The Indoor Riding/ Zwift/ TrainerRoad etc. Thread

[Roady]

I have a few very beginner Zwift questions:
1. How do you guys set yours up? I've been running it on a laptop screen with the Zwift companion app on my phone to control, but:
(a) I find that the companion app doesn't always connect brilliantly,
(b) having to reach across to grab the phone is a pain, especially due to the touch screen
(c) the laptop screen is a bit small from that distance.

I'm not keen on buying an iPad just for Zwift purposes - any other suggestions? Could I use a PS4 controller and remap the keyboard shortcut keys to it?

2. Is it smart to do an FTP test or something early doors to help Zwift calibrate itself? I did a couple of rides yesterday - one hilly, where I was probably on my third largest ring for most of it (at about 8-11%), and one flat where I was in my smallest and second smallest ring even when not flat out. Presumably, I could do with a little more resistance - how do I calibrate that?

Think you mostly had these answered... But just to add a few bits.
1. (a) CA is notoriously bad at getting in 'sync'. Best advice is to have a strong signal to your Wifi from your handset, while it also being on the 'same network' as your trainer (so no CA over mobile data). I actually have a hotspot around 8" from my handset... Plugged into a mini switch that the AppleTV is plugged into, then have a long shielded cable to my home router. I did try extending 'properly' but found that almost as unreliable as a poor Wifi signal so now run my extended as a totally different Wifi network. I've found that really the most stable and reliable for CA.
(b) Quadlock
(c) I've been running the same old sammy 38" panel for at least 8 years. It must be 15+ years old now and was a standard TV in it's time... Bit of a PITA due to the weight so couldn't mount it floating and have to use a desk but as it's so old really no point changing it until it dies!

I actually started on an old reconditioned 'gaming' laptop. It got so slow replaced it mid-covid with a '4K Apple TV' as it was £95 and far cheaper than buying a GPU to put into a gaming rig (an old gen2 i7). Since then have cobbled parts together for a budget rig, just haven't quite got it working well enough to switch back to PC. AppleTV even with it's 'quirks' and problems (remote) is still a very good cheap option and works very well (and I'm no Apple fanboy).

Or is there a bedding in period for trainers that ive missed?

Thoughts / experiences / feedback please.

Probably more likely bottom bracket or drivetrain than a 'new' trainer. You could reach out to Wahoo - they're one of the best support in the business and it should have 2 years warranty on it against faults, even without you being the original owner.

I’m dangerous with screw driver!

It seems there is a place about 10 minutes from me that said they’ll service it and replace any bearings for £90. I may drop it up on my lunch break tomorrow

Good deal for that, especially considering the costs of couriering it.

For my Neo the courier costs where more than the repair(s). £30-40 each time and it went back twice!

That was my first thought. Hit 'Coffee stop' and jump off to plug it in, but the option was greyed out. Maybe too close to the end? (I hadn't used it already)

**EDIT** Oh and I think someone had shown an interest in Sauce4Zwift. This is what mine is looking like at the moment. The profile is a little over exaggerated for a relatively flat ride, but it's still very handy.

Looks fantastic mate! Is that just base Source stuff and none of the extra plugins?

Ok advise needed, as im getting in to slightly longer rides (tipping over 1 hour now) im starting to get occasional calf cramping, is this potentially something i can combat with electrolytes?

I tab every drink and hardly ever cramp now. But also quite a lot of it is conditioning. Try some basic 'hydration' ones (I like High5 as they're cheap and got lots of different flavours).

I feel quite comfortable on the bike, ive always had quite tight calfs and its just after longer stints. Maybe its saddle height i only got the issue after raising it 10mm but due to odd proportions if i didnt do this i had to sit so far back on my saddle for the stroke to be comfortable. Cleats are actually as far back as they can go already.

Stretching and mobility exercises generally best for calves, combine with ankles to keep things smooth and as free as possible. Any core exercise will help you in the saddle to support yourself - the better your core the more 'base' you have for power transfer, but also the less you'll fatigue when riding for longer.

KOPS (Knee Over Pedal Spindle) is relatively easy to do yourself (especially with a trainer), but also saddle height - which is a bit more tricky, but video yourself from the side. The old 'heel on pedal at 6 o'clock' is a good starting point, then use KOPS for saddle fore/aft. Fit all that without taking the bars/drop into consideration and then as you're on the turbo, position those for comfort over time, not your riding position. Tweak as you go and get more flexible.

 

[AndyCr15]

Looks fantastic mate! Is that just base Source stuff and none of the extra plugins?

Hmm, I definitely have two extra plugins.... but can't remember what they are now. Next time I boot it up, I'll try and remember to check what they are. Oh. and an extra thing/bit of software to read my gears from the Kickr. I think one plugin might have been for the profile along the bottom.

 

[Junglist]

Got my Kickr back yesterday and did a TR session this morning. It must've needed servicing for some time because now I can barley hear it over my drivetrain. Genuinely sounded like a helicopter the last few weeks and I just put it down to being in an echoey shed.

 

[fez]

Finally got around to setting my challenge to the everest climb to get the tron bike. Now every session I do on Zwift is just hammering the road to sky. Problem is, I generally get about 2/3rds of the way up it on the session I am doing and then I have a tendency to just keep going to finish off the AdZ. Not sure thats quite the right thing to do training wise but its quite hard not to when you've only got 4-5 more markers to go. Then you have the lure of flying back down it with almost zero effort...

 

[AndyCr15]

I watched a GCN video on Z2 training yesterday and it got me thinking about indoor sessions. The point I hadn't heard before was if you hammer up a hill for 5 minutes, up into Z4 or Z5, then the Z2 'effect' doesn't come back for about 30 minutes! Wow. It made me realise there probably is some benefit to a dull, boring Z2 for an hour on the indoor bike...

 

[fez]

I watched a GCN video on Z2 training yesterday and it got me thinking about indoor sessions. The point I hadn't heard before was if you hammer up a hill for 5 minutes, up into Z4 or Z5, then the Z2 'effect' doesn't come back for about 30 minutes! Wow. It made me realise there probably is some benefit to a dull, boring Z2 for an hour on the indoor bike...

Yeah, I think trying to do Z2 outside is pretty hard. I really struggle with going easy outdoors. At least on the trainer you just put it on a power and away you go.

 

[AndyCr15]

Yeah, the surprise for me was the higher efforts negate a load of the lower efforts...

 

[Vandle]

I've spent two weeks doing a Z2 custom session (7 minute warm up, 53 mins at Z2 based on FTP) each morning at 6am before the gym, 4 to 5 sessions per week. Its been good, finished both seasons of Halo during it. HR slowly climbs but doesn't get above 120 and have actually seen it steadily get lower day by day as I cross the 60 minute mark. Been ticking off all the short routes on Makuri I had never previously bothered with too. Downside is I have spent the last 12 days partying in various Asian cities wiping out my gainz. Worth it though. Back on the horse tomorrow.

 

[robj20]

My Garmin tells me to do a lot of Z2 today it's saying 47 minutes at 114w.
It does get boring though.

 

[UTmaniac]

After the shock of how hard a little real hill was on Easter Saturday, I finally got around to a turbo session this afternoon on my Saris H3 using my 3*9 speed hybrid, with trainer difficulty set to max (instead of 0-50%) in Zwift for the first time in about two years...

My god, those rollers in Titans Grove and the ramps on New York reverse Kom are bar stewards at 95Kg and weak legs!

 

[fez]

After the shock of how hard a little real hill was on Easter Saturday, I finally got around to a turbo session this afternoon on my Saris H3 using my 3*9 speed hybrid, with trainer difficulty set to max (instead of 0-50%) in Zwift for the first time in about two years...

My god, those rollers in Titans Grove and the ramps on New York reverse Kom are bar stewards at 95Kg and weak legs!

Yeah, after a winter on Zwift my poor legs didn’t appreciate longish hills. I do 95% of my workouts on ERG mode which is in theory harder than outdoors but it takes any pacing aspect out of it.

Did another ramp test earlier and up to 270 FTP. Slow and steady. Not too bad all things considered. Didn’t do much for about a month after Christmas due to illness, haven’t been entirely on form for a few months because the boys haven’t been well off and on and I had a week off last week. Hopefully by the end of the year I should be over 400.

 

[Junglist]

For those of you with a power meters and a smart trainer. Which do you use? I feel like in ERG mode my set up is still really erratic but I'm starting to feel like a lot of this mess was my own doing.

My set up was Wahoo Kickr as the controllable, Assioma duos as Power/Cadence but the result would often look like this.

The watts would be all over the place. It was really difficult to stay steady. What would also happen is that for some reason I'd be spinning around 100-110rpm so I'd have to stop for a few seconds to give it a chance to get back down to 80-90rpm which is my comfort zone. Didn't matter which gear I was in, it would still slowly climb the RPM up to unsustainable numbers and before I knew it I would be back in 52x11.

Yesterday I did a nice easy recovery ride but I decided to leave more or less everything to the Kickr but only use my pedals for cadence and the result was this

I suppose it's apples to oranges because one is varying intervals and this one was a steady state but it felt like the trainer never ran away from me. I changed gear a few times to switch up cadences but it felt like ERG was actually doing it's job.

Am I right in thinking that using both the trainer and pedals together were complicating things and for the sake of ease, I should just leave everything to the trainer?

 

[robj20]

Never had that, I have power smoothing on though, were human we don't produce smooth power it's very erratic.
Zwift I think averages 3 seconds. Never had an issue with my cadence I naturally seem to pedal at 82rpm for most stuff, it'll increase as power goes up, but doesn't go lower unless I put effort in to go slower.

 

[Shadowness]

Never had an issue with ERG on the Wattbike, despite sometimes being a bit slow to kick in on the high wattage efforts.
Always amazes me how smooth the smart trainers can be compared to outdoor riding. I can never really stick to a power well outdoors. Just slight changes in gradient make it so much harder.

 

[Junglist]

Never had that, I have power smoothing on though, were human we don't produce smooth power it's very erratic.
Zwift I think averages 3 seconds. Never had an issue with my cadence I naturally seem to pedal at 82rpm for most stuff, it'll increase as power goes up, but doesn't go lower unless I put effort in to go slower.

Yeah, trainer road does 3/5/10s power average. I was on 3 but have changed to 5 for the time being.

It's just the ERG doesn't feel like its... well... ERGing. I'm going to make it simple and just use my Kickr for everything for a few sessions and see if it makes a difference. Not as accurate power wise but what's the point in doing intervals inside if I have to concentrate on everything. May as well just do them outside!

Thought I'd dig out some workouts I did on Zwift prior to getting a dedicated power meter

The blackline being power looks much more like what I'd expect to see in ERG. Starting to think I am the problem and overcomplicating it
I'll finish this rest week and then see how I get on next week. It's been driving me mad the last few weeks on TR

Never had an issue with ERG on the Wattbike, despite sometimes being a bit slow to kick in on the high wattage efforts.
Always amazes me how smooth the smart trainers can be compared to outdoor riding. I can never really stick to a power well outdoors. Just slight changes in gradient make it so much harder.

I also didn't notice just how many more watts we do outside compared to indoors. I wouldn't be shocked if I scored 20w+ higher outside than I can indoors.

 

[AndyCr15]

I changed gear a few times to switch up cadences but it felt like ERG was actually doing it's job.

I'm a bit confused by this. For me, ERG ensures a consistent power. Watts = Cadence x force. I decide the cadence, the ERG sets the force needed to produce the Watts necessary. There's no point in changing gears. Also, cadence is then down to you, no? If it wants 250W and I pedal slow, the pedalling is just harder to keep the 250W.

 

[Junglist]

I'm a bit confused by this. For me, ERG ensures a consistent power. Watts = Cadence x force. I decide the cadence, the ERG sets the force needed to produce the Watts necessary. There's no point in changing gears. Also, cadence is then down to you, no? If it wants 250W and I pedal slow, the pedalling is just harder to keep the 250W.

I just find it easier to change gear and then let ERG catch up, which it does.

It just seems that when I use my pedals for power everything goes a bit Pete Tong. Hopefully next week just using the Kickr gives a much better experience.

 

[robj20]

I'm a bit confused by this. For me, ERG ensures a consistent power. Watts = Cadence x force. I decide the cadence, the ERG sets the force needed to produce the Watts necessary. There's no point in changing gears. Also, cadence is then down to you, no? If it wants 250W and I pedal slow, the pedalling is just harder to keep the 250W.

Gear choice does make a difference though on a road bike I suspect you don't encounter it, but the Kickr doesn't seem to like really high gears say 52t cassette and 34t chainring mine kicked is a lot less smooth with the power delivery, feels notchy.
But in 10t on the cassette it's fine.

 

[fez]

I don't know why you wouldn't just leave all the ERG/power stuff to the kickr when you are on it. The only issue I ever have with it is when I pause for a second or it disengages the ERG mode it sometimes takes longer than I would like to pick it back up.

I think I have this right but...I think that being in easier gearing helps the trainer to be more accurate because the flywheel doesn't carry so much momentum. So when you need to change some input you don't have to wait for the flywheel to slow down massively.

Ultimately as others have said, power is all over the place, its just that the basic zwift interface smooths it out massively for us. My power blocks look lovely and smooth on zwift!

 

[Junglist]

I don't know why you wouldn't just leave all the ERG/power stuff to the kickr when you are on it. The only issue I ever have with it is when I pause for a second or it disengages the ERG mode it sometimes takes longer than I would like to pick it back up.

My original line of through would be that I would have reliable power numbers both indoors and outside and the pedals are +/- 1% rather than the +/- 2% of the Kickr. Though it very much looks like I've overcomplicated things. Shock

going to leave it all to the Kickr and see how I get on with that.

I think I have this right but...I think that being in easier gearing helps the trainer to be more accurate because the flywheel doesn't carry so much momentum. So when you need to change some input you don't have to wait for the flywheel to slow down massively.

I try and stay on the 36 chainring and midway through the cassette but that was part of the issue I've been having where the ERG doesn't seem to be playing ball and before I know it I'm in 52x11 going 110RPM for a measly 210w interval.

Starting to think I've just added too many moving parts. Will see how I get on with just the Kickr.