Review: Wattbike Atom

An inconvenient truth: With every passing day I have less time on earth. This also means I have no interest in wasting precious minutes. That’s why I’m increasingly drawn to the most efficient, effective workouts that require minimal drive-to or setup time.

Enter the next generation Wattbike Atom. This low-hassle, smart trainer spits out scarily accurate data. It’s well designed enough to make riding indoors almost fun. And with its chunky frame and aerodynamic seat post, it closely resembles a time-trial bike, which my brain equates with going fast.

Developed in the UK in 2008, the original Wattbike was built for British Cycling’s Olympic medal and World Championship–winning teams. They wanted a reliable stationary bike that could more extensively track data like speed, cadence, and pedaling technique, yet still feel like a real bike without the hassle of having to take a wheel off. The vast majority of cyclists who ride indoors use a smart trainer they clamp onto their own bike. Either they want to train on their outdoor bike, they don’t have the space to store a stationary bike, or they don’t have the cash to buy a stationary bike, which typically costs thousands of dollars more than a decent smart trainer.

The original Wattbike eventually evolved into the Wattbike Atom, which eventually evolved into the next-generation Wattbike Atom, which is used worldwide by elite athletes from USA Cycling to New Zealand’s All Blacks rugby team. But this latest model has only been widely available to the US public since July 2023.

Photograph: Wattbike

The buzz about the next generation Wattbike Atom is two-fold: First its electromagnetic resistance system has been improved. Instead of using motors to move magnets up and down to automatically change the pedaling resistance the rider feels, the next generation uses the magnets’ currents—the higher the current that flows through the magnets, the greater the resistance and power needed to turn the pedals. It now delivers up to 2,500 watts of power within plus or minus 1 percent accuracy.

The most obvious result of the new resistance system is that gear changes (there are 22) and reactions to gradients in popular training apps like Zwift and Rouvy are faster. It also allows for greater accuracy while dialing in specific levels of resistance during high intensity interval training workouts or standing starts.

The second bit of buzz is about the Wattbike’s updated electronics, including the addition of more sensors throughout the bike. For example, its new crank angle sensor reads 48 times per revolution, which is 46 times more than the first-generation Atom. Adjusting the old resistance system would result in an awful second-long lag that threw off the rhythm of your workout, but the new system allows the bike to adjust its resistance system instantaneously.

Photograph: Wattbike

Wattbike has its own myriad workouts in its companion Hub app, including some designed for the All Blacks as well as hill climbs, endurance challenges, and tests that measure the key Functional Threshold Power metric. But for cyclists who already use apps like TrainerRoad, Zwift, Rouvy, Fugaz, TrainingPeaks, or Strava, the Wattbike has dual-channel Bluetooth connectivity, which means that you can use a TrainingPeaks plan while riding in a virtual world like Zwift. Just remember: The app you connected to last is in control, and all the other connected apps can only receive data. If you want to follow a Wattbike workout but ride in Zwift, connect to Zwift first. Do yourself a favor and thoroughly read the website primers to troubleshoot because toggling between apps incorrectly can trip up the bike. For example, I found that my Wahoo Tickr heart rate monitor connected at first, then failed to connect after the first few rides. This is likely because I eventually started riding in Zwift while also using a Hub workout, which was confusing the Tickr.

Photograph: Wattbike

Photograph: Wattbike

Two nice physical features of the Atom are that the seat height can be easily adjusted among different riders because there’s an easy seat stem locking system and a ruler that allows each user to mark their preferred height. The bike also comes with an attachment that securely holds a phone or tablet within easy sight and reach—a bonus for someone like me who doesn’t own a TV and needs a place to display my virtual rides. When viewing on the tablet, the customizable Hub workout screen is easy to read; it shows tracking data on heart rate, watts, cadence, time, and other metrics.

It also offers a tool called the Pedaling Effectiveness Score (PES). That looks like a radar screen on which every pedal stroke is mapped. At the end of the ride, it will look like an angry kindergartener scribbled in furious circles. This tool provides some very effective visual feedback for average cyclists like me who have put zero time into learning how to pedal more efficiently. At the end of the ride, the scribbles that track every pedal stroke should be uniform and end up looking like a plump sausage, not an hourglass. The more indentation there is in the middle, the more dead space there is in each pedal stroke. An elite cyclist’s PES will look like an oval, whereas mine generally tended to look like a set of two beady eyes staring back at me, laughing at how weak my pedal stroke was. The PES score is the numerical interpretation of the shape. A perfect oval will be 75. Anything over or under the magic number needs refining.

Throughout my month-long test, I encountered only a few small glitches while riding—namely that I tended to accidentally toggle in and out of Erg mode, when the app directly communicates with the bike to control resistance instead of the rider manually shifting gears. The button for changing between manual shifting and Erg mode is right below the rubber shifting hood. If the hood was slightly twisted or if I was standing on the pedals, I found that I would accidentally hit the button and toggle between modes, which would slow me down.

Another issue for cyclists who are used to riding their own road, gravel, or mountain bike on a turbo trainer: The Wattbike comes with only one crank size—170 mm—and at this point, that piece of hardware is not customizable. The Wattbike also has a wide 160-mm Q-Factor, the distance from the outer edge of one crank arm to another. That can translate to knee and ankle pain, which I did not experience.

Photograph: Wattbike

Over my month using it, I developed a lopsided love-hate relationship with the Wattbike. It was mostly love because, once set up, it is quiet and easy to use, and can provide a tough workout in one hour, which makes me feel like I’m using my time wisely. The flipside: With all the data it tracks, there’s nowhere for the lazy me to hide.