Smart trainers and software

[Mr Purple]

Ah come on. Proper mondo finishes on the coot-tha bridge

On the way back down or the way up?

I'm sure there will be complaints as it is, no-one on Fulgaz likes climbing. Wait until I add a 'Reverse Mondo' or 'Dirty Mondo'. With the gravel one being up Mahogany Trail, down Highland Trail, and then up South Boundary Road and down to Gold Creek. There's well over 1000m elevation on that one and some of the pinches are 25%.

on the way back down, after you have gone across the top and down the back, then up the climb so you can descend the botanical gardens

https://www.strava.com/segments/6218141

edit: with the speed limit change on the botanical gardens, may have to create a new version with the side diversion to avoid it

That one has a different route through Chapel Hill to the one I use. Interestingly, no-one's done that this year. Is there a road closure or diversion?

Might have a tilt at the top 10 at that one when I have an actual road bike again. I've dropped down to 15th on the 'Reverse Mondo' and this one looks less competitive! Think you'd need a decent group for a tilt at the KOM though.

[jasonc]

On the way back down or the way up?

I'm sure there will be complaints as it is, no-one on Fulgaz likes climbing. Wait until I add a 'Reverse Mondo' or 'Dirty Mondo'. With the gravel one being up Mahogany Trail, down Highland Trail, and then up South Boundary Road and down to Gold Creek. There's well over 1000m elevation on that one and some of the pinches are 25%.

on the way back down, after you have gone across the top and down the back, then up the climb so you can descend the botanical gardens

https://www.strava.com/segments/6218141

edit: with the speed limit change on the botanical gardens, may have to create a new version with the side diversion to avoid it

That one has a different route through Chapel Hill to the one I use. Interestingly, no-one's done that this year. Is there a road closure or diversion?

Might have a tilt at the top 10 at that one when I have an actual road bike again. I've dropped down to 15th on the 'Reverse Mondo' and this one looks less competitive! Think you'd need a decent group for a tilt at the KOM though.

we used to do it a few times a year. it used to hurt. a lot. there's a cheeky side road that we use through chapel hill to get you off the main road

[Mr Purple]

Anyone using Fulgaz and a Kickr Shift DO NOT install the Wahoo upgrade allowing virtual gear display for Zwift.

Because inevitably it takes away the ability to change gear at all on Fulgaz, making it unusable. And you can’t revert to a previous reversion of an app.

Looks like I’m Zwifting this weekend. And it’s awful - I should not be averaging 37km/hr at 114bpm, there are no hills (at all), and no clock display at all with the incline display randomly disappearing. Also I love riding at 3W/kg and getting constantly mowed down by other riders doing 2W/kg.

It’s like an online fantasy world for heavy riders.

[jasonc]

Anyone using Fulgaz and a Kickr Shift DO NOT install the Wahoo upgrade allowing virtual gear display for Zwift.

Because inevitably it takes away the ability to change gear at all on Fulgaz, making it unusable. And you can’t revert to a previous reversion of an app.

Looks like I’m Zwifting this weekend. And it’s awful - I should not be averaging 37km/hr at 114bpm, there are no hills (at all), and no clock display at all with the incline display randomly disappearing. Also I love riding at 3W/kg and getting constantly mowed down by other riders doing 2W/kg.

It’s like an online fantasy world for heavy riders.

I've logged case with zwift as the gearing isn't appearing in Zwift, and the direct connect isn't working. ah i might log a case with wahoo too. stuff it

[Mr Purple]

I've logged case with zwift as the gearing isn't appearing in Zwift, and the direct connect isn't working. ah i might log a case with wahoo too. stuff it

I've found on Fulgaz the direct connection never works for gear changes, but it does on Bluetooth.

I've submitted a ticket to Fulgaz, they reckon it's because Wahoo have changed their Bluetooth protocols to work for Zwift, so it no longer works for Fulgaz. Zwift did admittedly work fine for me.

I've noticed every software update Wahoo does makes something slightly worse.

[g-boaf]

Also I love riding at 3W/kg and getting constantly mowed down by other riders doing 2W/kg.

It’s like an online fantasy world for heavy riders.

Yep, that's certainly Zwift, everything is tweaked to make sure heavy riders with huge outright power feel like heroes, while out in the real world (on a real bike) they wouldn't be anywhere near as fast. One even said exactly that.

The latest complaint on the Zwift forums (in the racing section) is that light riders have it too easy on the flat and should be slowed down even more... I'm not kidding! Yeah, we have it easy doing 4.0w/kg then some guy with 2.8w/kg is staying effortlessly with us.

And whatever you do, don't dare suggest making workout mode (erg) go a bit slower on the uphill, damn that's like poking a hornets nest! They all love doing heaps and heaps of hills, but never having to feel any changes in gradient or having to shift gears up or down.

[Mr Purple]

Also I love riding at 3W/kg and getting constantly mowed down by other riders doing 2W/kg.

It’s like an online fantasy world for heavy riders.

Yep, that's certainly Zwift, everything is tweaked to make sure heavy riders with huge outright power feel like heroes, while out in the real world (on a real bike) they wouldn't be anywhere near as fast. One even said exactly that.

The latest complaint on the Zwift forums (in the racing section) is that light riders have it too easy on the flat and should be slowed down even more... I'm not kidding! Yeah, we have it easy doing 4.0w/kg then some guy with 2.8w/kg is staying effortlessly with us.

I don't know if it's because I have more pack riding experience than last time I was on, but it's just awful. I think in the past I just assumed the draft made you go that fast, but it's not even remotely accurate.

The two 100km events I've done this year I've taken 220W to average 35km/hr. On Zwift you can do that at about 120W. Their physics model is absolute trash.

To make it worse for some reason my 45km odd at 37km/hr and 160W or so has for some reason sent my Strava 'fitness' through the roof (more than the last 10 weeks of brutal 200km/3000m Fulgaz weeks), and their AI is being very complimentary about the huge average speed. I wonder how much of this is actually deliberate? Gamifying Strava achievements and deliberately overinflating speeds in Zwift to convince people to stay with the platform.

It's not real. None of this is real.

Ah well, I've managed to get assigned a 'C' category for racing at least. Let's see how many events I can get disqualified out of before Fulgaz gets fixed. While still losing, because my 20 minute 5W/kg is somehow slower than a genuine C grade rider's 2W/kg.

[Mr Purple]

Well they may have fixed the racing. Auto placed in ‘C’ and made the long break stick on the last lap of a 16.5km crit and won by 17.5 seconds.

Felt mean though. Promotion incoming.

[g-boaf]

Well they may have fixed the racing. Auto placed in ‘C’ and made the long break stick on the last lap of a 16.5km crit and won by 17.5 seconds.

Felt mean though. Promotion incoming.

Now they use your racing score.

Mine is about 500 but I do no racing at all on Zwift.

[Mr Purple]

Yep. Mine is already 400.

It used to be you’d never make a long break in any category though, the pack physics would always chase you down.

[Mr Purple]

Did a Tour De Zwift 54km event today. Solid group, though we were dropped by an A+ rider who solo’d the entire event.

He seemed genuine, video weigh in and the group seemed to back that up. But 81kg and a 5.54W/kg FTP and he averaged 373W for 54km.

I assume he’s legitimate but an average cadence of 61 and literally no real world rides or KOMs makes you wonder. Because those numbers would make you a very serious real world racer. Might just be adverse to actually riding outside or somewhere it’s not possible.

I swear I saw his watts flicking between 5W/kg and 0.9W/kg at some stage. Are sticky watts still a thing?

[Mr Purple]

Still somehow in 'C' Category despite two solo breakaway Crit wins, and a 9/114 and 14/293 with 4W/kg for over an hour on the Tour de Zwift.

They're pretty strict with their grading now, only the Crits counted.

Forgot how good a workout Zwift racing is, it'll be interesting to see my outdoor numbers improve after a month or so of this. Extraordinarily painful though, I think I've had enough of that for this week.

[jasonc]

I've logged case with zwift as the gearing isn't appearing in Zwift, and the direct connect isn't working. ah i might log a case with wahoo too. stuff it

Update: no thanks to zwift, I tried a different computer and it worked (despite their insistence they it was a network issue). So I blew away the install, cleared the registry and files, rebooted and reinstalled. Working!

[g-boaf]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nInDTGejQ-U

uhhh, sorry mate - Tour of Watopia is not a race. Always got to get someone trying to turn a Zwift group ride into a race. Just to be sure I filtered out races in Companion App and Tour of Watopia still remains on the list.

No matter how fast you think you are, you won't beat little old Mr or Mrs Dot doing 450w for 3 hours.

[Mr Purple]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nInDTGejQ-U

uhhh, sorry mate - Tour of Watopia is not a race. Always got to get someone trying to turn a Zwift group ride into a race. Just to be sure I filtered out races in Companion App and Tour of Watopia still remains on the list.

No matter how fast you think you are, you won't beat little old Mr or Mrs Dot doing 450w for 3 hours.

That footage just makes me angry.

That guy weighs 75kg. His absolute watts (not W/kg) are sitting at lower than mine did during my last Tour de Zwift event (I averaged 248W for that event).

And yet he's going faster. I appreciate it's a slightly flatter course, but they're all flat. How does 3.33W/kg beat 4.08W/kg when the smaller guy is actually averaging more overall power?

Zwift physics are seriously broken. Agreed too that Tour De Zwift events are not ranked racing, they won't improve your racing category and you don't receive a score. Mind you I average far more power in TDZ events because I'm trying to keep up with the A+ riders.

[g-boaf]

How is your power delivery, is it smooth or do you go up and down a bit (I’m hopeless with that on Zwift).

If you are light and your power dips then you might be caught by the pace dynamics auto braking designed to keep you stuck behind another rider (to slow down bunches). But it always slows down lighter riders more than the heavy ones. This feature was supposed to make it easier for breakaways in races to succeed - rather than the sit in and sprint crowd demolishing breaks at the end.

Case in point: if I use normal bike in Zwift (canyon aeroad 2024) then even in C grade robopacer group I struggle to get away from them or I have to work very hard to get through the pack.

If I use TT bike I easily pull away from them because I don’t get the pace dynamics auto braking. It also doesn’t get any drift effect from other bikes, but even with that set back it is easy for me to ride away from bunches.

Any rides you do now contribute to your race score.

Mine is a bit funny because Category shows A but my race score is just over 500. I don’t race in Zwift because I don’t trust other riders to not be using exploits or cheating.

And yet he's going faster. I appreciate it's a slightly flatter course, but they're all flat. How does 3.33W/kg beat 4.08W/kg when the smaller guy is actually averaging more overall power?

From the usual responses by the elite Zwift Forum C grade racers - you don’t know how to draft or race properly, blah blah blah…. Sarcasm alert.

[Mr Purple]

Oh, I'm all over the place in power - just looking at my traces from that event and it's a completely jagged line.

I agree it's something to do with the pace dynamics though. Drop power even slightly at 61kg and you're out the back, and then after catching up you're always shooting out the front again. Compounding this is the fact you actually have to crank up the power on the descents rather than backing off, or the ridiculous physics have the heavier riders disappearing.

In the real world heavy riders don't usually descend that much faster than lighter riders because a) lighter riders go uphill a lot more and therefore have a lot more practice going downhill, and b) it's easier to get into and sustain an optimum aerodynamic position if you're fitter.

That guy looks like he's barely working to keep up with the pack in comparison. Mind you, the 42nd ranked A+ rider on Zwift I was complaining about last week with the 450W FTP and all of six hours riding a week has a YouTube channel. In which like he looks like he's going for a gentle walk in the park while holding down 500W. Pretty sure that one's not genuine!

[g-boaf]

I agree it's something to do with the pace dynamics though. Drop power even slightly at 61kg and you're out the back, and then after catching up you're always shooting out the front again. Compounding this is the fact you actually have to crank up the power on the descents rather than backing off, or the ridiculous physics have the heavier riders disappearing.

Because I'm way off balance (still) I'm really having a tough time in those groups. So I just go where the big riders don't go, the big hills.

Alpe du Zwift is relatively empty, just a few regulars mostly. It's a nice little haven away from the flatter courses. I try and encourage some of the folks from Tempus Fugit to join ADZ, but they never do.

The downhill parts of Zwift have the key problem that you can't crash - there is no slowing for corners, etc. You can go through a hairpin at 90km/h.

[Mr Purple]

Not convinced they've got the race point scoring quite right yet. I've done a total of four C grade events since returning, won all of them and my race score has gone up all of forty points so I'm still in C grade.

Caught out this morning in a 27km/250m race and forgot that some races have all grades starting together. They seem to have made it harder to tell what grade you're competing against - I swear they used to have it against the rider name, and now it's only the colours on the mini map.

So somehow I took 4th overall of 65 despite starting in C grade, and the C grade win by 1:20. Normalised power of 4.3W/kg and I'm still somehow in C grade. I think I'll get run out by a mob with pitchforks before I actually get promoted.

[g-boaf]

Not convinced they've got the race point scoring quite right yet. I've done a total of four C grade events since returning, won all of them and my race score has gone up all of forty points so I'm still in C grade.

Caught out this morning in a 27km/250m race and forgot that some races have all grades starting together. They seem to have made it harder to tell what grade you're competing against - I swear they used to have it against the rider name, and now it's only the colours on the mini map.

So somehow I took 4th overall of 65 despite starting in C grade, and the C grade win by 1:20. Normalised power of 4.3W/kg and I'm still somehow in C grade. I think I'll get run out by a mob with pitchforks before I actually get promoted.

Should still be an <A> or <B> or <C> beside the rider name in the list as far as I can tell.

I have no idea of the racing scoring system.

[Mr Purple]

It was a bit of a quirky race club specific event and there was certainly none of that in this one. Made it very difficult.

They're now using a scoring system based entirely on race results (and random chance from what I can see). Power is irrelevant except for initially setting your category and it seems to be very difficult to move up a category.

On the positive side the situation I had last time around in Zwift racing where I was dumped like a sack of potatoes out the back of a B grade flat race and then disqualified for exceeding the W/kg limit while trying to catch up, then irreversibly promoted to A grade, won't eventuate.

[g-boaf]

The old way was very good for the powerful (and heavy) C and B grade riders to sandbag their way to victories and avoid being promoted to the next level.

Witness the fury when some of them got promoted (rightly so) to A grade and then rage-quit racing because they are up against very powerful and fit A grade "riders".

In real life that's how it was anyway, you win B grade a lot and up you go to A grade, then you struggle off the back because A normally has way better fitness and better bike handling skills - that's how it is.

The discussions on Zwift about cheating and performance verification are stupid. Even the reasonable expectations to stomp out unrealistic power generation ends up in fights.

[Mr Purple]

The discussions on Zwift about cheating and performance verification are stupid. Even the reasonable expectations to stomp out unrealistic power generation ends up in fights.

I've seen a few examples even in my two weeks back on Zwift where the stated performance metrics are extraordinarily unlikely.

The rider who dumped my group last week has some spectacular numbers. Regularly achieving 5.2-5.5W/kg in the longer Tour de Zwift events (technically not races) despite weighing 81kg and riding less than six hours a week in total. He's 'verified', runs two power meters, has a Youtube channel and a filmed weigh-in. But the FTP of 450W is a bit of a giveaway - that's a number that's maybe achievable by a handful of professionals in the world regardless of weight.

But those numbers are obviously trash. He's avoiding the high level competitive events and simply cleaning up in everything else, I suspect because he realises that any level of scrutiny will bring the whole thing crashing down. I don't care how legitimate you're trying to make it appear, the end result simply does not make sense.

It'll be interesting to see if the new system ever gets me promoted beyond 'B' grade. I technically have mid 'A' grade numbers but because Zwift events are so flat and always won on the sprint (which I don't have) I'm probably much closer to 'B'. The old system was ridiculously unfair because it categorised purely on W/kg, which also happens to be exactly the metric that doesn't win Zwift races.

[g-boaf]

The discussions on Zwift about cheating and performance verification are stupid. Even the reasonable expectations to stomp out unrealistic power generation ends up in fights.

I've seen a few examples even in my two weeks back on Zwift where the stated performance metrics are extraordinarily unlikely.

The rider who dumped my group last week has some spectacular numbers. Regularly achieving 5.2-5.5W/kg in the longer Tour de Zwift events (technically not races) despite weighing 81kg and riding less than six hours a week in total. He's 'verified', runs two power meters, has a Youtube channel and a filmed weigh-in. But the FTP of 450W is a bit of a giveaway - that's a number that's maybe achievable by a handful of professionals in the world regardless of weight.

But those numbers are obviously trash. He's avoiding the high level competitive events and simply cleaning up in everything else, I suspect because he realises that any level of scrutiny will bring the whole thing crashing down. I don't care how legitimate you're trying to make it appear, the end result simply does not make sense.

It'll be interesting to see if the new system ever gets me promoted beyond 'B' grade. I technically have mid 'A' grade numbers but because Zwift events are so flat and always won on the sprint (which I don't have) I'm probably much closer to 'B'. The old system was ridiculously unfair because it categorised purely on W/kg, which also happens to be exactly the metric that doesn't win Zwift races.

Report the guy to Zwift.

[Mr Purple]

Report the guy to Zwift.

No point. 'Big guy with unrealistic power who literally never rides outdoors' is their target market. I'm 'little guy stuck on Zwift because Wahoo have buggered up the virtual shifting update' which is the opposite of their target market.

Zwift have opened up a new circuit which is a redo of 'Jarvis Island' which was apparently their first section of road. The TDZ this week has the option of 'Deca Dash' which is 10 laps of this circuit and 52km/500m with a 1.3km climb every lap.

The circuit itself isn't terrible, and has a bit more climbing than the usual Zwift events so suited me. The quality control though is awful. There's a 40 second odd panoramic cut scene in the lead in which would be an excellent opportunity for a break because you can't see individual riders, the leaderboard doesn't work (at all), and I lost all resistance with 200m to go (and 52.3km into an event) but I don't think it mattered because everyone else seemed to lose all resistance as well.

There is no lap indicator on the screen so you have to count your laps, there's three power-ups on a 4.7km circuit so you can literally run under the 'draft' the whole time, and because it's such a short circuit our lead group of 17 lapped everyone else, with a little bit of sticky draft chaos every time we caught a group.

You'd think for a company with one million prescribers at $30 a month each they'd do a little bit better than that! Either way I am finding it useful as a training aid - identical power to last week's event with an average HR 5bpm lower and a lot more comfortable already at that pace. So it has that going for it - there's not enough motivation on Fulgaz to have me holding down more than 4W/kg for an hour.