The Indoor Riding/ Zwift/ TrainerRoad etc. Thread

Tried my first Zwift race last night. I was oddly nervous and intimated about the whole thing but I really enjoyed it. Yes, ultimately I am in the slowest group but it was still good fun. Finished 22/57 on the road but when i checked Zwift power is said 18/39. Either way I finished firmly in the middle of the pack.

I was doing better than I thought I would. It was 5 laps of the Glasgow Crit circuit and for the first 3.5 laps I was firmly in the top 3 and no worse than the top 10. Then the Clyde Kicker came. I had managed to gain/maintain position on this little climb for the previous 3 laps but this time it seemed everyone around me got the feather and I got the ghost power up. I then got dropped and as the peloton got further and further away I got stuck in no mans land and was by myself for the remaining lap.

My aim was to not finish last. I'm quite happy with that and even managed to set my best 20 minute power for some time. Not quite back to where I was pre-fatherhood but I think the races will get me there faster than the training plan would. Already looking forward to my next one.
 
I'm currently in rehab from a running injury. With winter around the corner and something to maintain my fitness I've been spinning. It's dull, so I'm looking at trying zwift.

I need to DIY upgrade my spin bike to a smart one. If I buy power measuring pedals + link my garmin does it all talk to the zwift and work?

How does it output the data back to garmin? Does it record the virtual distance etc?
 
Buddy said:
I'm currently in rehab from a running injury. With winter around the corner and something to maintain my fitness I've been spinning. It's dull, so I'm looking at trying zwift.

I need to DIY upgrade my spin bike to a smart one. If I buy power measuring pedals + link my garmin does it all talk to the zwift and work?

How does it output the data back to garmin? Does it record the virtual distance etc?
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No. There is no way of DIYing what you have as far as I know.
It's ERG mode you need, which is the app (Zwift) being able to control the trainer power.
 
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My wife has started dropping hints about a Peloton, I know nothing about this stuff but it seems awful value in comparison to some other indoor bikes almostt half the price. Anyone got any experience, the Peloton thing seems more marketing than anything substantial.
 
robj20 said:
That doesn't upgrade it to a smart trainer which is what he asked.
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I'm not fussed about zwift controlling my resistance. I can do that myself. Perhaps it's an incorrect definition of what I want.

I want to be able to zwift and have my data tracked.
 
Minstadave said:
My wife has started dropping hints about a Peloton, I know nothing about this stuff but it seems awful value in comparison to some other indoor bikes almostt half the price. Anyone got any experience, the Peloton thing seems more marketing than anything substantial.
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You 100% right. It is overpriced. Get a jtx and stick an ipad on it which is what we did. I'm now looking to the next level of tracking power etc (see above) so if you do invest make sure it has some level of Bluetooth connectivity for future proofing.
 
Buddy said:
I'm not fussed about zwift controlling my resistance. I can do that myself. Perhaps it's an incorrect definition of what I want.

I want to be able to zwift and have my data tracked.
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Then yes a power meter will do that. I think even just a speed sensor will if you want to go even cheaper.
So stick a speed sensor on your rear hub and a cadence sensor on your crank and your set.
 
robj20 said:
Then yes a power meter will do that. I think even just a speed sensor will if you want to go even cheaper.
So stick a speed sensor on your rear hub and a cadence sensor on your crank and your set.
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Will it restrict what I can and can't do vs other setups? E.g. races as it's less accurate?

Also, does it all talk to garmin? At the moment I'm doing spins and manually adding distance in connect.
 
Buddy said:
Will it restrict what I can and can't do vs other setups? E.g. races as it's less accurate?

Also, does it all talk to garmin? At the moment I'm doing spins and manually adding distance in connect.
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Zwift connects directly to Garmin.
I don't race so no idea I only use it for workouts.
 
Buddy said:
Will it restrict what I can and can't do vs other setups? E.g. races as it's less accurate?

Also, does it all talk to garmin? At the moment I'm doing spins and manually adding distance in connect.
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The tiers of setups basically go dumb trainer (zPower in Zwift), wheel-on, wheel off/smart bike.

A lot of races exclude riders with zPower (you still compete though but won’t appear on some of the rankings - which may or may not be important). zPower is the virtual watts calculated from using a speed sensor on a dumb trainer. As you can change your trainer details to gain lots of additional watts, there can be some suspicious results. There is no power meter in this setup at all. A lot of spin bikes do not have a power meter and therefore fall in to this group. If you were to add a power meter to this setup (not always easy with a spin bike -pedal based maybe?), it will now give an actual reading for riding/events and races. The downside of this setup is that zwift/whatever program has no impact on resistance. So going up a hill makes no difference to the descent for how hard you need to work. This also means that you can’t used ERG for training (ie the trainer helps to force you to make different power levels) which personally I think is really useful but is not essential. Spin bikes do not freewheel, but equally you do not freewheel much in Zwift anyway.

The wheel on (£350ish, less second hand) and off setups (£700) have a power meter and can change the resistance and make up a big proportion of people on zwift. This gives you variable resistance, power numbers and will work well. The downside is that you need to have a bike (generally road- MTBs can run out of gears on the flat road on Zwift) to use this setup. The wheel off trainers are usually quieter, tend to be more accurate as you do not need to account of the weight of the wheel for calibration. A wheel on trainer guesses the weight of the wheel and then times how long it take to reduce speed between two points. I’m not convinced this will take in to account the behaviours of heavy MTB or super light wheels, but these are cheaper setups and there are usually quite a few on eBay and FB marketplace..etc.

Smart bikes - as above but have the bike built in. Useful if you have more than 1 person as you do not need to change bikes. These are usually quieter as they use a belt rather than chain. Overall cost can be slightly cheaper than road bike and wheel off trainer, but equally you do not have a bike for outdoors. If you only ever want to use indoors it could be the better purchase.
 
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PikeyPriest said:
The tiers of setups basically go dumb trainer (zPower in Zwift), wheel-on, wheel off/smart bike.

A lot of races exclude riders with zPower (you still compete though but won’t appear on some of the rankings - which may or may not be important). zPower is the virtual watts calculated from using a speed sensor on a dumb trainer. As you can change your trainer details to gain lots of additional watts, there can be some suspicious results. There is no power meter in this setup at all. A lot of spin bikes do not have a power meter and therefore fall in to this group. If you were to add a power meter to this setup (not always easy with a spin bike -pedal based maybe?), it will now give an actual reading for riding/events and races. The downside of this setup is that zwift/whatever program has no impact on resistance. So going up a hill makes no difference to the descent for how hard you need to work. This also means that you can’t used ERG for training (ie the trainer helps to force you to make different power levels) which personally I think is really useful but is not essential. Spin bikes do not freewheel, but equally you do not freewheel much in Zwift anyway.

The wheel on (£350ish, less second hand) and off setups (£700) have a power meter and can change the resistance and make up a big proportion of people on zwift. This gives you variable resistance, power numbers and will work well. The downside is that you need to have a bike (generally road- MTBs can run out of gears on the flat road on Zwift) to use this setup. The wheel off trainers are usually quieter, tend to be more accurate as you do not need to account of the weight of the wheel for calibration. A wheel on trainer guesses the weight of the wheel and then times how long it take to reduce speed between two points. I’m not convinced this will take in to account the behaviours of heavy MTB or super light wheels, but these are cheaper setups and there are usually quite a few on eBay and FB marketplace..etc.

Smart bikes - as above but have the bike built in. Useful if you have more than 1 person as you do not need to change bikes. These are usually quieter as they use a belt rather than chain. Overall cost can be slightly cheaper than road bike and wheel off trainer, but equally you do not have a bike for outdoors. If you only ever want to use indoors it could be the better purchase.
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Really useful thanks. I have been debating selling this one and getting a smart bike vs token upgrades etc as above. Main purpose is to maintain fitness over winter and injuries with running.

Any suggestions for smart bikes ? The prices vary massively including all the way up to 3k with watt bikes (!).
 
Buddy said:
Really useful thanks. I have been debating selling this one and getting a smart bike vs token upgrades etc as above. Main purpose is to maintain fitness over winter and injuries with running.

Any suggestions for smart bikes ? The prices vary massively including all the way up to 3k with watt bikes (!).
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I use a wattbike pro... I got it refurbished (really good condition). I love it to bits and its been so good for power training. Only problem with it is it doesn't give gradient resistance feedback from zwift, I believe the wattbike Atom does but from what i read in the earlier days it wasn't that responsive. Another problem with the Atom is its magnet resistance only so if you are a heavier person and can put a lot of power through the pedals it can slip (so I have heard).

The wattbike pro has been replaced by wattbike nucleus but the only thing i can tell that has changed is the on bike display.

Just seen there is a AtomX now. I'm not familiar with that one so maybe they've improved what i mentioned about the Atom.
 
labbby said:
I use a wattbike pro... I got it refurbished (really good condition). I love it to bits and its been so good for power training. Only problem with it is it doesn't give gradient resistance feedback from zwift, I believe the wattbike Atom does but from what i read in the earlier days it wasn't that responsive. Another problem with the Atom is its magnet resistance only so if you are a heavier person and can put a lot of power through the pedals it can slip (so I have heard).

The wattbike pro has been replaced by wattbike nucleus but the only thing i can tell that has changed is the on bike display.

Just seen there is a AtomX now. I'm not familiar with that one so maybe they've improved what i mentioned about the Atom.
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Thanks - refurbished off the website ?

When you say gradient resistance feedback what do you mean?
 
Buddy said:
Thanks - refurbished off the website ?

When you say gradient resistance feedback what do you mean?
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I may be wrong, as i haven't used one, but the smart trainers now will make you feel like you are going up hill by giving resistance. On the wattbike pro its just putting power through the pedals and swift calculates the speed you would be going up the virtual hill if that makes sense ?

easiest way i could describe it, if I did a big push on a zwift mountain map for an hour my garmin will show my wattbike speed of about 37/38 kmph but Zwift will show it at something like 20 kpmh (that's just an example).

Yeah if you google around wattbike refurbished there are companies that sell them, basically because they were big in gyms they get moved on so those companies grab them, refurb and then sell them on. I'm not home at the moment but ill try and find where I got mine from.
 
If you're going to do it, definitely get one that lets your ERG (and will adjust based on the gradient).

I hear good things about Zwift's own wheel off wheel trainer. I don't think it's hard to get one for £400.
 
AndyCr15 said:
If you're going to do it, definitely get one that lets your ERG (and will adjust based on the gradient).

I hear good things about Zwift's own wheel off wheel trainer. I don't think it's hard to get one for £400.
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Yeah it's the one thing i regret about the Wattbike pro to be honest.

Yeah the Zwift one is actually a rebrand of a popular one, cant think of the make off the top of my head. I've looked at getting one but I don't want to put my summer bike on one. Could stick the winter bike on it i guess.
 
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I’ve been happy with the stages SB20. It is heavy and very stable. The positives are that it has been east ownership with no problems (16 months so far). Negatives - it doesn’t smooth power to the extent of the Wahoo range. I had a wahoo kickr snap and it felt very easy to hold 200W..etc, the SB20 gives a real time pedal reading so will jump about. It also is slower to vary resistance, so if you like plans that go from 200W to 600W for a 5-10s interval, then it is not ideal.

There is also a quirk of you are someone who has a very high cadence sprint. I’d heard about it before, but now found how to trigger it reliably. If you are sitting at a steady 150-200W 60 cadence, then sprint with 110-12 cadence, the bike will automatically start to increase resistance. It doesn’t grind to a halt, but just feels like you have some resistance to push against at like 7-800watts. Not an issue for me and I actually quite liked it, but if you are someone who wants to have a low resistance very high cadence sprint it could be an issue. For me I don’t notice any issues with racing, events so have been very happy.

Overall I’ve been very happy with the bike. You can use the breaks to give a boast of resistance for increasing power, but it doesn’t have some of features of the Kickr bike - tilt, TacX vibration..etc. I got the bike for £1600 as a deal, so considerably cheaper than the other bikes.
 
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