The Indoor Riding/ Zwift/ TrainerRoad etc. Thread

[Roady]

It's more the dismantling every week in the winter, got enough stuff to pack for CX and don't reeally want a 1k trainer to have to sit outside in the rain

To be fair, the Neo is one of the trainers most easy to pack up and put away as the legs easily fold & lock down into position & back up. It is damn heavy though (they all are!). If this is a requirement of yours then worth noting the Direto has legs which swing out and lock, the KICKR Core doesn't and nor does the Flux.

Just built a Sufferfest workout in Zwift to get the training effect and the xp. I’m taking this far too seriously

Haha good skills and you won't be the first person doing this.

I was quite impressed with Xert when I did a trial and it outputted the sessions as a Zwift Workout file to ride. Very easy. TR does similar, so Sufferfest are missing a bit of a trick by not also doing the same...

 

[SizEzE]

Finally got round to joining Zwift about 8 weeks ago, absolutely loving it, seeing as I have not really ridden a bike properly since my accident, some 7 years ago!

 

[iamtheoneneo]

So I dont have a road bike, just a highend mountain bike. Am I correct that I can invest in something like KICKR that feeds through via quick release, set up Swift and il be good to go?
Im not bothered about it being an uneven playing field and Im sure the gearing will be wack, but would be nice to get some riding in during the winter.

 

[resurgam]

So I dont have a road bike, just a highend mountain bike. Am I correct that I can invest in something like KICKR that feeds through via quick release, set up Swift and il be good to go?
Im not bothered about it being an uneven playing field and Im sure the gearing will be wack, but would be nice to get some riding in during the winter.

You should be OK, especially if quick-release, but if using thru-axle check the compatibility. Direct drive trainers like the KICKR also means you don't have to check for wheel size support too.

Edit - unless anyone can think of whether dropout width would be an issue, I'm not up on all the latest and greatest mountain bike kit.

 

[SoliD]

To be fair, the Neo is one of the trainers most easy to pack up and put away as the legs easily fold & lock down into position & back up. It is damn heavy though (they all are!). If this is a requirement of yours then worth noting the Direto has legs which swing out and lock, the KICKR Core doesn't and nor does the Flux.

Just being lazy really, but much easier to have the road bike or TT set up all the time and using the road machine for weekends/races, especially for TT's as I don't have to change the wheel, just take out and away I go as it doesn't generate much heat on the tyre.

What's a good Kickr18 second hand price ?

 

[Roady]

Finally got round to joining Zwift about 8 weeks ago, absolutely loving it, seeing as I have not really ridden a bike properly since my accident, some 7 years ago!

Welcome!

So I dont have a road bike, just a highend mountain bike. Am I correct that I can invest in something like KICKR that feeds through via quick release, set up Swift and il be good to go?
Im not bothered about it being an uneven playing field and Im sure the gearing will be wack, but would be nice to get some riding in during the winter.

Swiftyswift!

You'll have no problem but you'll have to do some research over which trainers will work best. Axle/hub width is an issue and your main reason for researching (more below). I previously used a KK Road Machine and Tacx Vortex both with a 26" wheel Hybrid. It worked well but for wheel-on trainers you'll want to buy a trainer tyre as the heat will shred off-road tyres. You're right the gearing really won't help you the majority of the time. Zwift 'speeds' tend to be quite a bit higher than general road speeds so you'll find yourself spinning out all the time on MTB gearing.

You should be OK, especially if quick-release, but if using thru-axle check the compatibility. Direct drive trainers like the KICKR also means you don't have to check for wheel size support too.

Edit - unless anyone can think of whether dropout width would be an issue, I'm not up on all the latest and greatest mountain bike kit.

Correct about thru-axle compatibility but also correct about dropout width. The majority of thru axle kits for direct drive trainers will be Road 135mm/142mm hub width. I did some investigating when researching my Diverge, it actually has a bespoke 137mm width (due to Specialized SCS) which there is nothing for. I can get close to it mixing 135+142 endcaps with kits which allow you to change both, but not all thru-axle kits are 'both sides' which was an issue for me, some are more spacers which work on the thru axle itself - which would work providing your dropout width is wide enough and the spacer sizes close enough.

The majority of quick-release wheel-on trainers don't have much issue with hub width, as the QR mount they use allows a wide and varied width, with the trainer then screwing/adjustable clamping onto the QR ends. Direct Drive wheel-off trainers don't generally attach the same way...

Just being lazy really, but much easier to have the road bike or TT set up all the time and using the road machine for weekends/races, especially for TT's as I don't have to change the wheel, just take out and away I go as it doesn't generate much heat on the tyre.

What's a good Kickr18 second hand price ?

Fair enough. I've not really watched S/H KICKR prices so can't comment. I'd be wary as think there was problems with some '18 KICKR's belts and you can't tell the difference physically between the 'bad' and good ones? But you can get a replacement belt anyway...

 

[SoliD]

Fair enough. I've not really watched S/H KICKR prices so can't comment. I'd be wary as think there was problems with some '18 KICKR's belts and you can't tell the difference physically between the 'bad' and good ones? But you can get a replacement belt anyway...

Spotted one second hand brand new (presume replacement), will keep an eye on the price.

 

[Skillmister]

So I'm touching all the woods at the moment (Oo er) but before sending my vortex back I decided to take a punt on an ANT+ extension cable just on the off chance it made a difference and it seems to be working! Done several ERG workouts in a row with no power /cadence drop off whereas it was happening almost every time previously.

Fingers crossed it continues to work as I've "enjoyed" some truly horrible workouts the last couple of weeks

 

[Roady]

Good job. I changed from the usual usb-pen type adaptor to the Tacx one and it's been loads better. Bigger aerial and able to separate it from the laptop seem to help. Still get occasional ANT+ drops but they do tend to also coincide with 'bad' WiFi signal days/nights so I have a feeling it's outside sources causing interference which is entirely possible as I live right next to a large military base.

 

[Roady]

Friday night I did 'The Wringer' with my FTP set at a conservative 240W. Made the intervals 490W which was more than enough for my legs! Alternated between seated and stood sprints, but had to stand the last few as I was pretty spent by then.

https://www.strava.com/activities/2780884804

With the mixed bag of weather this weekend (and being unable to ride on saturday) I opted for the 3R 100km group ride on sunday morning.

https://www.strava.com/activities/2784729267

Good ride with some of the usual suspects. I had to late join as Windows updates and a Zwift update (since Friday ffs) put me back, but only 0.1 miles from the others. I put my hand up to assist with the keeping once warmed up and that's where the pain started! Quite a good course for a good blob but we soon encountered several dropped riders and the gaps where really quite hard to close. Thankfully a good crowd of keepers and we put some good team efforts in. We noticed that a bunch of riders got dropped on the dirt section every time before someone noted the Zwift update had added resistance to dirt areas, but only those with the update would experience it and the update wasn't there for Apple users. Great. We also lost riders at the tunnel section for some reason, we never really got to the bottom of. Even without DD the gaps when they opened seemed to grow quickly and take big efforts to close. Most short chases had to be at a sustained 4w/kg+ and the longer ones at 3.5w/kg. Several of the usual solo keeping/towing efforts I'd normally do at around 3.0w/kg+ I had to call for assistance as I was just unable to close the gaps after a couple of minutes effort, it was so bad at times that 3.5w/kg would barely keep pace with the blob being held at sub 2.0w/kg! Some supreme efforts from the keeping team of 4-5 of us and by half way we had to send 2-3 of us back for each distanced rider and not the usual 1-2, we even considered a 40 second chase quite early on when a regular got disconnected. Thankfully she late-joined to get back otherwise I'm sure we'd have lost some of the team. These rides for me are mega training due to these keeping intervals. Great base for fitness and then some big long stretches of threshold. They're really not 'easy'/steady rides when you're keeping/sweeping!

1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10 efforts/chases/intervals.

 

[dod]

Have to take my direto back to the retailer, started making a random knocking/vibrating noise at about 200w. Let him see a video of the noise and he couldn’t understand it.
Still under guarantee so not expecting any issues but back to the tacx bushido tonight and there’s a huge difference in the experience

 

[Berger]

Back on the Zwift racing, I’m on the border between C and B. I’m on my limit all the time if I try to race B. But C can throw down some attacks and tactics which results in a better workout than an hour on the rivet, can end up being DQ then for just over 3.2wkg.

 

[Roady]

Have to take my direto back to the retailer, started making a random knocking/vibrating noise at about 200w. Let him see a video of the noise and he couldn’t understand it.
Still under guarantee so not expecting any issues but back to the tacx bushido tonight and there’s a huge difference in the experience

Rubbish, but at least they can quite easily see the issue so should be a straight swap. Fingers crossed!

Back on the Zwift racing, I’m on the border between C and B. I’m on my limit all the time if I try to race B. But C can throw down some attacks and tactics which results in a better workout than an hour on the rivet, can end up being DQ then for just over 3.2wkg.

It's rubbish being in those middle grounds, I was there myself and still am at times... Mostly because in C everyone sits in and saves themselves for the sprint. Gets annoying but does mean you can work to thin the group throughout the ride and can drop people, rather than sat in B with nothing in the engine to do the same. In B it's far more tactical as on the rivet really means you're hanging on whenever someone surges - rather than going with them.

Each have their merits, to be fair if it's a quiet race I'd enter B, you'll get more of a workout rather than a junk 'easy' C result where you're almost choosing where to put the effort in. If it's a busy/hilly/you're fatigued then go for C, it's more fun being able to dictate the results and the best racers to compete against are always at the front anyway.

 

[platypus]

Did my first proper zwift ride today. 20 miles around Watopia, just exploring the area
Very enjoyable & I can see why zwift is so popular.

Realise its a few months later, but after thousands of miles turboing I still don't get the appeal of Zwift, if you haven't trialled the other programs you might be missing out. Take a look at the Sufferfest free trial, it's great.

 

[Roady]

after thousands of miles turboing I still don't get the appeal of anything else instead of Zwift

Edit for you!

But you're right, you really do need to try the other platforms to at least judge what works best for you and what appeals. I liked Sufferfest but it felt clunky, but that was 2-3 years ago. The original 'ride along' videos where great, but the way they where implemented into the (then) new app felt poor and out of sync, there wasn't enough of the new stuff, so the majority of the riding sessions felt poorly 'setup' to what was happening on screen. It's probably better now, but it's still just intervals/training sessions with some videos. Not enough videos, ride options or social elements for me.

Zwift for me just offers the complete package, there's enough different elements of it so I can justify the higher cost. I'm never 'bored' of something to do. I used to ride just training sessions, then just raced and now I generally just group ride as well as doing challenges. But do need to get back into racing more.

https://www.strava.com/activities/2802921521

Did my long overdue FTP test on sunday morning after the little one allowed us a rare lie in until 7.15am. It was then too late to get ready and jump on my usual sunday morning 100km. Did a long warm up and used the 1hr 5 min FTP test for that, riding out to the Alpe. Did a bit of a reroute and then skipped some blocks to hit the 20 minute effort at the climb. Was going to ride easy for 5 minutes recovery to then push on and do the climb but was too cooked. 261W which I'm happy with at this stage, it's even a little higher than I thought. Rode around a bit then jumped into a really badly run group ride where the leader had no companion app, so just sat doing 2w/kg while his ride split all over the place, didn't call anyone back and when I left was left riding in a group of 12-15 riders with 10+ bigger groups in front of him with ever growing gaps. What a mess, lol

Still left me quite short on miles for the week after a bigger week than usual last week. Need to get more into midweek sessions/races through the autumn I think.

 

[platypus]

Aye Sufferfest has moved on immensely these days.

 

[platypus]

Any of you Wahoo users

ANT+ Speed/Cadence Profile: This broadcasts your speed and cadence as a standard ANT+ Speed/Cadence combo sensor. Wahoo doesn’t do this for any trainers.

so you have to record cadence/speed seperately, what do you do for cadence based training if any at all? Ie if the apps can't read cadence data.

Oh nm just read they rolled it out through a firmware update.

 

[merlin]

These Honeywell fans are not cutting the mustard for me - I'm overheating.

Just bought this:

https://www.screwfix.com/p/18-floor-fan-220-240v/3939x

Quick demo and it shifts a serious amount of air, I think I'm going to need to hold onto the handlebars a little tighter

 

[SoliD]

Problem I find with the big fans is that you cool down too much inbetween efforts and my hands are bloody freezing all the way through.

 

[merlin]

Smart plug an option maybe - switch it off from a remote or app in-between efforts.