bobinski
Legendary Member
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Why not at least list the trainer models used in a race, like on BKOOL? Doing automated performance downgrade on specific trainer models wouldn’t work - or would at least be very difficult to do fair/correct. The old Bkool Pro sometimes was fine in the watts and sometimes off, as I expect other cheap (wheel-on) trainers to be as well. How can you tell if the watts reported are real or not and when to apply the downgrade?
The BKOOL Smart Bike also (always?) sometimes reports 20-30% more watts than really produced, and I suspect lots of other home trainers of that kind may do the same.
I think it‘s just Zwift not wanting to aggrevate their users and thus maybe loose subscribers. Likewise they don’t want to discredit XYZ trainer brand, as any trainer bought is a potential Zwift customer. This may change when/if they start making their own home trainers. Eric didn’t really answer that question in the interview.
Bkool was actually pretty bold when they changed their speed/watts algorithm this past fall, aggrevating a lot of old users as they suddenly no longer were watt monsters.However, the different revisions of the Pro etc. reacted different to the new algorithm, and some actually became useless. It is BKOOL after all.
But those of us using a direct drive trainer however were glad to see the changes, as it allowed for fair racing again.
I am tempted to agree but they could do it “fairly” with a background % change with most peeps being none the wiser. Kickr 1 on original firmware? Knocking it down x% I am talking about levelling the playing field in circumstances where it isn’t level not looking for absolute accuracy. Personally I think absolute accuracy on an online platform is a rabbit hole. But you can make it fairer. Wheel on trainers? Zpower? Do something similar.
We could see the return of bkool 😉😂 I was reading about the new drafting algorithm. I wish Wahoo or trainer road would buy them.
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