CycleOps Hammer Direct Drive SMART Trainer

If you're planning to buy a fully-featured indoor trainer to use with Zwift and similar apps, then the excellent CycleOps Hammer should be on your shortlist. It has a smooth, realistic pedalling feel, accurate power measurement, high maximum resistance, and an air of reassuring solidity. It even folds away for more compact storage.

It's also quiet, and a doddle to set up, but it's a very long way from cheap. Whether it's good value will depend on how seriously you take your indoor training.

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Feel & response

The first thing you notice when you start pedalling a bike attached to a CycleOps Hammer is how natural it feels. That's partly due to the 9kg flywheel, partly to the general cleverness of the electromagnetic resistance unit. CycleOps has been in both the home trainer and power measuring games for a long time, and it shows.

The Hammer is the closest indoor trainer I've used to feeling like you're riding on the road, and it's become my first choice for indoor training.

Like all fully-smart trainers, it can be used either for 'just riding', responding to the virtual gradient in your virtual world, or in ERG mode, in which your training software sets the resistance and you just pedal. ERG, by the way, is short for 'ergometer', which is a bit odd as an ergometer measures power rather than determining it.

The Hammer responds within a few seconds to changes in target resistance in ERG mode and maintains the resistance level well if you stand up to take the pressure off your bum. I've found some smart trainers take a while to adapt to a change of position, which can leave you flailing as the system catches up with the extra force you're putting through the pedals, but the Hammer performs well, staying close to the programmed resistance unless you absolutely flog it.

CycleOps claims an accuracy of +/- 3% and it closely tracks power readings from other power meters, with no odd spikes or gaps.

Getting started

The Hammer pretty much Just Works™, but for £1,000 it damn well should. Mount your bike on it, plug in the power supply and your ANT+ antenna, fire up Zwift (other training apps are available) and you're off.

To calibrate the trainer, you'll need CycleOps Virtual Training. There are versions for iOS, Android and Windows. You pedal up to 29-36km/h, spin along for a few seconds, then let it coast down, and voilà!

To update the Hammer's firmware, you use either the Windows or Android versions of CycleOps Virtual Training or the iOS version of the CycleOps PowerTap Mobile app. Mine came with the latest firmware anyway, so I didn't need to get into this.

Training with the Hammer

As is my wont, I used the Hammer with Zwift. CycleOps Virtual Training is the obvious alternative, and deserves a review on its own. It has a ton of features including the ability to follow a route of your own while watching your own video. You can use it with other manufacturers' trainers too, so we'll try to take a full look at it another time. It's a subscription service, on the same model as Zwift or TrainerRoad, and costs from $10 per month, depending how long you sign up for.

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With Zwift and similar applications in ERG mode, the Hammer can provide the resistance necessary to make you ride at your target power for a session or interval. Or, you can run in non-ERG and just have your software tell you off for being a slacker.

Features

The Hammer can communicate with your computer and other devices via ANT+ or Bluetooth. You'll need an ANT+ dongle like this £11 Anself widget to use it with a PC or Mac.

Like other fully-smart trainers such as the Tacx Neo and Flux, Elite Drivo, and Wahoo Kickr, the Hammer transmits your effort level to a nearby computer or other compatible device and can be controlled by that device using Bluetooth or the ANT+ FE-C protocols. If you're riding virtual hills, it varies the resistance accordingly, and likewise if you're following a training session.

The resistance is varied by an electromagnetic brake, with that 9kg flywheel smoothing the pedalling action. It'll provide up to 2,000 watts of resistance and simulate a slope of up to 20%.

I was slightly disappointed to find that the Hammer doesn't read cadence; for that you'll need an ANT+ cadence widget.

To keep you informed of what it's up to, the Hammer has a multi-colour LED on the body of the unit. Flashing green means it's switched on, solid white tells you it's being controlled by an ANT+ FE-C device, while solid blue means a Bluetooth device is in control, and so on.

Assembly

The only assembly necessary is to fit a cassette. As usual with direct-drive trainers, this requires a lockring tool and a chain whip to hold the sprockets and so stop the unit from moving as you tighten the lockring. The Hammer will only take Shimano cassettes, but 11-speed Shimano cassettes work with 11-speed Campagnolo systems, and you can get 10-speed cassettes with Campagnolo spacing and Shimano spline pattern.

Beyond that, there's no assembly required. You fold out the legs, unsnap the front wheel rest from underneath, and away you go. There are height adjusters on the legs so you can get the Hammer stable on uneven ground.

If you need to move the Hammer around, CycleOps has thoughtfully provided a handle on the top. It weighs 21.3kg so you're not exactly going to be taking it jogging, but it's easier to live with than the awkwardly shaped, handle-free Tacx Flux. For the extra £500 at RRP, it should be.

CycleOps also includes the necessary adapters for 135mm, 142mm and 148mm dropouts, as found on mountain bikes and, increasingly, on road, cyclo-cross and gravel/adventure bikes with rear thru-axles.

Documentation

You get a guide to assembling the Hammer, and a crib sheet to decode what the flaschenblinkenlight on the body is telling you. What you don't get is much information on the trainer's functions, not even to the extent of the manual telling you to download apps to calibrate the trainer.

Pop into Jessops and buy yourself an SLR camera such as a Canon 80D, which costs £1,099 with a kit lens. In the box there's a 526-page manual, detailing all the functions of the camera. A modern SLR is a far more complicated beast than even the cleverest smart trainer, but it seems insulting that for twelve hundred quid you have to go ferreting around websites to find out much more than how to fold out the legs and fit a cassette.

Conclusion

At this price an indoor trainer had better be extremely good. The Hammer is. It's easy to use, has a great, smooth feel and provides accurate power readings. You can fold it away when you're not using it and it's relatively easy to carry (insofar as anything that weighs 21kg is easy) which makes it easy to live with.

I've some minor criticisms of details, but I stress they are minor. The Hammer performs its core function extremely well.

Like its direct competitors, it's a long way from cheap. You have to be very, very serious about your training to spend this much on an indoor trainer. But the Hammer is competitive with its main rivals, especially at the typical market price of £888 rather than the £1,000 RRP, and it's backed by a company with unrivalled experience in both power meters and home trainers.

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If you are willing and able to drop almost £900 on a smart trainer, then the Hammer must be on your shortlist, and if you do go for it I'm sure you won't be disappointed.

Verdict

Fully smart indoor trainer with smooth, realistic feel and excellent performance