Zwifter Greig Watson recently shared an incident on Zwift Riders Facebook group which should serve as a warning to all indoor riders.

Apparently, Greig was out of the saddle sprinting for a Zwift race win when his bike came off his Wahoo Kickr smart trainer, resulting in some rear derailleur carnage. Greig was sure he had broken his dream bike, but after taking it to the shop he was happy to learn it was only a broken derailleur hanger and some scrapes on the underside of the chainstay. $100 to get things checked and fixed. No broken carbon! Greig told me:

So costly but could have been a lot worse! I’m now using my old bike on the trainer and have a steel skewer (which has survived the CHOP, so I hope it holds up).

The culprit? A flimsy quick release skewer. Greig was using the Wahoo skewer supplied by his bike shop, which was the skewer shipped with his 2018 Kickr. At first Greig thought his shop had made a mistake, but further discussion with Zwifters has brought to light that Wahoo is now shipping aluminum skewers with 2018 Kickrs instead of the heavy-duty steel ones shipped with previous models.

When In Doubt, Swap It Out

Heavy duty Wahoo steel quick release

If you are using the aluminum skewer (it has a black handle instead of shiny metal) on your Wahoo Kickr (or any trainer) I would highly advise you to swap to a heavy-duty steel skewer, such as this one which Wahoo sells. Stay away from lightweight titanium skewers when riding indoors as well.

If you don’t hammer out of the saddle and you’ve got your quick release installed properly, you probably have nothing to worry about. But I would say “better safe than sorry” when you look at the low cost of a beefier skewer vs the high cost of replacing bike parts!

Let’s Rock

Also, I’ll throw a mention in here of rocking plates. I use one myself, and am quite convinced that they take a lot of the stress out of your frame for out of the saddle efforts.  You can build one yourself quite easily, or there are several solutions on the market. Check out the Rockit Launcher plans here >