BKOOL Smart Bike

Overall so far so good - I enjoy using the bike (4. day at the moment) with no major issues. However there are support issues that buyers should be aware of - hence the 3 star review:Good:- Easy to assemble- The bike is great using it with the Bkool simulator- Quiet operation as advertised- Setup and pairing to the simulator is very straightforward- I have tried the simulator both with iOS(iPad Pro) and OSx (Macbook Air) - both work fine.Neutral:- The bike is shipped on a crate and the delivery company will not take the crate back. So the buyer needs to find a way to dispose the crate. I am assuming small glitches will be fixed over time.Bad:Looks like having this bike will necessitate a Bkool simulator subscription for reasonable usage:- It is not possible to control the resistance of the bike without connecting it to the simulator.- Bike does not support simulators any other than Bkool simulator. This is expected as it advertised that way - however what is disturbing is that there are no plans to support other simulators. Looks like this is done deliberately to lock the user to the Bkool ecosystem and charge them a monthly fee just to use the product. Apparently there are no plans to support Zwift (https://support.zwift.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360010836992-Bkool-Smart-Bike-on-Zwift-) for example.In my opinion it is not acceptable to force the user into using a specific simulator and charge them monthly to get reasonable performance out of the product that is sold. I am hoping that the limitations with the simulators will be fixed soon.Just to be clear, there is nothing wrong with the Bkool simulator and I enjoy using it. However different simulators have different strengths/weaknesses, and the user should be free to make their choices. I hope Bkool management decides to compete with Zwift and other simulators based on merit and not through forcing the users into their ecosystem.

Updated 1 month review (seller did not ask me to change anything... I'm doing this all on my own):Initially I had problem with the bike I received. Bkool responded very quickly and shipped me another bike right-away. I have now had the bike for about a month. I absolutely love this thing. It is not perfect, but many things are really great about it. First and foremost is ability to change resistance automatically according to the rout as I use the Bkool simulator. I have now taken rides in Italy, Norway, Marine Headlands in San Francisco, Spain, etc... and have even done a section of a rout of Tour de France 2019 too. Another something which is really cool is that you can setup ghosts of anyone who has done the ride before (including yourself) and compete against them. They also have different "bots" that you can setup to join you on a ride. For example Lapdog family bots hang out with you, draft you or you can draft them, the hill family is great for motivating you on the hills, and they have 3-4 other families too. You can also challenge others who did the rout and have them also try and beat you..... So many features...Too many to mention....Interestingly, if you take a 5 or 20 minute test to know your Functional Threshold Power (FTP) then as you bike there is a orange/red indicator showing you if you are pushing yourself or not. For those of us who have a competitive sense, this is quite nice to have.This bike is VERY MOTIVATING. On a regular bike you have a number of gears you change as you hit a hard slope. Once you reach the easiest gear, and if you don't have the power to keep moving (I'm trying to lose weight... that is why I got the bike to begin with), on a regular bike you get forced to stop. With this Bkool bike, problem is solved since you can train in ERG mode. That means you set the power level you want to put out (you can go all the way down to 5watts..... a 3 year old has more power than that) and keep riding. Your overall speed will also be slower, but you will not be forced to give up and get demotivated if you push yourself to the limit or take a rout with some steep hills. Even if your limit is below what a real bike can do, with the Bkool bike you can still keep going. Effectively the bike has infinite number of gears and it will adapt to your body output. So if your power output is low.... now worries, you can still keep burning calories AMAZING!!!!They also have online classes. Classes are recorded and are based on percentage of your FTP. So different people with different strength levels can take the same class and still push themselves (by FTP or by % of max heart rate). They have classes in English and Spanis. But they do have a bug where heart rate monitor does not work with TICKRX. As soon as heart rate monitor is detected their software crashes. They have promised to fix this later this year. In the meantime, I take classes without heart rate monitor for now (you can also make your own training sessions....). During a class the music also matches cadence, so it gives you a bit of an edge to finish successfully.This bike is ultra-quiet.... a mosquito flying in the room is louder than the bike.My review when I got the bike a month ago:I’m a tech savvy Silicon Valley person with graduate degree in technical field so the little mistakes of “did you plug it in” do not apply. Got the bike yesterday. Bike arrived dead and software cannot even find it. I was able to connect heart monitor to software, but seems the bike unit itself does not get power or just doesn’t work (according to their support email, it is supposed to make a humming sound when you plug it in..... and there is no humming). So then I thought maybe it is the power adapter, but I just tested it, and seems to be good..... so that leaves me with worse case scenario of the bike being bad. I had scheduled training activity for myself over the weekend, and all of that is just shot now. I PAID FOR A BIKE BUT BOUGHT A PROBLEM. If they don’t respond quickly I will be forced to return it as I don’t have time for all this crap.!!

por favor necesito llegue el 30 de mayo como máximo, espero puedan adelantar el envío y si debo pagar algo a adicional no hay problema

This bike is amazing - if you want to use it for online exercise classes with the Bkool fitness app. That's why I bought it, and in that context it offers incredible value compared to what else is out there: the online lessons are cheap, the bike has silent magnetic resistance, wifi controlled resistance, smart wifi connection to your tablets. To achieve the same effect with off the peg gear would cost about £3000. With this we're talking twice as much technology for half the price of some of the more famous US spin class brands.That said, I would never buy this bike as an alternative to a power trainer, or even for straight use with the Bkool simulator. The virtual gear change system currently in place is laughably bad, and the Q factor is huge and would feel very strange to a competitive cyclist.

I bought this Smart Bike during the Black Friday sale, directly from the Bkool web site (the deal was much better than the one on Amazon.com). Delivery was on time and item worked perfectly, out of the box. It was very easy to assemble.Read some reviews online stating that the Q-factor was too big. In my opinion (but I am not a professional) it really does not matter, and infact I could not even feel it while using the bike.All apps work flowlessly and, different from what has been stated on some online reviews, in my case the gear change happens very quickly (within a sec or so).Advise: Just pay attention when pairing the bike with the computer and the phone: when doing so, make sure that all devises are on the same network (including frequency, i.e. 2.4 vs 5). If not, they maight not pair.Overall, I really like the bike and the opportunity that it offers to virtual training.