Harry Hanley's Kurt Kinetic Rock and Roll indoor cycle trainer review

Over the past two years I have gradually gone from using my Kurt Kinetic Road Pro as an occasional “fill in” for a missed training session to a dedicated part of my training routine. Racing and training with a power meter has enabled me to map out specific intervals that are relevant to race situations. Because of the Kurt’s fantastic resistance unit, I am able to replicate these intervals and they are now an integral part of my training.

A few months ago I had the opportunity to ride the Kurt Rock and Roll indoor cycling trainer at a local bike shop and from that moment I was determined to get one. The resistance unit on the Rock and Roll indoor cycling trainer is exactly the same to the Road Pro (in fact I mounted my existing resistance unit from my Road Pro onto the Rock and Roll indoor cycling trainer). The difference on the Rock and Roll indoor cycling trainer is the bike mounting mechanism. This innovative mounting allows your bike to rock left and right mimicking the motion of the bike on the road. The Kurt web-site has a video which shows a rider out of the saddle on a climb and then shows the same rider out of the saddle on the Rock and Roll indoor cycling trainer to illustrate this effect. However, for me it is more about the overall comfort when working on an indoor trainer than an out of the saddle experience.

After doing my standard 2 x 20 minute interval on the Rock and Roll indoor cycling trainer and then going back to the statically mounted Road Pro I can say the difference is quite significant. My efforts are all done in the saddle usually in the range of 270-400 watts. Whilst 400 watts is certainly stomping the pedals a little bit it is by no mean an explosive 1000 watt+ sprint effort. Nonetheless there is still considerable lateral movement on the Rock and Roll indoor cycling trainer (1-2” left to right). On the Road Pro these forces are still present. Because of the static mounting, these forces must be dissipated into the bike frame and into your body both in what would have to be unnatural (and I am sure non-beneficial) ways.  I think my space-age carbon fibre bike is up to the task, but my body isn’t.

Anyone seriously into training indoors wanting maximum comfort and ride-ability would be wise to consider the Kurt Rock and Roll indoor cycling trainer.

A quick note on the resistance unit:  Kurt has done a fantastic job on their resistance units which closely follow their prescribed power curve. However here at The Hurt Box we have been able to mathematically calibrate variations each resistance unit has from this ideal power curve.

H. Hanley PhD.

Click here to check out the range of Kurt Kinetic Trainers

NOTE - Harry Hanley is one of Team Cycling-Inform's members and is currently working on power software for the Kurt Kinetic range of trainers.