Zwift spins

andy69

JimmiesRustled wrote: »

...Would it be better to have the starts staggered?

I think it would - there's enough in each Cat I think to have a good race among your own level. Seeing the B's and A's coming past there at the start is heart-breaking - the difference is unreal, and suddenly you're in like 500th place (in my case) in seconds. You'd literally feel like you're standing still as they fly by!!
Even a hare-n-hounds type of start might be good...D's away first, then C's a few mins behind...

But it is great CI got their own-branded events, fair play to them for that :cool:

dahat

Did a training session this morning through Zwift with multiple power drop outs all the way through. I had my Wahoo running at same time so not all bad. It's proved to be very frustrating though.

Hopefully they push a fix soon for it.

Chris871

I've been having terrible trouble with drop outs the last week or so.. Set up was working perfectly for the last month or so and then out of nowhere constant drop outs.

Was "racing" the bologna TT last week and dropped out 3 times on the climb, incredibly frustrating :mad:

dahat

They have pushed two updated this week so the drop outs must be related somehow.

jamesd

Did near 2 hrs this morning on the whaoo with no dropouts

Daroxtar

I had problems with dropouts on the TTT ride on Thursday but it was fine after the update on Friday. Apart from that, I went outside for a nice 40km around the block this morning. Beautiful weather and a couple of KOMs stolen back from my buddy who keeps stealing mine. I put the spin on "private", I'll switch it to public this evening when it'll be too late for him to go out and get them back straight away

dahat

Bambaata wrote: »

Had issues today:( Was spinning away in max gear doing 50W for the first 45s and then finally got going was in 850th! Moved up to about 100/150th after about 7/8mins of hard chasing only for dropouts to ruin it for me! Was just inside 100 and when it came back was 150th and on the first main climb, no point in continuing after another dropout as i was having to burn too many matches to gain back again. Hopefully the only riders showing are those restricted to the event for the next event. I tried watching but they were having issues due to other traffic, they couldn’t find riders in the race. Here's hoping its all sorted for next week and i dont have dropouts again!

Any dropouts on your session today?

andy69

Aren't the dropouts more related to your connection from trainer to ant+ dongle or USB, rather than the Zwift App, no? Zwift is only reading what comes through to it?

I almost never get a dropout - but I have the tacx dongle thing and so I place that really close to the back of the trainer. I guess the little usb-key ones then obviously would be where your laptop is, and so they might be more prone due to the larger distance?
Only time I suffered a dropout was a while back and I hadn't the dongle placed very closely.
Was in a spin a couple.of weeks back and the leader kept dropping out. Was really frustrating...for him and us.
Probably we'll see some big advances in the whole setup over the coming years,...at the minute it's cables everywhere for me, looks brutal

dahat

The only connections I have to Zwift are my Stages Power meter & heart strap, both had zero issues until now. The trainer is non smart so doesn't require the dongle to be near it.

It's odd for a few of us to have the same issues in around the same timeframe.

andy69

dahat wrote: »

The only connections I have to Zwift are my Stages Power meter & heart strap, both had zero issues until now. The trainer is non smart so doesn't require the dongle to be near it.

It's odd for a few of us to have the same issues in around the same timeframe.

Yeah it does sound like Zwift might be the common denominator there.
How are your hrm and stages broadcasting to Zwift? What's picking up their data and feeding into the App? Just curious, I'm still sort of in the dark about how the blackmagic of it all works

dahat

HR is via ant + dongle & power meter is bluetooth though ant plus can be used as well maybe?

I'll mess round with connections again tomorrow to see if other commecrions are interfering. I did need to use a Bluetooth keyboard today as one or two keys on the laptop decided not to play ball.

andy69

dahat wrote: »

HR is via ant + dongle & power meter is bluetooth though ant plus can be used as well maybe?

I'll mess round with connections again tomorrow to see if other commecrions are interfering. I did need to use a Bluetooth keyboard today as one or two keys on the laptop decided not to play ball.

Yeah maybe if hrm and power we're both broadcasting to the ant+ dongle that might be more straight forward for the app to receive? Just guessing now, maybe more experienced people here might weigh in.
It should in theory be able to accept both protocols simultaneously but we're a long way off flawless and perfect

SwissToni

https://zwiftalizer.com/

Good site to check your data/connections

Crocked

Dropouts are going to be a local issue.

If your setup is in the house near a load of things using the same frequencies then you will have issues. eg a microwave being turned on. Your wifi channel can also affect it.

The bluetooth stack in Windows10 was brutal for a longtime although I think thats been largely sorted in the last year or so in windows updates

GPLama has a video on it on his youtube channel about steps to take to minimise interference from other devices to cutout dropouts.

Bambaata

dahat wrote: »

Any dropouts on your session today?

No none thankfully. I got onto my internet provider to check the line to, they supposedly have stabilised it a little

dahat

Crocked wrote: »

Dropouts are going to be a local issue.

If your setup is in the house near a load of things using the same frequencies then you will have issues. eg a microwave being turned on. Your wifi channel can also affect it.

The bluetooth stack in Windows10 was brutal for a longtime although I think thats been largely sorted in the last year or so in windows updates

GPLama has a video on it on his youtube channel about steps to take to minimise interference from other devices to cutout dropouts.

I added a new device todsy(keyboard) so that may well have caused the issues going on the above.

Crocked

also worth noting it you are taking power from a powermeter they are very low signal so easy enough for something to drown out their signal if they aren't too close to your receiver. Usually your bike computer is closer to your PM than your Zwift machine is

Daroxtar

Tackled the Alpe today for the first time in a while. All the extra racing online has definitely paid off, knocked 5 minutes off my PR. Legs still rubbered 3 hours later though
https://www.strava.com/activities/3402565617

martyc5674

Daroxtar wrote: »

Tackled the Alpe today for the first time in a while. All the extra racing online has definitely paid off, knocked 5 minutes off my PR. Legs still rubbered 3 hours later though
https://www.strava.com/activities/3402565617

FairPlay that’s some time.
55 minutes was my previous best- bought a direct drive trainer recently and now it’s taking me 70 mins!

dahat

Daroxtar wrote: »

Tackled the Alpe today for the first time in a while. All the extra racing online has definitely paid off, knocked 5 minutes off my PR. Legs still rubbered 3 hours later though
https://www.strava.com/activities/3402565617

I've got to make time to get this in the training plan. 50 plus mins climbing sounds horrific though.

dahat

dahat wrote: »

I added a new device todsy(keyboard) so that may well have caused the issues going on the above.

Just to follow up I removed the Bluetooth keyboard & no issues with tonight's session.

Daroxtar

dahat wrote: »

I've got to make time to get this in the training plan. 50 plus mins climbing sounds horrific though.

No, it was only 49 minutes. Twas grand :D

martyc5674 wrote: »

FairPlay that’s some time.
55 minutes was my previous best- bought a direct drive trainer recently and now it’s taking me 70 mins!

Ya, I'm highly skeptical about my real life ability to do the Alpe under an hour. My turbo doesn't go above 8% so i was able to keep a high enough cadence and very steady power output for most of it whereas in reality once I hit 10%+ my cadence drops down to 70rpm or less and once the cadence drops the legs start to burn a lot quicker. It was more of a TT than a real hill climb but I'm still happy with the overall improvement in the past few weeks.

martyc5674

Daroxtar wrote: »

No, it was only 49 minutes. Twas grand :D



Ya, I'm highly skeptical about my real life ability to do the Alpe under an hour. My turbo doesn't go above 8% so i was able to keep a high enough cadence and very steady power output for most of it whereas in reality once I hit 10%+ my cadence drops down to 70rpm or less and once the cadence drops the legs start to burn a lot quicker. It was more of a TT than a real hill climb but I'm still happy with the overall improvement in the past few weeks.

That’s very true - my old trainer you could go up the alpe in the big ring spinning away - not a hope in hell on my new one which is more realistic for me, as I’m normally reaching for the small ring at 6-8% sustained gradient out on the road.

Macy0161

There was a few virtual everesting it last week when I was on it (another minute off, but still quite under an hour*!) - apparently you have to have trainer difficultly set to 100% for it to "count" for everesting, which seems a bit mad when different turbos have different maximum gradients...

*I did manage under an hour on Sundays Zwift Team Ireland Uber Pretzel. Unfortunately, that was with the rubber band on the group, but it is on Strava so counts for someone!

Crocked

Daroxtar wrote: »

No, it was only 49 minutes. Twas grand :D



Ya, I'm highly skeptical about my real life ability to do the Alpe under an hour. My turbo doesn't go above 8% so i was able to keep a high enough cadence and very steady power output for most of it whereas in reality once I hit 10%+ my cadence drops down to 70rpm or less and once the cadence drops the legs start to burn a lot quicker. It was more of a TT than a real hill climb but I'm still happy with the overall improvement in the past few weeks.

If you haven't changed the setting Zwift defaults to around 50% difficulty, so if the climb is 10% Zwift tells your trainer to simulate 5%. So most trainers can cope with how Zwift defaults

CramCycle

Crocked wrote: »

If you haven't changed the setting Zwift defaults to around 50% difficulty, so if the climb is 10% Zwift tells your trainer to simulate 5%. So most trainers can cope with how Zwift defaults

I presume for races it goes to 100% though?

Macy0161

CramCycle wrote: »

I presume for races it goes to 100% though?

No, one of the zwift insider racing tips I read was to reduce it to 30% for rolling courses.

Speed is still based upon power output, it just effects how much resistance you feel. Apparently - I haven't changed mine!

JimmiesRustled

CramCycle wrote: »

I presume for races it goes to 100% though?

As Macy pointed out you can have it anything you like even for race. This is why in some races you'll see lads holding the same power over the top of climbs and onto the descent that they were holding on the climb. Normally if someone is on a smart trainer with the "trainer difficulty" set to say 50% you'll notice a drop in power as they crest a climb and shift gears.

It's especially prevalent in the time trials. Set the resistance to zero, have your wahoo bolt/garmin edge control the smart trainer and just set a power in ERG. If you've a decent idea of what you can hold it makes it a bit easier than having to contend with shifting gears on climbs etc.

I think this is what Rohan Dennis did for that Alpe du Zwift climb with the rest of the Ineos lads. He didn't seem to drop or increase power as the gradient changed.

I don't have any problem with it but I think if Zwift are talking about becoming a bigger player in e-sports etc then its definitely a bit of an issue but probably the least of their worries in this domain what with the differences in power meter readings from one manufacturer to another and the issues around different smart trainers not to mention weight and height "doping" if you can call it that.

iwillhtfu

CramCycle wrote: »

I presume for races it goes to 100% though?

For the pro races they're all at 100% I'm guessing this is due to the fatigue created on an actual climb and some lads wouldn't hit it with the same effort in real life.

They've also brought in weight verification before hand also.

check out Lionel Sanders on youtube he's a triathlete but and absolute power house, he's really pushing to get the set up correct so there's no ability to cheat the system

Macy0161

JimmiesRustled wrote: »

I don't have any problem with it but I think if Zwift are talking about becoming a bigger player in e-sports etc then its definitely a bit of an issue

I've done some TrainerRoad threshold workouts up the Alpe. I have considered building a workout to just hold the 3.2kg up to break the hour, but seems like cheating to me. And only cheating myself.

JimmiesRustled wrote: »

but probably the least of their worries in this domain what with the differences in power meter readings from one manufacturer to another and the issues around different smart trainers not to mention weight and height "doping" if you can call it that.

I see this when doing the TrainerRoad workouts controlling my Hammer, and Zwift taking power from my 4iii left sided. Where it's recorded will effect the output (pedals vs crank vs turbo), different manufacturers, total v dual v left only, whether it was calibrated, big ring vs small ring etc. I guess that's why zwift are getting into hardware!