JetBlack WhisperDrive trainer

The JetBlack WhisperDrive is a direct drive trainer with magnetic resistance, and it's the quietest trainer I've ever used.

Direct drive means your bike connects directly to the trainer, rather than your rear wheel turning a roller. The initial setup is relatively straightforward, although, unlike The Silencer trainer from Cyclops that we reviewed recently, the WhisperDrive doesn't come with a cassette fitted so you'll need to install one yourself. The RRP of a Shimano 105 11-speed cassette, for example, is £41.99, although you can pick one up for about £25 online if you look around. You'll also need a cassette tool and a chain whip (to stop the cassette/flywheel turning as you tighten the lockring). If you don't have these, you could ask a bike shop to do the work.

The freehub body will take 11 and 10-speed (and 9 and 8-speed) cassettes from Shimano and SRAM. Campagnolo and SRAM XX1 freehub bodies are also available.

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Once set up, it's just a question of removing the rear wheel from your bike and mounting the rear dropouts onto the WhisperDrive. It takes, ooh, maybe 30 seconds.

The vast majority of bikes have either a 130mm or 135mm spacing between the rear dropouts. The WhisperDrive takes both equally easily; you just alter the position of a small spacer on the quick release assembly to swap between them. It'll also take a mountain bike with a 12x142mm thru-axle as long as you first fit the conversion caps that are provided. It's the only direct drive trainer we know of that allows you to do that.

When the bike is on the trainer, you just tighten the quick release skewer, adjust the feet if you're on an uneven surface, and you're ready to rock.

Training time

The WhisperDrive comes with a 5.9kg flywheel and the resistance is provided by magnetism. It's exactly the same as The Silencer in both of those respects. You get seven different levels of resistance (The Silencer has five) that you can control via a handlebar adjuster and, of course, you can shift through the gears on your bike exactly as you would out on the road. That's what you'll do nearly all the time.

You get a realistic road feel from the WhisperDrive. I set the trainer at the minimum resistance, put the bike into a 52-tooth chainring and a 12-tooth sprocket and pedalled at 80rpm, then stopped pedalling. It took 14 seconds to coast down to stationary.

Shift to a very high resistance and a big gear and things feel a little less realistic because there's less momentum – the ride is more jerky than when you're out on the road – but you can still get a good workout. JetBlack reckon the maximum resistance at 60kph (37.5mph) is 1,200 watts.

In the highest resistance setting and a 52x12 gear, I struggled to pedal at 22rpm for one-minute intervals – so getting on for three seconds for every pedal revolution! That's a lot like a weights session. Personally, I don't need any more resistance than that.

The WhisperDrive is very quiet in use, though not completely silent. You can hear noises from your drivetrain and a small amount of noise from the unit itself, but it's not loud. You're certainly not going to have the local environmental health officer around, even if you live in a flat.

It's very stable largely thanks to the 70cm-wide support legs at the front of the unit and a weight of 15kg (33lb). Even when hitting it hard for out-of-the-saddle sprints, everything feels perfectly solid. With a maximum load of 100kg (15st 10lb), that'll be the case for the vast majority of riders.

That weight means the WhisperDrive isn't as portable as most standard (non-direct drive) trainers, but the support legs do fold in and that's a real bonus (it would be even better if they locked in to give you another handhold). The difficulty with carrying The Silencer isn't so much the weight but the fact that it's quite cumbersome; the WhisperDrive is much easier to move around. It takes up less space when not in use, too, measuring 55x26x50cm with the legs folded in (a lot of that is empty space).

You can also download a free JetBlack training app (iOS and Android versions are available) that will provide coaching sessions and let you see various parameters onscreen as you pedal: gear recommendations, goal cadence, session time, session profiles plus your heart rate if you use a heart rate monitor.

You'll need a JetBlack-specific speed/cadence sensor to measure your speed and virtual power. All of this info will be uploadable to Training Peaks and Strava, but we've not used the sensor simply because it is not yet available. JetBlack's UK distributor Chicken Cycles reckon it should arrive in the next few weeks.

Overall, the JetBlack WhisperDrive is a very attractive package if you're after a direct drive trainer. It's simple to set up, easy to use, quiet, and it offers a realistic ride. Add in a decent price for a direct drive design and you're onto a winner here.

Verdict

Easy-to-use direct drive trainer that provides a quiet, realistic ride