JetBlack Victory

In October of last year, at the light push of a colleague, I ordered a new smart bike trainer. If you're not familiar with smart bike trainers, like most things, there is a large, wide variety of manufacturers, types, and levels of smarts and of course price points. This particular trainer was built to interact natively with an application called Zwift, which is a virtual world you can ride through while you do your workout on the bike trainer.

The Victory, the latest trainer from JetBlack while relatively expensive at $399, in the world of smart trainers, a pretty good price from a company with a pretty good name in trainers. Many comparable trainers are often in the $500 - $1000 range for similar smarts and capabiltiies.

The trainer was intended to be delivered to Southern California for use while there for the winter and spring. In December, it finally arrived after several shipping and customs delays. I unboxed it and got it set up and set my bike on it only to discover that it was making a strange noise as the belt or flywheel spun. After an additional couple of weeks of back and forth with the manufacturer's support and delays due to the holiday, we determined the issue was simply the flywheel hitting a plastic housing that covers many of the electronic components. A little push of that plastic to the side and it was working just as expected.

With the trainer fully working, I got it paired with my AppleTV which runs and displays the Zwift app to a projector which displays Zwift onto a wall and provides visuals while doing rides. This includes a virtual world with many real and fictional places you can ride as well as all your telemetry information being fed from the various sensors.

The setup of Zwift includes pairing of many sensors from the JetBlack trainer, including: power, speed, and cadence. Zwift also pairs with a heart rate monitor, and for that, I use a Polar H10 heart rate strap. All these sensors and data points emulate your effort in the virtual world, where you can perform workout programs or compete against other athletes from all over the world.

I started out with a goal to increase my baseline cycling abilities, and so I began with a workout series from Zwift called "Fitness Jumpstart," a sixteen-workout series to help you build up your fitness level. These workouts all use a mode of the trainer called Ergometer mode or ERG mode. This mode controls the resistance so that you can maintain a steady power output during the workout. As the rider, you need to only worry about your cadence, and the trainer will adjust the resistance to ensure you are maintaining the proper power level as prescribed by the workout program. My old "dumb" trainer required you to constantly shift to maintain power, manage your cadence, etc. ERG mode is a bit like an autopilot, letting you just focus on knocking out the workout and not have to worry about much else.

In "High-tech Cycling." Training intensity is the toughest variable to measure. Speed is a poor measure, as it relates more to terrain and wind. Heart rates provide a rough gauge, but they vary in response to temperature, humidity, altitude, hydration, fatigue, caffeine intake and exercise duration.

~ Jeffrey P. Broker, University of Colorado Biomechanics Professor

I have now about five weeks’ worth of rides and over 200 miles in using the Victory, and it has been really a wonderful experience. Being my first experience with a smart trainer, the ERG mode is a complete game changer for indoor rides, which prior to this I would dread. I mix up watching the Zwift game interface and sometimes watching other things like football games on the iPad while Zwift continues to run on the AppleTV.

Overall a really great indoor trainer experience if you take out the shipping and minor issues upon arrival that I was able to address myself.

If you would like to try out Zwift you can use my referral link for a free month: https://www.zwift.com/invite/HjHMJswL7w