The Indoor Riding/ Zwift/ TrainerRoad etc. Thread

[Roady]

Still need to find a ~32" tv or wall mountable monitor for my turboing but they seem so expensive 2nd hand (for what they are).

I know right! I was looking for something with a 2 HDMI slots and drew a complete blank for less than £150. Although I've not checked recently! I was surfing the Buy/Sell around here rather than being caught out on Ebay...

Whatever you stand your display on (and the display itself) will, or should, end up covered in an equal amount of sweat, snot rockets, tears and occasionally blood (wot) as the floor beneath the bike if done properly

Your fans are not doing a very good job if you're able to get sweat on your screen!

I need to get a new PC SFF for running just zwift tbh. I can't be chored in bringing my work laptop home anymore, so don't have anything to run it off. Anyone know any decent recs?

I'm sure I read on the Zwift Facebook page of people running it fairly low hardware, I hunted down my old PC's specs with half a though to build a dedicated Zwift rig, it was far in advance of 'minimum specification' and others where having no issues with similar spec setups: a Q6600 (Core2Quad @2.4ghtz) with 8gb RAM, I would throw a 'budget' AMD 7 series card in there 7950, 7970 & 7850 (which are all cheap from people selling off mining kit). 1080p easily. HDMI. Sorted. Although I took the opportunity to update our home laptop and now use that instead (see spec below)...

I can run Zwift on a 4 core Braswell passive PC when solo but not in a group ride. HP i5 desktop with integrated graphics is fine though with the 570p option set in a group ride. I have a Radeon HD4650 which needs a low profile bracket to fit the desktop case but that should bump it up to 720p comfortably maybe 1080p.

Running it fine here on an Asus X550, i5 4200U (1.6/2.6ghtz, 2 core), 4gb RAM & GeForce GT 740M 2gb. Cost me £350 without OS, used an old copy of W7 and free upgraded it to W10. I got tired of some seriously slow load times and stuck an old 120gb SSD in there and now it's superb! Super fast load times, top gfx and no framerate issues with busy group rides.

The £100 ones are generally i5 @ ~3.5GHz, 8-16GB RAM, 160GB SSD and a reasonable graphics card.

Crazy good deal! Quadruple the price and you pretty much have the spec of a load of new PC's we just ordered at work... (HP ProDesk 280 G2's)

 

[randomshenans]

I use a 42" TV for my monitor, you can get 1080 ones cheap as anything now. I think mine was B grade (box damage, nothing else) and was under 300 and that was like 2yrs ago now?

Will defo have a couple of those PCs of plat! Will get me another screen now too and have both hooked up.

 

[BennyC]

I need to get a new PC SFF for running just zwift tbh. I can't be chored in bringing my work laptop home anymore, so don't have anything to run it off. Anyone know any decent recs?

https://zwiftalizer.com/benchmarks

 

[randomshenans]

Thanks mate, knew it was there somewhere. The i5 from platypus should be fine, worst case I can stick in a cheap GPU for an upgrade and still be better off than a secondhand mac mini cost wise.

 

[BennyC]

Thanks mate, knew it was there somewhere. The i5 from platypus should be fine, worst case I can stick in a cheap GPU for an upgrade and still be better off than a secondhand mac mini cost wise.

Ran Zwift fine (just!) on my 2010 C2D MBP. It was due an upgrade and the most cost effective/sensible solution was to pick up a refurbed 15" MBPr (i7,16GB RAM, 512Gb SSD) with a secondary GPU and HDMI out. Saved having a rig sat in the garage doing nothing most of the time and meant I could benefit from the upgrade all the time

It helped that I had a substantial store voucher as an extra Christmas thank you from my employer too

 

[Lethal`]

Anyone ever 'taken a wrong turn' during a race? / Had all the other people disappear?

I was with a group of 8 or so as we approached a junction and another group came through the junction going the opposite direction. I seemed to turn right while my group went straight on! Didn't really see anyone apart from a few characters for a while so in the end gave up. Think I was in the front group at the time too

 

[Roady]

There seems to be a bug since the last update, several riders reporting similar to what you experienced.

It sounds very much bad connection/slow internet (riders vanishing from course) but equally with several reporting it since the update I think it's something within Zwift itself. Hopefully server side and they've fixed it already...

 

[Lethal`]

Ooh so it wasn't just me going mad!

I would have won that race too!

/ I think I had a fairly good chance as I was sitting pretty comfortably in the group but likelihood is I'd have got tactics wrong.

 

[Roady]

Tried Zwift since? Tried another race?

Think I'm gonna have a blast tonight but nothing too extreme as want to do a second one this week too, might try racing consecutive evenings to really push myself to pace them properly/better!

 

[Lethal`]

Tried Zwift since? Tried another race?

Think I'm gonna have a blast tonight but nothing too extreme as want to do a second one this week too, might try racing consecutive evenings to really push myself to pace them properly/better!

Nah my trial ran out and I can ride with forward motion again!

I'd like to try some more races at some point but on a smart turbo and with an ability to change gear quickly / sprint but I'll wait until winter. Going to be keeping an eye on the trainer deals as eurobike stuff gets announced.

 

[SDK^]

The new Elite Direto trainer is looking good at £750 - A smart trainer with +/- 2.5% accurate power and 1,400 watts resistance @ 40kmh. Just waiting for a review on DC Rainmaker, then to decide between this and a Tacx Neo

 

[Lethal`]

The new Elite Direto trainer is looking good at £750 - A smart trainer with +/- 2.5% accurate power and 1,400 watts resistance @ 40kmh. Just waiting for a review on DC Rainmaker, then to decide between this and a Tacx Neo

Yeah I've been considering that.. especially if somewhere like Halfords would stock it then I can get a fair discount. That or the Tacx Flux which I can currently get for a shade under £500.

 

[Roady]

Personally I'd be choosing the Flux or the KICKR refirbs around that price range... But mostly due to their known reliability rather than a 'new' trainer without much real world use (yet). Obviously a new trainer isn't going to have that many deals on it, or reduce much in price until the spring...

Good Zwift WBR Impact ride last night; basically a 2w/kg group ride with a leader who first calls 5s sprints, then 1m over/unders while regrouping around him. I found myself hitting the front regularly in the sprints and was probably hitting the over/unders too hard... While riding along at 2.5w/kg ramping up to 3.5w/kg I usually find myself pushing 4w/kg to really be 'over' (300W+) enough to recover before then under a bit lower 2w/kg (150W) for the group to recollect me. I got a little bored after these and did some keeping/towing of riders dropped. Only around 50% of those dropped really regained the group as that latter part of the ride they needed to be doing 3.5w/kg or more constantly (with me towing at 4/wkg+) to catch up. Most of them seeming to blow not even able to hold 3w/kg . Still, great session and a great leader which made it fun (and meant I went deeper than I really intended to).

 

[SDK^]

So Eurobike is currently on go - new Kickr17 trainer model announced with a Kickr Climb which lifts the front of the bike to simulate climb/decend angle.

 

[BennyC]

£499 I think most will opt for power out on the road instead at that price point...

 

[Berger]

Have been doing a few zwift races. Unfortunately they seem to come down to a bunch sprint quite a lot, if you try and get a break going then you get shut down by the bunch quickly (the draft is too high imo).

You can ride say 4w kg solo wth a 5 second gap back to the pack and not pull away from a bunch doing no more than 3w kg. The draft effect at that speed for them rolling through shouldn't outweigh the additional effort put in by the rider with a gap.

I'm just bitter as I got DQ in the last two races for being over C grade power... 3.36w and 3.25w average... the limit being 3.19. Only over because I tried to make a move happen, could sit in and sprint and come in under power. Think I'll get blown out the back of B grade at the minute but might try next week.

 

[One More Solo]

I'd agree with that, the only way to force a split is on climbs. Jumping away from a group or bridging from the back group to the front group is pretty much impossible unless you're significantly stronger than the other riders, and then you breach the category limits. I was following a guy doing 5w/kg last night sitting at around 3.5w/kg. The draft effect shouldn't be that strong in a two rider situation IMO.

 

[Roady]

£499 I think most will opt for power out on the road instead at that price point...

Yeah but when you consider some of the expense some people go to on their setups I think there's a market for it... Annoyingly!

Have been doing a few zwift races. Unfortunately they seem to come down to a bunch sprint quite a lot, if you try and get a break going then you get shut down by the bunch quickly (the draft is too high imo).

The draft is much too strong in Zwift, it's useful for towing people in paced 'training' style rides but in racing it's too much. It usually leads to a fair number of people sitting in and not contributing to the group, the weight is also too unbalanced. I'm not heavy (76kg) but I get blown to pieces on longer climbs doing 4.5w/kg and getting dropped like a stone. Although shorter ramps I can actually distance people far too easily due to the ERG 'pause' I get with my Vortex. I've tended to avoid too many hilly races because of this. I can break away from B groups but usually find myself forcing a selection as they reel me back in, rather than actually 'escaping'. Providing I do it early enough to then recover before sprinting for the finish it's worked quite well. A long 6w/kg+ 300-400ft sprint in B beats most. There are some 15w/kg+ 200ft monsters around though!

You'll do fine in B. I do!

I've found B is a much better 'race' than C, the attacks are usually much better tactically rather than firing off every 2s from a busy group. Many of the B riders seem to be more closely matched power and w/kg wise. Selections are easily made without some back marker suddenly catching your group and blowing it to pieces, the groups usually rolling quite good turns and gradually dropping riders rather than the group collecting them before a massed sprint (like C).

 

[Derek W]

Well that's been a tough week so far. 3 turbo sessions so far. 2 x 45mins and 1 x 30 minutes. With the exception of a couple of sessions in June that's been the first full week since April Zero fitness at all so I've a long way to go again.

 

[Roady]

Don't burn yourself out or injure yourself!

Work on what you enjoy so you can regularly get on the turbo without finding 'better things to do'. Enjoying your time on there (some alone time, some catch up TV/sports time) is key to riding on the turbo regularly!