Elite Suito Turbo Trainer

Elite's Suito sits at the cheaper end of the direct drive trainer market but it's well made and performance is great. As the basis for a lower-budget smart setup it's an excellent starting point.

Setup: the easiest yet

The Suito comes with a Shimano 11-speed cassette already installed – it's not that hard, is it everyone? – so all you need to do is hoick it out of the box, unfold the legs, fit your bike using the correct end caps and plug it in. It takes less than five minutes to be up and running on your favourite training app.

> Find your nearest dealer here

The power cable is a pretty generous 2.5m, so you don't need to be right next to the socket. There's a carry handle on the top, and the legs are easy to fold back in and lock into place, so it's a good option if you don't have dedicated space for a training setup in your house.

The Suito transmits on both Bluetooth Smart FTMS and ANT+ FE-C, as well as non-controllable Bluetooth and ANT+ profiles. The cadence data from the trainer is transmitted as part of the power profile on both protocols, so that means if you're using a device with a low number of available concurrent connections (an Apple TV box, for example) it only takes up one. I ran the Suito on both protocols on Zwift and The Sufferfest with no issues or dropouts.

Power accuracy: not class-leading, but pretty good

Let's dive into some graphs. This is the Elite Suito plotted against my Garmin Vector 2 pedals, both newly calibrated, at the end of an interval session on Zwift. You can see the last three intervals, the warm-down, then some free riding with a biggish sprint and a ramp up to about 650W and then back down again.

Overall, you can see that the Suito is doing a pretty good job of matching the pedals, which I've had for years and am entirely confident are accurate.

Here's one of the intervals. As you can see from the averages below, the Suito and the Vector 2s are within 1% of each other overall. That's not quite the whole story: about a third of the way into the interval you can see that there's a spike and a trough, slightly offset on the two lines, and the red pedal line moves above the trainer line. Towards the end it drops below again, although not quite as obviously.

What's happening there is that I've split the three-minute interval into one-minute sections, and I've done the middle one standing up at a much lower cadence. The Suito appears to report power differently in those two circumstances: I'm in ERG mode, so the trainer is attempting to keep me at the 280W interval level, but sat down it's reporting high and stood up it's reporting low, which the pedals are picking up.

Here's the sprint (standing): the shape of the two graphs is very similar, and the peak – although the two report peak power at slightly different points – is almost exactly the same in both instances.

Here's the ramp up and back down (seated): the Suito reports above the pedals at low power, and at the top of the ramp it's about 5% down. On the way back down the Suito overtakes the Vector 2s again.

At recovery intensities – between 100W and 150W here – the Suito is reporting significantly above the pedals. The average is about 12% higher here. That's not really an issue for me, as I'm not working very hard at 150W, but if you're a smaller or less powerful rider and 150W is your sweet spot, you'd probably need to up your session intensity to get the correct workout.

Overall, the mean maximum power graph shows that in spite of some discrepancies the Suito is pretty good across the power band I'd use for workouts. It's not quite as accurate as higher-end direct-drive trainers in my experience, but it's plenty good enough for meaningful training. If you use a power meter on your bike anyway, you can use the Power Meter Link function to use that power reading instead of the internal one.

In ERG mode the Suito responds well to changes in intensity, and it also does a good job of adjusting the resistance to keep you at the level you want. It's a bit choppier than most top-end trainers, but again: it's plenty good enough most of the time. The ERG mode isn't quite as quick to respond as more expensive units; if you're doing workouts with 5 or 10-second intervals then you may find you're better in classic mode using gears and cadence to get more instant power changes.

> Turbo training tips — get the most from your home trainer

When you're riding around in Zwift the resistance changes are quick enough to keep up with the quick and short dips and drops in the esses and along Titan's Grove. Elite claims a maximum slope simulation of 15%, and certainly it's capable of making the last slog to the radio mast more comfortable in the little ring. Elite claims a maximum resistance of 1,900W; I found the Suito easier to wind up in a sprint than some, but in a big gear there's still plenty enough resistance to cope with the 1,300W that I can manage.

Here's a graph of the cadence reporting from the Suito, showing the end of a set of low-cadence intervals and then a bit of free riding where I was spinning my legs up and then backing off to try to confuse the Suito. It never skipped a beat: this is as good a cadence line as I've ever seen from a smart trainer. Nice work.

Noise: noisier than top-end trainers, and not quite as well balanced

I measured the noise level from the Suito at 63dB, at the handlebar, putting out 200W. That's more than, say, the Saris H3 (57dB for the same test) but it's not especially loud. Certainly, at lower intensities it's still quieter than my big gym fan.

When you wind the Suito up you start to notice a bit of a thrum from the flywheel, suggesting that it's not quite perfectly balanced. It's not a lot of extra noise in a carpeted room on a trainer mat, but it'll certainly be something that's amplified by a hollow wooden floor, for example. The flywheel isn't unbalanced enough to affect the feel of the trainer, though.

Overall: perfect for day-to-day training on a smaller budget

The Suito retails for £649.99 but realistically you can pick one up from any number of outlets for at least £100 less than that. It's not much more than half the price of a Wahoo KICKR or a Tacx Neo 2, and it's a lot cheaper than a Saris H3. Is it as good as any of those trainers? Well, no: not quite. But it's plenty good enough that I'd have no qualms about using it as my everyday indoor trainer.

> Buyer's Guide: 18 of the best turbo trainers and rollers

It's quiet and responsive, and it's relatively cheap and easy to set up. Okay it's a little bit noisier than top-end trainers but if, like me, you train with headphones blaring and a big fan in your face it'll make precisely no difference – to you, at least. And the power numbers might not be quite as nailed down as the more expensive units but they're easily good enough – and repeatable enough – to form the basis of your training schedule.

There's plenty to like about the Suito. It's great to see the price of high-quality connected trainers coming down, and this particular unit is easy to recommend.

Verdict

Excellent performance from a good value direct-drive trainer