I’m NOT criticizing Zwift, it might just be indoor training combined with climbing in general but something’s going wrong!
So last week I did a ride on the Scotland City and The Sgurr route. Rode up the Sgurr twice, was doing hill repeats but at the base of the second climb, the bike detached and screwed out of place. I got 8 miles and my goal was 20 so I did the rest outside. I told my dad what happened (he and I share an account) who was at work and it looks like the skewer got twisted. He made sure later that the bike was tight enough and used a new skewer.
That was on the 29th last month. Then I did a Zwift Run of 8 miles (not that it has to do anything with the bike) on Saturday and a 100K ride on Monday (Ocean Lava Cliffside Loop x5 to get the ToW stage done)! Both felt GREAT! Then today I did a 10K row (I’ve been doing this for a while because one of my goals this year is accumulate 1 million meters! Then I did part of an event in Bologna, felt great on the first part. Was going to continue after to get another 20 miles. But on the climb at around 14% grade I felt the bike was a little loose. Tightened it as much as I could, then continued on for a few seconds when: shake, shake… plop! I fell of the bike!!! Maybe it’s because of the grade? But also I’ve done the Radio Tower with NO PROBLEM AT ALL!!! What’s going on? Please help me.
Hi @Kirk_Schroeder, or is that your Dad?
First of all, if you are under 16 you can get a free Zwift account so you don’t need to share.
Second, what trainer are you using and what bike? I’ve never had my bike come off a trainer…
The name is under my dad’s account but we just share it. I’m 16 as of December 20 last year so this year I’ll turn 17. I started in 2019 with a free trial acct of my own (my dad as well) then after the trial we’ve just been sharing, then in December 2020 I got my own acct because we wanted to do meetups. For some reason the billing stopped in April-ish of 2021 so I’ve just been using this acct since then.
Back to the bike… I use a Wahoo KICKR. Never had problems with the bike coming off my hat I can think of. Done the radio tower which is steep and it didn’t come off then. Fast forward to Friday last week, decided to do reps of Scotland’s Sgurr. At mile 8 the bike felt off while coasting (on trainer so I don’t actually FLY off the bike at 30+ mph… thank goodness!), then on Monday I did a 100K on Ocean Lava Cliffside, that went great, did a outside run of 3 miles, was signed up for a Bologna event because I wanted to try the course, then on the STEEP CLIMB the bike fell off the trainer and we’re SURE I tightened it enough on Friday because my ride on Monday went well AND I have done the Radio tower so I don’t think it was the steepness of the climb (pushing HARD!).
You might need to take a trip to the bike shop with the bike and trainer for some troubleshooting advice. Overtightening QR skewers can result in them not holding tight, so that’s one possibility. And if by chance the frame has horizontal dropouts that can also make slippage more likely. Paint or other smooth surface on the faces of the dropouts can also make it more likely to slip. These problems are not super common on bikes with vertical dropouts.
Ok. The thing is when we tried to fix it on Friday after the first incident, it was plenty tightened (over tight… I don’t know if it was) and I did great on my 100K on Monday on Ocean Lava Cliffside Loop but today I’m having issues. So it just doesn’t make sense.
Definitely has vertical dropouts. I think you need the kind of support you can’t get on an Internet forum.
Also looks like you might need a new derailleur pulley if I’m seeing it correctly. Probably unrelated to the loosening issue…