Echo vs. Assault Bike // Which is Harder?

[chloejm]

Hey all, I've heard a lot of chatter in this feed over the past ~ 2 years about echo bike being 10-15% harder than the Assault Bike.

I think most of the people were commenting based on their anecdotal experience. This count for something, but I wanted a more objective take so I recently took on the 10:00 Test on both machines.

Too long didn't watch...

Echo Bike = 185 Cals, 4.28mi, 69 RPM Avg, 375 Watts

Assault Bike = 180.4 Cals, 4.35mi, 68 RPMs Avg, 417 Watts

I also tested some sprint efforts, which mirrored the results of this test (echo bike lower watts, same RPMs, same Calories).

I go into my thoughts as to why the Echo Bike feels harder than the Assault Bike if anyone is interested.

Anyone else got some good, objective data on this? How about @pilgrimseeker ?

 

[joseph13byrd]

@chloejm ECHO bike feels like riding uphill in sand.

 

[katieb93]

@chloejm Echo bike is harder. My box has assault bikes. I have an echo in my garage. In no way is the assault bike harder. Assault bikes build in momentum (i.e., people at the box often ramp up the assault bike for short sprints & then coast before time/calories runs out). When you stop pedaling the echo, it stops.

 

[chloejm]

@katieb93 Exactly...that's the biggest thing that isn't accounted for in a max effort or continuous work / effort bout. The rounds for time thing is huge.

 

[issylostneedtobefound]

@chloejm Wouldn’t your stats lean towards the echo bike being harder? If you burn more calories at a lesser RPM/wattage shouldn’t that equate to more energy needed to sustain movement?

Eg running through mud at a decent pace is a lot harder than running on sand at a relative pace

 

[ramona66]

@issylostneedtobefound Calories on these isn't burned, it's energy put into the machine.

 

[issylostneedtobefound]

@ramona66 Still makes sense that the echo is harder no? More calories to go less distance?

 

[chloejm]

@ramona66 This. Just think of Cals as another performance metric rather than expenditure.

 

[lostsoul603]

@ramona66 this can't be right, unless the bike is displaying approx 4x the expected burn. Anecdotally, an echo bike shows me about 80% of what I'd get for a similar piece on a c2 erg-which is a fairly accurate measure as compare to vo2 tests.

 

[chloejm]

@lostsoul603 C2 Bike is it's own beast.

 

[lostsoul603]

@chloejm Right. But if it were measuring input into the machine, you'd expect a similarly hard effort on an assault bike to be about a quarter of the calories. It's not.

It's clearly attempting to measure calorie burn, not input

 

[randallb]

@chloejm I've always heard the echo bike is harder. Anecdotally, it takes more energy to maintain a certain level of effort. The assault bike facilitates coasting; you can stop pedaling and it takes a long time to come to a standstill.

 

[chloejm]

@randallb Yup, virtually zero ghost cals on the echo

 

[breeaug]

@chloejm Using both of them daily, echo bike at home and ass bike at the box, I think the Echo Bike feels harder, but in all honesty the results are pretty much 1:1 for me in similar workouts. What is 100% a fact is that going from an echo bike to an ass bike makes the ass bike feel like a hunk of junk.

 

[kwanoss02]

@breeaug I am new to all this. When you say junk can you elaborate? Is it rickety?

 

[breeaug]

@kwanoss02 It is just much much better built. It is way heavier. It is way bigger. Way wider. Way more stable. It is way quieter due to being a belt driven bike vs chain. Also because of the belt driven nature it is way more durable. The only downside I have found is the seat does not adjust vertically like the Assault Bike. Which I just barely made it height wise at 5’9. If I were any shorter and I would want height adjustment. The Assault Bike is a great machine, this isn’t a bash on it. Just a huge compliment to the Echo Bike.

 

[ancientraven]

@chloejm I have a few graphs comparing RPM, speed and power on the Echo, Assault bike, BikeErg and AirDyne6 here.

 

[totellthetruth]

@ancientraven Fantastic summary of the overall watts v cadence for several "fan" bikes.

Do you also have the corresponding data for calories/min (or total calories accumulated in a fixed time) for each of these bikes?

A big problem for bike-to-bike comparison for me is that neither the calculation for reporting calories is provided OR the actual measurement of watts is objective on any of these bikes. All the manufacturers use "proprietary" estimate equations for calories based on average guesses of human cycling efficiency: e.g., 20% efficiency vs. 25% efficiency of work results in calories burned per watt generated that differ by 1/4 (25%!). With differences like this, it can be meaningless to compare calories between 2 different bikes...

Furthermore, it's unclear that any of the manufacturers have calibrated the watts with a dynamometer or other power measuring device, etc. Are 400w on an Echo bike even comparable with 400w on an Assault bike?! Based on fairly simple physics, it's well known that increases in wind speed (here this means RPM directly) result in cubically increasing watts--i.e., Power = f(rpm^3). So, accounting for the frontal area and drag coefficient product, CdA, of each bike's fan blades, the power v RPM curves *should* fit nice smooth cubic trendlines, which I'm not convinced of yet.

Thanks for any added context of calories v watts you can provide.

 

[naoiwi]

@chloejm They make bicycle pedals that will measure power output. If there is a cyclist/ CrossFiter who has a pair it wouldn’t be that hard to get objective data.

 

[shinejesusshine]

@naoiwi This would only measure power produced through the pedals, and not the arms.