The Indoor Riding/ Zwift/ TrainerRoad etc. Thread

Soldato
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I can't be on my toes if the game has a distance bug and I don't use Facebook! haha. If it told me the actual distance to finish I would have been OK but not much good when 1km drops to 0m instantly.

We taking a few weeks out of the TTT. Most guys lucky enough to be allowed to TT outside nowadays unlike us Scottish stuck with only bloomin Zwift to race on :(
 
Soldato
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I can't be on my toes if the game has a distance bug and I don't use Facebook! haha. If it told me the actual distance to finish I would have been OK but not much good when 1km drops to 0m instantly.

We taking a few weeks out of the TTT. Most guys lucky enough to be allowed to TT outside nowadays unlike us Scottish stuck with only bloomin Zwift to race on :(
Ahhh, rubbish, you running it on a windows device or apple?

I've had no distance bugs for a while... Apart from that time we all got them.

Come ride with 3R! I'm fairly sure we'll always be riding. Fielded 6 teams yesterday. But only 1 in PL (Fleetwood Mac managed a sub 32min). :o

https://www.strava.com/activities/3942384789
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=1015366

We where middle of the pack last night, 34.19. Not a bad course for us and we had pretty even splits all the way through which was nice as we normally fade. We'd gone for 45 second rotations but largely ignored on the rollers at the start and on the climb, just concentrated on keeping together. Very tidy and think I only closed 3 maybe 4 gaps and we only lost 1 rider. 100% intensity for me which is nice, I was all over the place in the middle, just couldn't find a comfortable cadence/speed, but after a choppy turn on the climb it seemed to help me (was trying to tow our dropped guy up, then surged through, then eased, then surged again when the call to leave him was made).

Skipped on after that, but then did a late long turn, pretty much burying myself on it, but when the finish came as we had 7 riders I just went again as hard as I could with a sprint pulling and somehow held on. Blew myself up with about 200m to go to the banner. Did make myself sick with that, first time in a while! I think it's the 190bpm just gets me as I've had bigger sustained numbers than that a number of times, but not that deep into HR after efforts like that! :o :rolleyes:

Turn 1 - https://www.strava.com/activities/3942384789/analysis/141/188
Turn 2 - https://www.strava.com/activities/3942384789/analysis/290/335
Turn 3 - https://www.strava.com/activities/3942384789/analysis/863/961
Turn 4 - https://www.strava.com/activities/3942384789/analysis/1361/1412
Turn 5 - https://www.strava.com/activities/3942384789/analysis/1773/1842
Finish - https://www.strava.com/activities/3942384789/analysis/1957/2043
 
Soldato
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I’m glad I kept the box for my Kickr Core as it’s going back to wahoo after it started making a horrendous metal grinding noise and vibrating. To be fair the process seems fairly slick and I should get a replacement pretty quick.
 
Soldato
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Bloody power drop tonight on a bunch ride. Zwift support not much help, but Zwiftaliser showed some Ant+ drops.

FPS was a bit pants, riding the France course with 100 riders on screen, only getting 20fps, don’t notice it being too jerky though.

Dug the USB extension cables out and I will try that, alternatively I could connect crank power meter up.
 
Soldato
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Nothing worse when it doesn't go well.

I did an A race with a mate but got spat about 5 minutes in.

240w felt like 300-320w and just generally felt like pedalling through glue. Adjusted the tension to be more in the middle of the calibration than too tight. Maybe just no legs.
 
Soldato
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I’m glad I kept the box for my Kickr Core as it’s going back to wahoo after it started making a horrendous metal grinding noise and vibrating. To be fair the process seems fairly slick and I should get a replacement pretty quick.
Ahh gutted. Yeah Wahoo support are good and they've had enough practice with broken units! Same with all of the main manufacturers. Fingers crossed you'll be sorted soon. I'm on the lookout for a Core deal but it's really going to be after all the lockdown nonsense and crazy demand for trainers is over.

Do think my Flux needs a service, I see lots of info about people replacing belts and tensioners so probably need to look into that myself. It's just getting more noisy and doesn't spin as freely as it used to... Might be losing some watts from that! ;)

Bloody power drop tonight on a bunch ride.
Play around with the extension and put it in different places. I actually taped mine once to the seat tube and it worked well for the trainer but somehow HR was bad. Probably my body blocking the signal.

I had a couple of drops last night too when warming up. Saw some windows updates downloading and installing, so quick reboot (without installing them) seemed to solve, but it could've been something on the platform as quite a few other riders dropped out in the race I was in. Could also be the stormy weather causing latency/connection drops/reconnects.

Nothing worse when it doesn't go well.

I did an A race with a mate but got spat about 5 minutes in.

240w felt like 300-320w and just generally felt like pedalling through glue. Adjusted the tension to be more in the middle of the calibration than too tight. Maybe just no legs.
Haha tell me about it! Had the same last night, average start and into the massive front group, charged down past the river and into the underpass, effort out and around the corner, I had to ease up then just as the pace ramped again. Front group of 60+ riders was just so fast, just stubbornness kept me in there until a few more had dropped (rather than being the first!). Race then just chasing, group of 6-8-10-16 as the laps continued. Few efforts from me to keep the group speed high to catch more dropped from the front (and shell a few from the group), but when the finish came it caught me out. I was well placed on the little bit of a ramp/false flat after the underpass but left it until after the corner to go. There's a slight downhill there and the groups speed had kicked so much it nearly dropped me from the group. It was just too late, I barely made it, only coming past 1 in the group and nearly another on the line. Could've been placed better and actually nearer 40th place than the 55th I was (52nd filtered)...

Loss of volume since my 10 days off has really ruined the form I'd found before. Not been able to get out on the weekend I think is the main cause as just far less strain so I've not benefited from the break, no 'bounce back' with the freshness, just ended up detraining from it. So last sunday late I was given an ok to ride for an hour, missed a race by 2 minutes due to Zwift slowness. Jumped into a Sprint race (10th) and redlined it the whole way only to have nothing left into the finish. Even more annoyed then thought it was a good idea to do a Ramp Test. Fairly average result (about where I expected FTP wise - 246W) but the after effects of that (or both) left me with some seriously sore quads. I maybe hadn't stretched enough first or was just badly positioned pushing too hard seated. Serious DOMS on monday and even yesterday, but still hopped into Turbocharged. Sure enough had a very below par race, but my legs do feel quite a bit better today from it. Actually feel much better today than the last 4-5 days so maybe it was a touch of illness or depression from the lack of weekend riding. Looking forward to the TTT on thursday, although know it's going to be a brutal one on the jungle course with double-draft enabled. Missing a few of our key riders will be a mismatched group on unfamiliar bikes (MTB) and me likely required to close gaps caused by the bridge...
 
Soldato
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Trainers are so stupid. Million USB extensions. Just make them Bluetooth/wireless and then stick a USB hard wired connection on them.

You have to plug most of them in anyway. And use next to the computer. Probably be cheaper and more reliable...
 
Soldato
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Trainers are so stupid. Million USB extensions. Just make them Bluetooth/wireless and then stick a USB hard wired connection on them.

You have to plug most of them in anyway. And use next to the computer. Probably be cheaper and more reliable...

The new Kickr v5 has a RJ11 style port - the DCR review said there's meant to be a widget coming from Wahoo to turn it into an Ethernet port. Not that any apps will talk to a trainer over IP yet but it sounds promising...
 
Soldato
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Got a couple of 2m extensions and trialled them tonight, for some reason I wasn’t getting it to work with two of them. Had no issues in past, tried it on a rear motherboard USB too expecting that to be full power. It would detect and show in windows but Zwift wasn’t having it.

Plugged in/out a few times. Got it going with one cable on the front, this left the dongle about 2 foot from the Neo.

Did 40 mins and uploaded to zwiftaliser, showed 5 drops over the three channels (power, cadence, HR). Last night showed a lot more drops than this, maybe 20-25, so it’s an improvement I guess...

Wondering if an “active usb cable 3.0m“ would be better still, stops power/signal loss...
 
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Soldato
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Since lockdown I've gotten into Zwift quite heavily, bought myself a Kickr Core as soon as work started alternating working from home (and shut the gym), ended up receiving a full-fat Kickr instead, bonus \o/

Mostly been doing just route hunting, did some tours and other group rides, but recently done my first couple of races and I love it, been missing something to make me really push myself hard (lots of HIIT sessions at the gym), group rides were ok to a point but it was too easy to 'let' yourself get spat out the group and give yourself a break, can't do that in races especially as I've been in mixed-category races so far...

Entered both as category D, I'm a shade over 100kg with an FTP around the 250W, so about the top-end of D.

First race was one of the DT Swiss ones... Only wanted the wheels, time fit, didn't really enter it expecting too much... Didn't realise initially that it was mixed categories, averaged 410W over the first 30s before I realised I was being dropped and that's because they were A riders :p Settled into a group that was mostly C's and a couple of D's, still having to push hard (HR avg of 174bpm) but doable, ended up outsprinting a couple of the D's, finished 3rd on Zwift. 1st Place was on ZwiftPower as a Category B and averaged 3.351W/kg finished way up the road, second place was a kid (had an age in their name) not on Zwiftpower but did something like 146W average for 4.6W/Kg. Either way, 1st (Zwiftpower) or 2nd discounting the obvious cheater, not bad :)

My average was 2.6w/kg, the 95% bit on ZwiftPower being 2.440w/kg. Was tough but felt like I had a bit left at the end for a sprint, maybe the course (Watapio Flat Route x2 laps)

Second race was today, the British Cycling Crit City Series at lunchtime, and that was tough... again mixed cats and again trying to keep up with the top-D's ending me up in a bunch with a load of C's. Second to last lap (of 8) the group split into 3, with me in the third, two D's in the first. Had to dig deep but got back to the front group seemingly bringing the other two groups with me but that left me way into the red, half-recovered before the climb which put me way into the red again (being heavy any uphill sucks :p) split a bit with the 2 D's in the front again and this time I couldn't bring it back :( 3rd again on Zwift, this time the first two weren't on ZwiftPower but in Zwift their power was 3.6w/kg and 3.8w/kg. I was first on Zwiftpower and I'm definitely taking that one. :D

But, averaged 274W, 2.7W/kg, or with the 94% applied 2.533W/kg. Was tough, I'm now "D - Almost C" on ZwiftPower, kinda unsurprisingly, dunno if I'll take one more Cat D to get an 'easy' win before ZwiftPower makes me move up or not :p

I think with my weight on the flat courses it's almost cheating :p any slight incline though...


TL;DR -- Racing, took me a while to try it but me like! :D
 

SPG

SPG

Soldato
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Trainers are so stupid. Million USB extensions. Just make them Bluetooth/wireless and then stick a USB hard wired connection on them.

You have to plug most of them in anyway. And use next to the computer. Probably be cheaper and more reliable...

Not had any issues, Ant stick in the side of the laptop at least 2.5m away from the back end of the bike and its been flawless both have been Elite trainers, the current suito i have is fantastic tbh, seems way better than my mates wahoo.
 
Soldato
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With it raining outside and the impression summer is over, I've got my trainer from out of the garage and got it set up again. Did just 15 minutes on it today, as a warm up but will look to join some Zwift races soon. It'll be interesting to see if I'm any quicker now :) I do struggle on a trainer though, I just don't find them interesting. Cycling on roads, I can ride for a few hours. On a trainer, I think I'll struggle doing an hour. Anyway, maybe a race will keep me interested.
 

SPG

SPG

Soldato
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RGT viva la france starts this weekend.

3 times a day, i think, all free and one big race, well i say race its more of a ride for me :)
 
Soldato
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My intention was to ride 'Off The MAAP Stage 2 Race (D)' this morning, then head to the gym... but I was far too worn out by the race, so left it at that. It was going quite well for the first 10-15 minutes, I was in a large group 15-30ish out of 60... then my MacBook popped up something about restarting to update!!! In trying to stop this I dropped 10s off this group and try as I might, I just couldn't close the gap back. About 10 more minutes in I tagged on with 2 others that caught me up and picked the pace back up a little and passed a few others that had dropped off the main group. I stayed with them until about 5km out when I just gave up on it and let them go.

It's interesting looking at my Zwift Power stats though. It was my highest ave Watts, highest 20m and 5m watts and highest heart rate. Yesterdays quick 15 minutes and today's race were 4th and 3rd fastest average speeds ever, too. I'm not sure if it shows I just put more effort in than I have before, or if I've gotten faster?! I was middle of the pack though, as opposed to my usual position near the back, which is nice.
 
Soldato
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WTRL TTT last night. Brutal one on the Jungle Circuit meant riding MTB's... Also with low numbers from 3R this week my usual 'Fall Out Boy' team hadn't got the numbers so we got split into some of the other groups. I got 'promoted' to '1Direction' who are generally the team FOB are chasing in results... So a B team with a couple of A riders... Me being only just promoted a month or so ago from C into B, it was always going to be tough! Was literally told 'see how long you can hold on for'! And this was a tricky course anyway, dirt roads, long descent, then climb and repeat for 3 laps.

https://www.strava.com/activities/3974802431
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=1029016

The fast run in towards the Jungle saw me actually finding the pace ok, my first 45s turn on the descent felt manageable - I actually found myself spinning out my 50*11 trying to move up the group and get towards the front! One minor chase back on did demonstrate how much having 'Doubledraft' enabled meant as soon as anyone was dropped they where pretty much done for! Just before we started the climb I had another brief chase. So had to ask to skip my 2nd turn to save it for the climb. Once we hit the climb it was brutal, literally a test on how long and how hard I could go. I closed an early gap and then felt I was actually managing to pace it quite well and hang on... We caught a group on the climb (just before it eases in the middle) and in passing them I lost the wheel... Dying a slow death at that point I had nothing left to surge back on. Dropped! I eased but still put some effort into the rest of the climb in the vain hope of them easing over the top and me getting back up. No chance.

I rode the following descent quite easy and recovering vowed to finish solo. I needed the volume and after some recovery my legs where going quite well. Climb 2 came and with it I was solo catching some other teams still riding up the road. I was unsure of the rules/etiquette of passing teams as a dropped rider but one of our 3R organisers just said go for it, just pass them as smoothly and quickly as I could! So I did! So that second climb I passed 2 other teams, generally measured efforts on the climb, closing to them, recovering with a gap then big efforts to pass and not easing until I had 5-10s lead over them. It was actually good fun and some good banter with them. Also I felt quite responsible for not splitting their teams as some of them where obviously on the limit with splits happening. On the flat afterwards the second of those teams (TVT) came back past me (I eased to let them pass). I goaded them into putting an effort in to stay away from me on the climb, all in good fun and that gave me a nice carrot to chase. I let the gap open to 20s, then went for it. Caught them quickly as they where split, let them recover it and then powered past. I eased in the middle but was catching another team, I pressed on and maybe could've reeled them in at the top if I'd totally emptied myself but eased as didn't want to disrupt them over the bridge. I eased on the descent and run into the finish coming home at 1hr 1min 49s. The rest of 1 Direction had a storming ride coming home at 54mins 24s. Second 'Frappe' class team of the night in that time zone.

Good power curve for me, the 10 minute bang on and 20 minute numbers only 10W down where I was a month ago, before my 10 days holiday and 2 weeks of struggling to come back, so pleased with that, even though I was dropped horribly quickly! ;)

Trainers are so stupid. Million USB extensions. Just make them Bluetooth/wireless and then stick a USB hard wired connection on them.

You have to plug most of them in anyway. And use next to the computer. Probably be cheaper and more reliable...

The new Kickr v5 has a RJ11 style port - the DCR review said there's meant to be a widget coming from Wahoo to turn it into an Ethernet port. Not that any apps will talk to a trainer over IP yet but it sounds promising...
Probably for gym/training base type setups. More and more 'studio' type setups for people riding bikes on trainers/smart bikes as alternatives to wattbikes/Peloton, so they'd be silly not to start to try and accommodate them in some way into their hardware, even if some of the platforms are not quite being developed as such. Some have had them for a while (think the Kinetic and Saris ones) although no platform to connect them to.

Did 40 mins and uploaded to zwiftaliser, showed 5 drops over the three channels (power, cadence, HR). Last night showed a lot more drops than this, maybe 20-25, so it’s an improvement I guess...

Wondering if an “active usb cable 3.0m“ would be better still, stops power/signal loss...
Weird it's that poor. Got a powered USB hub you could try to see if it's USB controller/voltage related from the ports?

Since lockdown I've gotten into Zwift quite heavily, bought myself a Kickr Core as soon as work started alternating working from home (and shut the gym), ended up receiving a full-fat Kickr instead, bonus \o/
<snip>
But, averaged 274W, 2.7W/kg, or with the 94% applied 2.533W/kg. Was tough, I'm now "D - Almost C" on ZwiftPower, kinda unsurprisingly, dunno if I'll take one more Cat D to get an 'easy' win before ZwiftPower makes me move up or not :p
Welcome! Awesome fun and amazing cardio isn't it!? Once bitten by the racing bug... Just be sure you're not overdoing it and taking time to recover... The recovery is more important - you're generally pushing yourself harder than other solo 'sports' or gym etc, but you only get stronger from recovering from the efforts. So recover = win more. ;) :D

Good numbers too! Although you have noticed the difference a bit like Andy, there's so many riders and events these days that it can seem 'easy' at the pointy end sometimes. Then the class of riders in some of the popular events (like MAAP/Tour of Zwift etc/Race series) make the category so much harder and decisive you don't stand a chance. I came back from being a very competitive C in most races, to then riding some popular series and getting dropped hard. So pushed myself harder to work back into being competitive, then found myself promoted to B. Still making great gains now, but still a long way from the pointy end of these popular B races. Top20 is an achievement! :D

Anyway, maybe a race will keep me interested.
Chasing wheels, trying to be tactical and still aware to what else is going on around you in busy events like that should be enough to keep you engaged more?! ;)

Great effort, don't read too much into the 'speed' on Zwift, that is so much down to the course and group, while also being quite a bit higher than most of us would see for similar conditions and efforts when out in the real world. But those power numbers and efforts are showing some good progress from you. Or good evidence of some! Keep it up! :D
 
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Soldato
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Funny you say that Roady. I bought a powered hub today, intending to use for work as my laptop only has 3 USB slots, and I could test it on my desktop PC I use for Zwift.

Big facepalm, it’s USB C connection to PC. Can’t seem to get powered USB A. Could use an adaptor I guess...

I also bought a longer Active cable so I can get it immediately adjacent to the trainer so maybe that will fix it. It was a tenner, but if it solves the issue then wgaf. So annoying when it happens!
 
Soldato
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Thanks Roady :)

And yeah, definitely agree with recovery, I generally prefer to do a recovery ride than a pure day off, I took Thursday as a day off and that seemed to stretch into Friday somehow :p

This week I did a ride Sunday (Off the MAAP Stage 3 short), Monday (Off the MAAP Stage 4 long ride), 'recovery ride' of Richmond Fan Flats doing 21k in 45 mins, avg power of 124W, avg HR of 118bpm, with the exception of one sprint (couldn't help myself :D) I was just coasting around. Then the most recent race on Wednesday, so although it was 4 consecutive days the Richmond recovery ride did the job :)

I also recently did 21 days consecutively (part of the Shimano Grand Tour challenge on Strava, put a silly idea in my head :p), no races in that but some harder/quicker/longer rides but also mixing in some proper/active recovery like above, as well as 'learning' to not go as hard all the time like 'normal' :D
 
Soldato
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Active extension solved all my problems! 5m cable is long enough to reach the USB off the motherboard and I can sit it right under the Bluetooth/ant+ led part of the trainer.

Ran my log through Zwiftaliser, it showed two drops at the start, when loading the world and then when porting into the holding area for the event (says that is normal). No other problems. Before I had 25 drops on the front USB, and 9 on the front USB with a normal 2m extension cable.

Not sure why I started getting lots of drops when I’ve not changed any kit, but good it seems to be fixed. Got my group workout done!
 
Soldato
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Glad you got a solution to your problem mate. Nothing worse when you build up motivation to do some training to face niggles.

I did a British cycling A race earlier, felt good legs wise but riding on my gooch for half an hour isn't comfortable.

Will get a ride in Thursday. Nothing fancy then tour of the campsies on Sunday. 26 mile hilly tt so will be...fun.
 
Soldato
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Glad you got a solution to your problem mate. Nothing worse when you build up motivation to do some training to face niggles.

I did a British cycling A race earlier, felt good legs wise but riding on my gooch for half an hour isn't comfortable.

Will get a ride in Thursday. Nothing fancy then tour of the campsies on Sunday. 26 mile hilly tt so will be...fun.

Yeah that’s it. Did a race tonight and no issues so calling it problem solved.

Legs felt a bit heavy as Ive been doing this 3R interval session on a Tuesday. Usually comes out at 3.1w average and about 3.4-3.5 NP for an hour.

Race tonight doing the Evo CC sprint circuit came in at 3.6w average and 3.8 NP Not quite enough pop in my legs and maybe 5% down overall on a few months back when I was riding a lot. These are only 25 mins as super short so it’s full gas from the start, had to hang in with the A guys, split at the start of the last lap and I dropped with 6 or so other guys. Came to the finish and was holding on but my chain slipped so maybe new cassette time.
 
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