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Discussion starter · #81 ·
Discussion starter · #82 ·
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Discussion starter · #83 ·
I had wondered about some of the folks I see in Zwift including locals that I KNOW I can outride yet they were crushing it in Zwift.

I know one local guy that comes to our group rides and is a good C+- B ( 15-17 mph avg )pace rider and in Zwift is crushing 24-26 mph rides @ 3.5-4 w/kg.avg. He's NOWHERE close to that in the real world. Sad... In his case I'm quite sure it's his setup and not so much intentionally cheating. It's in part the lack of a smart trainer and his numbers are just not set up properly.

 
Discussion starter · #84 ·
And on the other hand
 
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..... I know one local guy that comes to our group rides and is a good C+- B ( 15-17 mph avg )pace rider and in Zwift is crushing 24-26 mph rides @ 3.5-4 w/kg.avg. He's NOWHERE close to that in the real world. Sad... In his case I'm quite sure it's his setup and not so much intentionally cheating. It's in part the lack of a smart trainer and his numbers are just not set up properly.
Since not everyone has $1,000 plus bucks to throw down on a smart trainer just to ride against a video. And besides the people (mentioned above) putting in a lower weight to cheat, it's just as easy to cheat with a non-smart trainer by not having enough tension on the rear wheel. These are a few reasons why I can't understand the reason everyone is so gung-ho on this stuff when you, in fact, are not really riding with other people so you don't even know if they are cheating or not. In actuality, someone could even be on a smart trainer riding an ebike and nobody will know the difference.

While I'm sure that most Zwift riders don't willingly cheat, it's just too easy to do so since no one can physically see you. And these are some of the reasons why I don't understand why so many cyclists get so hung up on this virtual riding. Maybe I'm getting too old. :confused:
 
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Discussion starter · #87 ·
I ride a dumb trainer on TrainerRoad. Bury myself on an FTP test, and then just hit the watt target on the workouts. Pretty basic.
Any workout is good. Coming out in spring and getting your backside handed to you sucks! I got on the Wahoo train a couple of years ago and I'll just say it's made a world of difference for me. Everybody may not want or need that. I rode rollers, and still have them, for a couple of years and those worked for some things but not really being able to increase power of really endurance and those are the two biggest things I wanted to concentrate on.

When you look at getting back out and riding in the spring this has enabled me to be ready for those early spring group rides.

It's almost like getting ready for a big race. I did a particular workout series to increase my FTP last year and it made a huge difference. The problem was I started to early in the winter and "peaked" late spring instead of mine summer. I still had a better than average summer for myself. I see people that keep getting FTP increases in December and wonder of they canker that up or are they peaking way too early?

I plan to do the same w week plan but will wait until the end of January or the beginning of February to bury myself in it.
 
TrainerRoad consists of structured plans that start with laying a base, building on it, and then fine tuning your fitness to arrive in peak condition for a goal event. Base is anywhere from 12 to 16 weeks, build is 8 weeks, followed by specialty which is 8 weeks. As such the entire course is 28-32 weeks. There are low, mid, and high volume plans that range from 3 rides at 3.5 hours per week to 5-6 rides at about 9 hours per week. I do low volume as I still ride outside 1-2 days per week during the course of completing the three phases. Ideally if you want to be in top shape for a goal event you just count backward 28-32 weeks before the event and begin the program at that time

The premise is that fitness gains occur as a result of workouts focusing on a percentage of your functional threshold power, or FTP, basically your "hour power" or what your best effort in a one hour time trial would be. Your FTP is tested not by riding all out for an hour but by either an hour long workout in which you do 2 efforts at 8 minutes or one effort at 20 minutes, or by a "ramp test" where power rises 6% percent every minute and you ride until failure. Your FTP is extrapolated from your watts on those efforts and that number guides the remaining workouts in the plan. Endurance rides are maybe 50-70% FTP, and those percentages rise through sub-threshold, threshold, super-threshold, VO2 max, and anaerobic efforts, with the harder workouts left to the build and specialty phases. Plan workouts range from 30 minutes to two hours for the most part. There is no workout shorter than an hour nor longer than 90 minutes in the low volume plan, until the last week of specialty when you taper and the rides are 30-45 minutes.

FTP is re-tested at the end of base, build, and specialty to track your improvements. There is a recovery week every 4th week in the plans to guard against over doing it.
I started what's called Sweet Spot base 1 in mid November, which lasted 6 weeks. I just started Sweet Spot base 2 and a new FTP test showed a quite modest 4 watt improvement. This is my second year with TrainerRoad. I am definitely the fittest I've been in years. I was pretty fit to begin with, so my gains are incremental, but they are there. I'm no longer dropped by some guys who used to drop me, for example (although some guys still do drop me).

When I completed the three phases last year I did all my riding outside. I would do an occasional TR workout on rainy days or if I was time crunched and couldn't get outside. That meant that my rides from late May through mid-November were all outside. Structured training probably isn't everyone's cup of tea. I really like it. I get to make the most of the limited time I have to ride, about 325 hours for 2018.
 
I've been giving a good look at smart, interactive trainers and/or a better computer and using my standard (dumb) trainer.

With a new computer (a few hundred dollars), I can use my current trainer and let the fancy computer send the info to Zwift.

Or, and the reason for this post, correct me if I'm wrong, I could spend a few hundred dollars on a smart, interactive trainer (on the low end of the spectrum), and let THE TRAINER send the data to Zwift.

Is that right?
It seems like the info. I've read is saying the smart trainer has speed, power, etc built in and sends to devices via Bluetooth or ENT.

If I'm reading this correctly, I could get a trainer that automatically adjusts according to the Zwift terrain and understands the input from the bike. Therefore, I wouldn't need a fancy computer as well. Right?
 
Discussion starter · #90 ·
I've been giving a good look at smart, interactive trainers and/or a better computer and using my standard (dumb) trainer.

With a new computer (a few hundred dollars), I can use my current trainer and let the fancy computer send the info to Zwift.

Or, and the reason for this post, correct me if I'm wrong, I could spend a few hundred dollars on a smart, interactive trainer (on the low end of the spectrum), and let THE TRAINER send the data to Zwift.

Is that right?
It seems like the info. I've read is saying the smart trainer has speed, power, etc built in and sends to devices via Bluetooth or ENT.

If I'm reading this correctly, I could get a trainer that automatically adjusts according to the Zwift terrain and understands the input from the bike. Therefore, I wouldn't need a fancy computer as well. Right?
You are absolutely correct. I can only speak for the Wahoo but it does, power, speed, cadence. It also tracks distance and elevation gain for that simulated ride.

You need no other bike computer, BUT you will need a dongle ( https://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&k...targid=kwd-66262713901&ref=pd_sl_8rt26767nb_b) and probably a six ft cable to get from your computer to a location close to the trainer.

The other option is to use BLE stuff as in cadence and HRM which I have no experience with but should be easy to do. I "go to" this guy for all my computer techie stuff. He puts it all at a level easy to understand with "pictures" :D

I actually ran into a BLE issue with something I got for Christmas and this BLE explanation tells you why I could not see that device when I tried to pair my new Bose BLE with my laptop
 
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Great!
My reading comprehension is improving.

Thanks for the additional info., guidance and video tip Rola.

Do you know if a smart TV can be used, instead of a computer or iPad? I'm thinking it would be awesome in front of the big screen.
 
Discussion starter · #92 ·
Great!
My reading comprehension is improving.

Thanks for the additional info., guidance and video tip Rola.

Do you know if a smart TV can be used, instead of a computer or iPad? I'm thinking it would be awesome in front of the big screen.
Sure you can use a smart TV but just not instead of! I just don't know of any that can or will run Zwift as an app and by that I mean, for example, you can use the latest version of Apple TV and it has the app built in, or can be downloaded to it. There is a caveat to using this option tho. BLE only as Apple TV doesn't support ANT+


I currently use my Mac and the older version of Apple TV and "cast" Zwift to my TV using ANT+
 
Discussion starter · #93 ·
Don't forget the companion app on your phone a well. Hurry up and get it so we can meet up and ride!
 
Discussion starter · #94 ·
Zwift sets new record of 10,453 "Zwifting now"
Yesterday Zwift recorded a new personal best: 10,453 active Zwifters. The previous record was somewhere in the 8,500 range, so our community didn’t just beat our personal best: we smashed it!

https://www.facebook.com/zwiftinsider/posts/2265767130415885

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Discussion starter · #95 ·
Been dealing with some frustrating drops in Zwift and it's very hard to isolate a network issue vs a device issue which I suppose in the end could be considered one in the same. I think of a network issue being latency, ping times, packet loss type of issue in an environment like this game. A device being your smart trainer, cadence, and HR devices be them Ant+ or BLE.

I was show this site today and I can see my Wahoo is dropping pretty frequently, very frustrating to deal with.

https://zwiftalizer.com/

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Discussion starter · #97 ·
I used to use this and they shut down and I guess they are back now, pretty cool stats esp. for races
zwiftpower.com
 
Hope this isn't too off-topic - I got my Beta code for CVRCade and gave it a try. Graphics definitely are not as good as Zwift and some of the stuff is a bit laggy - not complaining as it is an early Beta and it will be interesting to see how it progresses compared to Zwift.
Very heavy load on the computer, main system worked fine but a lot of resources used. Tried on secondary computer and it would not load the worlds/tracks/whatever.
Usage-wise I didn't get a chance to try too much of the training except quick tests and then duckign back out to try something else.
 
Discussion starter · #99 ·
Zwift is making leaps and bounds forward and the racing community has become a huge aspect of it. I still like the workout series as well as events like the ongoing TdZ

https://www.cyclingweekly.com/cycling-weekly/zwifts-virtual-racing-pros-future-cycling-405803

Britain’s first Tour de France winner Sir Bradley Wiggins and Dimensions Data’s Steve Cummings were invited along to help launch this latest innovation in a sport so deeply rooted in its own tradition.

On Wednesday night, riders from Team Wiggins–Le Col were lined up in the Pinarello store to race, while other pros – from teams including Cofidis, Israel Cycling Academy and Madison-Genesis – loaded up their smart trainers across the world to hit the slopes of Watopia, Zwift’s virtual homeworld.
 
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Discussion starter · #100 · (Edited)
There's probably a better place for this but as I have been on call and can't stray far from home (I only have 10 minutes to respond to an outage) I did a zwift ride the other night.

I saw this guy coming up on me from like a 2:30 back and I was watching his power output. This dude had a 5.0 w/kg for as long as I could watch him. Never 5.1 or 4 or 4.5 but a STEADY 5.0. That's like almost impossible, NOBODY is that smooth, watts change relatively quickly so it really caught my eye when this guy just cooked it at the most steady 5.0 w/kg for over 5 minutes that I could see him AND he was at 42.2 miles, it was insane. I'm calling doping! I tried to find him in Strava with no luck...wonder why :D

I guess it's always possible some pro could do that but...

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