Zwift Chat

[CXRAndy]

But how much is ‘that much’? 🧐😄

Everyone cares to varying degrees. I know I know, every month or so we have to have a side competition to see who cares the ‘correct, acceptable’ amount

What I was really speculating on is not this group, but whether online racing will ever be a viable e sport.

I care less now I'm not that competitive.

 

[BurningLegs]

We can all do our bit at all levels of the sport to up the confidence levels. I want @BurningLegs to give us a live weigh in to qualify for cat B

I use a Fitbit Aria scale on a tiled bathroom floor. It’s not a live weigh in but I’ve attached my weight log.
@Whorty - I weighed myself this morning and dropped to the 68.X bracket

 

[BurningLegs]

FWIW I genuinely don’t care for pro am or E-sports racing on Zwift. Other people more knowledgeable than me remain unconvinced that Zwift are willing to engage with the issues around trainer and PM accuracy, weight and height doping. Events this past week with a rider being eliminated in one race by zwift and then going on to win another with higher watts and another being eliminated and dropped by a team after racing at A level the last few years all suggest a reluctance to engage.
And at our level? I used to ride a lot with Zsunr but really struggled to stay with any of them. Turned out , and they didn’t know, they were all benefiting from using the V1 Kickr. They have all moved on since but no one I can see is hitting the levels they were 2y ago. Given most peeps fall into the 3-4w/k range trainer /pm inaccuracy is too great a factor to make racing anything more than a competition to improve your or rather my own fitness. If zwift can measure and account for some of this they choose not to.
So, when I race Its for fitness or to chase you much faster peeps and to try and stay away from you other slower but rapidly improving peeps.

I completely agree. Racing on Zwift is a bit of fun but if anyone wants a real racing experience then for the foreseeable future it’ll need to be a real (outdoor) race!

 

[Whorty]

I use a Fitbit Aria scale on a tiled bathroom floor. It’s not a live weigh in but I’ve attached my weight log.
@Whorty - I weighed myself this morning and dropped to the 68.X bracket View attachment 502295

The % fat decrease is impressive! From 18.5% down to 15% You're clearly better than me at saying "no thanks" to the cakes

Unless I can get closer to your weight I'm no longer a competitor Nick For all the riding I'm doing I'm just stuck at 74kg, which probably shows that I'm not being as good as I could be with my food. I've not moved at all since last June; I'm trying to get back into the mindset of what I was doing this time last year to see if I can start the weight lose process again. We'll see.

Edit: with a target of 70kg, that would put me lighter than I was at 21, a weight I've not seen for 30 years Hope I'm not kidding myself that I can actually get down to that number

 

[Whorty]

Just signed up to the 11:00 stage 5 NY race. Legs very tired. Will have to set trainer to about 20% else there is no way I'll get over those lumps today. I'll do my best to set a decent C time to chase, but I apologise now if I fail miserably 😢

 

[<Tommy>]

FWIW I genuinely don’t care for pro am or E-sports racing on Zwift. Other people more knowledgeable than me remain unconvinced that Zwift are willing to engage with the issues around trainer and PM accuracy, weight and height doping. Events this past week with a rider being eliminated in one race by zwift and then going on to win another with higher watts and another being eliminated and dropped by a team after racing at A level the last few years all suggest a reluctance to engage.
And at our level? I used to ride a lot with Zsunr but really struggled to stay with any of them. Turned out , and they didn’t know, they were all benefiting from using the V1 Kickr. They have all moved on since but no one I can see is hitting the levels they were 2y ago. Given most peeps fall into the 3-4w/k range trainer /pm inaccuracy is too great a factor to make racing anything more than a competition to improve your or rather my own fitness. If zwift can measure and account for some of this they choose not to.
So, when I race Its for fitness or to chase you much faster peeps and to try and stay away from you other slower but rapidly improving peeps.

For me it was when they did that zwift event in New York with a lot of the most successful racers. I’d been vaguely following the races on zwift before then. But when it turned out a few of the recognisable zwift racers had blatantly been weight doping I realised that unless everyone is in the same room using the same equipment you just have to take it all with a large pinch of salt.

Whats up with the wahoo kicker. I thought that was one of the more reliable trainers?

 

[bridgy]

I think it's a good question @<Tommy> and I was thinking the same myself the other day.

At our level - firstly people are competitive and as we know, not only look for every possible advantage, but also every possible excuse! While power innacuracies between trainers is definitely a real issue I can't help thinking it's something that's often latched onto and exaggerated by people wanting to justify their (lack of) performance! (Not really meaning anyone here, more the Facebook groups etc). For example we've had several real world rides together now with people we've met on here. Has anyone ever been noticeably different in their relative real world performance than online - despite some definite innacuracies from trainers over the years going right back to the Bkool days? I'd say no - everyone's performed in the real world pretty much exactly as you'd expect. So my point is, even as things are the innacuracies are actually pretty minor factors compared to the main things of individual fitness and weight (as well as other variables like how clean/efficient your drivetrain is etc. etc.) And it's not like it's a level playing field in the real world either - some people can afford much better equipment that others which I presume can give a few extra watts too (yes I'm looking at your carbon bling @<Tommy> )

At the more serious level - there is some pretty serious talk of Zwift racing trying to get into the olympics(!!), as well as the national and world champs thing they're now doing. If they're trying to do this properly at that level, they will just have to address some of the issues of trainer innacuracy etc. or be a laughing stock. Anything they do at that level is likely to eventually filter down to the likes of us, and that will be a good thing. At the moment it's hard to see how it can ever be made super accurate and fair - but who knows? I look forward to seeing what kind of solutions they come up with in terms of software and hardware technology over the next few years to reduce innacuracy and/or cheating - I'm sure they will.

 

[peterob]

For me it was when they did that zwift event in New York with a lot of the most successful racers. I’d been vaguely following the races on zwift before then. But when it turned out a few of the recognisable zwift racers had blatantly been weight doping I realised that unless everyone is in the same room using the same equipment you just have to take it all with a large pinch of salt.

Whats up with the wahoo kicker. I thought that was one of the more reliable trainers?

I've got the Kickr v1 (Andy's old one) and have found that until it is warmed up it over-reports the power a fair bit. Once warmed, it seems pretty accurate compared to my vectors.

Hence I always use my vectors now. Unfortunately the power matching doesn't work well with SF, so I can't use ERG mode with them.

 

[Joffey]

Just signed up to the 11:00 stage 5 NY race. Legs very tired. Will have to set trainer to about 20% else there is no way I'll get over those lumps today. I'll do my best to set a decent C time to chase, but I apologise now if I fail miserably 😢

What does 'set my trainer to 20%' mean? I have a Tacx Flux S and I have no idea if and how I can alter the settings or what these do. Could I have my settings on 100% and if I dropped them to 20% be a Cat A?

I honestly have no idea what or when or why you can / would change the settings. HELP!

 

[JuhaL]

How many of you guys are using separate powermeter instead of trainers powermeter?, i do that every now and then. Today i have a plan to compare power readings between Quarq DZero and Drivo 2 trainer when i do my todays Trainerroad workout.

 

[bridgy]

What does 'set my trainer to 20%' mean? I have a Tacx Flux S and I have no idea if and how I can alter the settings or what these do. Could I have my settings on 100% and if I dropped them to 20% be a Cat A?

I honestly have no idea what or when or why you can / would change the settings. HELP!

He means the "difficulty" setting in the settings on Zwift. No unfortunately it won't make you faster, it just reduces the resistance changes on the hills if you reduce difficulty (effectively it's just changing your gearing). Have a read of this article which will probably explain it best - https://zwiftinsider.com/using-the-trainer-difficulty-setting-in-zwift/

Personally I tend to race with it at about 30% as this gives means I don't need to ever change into the small front ring which is more efficient in a race. I put it back up to 100% when I'm just pootling around not racing so that it's more realistic.

 

[Whorty]

What does 'set my trainer to 20%' mean? I have a Tacx Flux S and I have no idea if and how I can alter the settings or what these do. Could I have my settings on 100% and if I dropped them to 20% be a Cat A?

I honestly have no idea what or when or why you can / would change the settings. HELP!

It's the 'reality' setting in Zwift, used for smart trainers. Unfortunately it doesn't make you any faster; what it does is change the feel of hills. At 100% at 10% incline feels like 10%, but at 20% that same hill, on your trainer, will feel like a 2% gradient. Zwift speed is based on watts, weight and incline; changing the reality doesn't alter any of this, but it will make it easier to keep pedalling when you hit the big inclines (and hence less chance of grinding to a stop).

The default setting in Zwift is 50%, so if you've never changed this it will still be at 50%. That means, for you, all hills feel half as steep as they would in the real world

Some equate the reality slider to changing the rear cassette to give more gears and hence to allow more spinning and less grinding.

Plenty on ZwiftInsider etc on this - have a read.

 

[bridgy]

An irony of the difficulty slider is that while most people think less difficulty = easier, with some of the more innacurate wheel-on trainers (eg bkool) you actually do potentially get an advantage, but with the slider at 100%max rather than reducing it, particularly if you're a heavier rider. This is becuase there's a limit to how much resistance the trainer can apply, and the official maximum slope figures are always for a really light rider to make it sound better. This means on the steeper slopes the trainer max's out resistance at 10% for example, but Zwift doesn't know this so gives you the benefit of power/speed based on the actual slope of say 14%. With the difficulty slider reduced you stay within the resistance tolerance of the trainer so its not so much of a problem.

 

[<Tommy>]

I think it's a good question @<Tommy> and I was thinking the same myself the other day.

At our level - firstly people are competitive and as we know, not only look for every possible advantage, but also every possible excuse! While power innacuracies between trainers is definitely a real issue I can't help thinking it's something that's often latched onto and exaggerated by people wanting to justify their (lack of) performance! (Not really meaning anyone here, more the Facebook groups etc). For example we've had several real world rides together now with people we've met on here. Has anyone ever been noticeably different in their relative real world performance than online - despite some definite innacuracies from trainers over the years going right back to the Bkool days? I'd say no - everyone's performed in the real world pretty much exactly as you'd expect. So my point is, even as things are the innacuracies are actually pretty minor factors compared to the main things of individual fitness and weight (as well as other variables like how clean/efficient your drivetrain is etc. etc.) And it's not like it's a level playing field in the real world either - some people can afford much better equipment that others which I presume can give a few extra watts too (yes I'm looking at your carbon bling @<Tommy> )

At the more serious level - there is some pretty serious talk of Zwift racing trying to get into the olympics(!!), as well as the national and world champs thing they're now doing. If they're trying to do this properly at that level, they will just have to address some of the issues of trainer innacuracy etc. or be a laughing stock. Anything they do at that level is likely to eventually filter down to the likes of us, and that will be a good thing. At the moment it's hard to see how it can ever be made super accurate and fair - but who knows? I look forward to seeing what kind of solutions they come up with in terms of software and hardware technology over the next few years to reduce innacuracy and/or cheating - I'm sure they will.

I agree. Well apart from the bit about the carbon bling

 

[BurningLegs]

@Joffey - worth considering the maximum gradient simulation ability of your trainer. I have an entry level Tacx trainer too and think it has a max gradient simulation of 6% so with my Zwift setting at 50% I can feel a change in gradient upto 12% but any steeper than that and the resistance doesn't change, I just climb slower!

With that in mind, I think that setting is more relevant to those with higher end trainers that can go up to 20% or close to.