Difficulty climbing on Wattbike Atom

General Discussion
1

Been using a Wattbike Atom since Feb 24 and I love it, it is great. Aside from the physical set up checking the Fireware was up to date I have done nothing to it and ridden it out of the box. When I ride I connect directly to the Zwift game.

My problem is I find really, steep climbs mighty hard work even in gear 1 and I can’t turn much above gear 16 when sprinting. I suspect there may be a way to change the gearing. While its usually been okay racing as there is a climbing gear I can spin - even if it s gear 1, there are time it is a challenge e.g the radio tower section on the Epic KOM at 15 %

I usually spin 2.0wkg at 90-95 rpm in gear 8 and am 77kg.

Is there an option to change the gearing to something easier as I have several top end gears spare for sprinting.

Thanks

2

There’s no setting in Zwift that will adjust the base level of resistance you get on all terrain but if you only have a problem when climbing then you could lower the Trainer Difficulty setting which will scale the gradient sent to the trainer and make the hill effectively less steep both up and down, so you get less resistance on the uphill part, more resistance on the downhill part, and no change in resistance on flat roads since there is no gradient to scale.

3

Hi @_Swanny_GXY_CAY , Welcome to the forums!
I’m Fernanda, from Zwift.

As @Paul_Southworth is informing, the trainer difficulty is a great way to get a lighter experience when climbing, this setup is general, Lowering your Trainer Difficulty decreases resistance changes on hills. In easy words, you still have to put in the same amount of power to get up (and down) the hill, but you will “feel” the hill less.

To get to this setup on your Zwift game, you will need to go to settings in the game, however, you need to accomplish the pairing of your Wattbike first, and then this setting will be available:

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Give it a try!

4

Hi @Paul_Southworth & @FernandaA

Thanks for your replies. I eventually found this help on the Wattbike site and tried it out this morning.

Search Wattbike blogs product-guides customise-your-virtual-gearing (I cant post the full link)

Semi-compact and climbing are pretty similar, for me, they ride as Wattbike linear gearing +10.
Tested the 17% climb section on NY - great with the climbing setup - still had 3 or 4 gears to go up to if needed.

Thanks again

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