Neo Smart Bike loosing resistance within (Today’s plan) Workout

Hi all,

My coach uses Today’s Plan to create workouts, I’ve connected Today’s Plan with Garmin and workouts are synced to my Edge 1040.
My Edge is connected to the Neo Smart Bike and when I’ll start a training it will happen that resistance is dropped. When lapping during workout sometime the resistance is as supposed to be, another time the resistance remains dropped.
This behaviour was incidentally but seems to increase more and more
The training is set on power targets.
Before this issue when set a power target with a cadans e.g. of 85 the power was set well independent of the cadans. In the next block with higher power and cadans power was set well. Since this issue it seems power is not sett well with higher cadans with an result too high power and correct resistance.
When riding a test ride with an app on iPhone with e.g. Rouvy or the Tacx Training app resistance correspond with the climb or speed. In this case the bike is controlled by my phone and till now this behaviour is not happening.
Does anyone recognise similar issues and is there a fix for this?

Thanks in advance

0 Gaynier over 1 year ago

I'm having a similar problem when running a training session via my Instinct 2. I'm using a TrainingPeaks plan and I've loaded the plan into Connect. Sometimes when the training session is running my Instinct 2 seems to lose connection to the Neo Bike. When that happens the power can fluctuate until it reconnects. Sometimes I get through an entire workout without it happening, but when it does happens it can reoccur about every minute.

0 YrBo over 1 year ago in reply to Gaynier

Hi Gaynier,

I've tested several setups as descibed. When riding a virtual ride with a Laptop, iPad or mobile there was no problem.
The drops only occurs with a workout on my Edge communicating with the Tacx Neo Smart BIke.
Garmin suggested to connect a external ANT+ antenna to the bike, with a borrowed one the connection drops where history and all workouts succeeded.
My Edge was replaced under warranty two weeks ago and since then workouts are ridden flawlessly.

If possible and still under warranty try getting it replaced, otherwise an external ANT+ antenna could help.

I hope this will help.

0 Gaynier over 1 year ago in reply to YrBo

How do I connect an external antenna to the Tacx Neobike? I can't find any information regarding a connection point for an external antenna. I've seen recommendations for connecting an external antenna to a PC to improve the signal but I'm using my Instinct 2S watch.

0 YrBo over 1 year ago in reply to Gaynier

There are two USB ports (chargers) under the display on the bike.

0 Gaynier over 1 year ago in reply to YrBo

The manual only describes these as "USB Chargers" and only describes them for use as powering devices, no data transmission over these ports are described. The section on "Train with software" only mentions connecting devices running the Tacx Training app/Desktop app via ANT+ or Bluetooth.

Do you have any documents or correspondences with Garmin that indicate these are data ports and not just charging ports?

0 YrBo over 1 year ago in reply to Gaynier

Hi Gaynier,
My thought also, surprised that Garmin support suggested to add an extra USB ANT+ I doubt it would help... It did.

What also occured before when testing several setups. The bike can only be controlled by one device at a time. E.g. Using your Tacx app and another Garmin device at the same time will disturb the signals.

0 Gaynier over 1 year ago in reply to YrBo

@YrBo Thanks. Still strange that if the data is transmitted over the USB port to the ANT+ antenna, they wouldn't simply suggest connecting devices directly to the USB (not possible with my Instinct 2s while wearing it of course) . This suggests that no one at Tacx/Garmin has written the software to connect a tablet to the neobike via the USB port. After all, if you're plugging in a tablet to keep it charged, why not connect the devices through the USB?

Saw online information for configuring the ANT+ that might solve the problem as well.