fisher-Price Smart Cycle. App compatibility across virtually every larger-format screen you can think of, half a dozen themed apps with dozens of modules (courses) between them, and more alphabet games than there are letters. Now I know my ABC’s for sure.

So far so good, but the flipside to this is that when riding in erg mode and doing a session such as 20/40s or 10x1min – anything where there’s a big power differential – you can quietly easily end up in something of a ‘death spiral’ of ever increasing resistance as you struggle to spin your legs up to speed.Hence why I use US pricing as the baseline. As always, situations might vary that make it a better deal. This manifested itself in a slightly more 'draggy' feeling through the pedals, but nowhere near that of a wheel-on 'basic' trainer without smart resistance.

First, the accuracy. Rated at ±3% this is the same as the Zumo. But it’s worth pointing out this doesn’t meet the ±2% cut off for the upper echelons of Zwift racing. For most people, this isn’t a consideration – the majority of Zwift users aren’t racers, and it’s only a very small subsection of them who would be racing in those categories. But it’s worth being aware of. Ok, we’re almost to the recommendations. But we need to all be on the same table when it comes to some of the technical terms that we’re going to talk about. Notably, the protocols and communications side of how trainers talk to apps.The instructions to replace the board are… kind of garbage (try to find where the pictures are located: link to elitesrl.zendesk.com) Although, with that said, the ERG mode wasn’t as aggressive as the Elite’s and it was possible to ride without any additional resistance from climbs or the erg mode without spinning out – so the Volt 2 does have some positives over the Zumo. However, on the cassette alignment aspect, as a general rule of thumb for when a bike struggles on a trainers cassette but is fine on its own (or vice versa) – it means that someone on one of the two cassettes didn’t put the spacer in (or put a spacer in when it’s not supposed to). The next bit is stability. In other words, do you see any oscillation at higher (or lower) wattages. In this case, again, it’s really stable. Even more notable is that I actually accidentally did this workout in the big ring (front). Typically you want to do ERG workouts in the smallest front ring, which gives trainers less speed and makes the stability better. Almost every app and trainer company recommend this. But sometimes I forget. So the fact that it was this stable despite being in a harder combination is impressive. There’s once again been almost no appreciable shift in this category this year, so things stay basically the same as last year. And, there’s really only a few entrants in this category anyway. Only Tacx, Elite, and in some areas Magene compete in this realm as a true smart trainer (ones where you can control resistance).

In having swept up on the fundamentals, it’s fair to ask whether it goes on to clear any of the higher bars – is there any point in buying a more expensive model? Sadly, yes there is. But only for people with quite specific use cases. Trainers have different maximum power figures that correspond to the amount of resistance they’re able to generate. They typically range from around 1,500 watts to over 3,500 watts.

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Next, for control there are basically two semi-standards that allow trainers to be controlled via apps: I am one of the mere mortals (FTP is a lowly 176) so my competition really isn’t against anyone other than myself. My feeling is that I train based on my numbers and trying to improve on those. With this approach it really doesn’t matter if the trainer is off, because when I get out on the road there is a level of understanding my capability and staying true to it. For me the measures just aren’t for comparison with others, it is about comparing against the other rides I have made so stability between sessions is more important. At this price, it’s a little disappointing that a cassette isn’t included and, at 21.5kg with no carry handle, it’s not the easiest thing to move about. Overall, however, the Neo 2T is about as good as it gets in terms of performance.

It can simulate gradients of up to 15 per cent and has a maximum power of 1,900 watts, so the very strongest riders might find this unit a little under-specced, but for most people, this will be more than they’ll ever need. Next, we’ll dive over into simulation mode for a ride on Zwift. In this case, I’m starting off the first 30-35 minutes in a large group at a relatively consistent wattage, but with any sort of group ride, you get constant micro-fluctuations in wattage, which are harder than you might think for trainers to handle properly (without see-sawing). Here’s that data set: The max power is 800 watts, and max incline is 6% which will be enough for most riders, although some stronger cyclists may well find they max it out during a full pelt sprint, or find it slightly wanting on a climb. Being the most expensive trainer on test, naturally it’s also the one which offers the most in terms of added features. Equally, in charging such a premium, Tacx has set a very high bar for itself that it now has to clear.This is all in addition to the trainer itself. Note that, because you remove the rear wheel, I can’t use something like a PowerTap hub to compare as well (which I would use in power meter testing normally). Most of this is from years past, but I wanted to repeat it for this year. I’ve tweaked things where appropriate and/or where they’ve changed. For ANT+ FE-C, devices such as the Garmin, Stages, Wahoo, and Hammerhead cycling units support controlling the trainer straight from your head unit. This also means you can re-ride your outside rides (elevation changes and all) without any other software. In this case that means you simply pedal to 24MPH, and then stop pedaling. Ensure you warm-up the trainer first – ideally 10-15 mins. In my testing, I saw no need to re-calibrate often. I did it once a month ago, and it stayed spot-on, even despite the ever-warming of the DCR Cave into summer (ain’t got no air conditioning!). Smart trainers at the lower end of the price scale tend to compromise on things such as power accuracy and noise levels, but should still offer an immersive experience. High maximum power outputs or leg-breakingly steep gradients are nice to have, but far from essential, so don’t be swayed by on-paper spec alone. Do you really need a trainer capable of handling a 2,000-watt sprint?