The Indoor Riding/ Zwift/ TrainerRoad etc. Thread

Soldato
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22 May 2003
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Wigan
Thanks.

Impressive long times on the tt are hard and I always hate riding the tt on the turbo, it's even more uncomfortable than on the road. That and airflow going over you with your arms blocking most of it.

100% prefer the road. I knackered my arm last year by trapping a nerve on TT rests on the turbo!

Roady, updated to windows 10, I didn’t realise you could still update for free from Windows 7, it’s not quite a fresh install but it did a load of updates including drivers so fingers crossed! Will ride later on this week.
 
Soldato
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Fingers crossed mate. I'm on windows 10 but something isn't completely compatible. Updated my bios to run an fx6300 but my usb/PCI side of things randomly dieson occasion.

Next year i think I'll spend some cash once prices stabilize or next gen is out.


Did my longest zwift ride today, quite happy with my numbers over the time but even so don't think I'd have kept with the scratch group.
 
Soldato
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100% prefer the road. I knackered my arm last year by trapping a nerve on TT rests on the turbo!

Roady, updated to windows 10, I didn’t realise you could still update for free from Windows 7, it’s not quite a fresh install but it did a load of updates including drivers so fingers crossed! Will ride later on this week.

I'm trying to refresh my old pc for zwift but it will not boot from USB. Doing my head in. Stupid old gigabyte board.
 
Soldato
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Wigan
I'm trying to refresh my old pc for zwift but it will not boot from USB. Doing my head in. Stupid old gigabyte board.
As for upgrades I have the parts in my basket, but they go out of stock fairly regularly and I’m a little loath to spend the cash. Less so now if I have to install win 7, then upgrade to win 10.

Solid I updated from win 7, so download the installer from MS to a USB stick, it set it all up on there and then run it from there as already have windows on.

I think drivers will be the only difference, possibly get slightly newer ones but nvidia seemed to still be supporting win 7.

Installed originally using a DVD I think! :o

Can you image it over onto the drive using another computer?
 
Soldato
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As for upgrades I have the parts in my basket, but they go out of stock fairly regularly and I’m a little loath to spend the cash. Less so now if I have to install win 7, then upgrade to win 10.

Solid I updated from win 7, so download the installer from MS to a USB stick, it set it all up on there and then run it from there as already have windows on.

I think drivers will be the only difference, possibly get slightly newer ones but nvidia seemed to still be supporting win 7.

Installed originally using a DVD I think! :o

Can you image it over onto the drive using another computer?

That might be the way I go next as I've a spare sata drive. So annoying, tried all sorts of bios and USB boot settings in rufus but it just hangs after press any key to boot from USB. Lots of problems with the gigabyte boards of that time unfortunately. Good pc otherwise. It's got win10 on already but the reset doesn't work either. Might try updating it completely and trying again.
 
Soldato
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Good numbers mate, maybe we'll both be 4w/kg buddies at some point :D

Left work an hour early with the boss to to do a zwift race.

I can replicate 300w for 20 minutes quite a few times but getting into 320w+ seems impossible. I'll need to do some big blocks of threshold work.
Zwift racing and TTT's will give you that threshold work quite 'easily'! But think I'm certainly a way off 4w/kg. To be fair at the moment with all the trainer issues and general life stuff getting in the way of my other riding the TTT being a constant means I'm just trying to keep consistent efforts/results/numbers on it.

If I can somehow balance 3.5w/kg I'll be more than happy as at my current weight (77kg) that's 270W. As soon as I'm getting more other riding in, my weight should creep down (to be honest I'm 78kg the last few weeks), so maintaining that power with more base miles and more fatigue is the current aim. There's a 3R Endurance Race series starting on saturdays, as I've struggled to find the 2-3 hours the last few weekends for the 100km rides, maybe that one is the logical replacement - shorter 'endurance' but harder riding. Need to extend myself over the 1 hour marker.

Managed my 25th ascent of the Alpe earlier. All about those achievement badges!
Kudos! Don't think I'm even in double figures! :o

Fan set up is key, I had mine pointing at my legs earlier and was cooking a bit. Ideally would love one either side at torso level.
My front mini (Honeywell HT900) works quite well directed at legs/torso but not quite enough cooling for chest. It's a great little size, so sits right up front below my screen. I generally start it on my legs then as needed tilt up to my chest. This time of year (cold garage) I generally don't have the others on.

I have a larger pedestal off to one side directed at my face/chest when things get warmer. Less intense and bigger area than the honeywell so cools all of me. My back is generally where I'm damp/soaked, but that aids the cooling (this time of year), but have to watch getting very cold very quickly afterwards. In my garage it was 3 degrees, I put a heater on 1.5 hours before riding and got it upto 5 degrees. Kept heater on for 3/4 of the TDZ stage I did yesterday evening and when I'd finished temperatures where up to 8.5 degrees. Warm enough not to be in thermals!

In the summer I have a really intense massive pedestal fan I offset at the rear mostly pointed at my back to dry me out and assist the cooling there to stop me overheating. Try not to have 'conflicting' airflows to get the most from them all. But I am quite lucky to have a large enough space to achieve this.

Smart plug(s) ?

I discovered them a few weeks back. Kinda funny they've changed marketing to athletics etc now.
HAha yeah I recall reading about those Vacmasters on a thread someone posted a link to here. Great to see a company like that adapt to what must be a very new/unknown and large market for them. Now do they do one with an on/off heat or thermostat... ;)

I've also realised this morning, why my 40 miler was perhaps so hard. Checking the route I did, the gradient wasn't all that bad, but it was gravel and I did it on a road bike with road wheels. Apparently the rolling resistance would have been about double. Not a huge thing perhaps, but might explain why it felt so tough?
Yes. Gravel kills speed quite significantly, but it does impact lighter riders more than heavier (they carry less momentum), but a continual route on gravel really does sap things. That's why the 'Jungle circuit' is so tough and worth switching bikes for.

Tron bike finally unlocked!
Congrats! Orange wheels are the best! ;)

Annoyingly missed the 3r race at just after 9 after jumping on my bike and finding the gears were awful. Derailleur hitting the flywheel and nothing indexed. Could not figure it out so chucked a different cassette on (12 25 out 11 28 in) and was pretty much sorted straight away. Very odd.
Not seated on dropout or had kicked out with QR not tight enough? I have to be quite careful clamping in my Flux as the 'natural' position the bike wants to sit is 3-4mm or so higher one side than the other. Have to reverse straddle it, sit on the top tube and chest on the saddle to weight it while clamping.

Found & 'fixed' another issue with my Flux which was causing some belt slippage. Bolt through the lower pivot part of the tension arm had moved, so tension on belt was 1 sided. Annoying but there's no way to fix it in position. If it keeps doing it may have to figure out how to drill and pin it with a washer and clip or such. Not really sure why it's not held in some way (other than it moving out enough to catch the flywheel which stops it moving any further).

Backed up this morning with TDZ Stage 2 longer with 284W for 47mins! opposite of this morning, I had no idea where anyone was on the road as it was so busy! and i was busy trying to change the CX on the TV when it all went a bit mental. Came through in 4th in the end. Think I'll be feeling it tomorrow.
Some massive numbers both of those rides mate, supreme work! After my repair above I jumped on and rode... But I should have calibrated first! Power readings quite high - thought I was on a bit of a flier and only a TDZ stage so just continued. False FTP boost to 299W :lol:

https://www.strava.com/activities/4788363188

To be fair the times & power up the Legsnapper are about normal for me, just much of the other work sat at 4.0w/kg driving the little group onwards are the false/garbage bits...! ;)

Roady, updated to windows 10, I didn’t realise you could still update for free from Windows 7, it’s not quite a fresh install but it did a load of updates including drivers so fingers crossed! Will ride later on this week.
Yeah, if you're a little bit vague with the 'truth'. They extended it for people with disabilities still get a free upgrade. Then I think later relaxed things even further so people who had a genuine Retail licence could. Don't think OEM's work without some of the Accessibility stuff though? But I do think once you 'upgrade' your licence number is then valid to be used with a blank/base install without having to go the base Win7 OS install first?

There's A W10 download page, when accessed from a W10 install you can download the media (to USB). I don't recall if that makes a bootable image, seem to think it doesn't but could be wrong. But think that download tool (which downloads the ISO) can be set to download the DVD ISO's so you could burn them... If you have an old SATA DVD drive to plug into the Gigabyte board @SoliD could be the easiest.
 
Caporegime
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FR+UK
Nope... Nearly did last year and did around 60/70% of it the year before (or was it the one before that...). Not heard much about SUFF recently, they done much to the platform the last year or so?
Not much in the way of eye candy but a lot of under the hood improvements, and perhaps a tech break through with something called 4rdp where they map a pro ride data profile to your 4dp profile (SUFs version of ftp) and therefore the video changes to fit your ride which could be staggering really. Only available in 1 brand new video (for this years tour) so far, which Im really looking forward too. Its come about after being acquired by wahoo and with a much bigger r&d budget. Seems to have largely stayed where it is App wise. They are doing a lot more sport science stuff, especially with pro teams though so hopefully that will trickle though.

I'm doing both tours this year. Nine Hammers into Tour of Zwift catchup stage 4 where I raced to 15th was particularly punishing.
 
Soldato
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5,386
Two TDZ in a row at lunch. First one ended up being kinda short so thought I might as well tick off another. One more stage to do.

The groups in the make-up rides are much less serious I've found in general. Very short burst at the start and then just settle into nice tempo rhythm before balls out at the end (which I inevitably fail at as I can't sprint).
 
Soldato
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Got the PC reset using win10 inbuilt tools, so will have a proper screen for Zwift now. Should actually be able to make out wtf is going on rather than trying to decipher what is on my MS Surface screen.
 
Soldato
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Hereford
I’d almost forgotten this is nominally a tech forum, I was impressed with the knowledge on show.
Haha well one thing in here I don't need to dumb down any techy stuff, even when it is cycling related! ;)

Well with the amount of people joining to ask how much a new bathroom costs or similar you'd easily forget.
We where discussing carpet driers only a few posts ago...! ;)

Not much in the way of eye candy but a lot of under the hood improvements, and perhaps a tech break through with something called 4rdp where they map a pro ride data profile to your 4dp profile (SUFs version of ftp) and therefore the video changes to fit your ride which could be staggering really. Only available in 1 brand new video (for this years tour) so far, which Im really looking forward too. Its come about after being acquired by wahoo and with a much bigger r&d budget. Seems to have largely stayed where it is App wise. They are doing a lot more sport science stuff, especially with pro teams though so hopefully that will trickle though.

I'm doing both tours this year. Nine Hammers into Tour of Zwift catchup stage 4 where I raced to 15th was particularly punishing.
4rdp is something they've promised from even before their app. It was hinted at when they 'just' did videos, so surprised it's taken them until now to do it. Is it done well? Or not know yet? They had quite a lot of the groundwork there already so hopefully it's the start of something massive, especially with Wahoo. Will have to check it out sometime, thanks for info & please give some feedback when you've tried it! :D

I liked it when I tried it when the app was quite new, but more of a way to 'revisit' much of the fun I remember from early Sufferfest days. It didn't really offer me anything massively different from Zwift, but I still see the appeal. Would be awesome if someone like Rouvy or RGT ended up pairing with Suff and merge the 2 platforms somehow. A virtual world, alongside the awesome & engaging race stuff and 'suff-fun'. Maybe Wahoo have the power to do that.

Two TDZ in a row at lunch. First one ended up being kinda short so thought I might as well tick off another. One more stage to do.

The groups in the make-up rides are much less serious I've found in general. Very short burst at the start and then just settle into nice tempo rhythm before balls out at the end (which I inevitably fail at as I can't sprint).
Yeah they tend to split up more but then group better as many more riders willing to sit in a group rather than smash it up the road chasing wheels. Quite enjoyed the Stage I did with my trainer a bit 'off'. Massive first loop of Innsbruck, then 4+w/kg up the Legsnapper. Working with a Pro guy (verified athlete wearing team kit in a Zwift event rather than the event jersey - pretty pro!), then next climb he casually rode off the front at 5w/kg while 3 of us tried to get on his wheel - then he launched up the road at 8w/kg to catch the front group 25s ahead... Impressive! Then a lap later he was just sat at the side of the road. What a waste of 2 laps lol :o

Got the PC reset using win10 inbuilt tools, so will have a proper screen for Zwift now. Should actually be able to make out wtf is going on rather than trying to decipher what is on my MS Surface screen.
Which Surface is it and how does it perform?

I got the other half a Surface Go 2 last xmas and have been tempted to try it out... But don't expect it to be beefy enough GPU to do external 1080p at decent framerates.
 
Soldato
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Which Surface is it and how does it perform?

I got the other half a Surface Go 2 last xmas and have been tempted to try it out... But don't expect it to be beefy enough GPU to do external 1080p at decent framerates.

Pro 4 I think. It works fine just screen is very small. Just runs 720p on the screen and copes OK when you haven't got a million riders on screen. Nice and convenient though. Had the pc sat there for a year and got zwift running 1080p fine it seems. Think it's a gt950 with an old Intel quad core.
 
Associate
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Kent
I didn't make much uses out of my spare time last year, other than do a load of work on the house and garden.

Decided this year to focus a bit more on myself. Bought a new bike in December and borrowed a trainer and signed up to Zwift.

Didn't think I would use it much, but currently half way through the "build me up" 12 week training, done about 1800 km this year and lost a stone. Bought a trainer now, with back wheel but thinking about upgrading to something a bit quieter.

Hoping to have first outing on Sunday :)

Also joined the ocuk strava group :)
 
Soldato
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Got talked into a race with the boss after work tonight, I had entered the Italy/Frenchy race but this was earlier so said ok lets do it.

Until I was in the pen with a TT bike! I ******* hate iTT races, would rather do an actual full on TT.

Started off with heavy legs and couldn't get my HR up, managed to do better 20 minute power on the second half strangely.

https://www.strava.com/activities/4797906736/overview
 
Soldato
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Barnet, London
Me and two guys from work did a meetup and then selected the same training plan. Once we'd got ourselves in sync it worked really well. The plan was harder than I've done so far (Load Up, 75 TSS) spending a lot of time in Z3(?) (Yellow) with 15 seconds of 200% FTP after the yellow... pretty tough. Was good all doing it together, with stay together turned on too.

I've also set out my shopping list -

FRAMES
Canyon Aeroad (L14?) - 532,500 - Best All round bike
Cannondale Evo (L9) - 213,000 - Best climber
Cervélo Aspero (L13) - 426,000 - Best Gravel bike
Cervélo P5 (L15) - 710,000 - Fastest TT bike, also quick up Alpe du Zwift?!

WHEELS
DT SWISS ARC 62 (L6) - 184,600 - Good climbers, great allrounders
Zipp 808 - (Already bought) Best affordable for flats
 
Soldato
Joined
23 Nov 2004
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10,646
I think you can create a meetup with people you follow and you'll be in your own world doing the workout ?

Certainly worked with a ramp test but not sure on other workouts.

I got the canyon for the TTT with zipps. I want the super six but don't have the level for it, got plenty of points for it.
 
Soldato
Joined
25 Feb 2004
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18,162
Location
Hampshire
Got talked into a race with the boss after work tonight, I had entered the Italy/Frenchy race but this was earlier so said ok lets do it.

Until I was in the pen with a TT bike! I ******* hate iTT races, would rather do an actual full on TT.

Started off with heavy legs and couldn't get my HR up, managed to do better 20 minute power on the second half strangely.

https://www.strava.com/activities/4797906736/overview

Nice power! Always good when you roll out the carpet and get stronger as the ride goes on.
 
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