Anyone heard of the ZCycle ZBike? How would it (or any stationary bike) compare to a Kickr Core setup? [closed]

Question

I've been looking for some time to get an at-home training set-up (I ride about 175km a week, 3500m ascent, but need something for when I don't want to/can't go out), and had finally settled on an inexpensive(ish) road bike, the Merida Scultura Rim 100, combined with a Kickr Core. I inquired with my bike store about ordering the Kickr Core, but the mechanic said that if I were planning on leaving the Merida permanently connected to the Kickr Core, he would recommend instead the "ZCycle ZBike" (https://zycle.eu/en/products/zbike/).

I know nothing about this stationary bike. I also know nothing about using the Kickr Core, since I've never used that kind of at-home setup before. I trust his judgment, but I've also not had great experiences with stationary bikes in general at the gym, finding even the expensive ones unresponsive when pedalling and not particularly ergonomic (stress on the knees, uncomfortable seats, etc).

What do you think? I don't know if I will be able to try the ZBike first -- I'm going to look around and see if I can find a store with one set up, but not sure if I'll find one. Have any of you tried it? How do you think it would compare to the other possibility, with a road bike and Kickr Core?

EDIT: Someone has already voted to close this question. Not sure why -- are we not allowed to ask about specific products? I'm just looking for a good home training setup, and am pretty lost here, since I've never used a direct-drive trainer and don't now how to compare it to a stationary bike that I may not be able to try before buying. Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

The question as written is a bit opinion based. We can say that smart bikes and trainers are not easy to make well. There may be a few issues even with higher end ones. For example, the Wattbike Atom was apparently unable to maintain target power in erg mode in 2020, even though the power measurement was otherwise accurate. The Tacx Neo, when released, overly smoother out reported power during surges, and in erg mode, it couldn't quite control its target power during big surges. The former would affect indoor racing, the latter would impact training for things like VO2max and anaerobic power. This is why Andy said in comments that he wouldn't trust anything that wasn't reviewed by DC Rainmaker or GPLama, who are two major reviewers of power meters, trainers, and smart bikes.

The ZCycle bicycle appears to be a smart bike as well. The company appears to mainly sell in Spain and Portugal, and there are no distributors listed in the rest of the EU or in the UK. Thus, the major cycling hardware reviewers probably have not reviewed it.

That doesn't mean the ZCycle is a poor product. It means that we don't know if it is a poor product. If you can find and you can understand any Spanish reviewers who do rigorous reviews of this type of hardware, then you could be OK. But this involves fitting other trusted power meters to the bike (e.g. pedals) and testing in varying conditions (e.g. riding in various simulated courses, workouts, workouts at threshold, workouts with a lot of surges, etc). The reviewer needs to know what to look out for. For example, the Shimano R9200P power meter apparently mostly reads correctly at steady power in the big ring, but it over-estimates power in the small chainring. If I put a pair of Favero Assiomas on an R9200P and I went testing, I might not catch this because I did not know that this was a potential trouble spot - it was, apparently, one of the earlier things that power meter reviewers learned, and so everyone had considered it a solved issue, apparently until the R9200P came out. Or perhaps the zero point drifts during the ride. Or some other little thing that isn't obvious to a lay person. This is why it's a potential risk to getting an unknown product. This reviewer at road.cc failed to catch the R9200P issues, proving that comparative power meter testing isn't a simple task.