The Indoor Riding/ Zwift/ TrainerRoad etc. Thread

Right on cue, Garmin brings in a paid subscription. Not just happy enough charging more than anyone else for their equipment :rolleyes:
I switched to a vivosmart I wear on my non watch hand recently after ditching the Whoop and the connect app isn't even close to being as good as Whoops, it feels like a free app. I'll probably hold off as long as I can but presumably they will start slipping some of the existing free features behind the paywall much like Strava did and then I'll eventually cave in.

Rainmaker seems ok with it though.

 
meh signed up for the 30 day trial. 99.9999% sure I'll cancel it but worth a punt for free.

Depressing to see another company trying to extract as much cash out of people, who have already paid for a premium device. Seems to be the way of life at the moment.
 
Anything like this that goes subscription is a big red flag for me. Software I understand. Your business model requires constant development and thats your revenue stream. Garmins software is not great at the best of times for me and you pay a large premium for their hardware. Part of that cost is assumed to be the cost of the continued software development.

Always feels like a slippery slope with these things. Our Tado smart thermostats had a recent "test" to see if people were willing to pay a £1/month subscription. You just know that in a year it will be £1.99, then £3.99. Suddenly you are paying £100/year to make sure that your expensive hardware isn't completely gimped.

Shadowness said:
meh signed up for the 30 day trial. 99.9999% sure I'll cancel it but worth a punt for free.

Depressing to see another company trying to extract as much cash out of people, who have already paid for a premium device. Seems to be the way of life at the moment.
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Line must go up.
 
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Got my head kicked in on Tuesday Zwift Racing A bracket again. Going into the race with fairly fresh (hadn't ridden since Thursday before). Only to be dropped around 5 mins in, really over my FTP and no hope of hanging on. Some good fun racing behind but such scattered riders nothing to gain other than a bit of pride. Actually dropped some racing score (-8) but still at 504 means I've not dropped out of the A bracket yet for these!

fez said:
I'm always a little bit conflicted. I find that I don't really improve when I ride outdoors because its such a mish mash around me and I haven't got the willpower to properly try and train on our roads. But when the weather is so good, being cooped up inside is a hard ask.
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It's hard, especially this time of year when the weather begins to change and is dry after a long winter indoors. I don't really consider Zwift/indoors a replacement to riding outside. I treat it as different riding, different challenges and also I guess different enjoyment from it. Especially as nearly everything I do is racing 'fun' and the TTT's fantastic intervals with friends. Group rides are maybe the only ones I do as a replacement to outside rides - as they're more convinient to fit in and squeeze into various points of the weekend rather than a saturday morning.

fez said:
Anything like this that goes subscription is a big red flag for me. Software I understand. Your business model requires constant development and thats your revenue stream. Garmins software is not great at the best of times for me and you pay a large premium for their hardware. Part of that cost is assumed to be the cost of the continued software development.
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I've lost all faith in Garmin as a company, to be fair I never had much as time and again they proven themselves fallible - outdated products. Archaic software and back-end even on their latest products. Broken functionality. It's a wonder they're still going when so many others with better products/systems/platforms have gone under... Guess their business being larger and more distributed they're able to weather more the recent downturn in sales, along with any reduction from poor products.

Really something cloud like this is just another way to get continued regular revenue from customers without needing to sell new products all the time to them.
 
Vandle said:
Right on cue, Garmin brings in a paid subscription. Not just happy enough charging more than anyone else for their equipment :rolleyes:
I switched to a vivosmart I wear on my non watch hand recently after ditching the Whoop and the connect app isn't even close to being as good as Whoops, it feels like a free app. I'll probably hold off as long as I can but presumably they will start slipping some of the existing free features behind the paywall much like Strava did and then I'll eventually cave in.

Rainmaker seems ok with it though.

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I'll be keeping a close eye on it all, no way I'm paying a subscription for it. Fenix 7 and Edge 1050 might be my last.
See how much of it ends up being behind the paywall in a couple of years.
 
I'm a big fan of garmin stuff and have invested a good whack into it but if they start moving features behind paywalls, I will have to look elsewhere.. but then what do we have?

apple? - stuff behind paywalls already
whoop? - subscription based already
garmin? - now a paid version available

wahoo may be the last one ? but they don't have a good fitness watch.
 
fez said:
I did a trade with someone. So I bought it for £200 but sent them my "dumb" crank arm as part of the deal. As you say, thats what I might have to do. I am talking to 4iiii at the moment to see about a fix/replacement and the turn around time.
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What do you need? I've got multiple spares. I have 1x Stages and 3x 4iiii single crank arms on bikes :cry:

Cover postage and I'll gladly send you one of the dumb arms!

Broken/faulty 4iiii on my Zwift setup. So will have a used 5800 105 and 172.5mm arm
Diverge has a Stages. That's an R6800 arm on a R8000 crank, so probabaly a R8000 172.5mm crank arm. Possibly used.
Tarmac has a 4iiii think that's R8100 170mm new and unused.
Smashed Tarmac has a 4iiii R7100 170mm new and unused.

I do have 2 complete R7100 cranksets 172.5mm unused and removed from Tarmacs. 50/34 rings if you need any will sell at whatever S/H market rate is on them

Hmmm I do have a Ultegra crankset cracked, been meaning to get my LBS to do the Shimano replacement. That has a dumb arm on it, so likely 6800 but they'll probably want that with the cranks.
 
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Roady said:
It's hard, especially this time of year when the weather begins to change and is dry after a long winter indoors. I don't really consider Zwift/indoors a replacement to riding outside. I treat it as different riding, different challenges and also I guess different enjoyment from it. Especially as nearly everything I do is racing 'fun' and the TTT's fantastic intervals with friends. Group rides are maybe the only ones I do as a replacement to outside rides - as they're more convinient to fit in and squeeze into various points of the weekend rather than a saturday morning.
Click to expand...

Until my boys are a little older and have more of a routine I think its going to be a bit of a mess when it comes to my riding. I quite like riding indoors to be honest. Not when its glorious outside but it gives me the chance to catch up on TV I never have the time for.


Roady said:
I've lost all faith in Garmin as a company, to be fair I never had much as time and again they proven themselves fallible - outdated products. Archaic software and back-end even on their latest products. Broken functionality. It's a wonder they're still going when so many others with better products/systems/platforms have gone under... Guess their business being larger and more distributed they're able to weather more the recent downturn in sales, along with any reduction from poor products.

Really something cloud like this is just another way to get continued regular revenue from customers without needing to sell new products all the time to them.
Click to expand...

Their software in my experience has always been weak. I think the only way they are able to contemplate this is market position. They have so many years of bloat under their belt that they simply offer a lot more functionality to people than their competitors, especially if you are multi discipline. That will soon change though if people start abandoning them. I will certainly be looking at the likes of Wahoo etc when I eventually need to replace my 840.

Roady said:
What do you need? I've got multiple spares. I have 1x Stages and 3x 4iiii single crank arms on bikes :cry:

Cover postage and I'll gladly send you one of the dumb arms!

Broken/faulty 4iiii on my Zwift setup. So will have a used 5800 105 and 172.5mm arm
Diverge has a Stages. That's an R6800 arm on a R8000 crank, so probabaly a R8000 172.5mm crank arm. Possibly used.
Tarmac has a 4iiii think that's R8100 170mm new and unused.
Smashed Tarmac has a 4iiii R7100 170mm new and unused.

I do have 2 complete R7100 cranksets 172.5mm unused and removed from Tarmacs. 50/34 rings if you need any will sell at whatever S/H market rate is on them

Hmmm I do have a Ultegra crankset cracked, been meaning to get my LBS to do the Shimano replacement. That has a dumb arm on it, so likely 6800 but they'll probably want that with the cranks.
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Thats massively generous of you. I have heard back from 4iiii and despite the crank being taken off a canyon bike and me not being the owner of said canyon they are warrantying it for free. Fantastic customer service. I have Ultegra 8100 172.5mm cranks so if you do have something compatible with that I would be very interested in borrowing it.

Edit: I actually managed to snag exactly what I am after for £25 delivered on FB marketplace so hold fire on that. Fingers crossed its not a scam eh :p
 
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ZRL Finals last night was grim, barely got a team together... We (Race3R) only had 20 riders available spread around 6 teams. Considering a team needed 4 riders to even score there was a lot of switching around... Also with riders needing to have ridden for that team twice at some point in the season. Ended up with 2 poor C riders in my WASP team where we'd won the B2 class, so Finals are in B1. Poor guys really took one for the team, but great spirit!


Vandle said:
One bike to rule them all...

zwiftinsider.com

All About the New Specialized S-Works Tarmac SL8 on Zwift

There’s a new king in town.
zwiftinsider.com zwiftinsider.com

Lost a race by 5 seconds on the final hill on Tuesday on an Aeroad 2024. No more excuses now!
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Bought mine first opportunity and won't ride anything else now. Had a big rant in R3R about all those still saying the Aeroad should be faster - someone came out with some stats (don't know where they got this from). In races where a Canyon and a Specialized both featured in the top 5, the Specialized beat the Canyon 65% of times. I bet if MVDP wasn't in the race it would be more like 85% of the time. Take that Canyon fanboys! ;)

15,000,000 drops still (level 85?86?) so good to finally spend some on something. Also switched my Disc wheels to the 858/Super9 (now the aero differences are marginal) as it looks so much cooler than the DT Dicut :cool:
 
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Yeah I got one too, shame you can't pick the colour. Theres a lot of changes being rolled out right now, the gamification is intense. This SL8 has pretty much thrown out all other set ups. Now riders can gain a further advantage upgrading the bike and can now wear socks that give an aero advantage. I don;t race in a league, just do the odd ad hoc one but how does the structured leagues handle this? Can they somehow neutralise the upgrades?
I'm pleased there are some new routes in France however that squirrel thing is lame.

Big update to the companion app coming in the summer where it counts your outdoor kms towards your xp zwift levels. Presumably it won't count towards in game bike upgrades.
zwiftinsider.com

What’s Coming Next? Read “This Season On Zwift” Spring 2025 Press Release

Learn what’s coming to Zwift in the next few months.
zwiftinsider.com zwiftinsider.com
 
Vandle said:
Yeah I got one too, shame you can't pick the colour. Theres a lot of changes being rolled out right now, the gamification is intense. This SL8 has pretty much thrown out all other set ups. Now riders can gain a further advantage upgrading the bike and can now wear socks that give an aero advantage. I don;t race in a league, just do the odd ad hoc one but how does the structured leagues handle this? Can they somehow neutralise the upgrades?
I'm pleased there are some new routes in France however that squirrel thing is lame.

Big update to the companion app coming in the summer where it counts your outdoor kms towards your xp zwift levels. Presumably it won't count towards in game bike upgrades.
zwiftinsider.com

What’s Coming Next? Read “This Season On Zwift” Spring 2025 Press Release

Learn what’s coming to Zwift in the next few months.
zwiftinsider.com zwiftinsider.com
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I read it was in place for the current elite series and will be an option for other events very soon. So the bikes would all be at base stats and any of the socks/cda…etc are disabled.
 
After a long hiatus, I'm looking at getting back into Zwift. It will be a very long time until I build up enough drops to buy anything of any use though :cry:
 
Used Mywhoosh for the first time last night since Indievelo has gone premium at last.

Was decent enough for my needs to get some structured training sessions in. Roads were quieter than any other platform which wasn't expected.
 
Martynt74 said:
Used Mywhoosh for the first time last night since Indievelo has gone premium at last.

Was decent enough for my needs to get some structured training sessions in. Roads were quieter than any other platform which wasn't expected.
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I found it so buggy more than a couple of times the app crashed. Tried both versions as well.
 
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