Smart trainers and software

[am50em]

Riding indoors is only slightly better than a poke in the eye with a burnt stick. I'd prefer to get wet riding outdoors!

[davehirst]

Two hour recovery ride , making sure never to leave zone 2.
With no power you have full weight on the saddle, and it gets painful.
jebus what a boring experience the whole thing was.

[warthog1]

No two ways about it. It is sh it.
Better than not riding but only just.

[g-boaf]

Two hour recovery ride , making sure never to leave zone 2.
With no power you have full weight on the saddle, and it gets painful.
jebus what a boring experience the whole thing was.

Do you have a rocker plate? That helps a lot with the comfort factor - also need to stand a bit from time to time.

Aside from that the only other option is to no do trainer rides at all then lose your fitness when it rains all the time or go out and ride in rain and cold.

Other thing is to ride with friends on whatever virtual cycling platform you use. Then you can chat and it makes the time go faster, though I know some people don't like any chat at all and get cranky with anyone else who talks on Zwift.

[Arbuckle23]

This week will be on the trainer to try and get some post covid lungs back, without being out in the cold (other than the shed out back).

[g-boaf]

This week will be on the trainer to try and get some post covid lungs back, without being out in the cold (other than the shed out back).

I did an outside ride yesterday of about 50km but did it really carefully given my ankle problems (achilles tendon). Trainer is definitely safer because if it feels wrong I just stop and aren't 30km away from home.

Body seems to be protesting at the moment.

[Arbuckle23]

Trainer is definitely safer because if it feels wrong I just stop and aren't 30km away from home.

Yep, that is the best use. If the lungs protest I can just stop and go back in the house.

[g-boaf]

Well I managed 62km with the "Jacques" group on Zwift today - although the being Monday they were all going at grandma pace - pretty standard thing for Mondays, I presume everyone has destroyed themselves on the weekend some Monday is the recovery day.

I still put the brace around my ankle just to be safe. I went out to get groceries after and walking around was okay. I hope that's the end for those dramas.

[Mr Purple]

Finally caved and returned to the 'Fulgaz Weekly Challenge' this week because they had a 27km/445m Italian ride that looked like my sort of terrain.

Three riders from 48:08 to 48:30 including Mr dumb trainer 'minimum 289W, maximum 330W over any distance'. Threw the kitchen sink at it and did a 45:00 with an all time power record over 45 minutes of 272W (289W normalised). Took both the KOMs, one by over a minute.

We'll see what eventuates and whether anyone mysteriously finds another 50W from somewhere! Annoyingly on my 'Cleveland-Wellington Point' ride one of my Strava followers has taken the KOM on both flat segments with 217W. I've done the same segment with 301W and am still about 2km/hr slower so now have the ethical dilemma of whether to call him out on it. Probably not worth it.

[am50em]

[g-boaf]

Rapha will have one of these in their Sydney store on Thursday evening. You have to book for the event.

[jasonc]

[g-boaf]

Sure you wouldn't prefer Elite Square?

A very ugly looking thing.


And some Zwift racing carryings on: https://forums.zwift.com/t/how-to-repor ... nts/631987

Accusations of someone using their own bot to push the pace to steady 5.0w/kg. And yet the Zwift racing crowd protest about how great their racing is.

[Arbuckle23]

Very interesting interview with the founder of Zwift

[g-boaf]

So that's who Eric Min is... I used to ride a lot with him on Zwift back when it was a lot more enjoyable.

I haven't seen him on Zwift at all much in recent times. I ended up getting bored of it and stopped my account.

[Mr Purple]

Three riders from 48:08 to 48:30 including Mr dumb trainer 'minimum 289W, maximum 330W over any distance'. Threw the kitchen sink at it and did a 45:00 with an all time power record over 45 minutes of 272W (289W normalised). Took both the KOMs, one by over a minute.

One of the benefits of the less popular and more ground roots apps is that they do seem to monitor it quite closely, in this case in the Facebook group.

'Mr Dumb Trainer 300W everywhere' recently posted a complaint about one of the rides because he was stuck on the limiter the whole time and didn't feel it was a reasonable workout. One of the technical administrators pointed out that this was because they can't exactly account for someone doing a level 300W down a 16% descent and that maybe he should disregard the power data from his Schwinn IC7 dumb trainer. Unfortunately they then locked the thread before there was a pile on.

[jasonc]

Three riders from 48:08 to 48:30 including Mr dumb trainer 'minimum 289W, maximum 330W over any distance'. Threw the kitchen sink at it and did a 45:00 with an all time power record over 45 minutes of 272W (289W normalised). Took both the KOMs, one by over a minute.

One of the benefits of the less popular and more ground roots apps is that they do seem to monitor it quite closely, in this case in the Facebook group.

'Mr Dumb Trainer 300W everywhere' recently posted a complaint about one of the rides because he was stuck on the limiter the whole time and didn't feel it was a reasonable workout. One of the technical administrators pointed out that this was because they can't exactly account for someone doing a level 300W down a 16% descent and that maybe he should disregard the power data from his Schwinn IC7 dumb trainer. Unfortunately they then locked the thread before there was a pile on.

Does Mr Dumb trainer post regularly? Wonder if future posts of theirs will be hounded on

[Mr Purple]

Does Mr Dumb trainer post regularly? Wonder if future posts of theirs will be hounded on

Yes, he does. But to be honest it's quite a friendly and 'not particularly tech savvy' community.

I won't be calling him out because he appears to be in his early to mid 60's and took up cycling after a catastrophic motorbike accident (he's posted footage of him literally being run over by an SUV).

I do find it frustrating that he'll just automatically win every event over about 25km with less than 500m elevation because his power curve is literally a flat line through 300W, but can still beat him overall and he's never taken a segment from me for the same reason. I do sort of suspect he's not quite tech savvy or experienced to realise how ridiculous his numbers are, and interestingly no-one's ever commented on either how fast or how ridiculous his rides are either, so suspect I'm not the only one being polite.

That's the difference between Zwift and Fulgaz I suppose. We're not competitive enough to be self policing. There is another rider who I'm 100% sure knows what he's doing who regularly takes uphill segments off me with less power despite being 8kg heavier, and that annoys me more!

[g-boaf]

Does Mr Dumb trainer post regularly? Wonder if future posts of theirs will be hounded on

Yes, he does. But to be honest it's quite a friendly and 'not particularly tech savvy' community.

I won't be calling him out because he appears to be in his early to mid 60's and took up cycling after a catastrophic motorbike accident (he's posted footage of him literally being run over by an SUV).

Oh god, that's awful.

Makers of those dumb bikes make all sorts of claims about the excellence of their devices and unfortunately people believe it and buy those things and have no idea those bikes are far from accurate.

When they do discover it is wrong, it's a very negative change.

[Mr Purple]

Oh god, that's awful.

Makers of those dumb bikes make all sorts of claims about the excellence of their devices and unfortunately people believe it and buy those things and have no idea those bikes are far from accurate.

When they do discover it is wrong, it's a very negative change.

Yep, exactly. I do find it annoying but someone coming to cycling that late in response to a life threatening injury (I believe he was actually resuscitated from a cardiac arrest) is unlikely to have any idea on what a realistic power output is in the real world. It's going to be a tough day for him if he ever upgrades to a proper smart trainer, he's probably actually averaging half what he thinks he is.

One of my Strava followers also has some extremely dubious virtual speeds - going faster with 200W than I do with 300W despite being a fair bit heavier. Again he's an older guy that no longer rides outdoors due to a spinal fracture sustained after being hit by a car so it's not exactly something I feel compelled to call out.

To be honest I just hope I'm still riding at their age. Though I suspect the hardest part will be able to accept the gradually declining performance and progressive loss of my KOMs by people genuinely younger and faster than me!

[g-boaf]

I'm not involved in the Fulgaz community - I just use the product and don't get involved in community aspects, but if it's friendly then certainly better than Zwift where everyone trolls everyone else and everything descends into arguments.

[jasonc]

I'm not involved in the Fulgaz community - I just use the product and don't get involved in community aspects, but if it's friendly then certainly better than Zwift where everyone trolls everyone else and everything descends into arguments.

you mean I shouldn't flag the riders sitting a 5W/kg for 100+kms on zwift?

[g-boaf]

I used to flag them as well but it became a case of mucking around reporting people and messing up my own ride and didn't achieve much.

So I gave up. Fulgaz is nice - I don't see other riders and I don't care about segments on Strava for that. I only look at what I'm doing. I block out everything else.

[Mr Purple]

I don't flag any virtual rides. Strava has a very strict 'don't care' policy to this and may suspend your account regardless of the legitimacy (or otherwise) of the effort.

The Fulgaz community is definitely a bit older and a lot less competitive. As a result I'm one of the faster riders on there - there are a couple that can give me a run on the flatter courses and the occasional high level amateur that can absolutely smoke me (which is fair) so I don't mind many of the competitive events.

On Zwift in comparison despite being technically A+ for a 20 minute of over 4.6W/kg I was lucky to finish in the top half of most A or B grade races. Part of the byproduct of having a grading system based purely on W/kg, with game mechanics that only reward outright power. I would be intrigued to work out just how much cheating exists in that universe though. I suspect 'a lot'.

[g-boaf]

On Zwift in comparison despite being technically A+ for a 20 minute of over 4.6W/kg I was lucky to finish in the top half of most A or B grade races. Part of the byproduct of having a grading system based purely on W/kg, with game mechanics that only reward outright power. I would be intrigued to work out just how much cheating exists in that universe though. I suspect 'a lot'.

There has got to be some shenanigans going on. One thing for sure, the folks that benefit from the way the game mechanics work are very, very protective of those game mechanics.

The other thing that is not nice is that the coasting is not realistic to real life. But that's how they wanted it and that's how it remain.

Over the years I've seen some interesting methods of pedalling in Zwift. Sprint, coast, sprint, coast. And then there are certain trainers and power meter pedals that reward certain styles of riding.