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Location
Powys, Wales
Well, I did it.... I broke the cycle of apathy! I did 3/4 hour of hard labour. Remember now what the fan is for.......and the mop!
 
J

JLaw

Veteran
FWIW, I've been playing around a bit more in zwift lately (tsk tsk). The volcano route adds a bit more variety and the volcano climb (just live today) helps as well.

I tried some races. There's a gazillion to choose from and enough riders that even a slowpoke like me is likely to be riding against roughly matched competition. I did sign up for the wrong classification in one race and came in dead last in my classification -- I think there were 90 riders in my chosen category. You're on the course with everyone, even during a race, so it's tough to know who's racing in your category and who isn't. ITTs, TTTs exist. I thought I saw chase & handicap races as well, but I didn't participate in any of those.

And, of course, the gradient transitions are just smoother, dramatically so in zwift. You can also do structured workouts on the course with everyone else.

The oddball problems I had with bkool's ERG mode appear to be drop-outs -- I saw some with zwift. Zwift seems to recover much more gracefully.

bkool still wins for variety and the ability to loosely recreate real world rides.

And, of course, I don't do facebook, so the social side of virtual riding is still here for me, even if I'm not on bkool as much. If the handicaps move back to tues 7pm, I'll be participating. Else you'll find me in the KISS race over on zwift at that time.

It would be awful interesting to see the folks here all show up in a zwift race with a cyclechat affiliation in their screen-names.
 
Whorty

Whorty

Gets free watts from the Atom ;)
Location
Wiltshire
JLaw said:
FWIW, I've been playing around a bit more in zwift lately (tsk tsk). The volcano route adds a bit more variety and the volcano climb (just live today) helps as well.

I tried some races. There's a gazillion to choose from and enough riders that even a slowpoke like me is likely to be riding against roughly matched competition. I did sign up for the wrong classification in one race and came in dead last in my classification -- I think there were 90 riders in my chosen category. You're on the course with everyone, even during a race, so it's tough to know who's racing in your category and who isn't. ITTs, TTTs exist. I thought I saw chase & handicap races as well, but I didn't participate in any of those.

And, of course, the gradient transitions are just smoother, dramatically so in zwift. You can also do structured workouts on the course with everyone else.

The oddball problems I had with bkool's ERG mode appear to be drop-outs -- I saw some with zwift. Zwift seems to recover much more gracefully.

bkool still wins for variety and the ability to loosely recreate real world rides.

And, of course, I don't do facebook, so the social side of virtual riding is still here for me, even if I'm not on bkool as much. If the handicaps move back to tues 7pm, I'll be participating. Else you'll find me in the KISS race over on zwift at that time.

It would be awful interesting to see the folks here all show up in a zwift race with a cyclechat affiliation in their screen-names.
Click to expand...
Can you sign up for a free trial? I still have 10 months left on bkool so not about to switch, but wouldn't mind a play on zwift if free
 
bobinski

bobinski

Legendary Member
Location
Tulse Hill
JLaw said:
FWIW, I've been playing around a bit more in zwift lately (tsk tsk). The volcano route adds a bit more variety and the volcano climb (just live today) helps as well.

I tried some races. There's a gazillion to choose from and enough riders that even a slowpoke like me is likely to be riding against roughly matched competition. I did sign up for the wrong classification in one race and came in dead last in my classification -- I think there were 90 riders in my chosen category. You're on the course with everyone, even during a race, so it's tough to know who's racing in your category and who isn't. ITTs, TTTs exist. I thought I saw chase & handicap races as well, but I didn't participate in any of those.

And, of course, the gradient transitions are just smoother, dramatically so in zwift. You can also do structured workouts on the course with everyone else.

The oddball problems I had with bkool's ERG mode appear to be drop-outs -- I saw some with zwift. Zwift seems to recover much more gracefully.

bkool still wins for variety and the ability to loosely recreate real world rides.

And, of course, I don't do facebook, so the social side of virtual riding is still here for me, even if I'm not on bkool as much. If the handicaps move back to tues 7pm, I'll be participating. Else you'll find me in the KISS race over on zwift at that time.

It would be awful interesting to see the folks here all show up in a zwift race with a cyclechat affiliation in their screen-names.
Click to expand...

I will have another look at the KISS race. I suspect I am a solid C cat! I did a social PAC ride yesterday. Easy to see your group because they all wear same kit so not like racing. Over a 100 of us. Started slowish and then surfed and drafted and chased and drafted from one one of the group ride to another for 3 laps before hitting the volcano. Great fun. I like that you see your watts per kilo and that of other riders because it makes it easier to identify someone who is about the same pace. Makes shared drafting much easier.
It will also be much easier to race as you suggest when they introduce the promised closed group racing.
I will look out for you!.
 
Daddy Pig

Daddy Pig

Veteran
Has anyone played around with saddle height adjustments? I think mine may be too high based on some calcs but has anyone experimented and looked at power outputs?
I used the 88.3% and the -10cm method and both showing about 15mm too high. I setup the bike based on knee angle. Just looking for some extra watts!
@LBHIFI when you had your set up done recently did you know how they calculated saddle height?
 
bobinski

bobinski

Legendary Member
Location
Tulse Hill
https://www.stevehoggbikefitting.com/bikefit/2011/02/seat-height-how-hard-can-it-be/
 
bridgy

bridgy

Legendary Member
Location
Cheddar
I must say, with all this talk of Zwift, the numbers do seem to be down for participants on the chaingang - only 6 did last night's I think. This time last year we were getting around 30 for each stage, and easily managing TTT's which we just haven't had the numbers for this year.
This is a real shame - and a little worrying for the longer term future of our leagues I think. Particularly as this is the ideal time of year for indoor cycling :rain::cold:

I suspect part of the reason is it takes a certain type of nutter to want to go and race at full pelt 3 times a week, and many people want to do steadier group rides and training plans etc which Zwift is way ahead of Bkool on. Bkool's numerous glitches and their poor customer service is also another reason of course.

I haven't actually tried Zwift yet so have no views on it, although I do really like the sound of many of the features and it's clear that the people behind it are MUCH more user-focussed and open to feedback etc. than Bkool who are frankly awful with this kind of thing as we know.

I really enjoy many aspects of Bkool though - the variety of rides, the ability to do local rides I'm familiar with in the real world, the video rides, and the races and leagues with people I've got to know on here. My wife also likes to use the trainer too (see weight-gate :blush:) and rather than race she particularly likes riding the sunny spanish videos and pretending it's sunny and warm rather than cold, dark and raining! And I'm not really bothered about training plans or steady group rides really - and there's nothing to stop me sometimes doing a slower ride on Bkool if I feel like it.

But, the lack of numbers is a bit worrying and I think it's only a matter of time until I at least try the free trial on Zwift. Don't think I'd pay for bothe Zwift & Bkool though as I won't have time to do justice to them both.
 
bobinski

bobinski

Legendary Member
Location
Tulse Hill
Paul,
I won't renew my bkool sub. I know, you are all heartbroken :tongue: But, if, as I hope, they are working on a rewrite of the underlying software to deal with the known issues and the deal breaking preference for their own trainers then I will be back in a shot. Provided they don't leave it so long that in the interim BRVR and the others have not filled the gap between what Zwift offers (which remains limited course wise) and what bkool offers in principle.
 
rob01792

rob01792

Über Member
Location
swansea
Daddy Pig said:
Has anyone played around with saddle height adjustments? I think mine may be too high based on some calcs but has anyone experimented and looked at power outputs?
I used the 88.3% and the -10cm method and both showing about 15mm too high. I setup the bike based on knee angle. Just looking for some extra watts!
@LBHIFI when you had your set up done recently did you know how they calculated saddle height?
Click to expand...

had a bike fit about 3 weeks ago before that I set up via various online articles. steve hogg stuff I found very good
back to the fit what was changed saddle down 1 mm pushed back 5mm so I personally feel you should be able to get close by doing it yourself
there was more involved but no more changes had to be done it was more for peace of mind as I also have a bad knee
and the cleats where slightly adjusted
 
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