Smart trainers and software

[Mr Purple]

How does virtual Gravatt feel compared to the real thing?

Well I filmed it, so it's spot on! Though I would say that.

The physics models are always a little bit generous - because I'm testing my own rides I can tell you I did a 7:41 Cootha Back virtually with 329W a couple of weeks after I filmed it at 8:21 with 325W. Mind you my bike weight is very much 'ideal' in Fulgaz (no water, tools, clothing helmet etc.) though I suspect IRL rolling resistance is a bit worse.

Gravatt I haven't tested at full tilt yet but I filmed it at 6:34/303W and rode it virtually while tapering at 7:07/238W so it's probably about right. The gradients feel correct. I've just given it final approval so it should be up there in a week or two.

Inevitably the 'holder' of the virtual KOM did it over a minute faster than the IRL KOM. As part of a 'bike ride' of 605km at an average 6.1km/hr. There seems to be a move on Strava to move a ride to 'virtual' if it gets flagged as a 'ride'. Idiot.

[Arbuckle23]

Have swapped between Fulgaz and Zwift.
I normally play on iPad, connected to a TV and don't have enough storage so have run Fulgaz live so to speak, which can create a little lag.
No such problem with Zwift.

The other thing that keeps me from Fulgaz is the ability to just hop on Zwift and ride with giving it much thought. Select a course, but deviate off when I please. Fulgaz, you are locked in to follow that course.

Fulgaz sponsors my clubs local road race series so I should be more committed I suppose and Mike has been very helpful to our club and keeping road racing going.

[blizzard]

Gravatt I haven't tested at full tilt yet but I filmed it at 6:34/303W and rode it virtually while tapering at 7:07/238W so it's probably about right. The gradients feel correct. I've just given it final approval so it should be up there in a week or two.

Yeah I was mainly concerned about how the gradients feel. In real life you got those back to back right-left-right corners 1/3rd of the way up, where it kicks up a bit and you can put in bit more effort knowing the road flattens quite a bit for next few hundred metres, do you can recover a little.

[Mr Purple]

Have swapped between Fulgaz and Zwift.
I normally play on iPad, connected to a TV and don't have enough storage so have run Fulgaz live so to speak, which can create a little lag.
No such problem with Zwift.

Yeah, this is definitely a Fulgaz issue. I gave up riding the courses 'live' about a year or so ago and just decide what I'm going to ride and download it to my AppleTV first. It's probably generally not an actual issue with Fulgaz, moreso the reliability of your internet connection.

After filming a bunch of rides for them I have more appreciation of just how big the files end up getting at 1080p (my Brookfield 3 Fingers took literally hours to upload) and how you can't rely on your internet connection to handle them. Particularly if you're riding faster than the original time. Have a few 'buffering' issues when you're a mile ahead on a virtual KOM teaches you not to rely on streaming!

Zwift I would assume has a much lower data usage in general because it's animated, so you just won't have the same issues. The other problem you'll find with Fulgaz which is a logical one is that if the person who filmed it was in a group ride/on an e-bike there's just no way you'll be able to keep up because the physics model doesn't accommodate for that (which is fair, really). A couple of the newer rides are filmed on an e-bike - and I didn't find out until the relative direction of the sun changed and I could see the rider was on a fat bike with 14 different electronic devices on the handlebars. That would explain why I couldn't keep up on any of the hills then...

[Mr Purple]

Yeah I was mainly concerned about how the gradients feel. In real life you got those back to back right-left-right corners 1/3rd of the way up, where it kicks up a bit and you can put in bit more effort knowing the road flattens quite a bit for next few hundred metres, do you can recover a little.

That's actually what they want feedback on when you test your own rides - whether the gradients feel right.

You can definitely tell the levelling off in the middle and use that to recover. Given they pull the data directly from your bike computer they're generally pretty accurate - some of the older rides on there don't quite match up (the data and the footage aren't always aligned properly) but generally the newer ones are correct. That's why I got tapped for the filming duties - they asked me to test a new Cootha Back and I did 6:41 with 310W and provided honest feedback (that it was clearly broken).

Let me know if you give it a go!

[g-boaf]

Good to see a few people enjoying Fulgaz! It's not as 'polished' as Zwift but on the positive side every update tends to make it a bit better, rather than a bit worse as with Zwift.

I’d argue it is more polished. It just works, it doesn’t crash because the developers wanted to push out some stupid April fools Easter-egg nonsense.

Zwift does too many changes that are not necessary and ignored the things people really want, like weeding out the fake-power riders, the cheaters, etc. oh and better privacy controls to allow abusive users to be blocked. For some users they value that.

Fulgaz has way more courses as well so it’s a lot more interesting than the same old things endlessly. Zwift actively doesn’t like that, they want to keep you crowded together in a small area in the hope you’ll interact with other users.

[Mr Purple]

I’d argue it is more polished. It just works, it doesn’t crash because the developers wanted to push out some stupid April fools Easter-egg nonsense.

Zwift does too many changes that are not necessary and ignored the things people really want, like weeding out the fake-power riders, the cheaters, etc. oh and better privacy controls to allow abusive users to be blocked. For some users they value that.

Probably 'polished' is not the best word. Fulgaz is not as 'fancy' because it doesn't have physics models including drafting, arcadey features like buttons to temporarily make you faster, and although they did try to introduce a 'chat' feature a while back it was buggy and none of us wanted it so they quickly dropped it.

Because they're not fiddling with it regularly and unnecessarily it very rarely breaks as a result!

Different riders are after different things and I ended up hating Zwift because of the obvious cheats, the endless natter and in jokes and the constant pushing towards group rides. Not to mention the major factor - that a kilometre on Zwift (particularly in a group) doesn't feel anywhere near as difficult as a kilometre in the real world and I just felt I was padding my riding stats without preparing myself for riding in the real world.

A Fulgaz kilometre is just as difficult as a real world kilometre, if not more so.

[g-boaf]

Agree with all of the above.

[warthog1]

Yeah, this is definitely a Fulgaz issue. I gave up riding the courses 'live' about a year or so ago and just decide what I'm going to ride and download it to my AppleTV first. It's probably generally not an actual issue with Fulgaz, moreso the reliability of your internet connection.

After filming a bunch of rides for them I have more appreciation of just how big the files end up getting at 1080p (my Brookfield 3 Fingers took literally hours to upload) and how you can't rely on your internet connection to handle them. Particularly if you're riding faster than the original time. Have a few 'buffering' issues when you're a mile ahead on a virtual KOM teaches you not to rely on streaming!

Zwift I would assume has a much lower data usage in general because it's animated, so you just won't have the same issues.

Hmmm. Probably not going to work for me then. I'll use it when away on call and only have my phone as a wifi hotspot to provide internet. Phone is capable of 5g but no 5g in town. Don't have time to be mucking around downloading it first either, got to jump on and get straight into it when I have time.

[Arbuckle23]

For me Zwift is a thing to jump on when the weather is rubbish. Wake up, weather is too crap to ride, out to the shed where the old bike is setup on the trainer and riding in 5 minutes. Don't have to think about it, just do it. I just select any route and follow that or wander off where I fancy or join a Robopacer.
On the odd occasion I get invited to a group ride with friends if the forecast was bad the day before, so we ride together and chat on Discord just like any normal bunch ride.

Only raced during Covid lockdowns. Couldn't care less about cheaters/weight dopers, has no effect on me at all.

[g-boaf]

Only raced during Covid lockdowns. Couldn't care less about cheaters/weight dopers, has no effect on me at all.

The cheaters ruin the race progression and results, especially in the higher levels like A. And they make everyone result, every leaderboard totally false.

I don’t race in Zwift at all because it’s totally false.


On Fulgaz I discovered Col du Chaussy which looked interesting but didn’t notice that the ride mode was stuck at steady. No matter how much I push I was stuck at the 1.00x speed. This was about 800m climb so after about 300m+ I cancelled the ride. Most annoying. I’ll avoid that one next time.

[Mr Purple]

I don’t race in Zwift at all because it’s totally false.

On Fulgaz I discovered Col du Chaussy which looked interesting but didn’t notice that the ride mode was stuck at steady. No matter how much I push I was stuck at the 1.00x speed. This was about 800m climb so after about 300m+ I cancelled the ride. Most annoying. I’ll avoid that one next time.

I found the level of cheating in Zwift not only frustrating but extremely toxic. You spend enough time on there and you start believing all cyclists weigh between 50-55kg and have a 1500W sprint. It's clearly BS, but once you're wrapped up in it and are getting routinely humiliated by these idiots you honestly believe you're a bit useless. To top it off they have a very large user base and they have some brilliantly and genuinely fast riders on there - after a while you start treating everyone with suspicion and there were a few races where I was slammed by someone who looked like they were cheating but were the national champion of their country.

Yes. One of the faults with Fulgaz is the 'update reset'. Occasionally they update the app and it will put you back to 'steady mode' or even worse reset your weight to the system default which is about 75kg. I've had a few rides where I'm halfway through wondering 'why am I going so slowly?' to realise it's because I've gained 14kg overnight.

[g-boaf]

Totally agree, that and Zwift racer superiority attitude looking down on everyone else.

We are the racers, everything we want is important, what would you know.

That even from a racer who might only do a few racers here and there otherwise not much Zwift use.

Since they want “realism” in pace dynamics, I’ve started suggesting why not have virtual punctures in races to add to the “realism” and more varied race results other than the cruise and sprint they all complain about.

The genuinely fast pro riders on Zwift are cool, I ride with a number of them regularly and get along well with them - they mostly agree with the kinds of things we want and are also fairly annoyed by the fake power riders. You can pick the really proper fast riders from the fake crowd pretty easily.

[g-boaf]

Have swapped between Fulgaz and Zwift.
I normally play on iPad, connected to a TV and don't have enough storage so have run Fulgaz live so to speak, which can create a little lag.
No such problem with Zwift.

Yeah, this is definitely a Fulgaz issue. I gave up riding the courses 'live' about a year or so ago and just decide what I'm going to ride and download it to my AppleTV first. It's probably generally not an actual issue with Fulgaz, moreso the reliability of your internet connection.

After filming a bunch of rides for them I have more appreciation of just how big the files end up getting at 1080p (my Brookfield 3 Fingers took literally hours to upload) and how you can't rely on your internet connection to handle them. Particularly if you're riding faster than the original time. Have a few 'buffering' issues when you're a mile ahead on a virtual KOM teaches you not to rely on streaming!

Zwift I would assume has a much lower data usage in general because it's animated, so you just won't have the same issues. The other problem you'll find with Fulgaz which is a logical one is that if the person who filmed it was in a group ride/on an e-bike there's just no way you'll be able to keep up because the physics model doesn't accommodate for that (which is fair, really). A couple of the newer rides are filmed on an e-bike - and I didn't find out until the relative direction of the sun changed and I could see the rider was on a fat bike with 14 different electronic devices on the handlebars. That would explain why I couldn't keep up on any of the hills then...

Think I saw one of your videos on Fulgaz - it appeared as the intro when I started today. Nice!

I didn’t try it though, was looking for minimum 1100m+.

[Mr Purple]

Think I saw one of your videos on Fulgaz - it appeared as the intro when I started today. Nice!

I didn’t try it though, was looking for minimum 1100m+.

Cootha Back I presume? I think that's the only one that's live so far - though Gravatt should be up there in the next few days. Mind you that's only 4km/139m so not exactly a climbfest.

Only one rider's beat the filming time so far. The leaderboard confused me a bit with a bunch of riders around 8:20-8:22 (including one at 43W) until I worked out they're all in 'steady' mode so just matched the original time regardless.

The Brookfield one should be a good one when it's up - 40km/600m odd. Weirdly though almost all my training rides are over 1000m elevation it's mainly short climbs and non-descript rollers that get it up there so none of my filmed rides are anywhere near that.

I think I'll cave eventually and buy a GoPro because I quite enjoyed the filming process. Fulgaz needs a Mondo and Reverse Mondo - 25km/800m either way and one way ends in Cootha Front, the other starts with Cootha Back. There's also a bunch of epic gravel routes in the Noosa hinterland that need filming, all with a heap of climbing.

[warthog1]

Tried Rolla today.
Nup, no wifi and didn't seem to accept the phone I am using as a hotspot that the Rolla app is also on as wifi.
Did a short Zwift.

[g-boaf]

Tried Rolla today.
Nup, no wifi and didn't seem to accept the phone I am using as a hotspot that the Rolla app is also on as wifi.
Did a short Zwift.

yeah, need to have both phone and the rolla world app connected to another wifi. It's very frustrating. On the computer I had to do a few other tweaks to get it running also. I was pretty annoyed trying to get it running at first also.

Cootha Back I presume?

I think it was.

[warthog1]

Tried Rolla today.
Nup, no wifi and didn't seem to accept the phone I am using as a hotspot that the Rolla app is also on as wifi.
Did a short Zwift.

yeah, need to have both phone and the rolla world app connected to another wifi. It's very frustrating. On the computer I had to do a few other tweaks to get it running also. I was pretty annoyed trying to get it running at first also.

Cootha Back I presume?

I think it was.

Thanks.
Not happening then.

[biker jk]

Tried Rolla today.
Nup, no wifi and didn't seem to accept the phone I am using as a hotspot that the Rolla app is also on as wifi.
Did a short Zwift.

I used it via ATV the other day. All good except they have suspended workouts while they improve them. Given that's what I wanted to use it for, it's no use to me.

[g-boaf]

The only app I've ever been happy with the workouts on is this one:

https://perfprostudio.com/Studio.aspx

Create whatever you want, no fuss, no bother, no monthly or yearly subscriptions (you buy it once and that is it).

It is old school and works. The developer is amazingly fast to reply to queries on email too.

It also comes with the PerfPRO Analyzer application which manages data about all the riders and connections to online apps. You can have a number of trainers connected to it at once and all the people can do the same workout at once or a real course ride and you can have a mini-race between everyone on whatever course you want to import.

Zwft workout mode I quite dislike and especially the interface to create the workouts, it is frustrating.

[warthog1]

Tried Rolla today.
Nup, no wifi and didn't seem to accept the phone I am using as a hotspot that the Rolla app is also on as wifi.
Did a short Zwift.

I used it via ATV the other day. All good except they have suspended workouts while they improve them. Given that's what I wanted to use it for, it's no use to me.

I might try it at home on holidays on ATV.
Will be able to use wifi there.
Otherwise it lives at the work accomodation with no wifi.