The last time I bought a smart trainer, I plumped for a Tacx Neo. It’s a beast of a trainer that has stood up to the rigours of my indoor training pretty well in the 8 years plus I have it. Garmin Connect records that it has been used for 2665 rides (covering 92,968.4km) since 28 July 2016.
My usage stepped up after Covid struck in spring 2020, and once I’d recovered sufficiently from my early (and so far only) bout of Covid, I enlisted in Zwift, and pretty quickly was bookending my working day (working from home) with Zwift rides. At the outset, the first generation Tacx Neo was robust, and pretty silent. The internet seemed awash with tales of technical issues with these trainers, but mine has been pretty much faultless over the years.
The only major issue was that I wore out the original freehub body, but that was pretty easily sorted once I’d actually managed to identify the correct replacement part. Aside from that, I’ve found it a reliable and effective partner for a variety of training software packages.
Over the last few years, it’s started making a bit more noise, which seems to depend on gear/cadence combination, such that it’s certainly not so quiet any more.
I decided to replace it with a Tacx Neo 3M
Tacx Neo 3M
Given that this is an expensive trainer at a time when new trainers are being released at increasingly competitive pricing, why the Tacx Neo 3M?
- My experience with the first generation model was that it was heavy but robust. It has served me very well in terms of durability.
- The earlier model is accurate. Whenever I’ve compared power readings to those from power meter pedals, I find no real issues.
- Neo trainers don’t need calibration - they are just ready to go when you hop on it.
- Supports both ANT+ and Bluetooth Smart.
The added bonus is that it comes with motion plates. It is compatible with ethernet connections - but only with an additional connector (bought separately). This seems a bit cheap for such an expensive bit of kit, but on the other hand, it’s not clear why I would actually need it. Nor does it (as far as I know) have a fast sample rate that’s useful when racing on Zwift. Again, that would be of marginal use to me.
A couple of days after ordering the trainer, the courier dropped off a large and extremely heavy box. I dragged it indoors and with a bit of assistance lugged it into the kitchen, where I unpacked it.
Not that the kitchen was its ultimate destination. Unlike all the promo pictures of Zwifters on trainers in luxury pads, my training is generally hard, sweaty and often painful. There’s no way I would train in the house with all the sweat and bike filth, so I do all this in the garage.
At 23.6kg, the Neo 3M is even heavier that the first generation model, which was 21kg. Apart from the motion plates and the integral power supply I’m not sure why. But it does look rather more massive. Fortunately Tacx have incorporated a lifting handle. But with the extra weight, that’s no luxury - it's a necessity! In any case, in my opinion this isn’t a trainer that you’d fold up and put away on a daily basis.
Setup
The first step was to set the trainer up for 130mm quick release skewer. It comes with fittings for two different lengths of QR skewer and also several configurations of thru-axles. Unlike previous generations of Tacx Neo trainers, this one comes with a pre-fitted 11-speed cassette compatible with Shimano and SRAM.
At this point I lugged it out to the garage. I connected it to the Tacx app via Bluetooth and set about updating the firmware. That only took a few minutes, and then I was ready to go.
Setting the trainer up for my usual training was really easy. The hardest part was changing the settings on my CABLE device (which I use so that I can control the trainer via the TrainerRoad phone app while mitigating the boredom by running Zwift or Rouvy on an Apple TV.
Using the trainer
This was the first time I’d used an indoor trainer with motion plates. These are built in to the Neo 3M, and offer about 5cm of fore-aft motion. There’s also a bit of side to side movement of the bike when mounted on the trainer. Despite some warnings in the manual about feeling sick with motion enabled, I had no such issues, and anyway the motion plates can be locked with a pair of twist action knobs, one on each side at the rear. In fact, I find the motion plates quite beneficial, particularly when riding in Zwift in responsive mode. They seem to be best when cadence is at a reasonable rate, maybe 70-90 rpm in my case - for sprints, it’s recommended that they be locked. I expect that low cadence intervals might feel a little odd with the motion plates operating. Time will tell.
Other than that, it’s business as usual - a very similar performance as I had with the older model, but this one is really silent, and if dcrainmaker’s review is right, very accurate.