Hi there,
Sorry for bad English.
Is it ok, set trainer sesistance as “free ride” on 1minute max effort at 65rpm after 3 minute ramp up in this workout? These 65rpm effort in “free ride” resistance was very easy, was like rest. Some one who was prepearing this workout made mistake? Is there any sense to ride at 65rpm on free ride mode in this workout?
I had the same issue on this workout. The 1 min “Free Ride” after the 3 min ramp up was supposed to be as hard as possible. But if I kept at the 65 rpm it was super easy. Is there a way to manually ramp up the watt effort?
I had exactly the opposite, once I got into the Freeride section, the trainer went into a similar thing to ERG mode and made it impossible for me to carry on, I just had to battle through the ‘spiral of death’ 5 or 6 times, to get through the minute of Freeride.
I was also experiencing the same thing. It seems like the Free Ride is in ERG mode and depending on where you are on the track it might be super easy or really hard. Keeping 65 rpm while it’s -8% is not really hard… 2 out 3 Free Rides where really simple and as a result the whole training was not that challenging.
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Hi, yes I just did this workout and experienced exactly the same thing. Once in the 1 minute freeride I got the impression it was meant to be hard and you had to give your max watts at 65rpm. But even though the workout was in erg mode its like it turned erg mode off for the freeride and it was impossible to do high watts at 65rpm… it was more like I was rolling down a hill and just rotating the pedals with ease. If I tried to give more watts I would exceed 65rpm instantly.
I just did this session and was totally disappointed. Same experience. “Max effort” was easier than the 3 minute ramp. I tried out smarting it thinking maybe I should start the ramp in an easy gear, an drop to harder gears to make it harder. That was dumb as it’s dumping you out of ERG mode and into “Free ride” so it reacts to the terrain.
Is it supposed to be on a specific track, or route?
I thought the first session was good so I decided to stick with the whole plan, but if they’re this dumb there’s no point
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Same here - I think the “1min free ride @ 65rpm” is broken. Hurt me knees trying to go that slow with no resistance 
I had the same issue. All I can think of is doing that workout on Alpe du Zwift so you can have a constant uphill grade in the free ride part.
Absolutely, or Mountain 8, or anything with a sustained climb
BUT
If that’s what it takes then why don’t they have “suggested routes” in the work out.
The guy that designed the workout had to have a route in mind.
This was created for MTB so you would think it’s designed for a single front chainring, and not a bike with a 60 tooth 2nd ring that can produce power going downhill.
Just to confirm for Zwift engineers, this is STILL a problem (1-25-23). Did the workout today, whilst the screen text was indicating the four one-minute “Free Ride” sections were supposed to be quite a challenge, I wasnt able to exceed 100 Watts (my FTP is ~255) at 65 RMP on the smallest chainring. Feels like a huge waste of a 45 minute workout, missing the key effort pieces – and knowing that Zwift has known about it 2 years and hasn’t set a “ticket” to fix it, but is happy to charge me $15/month anyway, is kind of gross.
Did you increase the resistance using the companion app incline button to a point where it was hard?
It took me a bit to process on the first rep–I was expecting resistance to increase at 65 RMP until I slowed and then decrease to let me keep around 65 (or … something like that). On the second time through, when I hit the minute free ride I hit the screen on my phone (iPhone) to get the blue arrows at the bottom, then kept clicking the blue up arrow – I’d say 5-7 times at least, and the resistance did not increase – there was no difference. However, when I came out of that minute I noticed that the “easy” three minute segment had moved up to 110 watts (from 105 initially), so the blue up arrow had done something, and the erg was keeping me at 110 watts there, it just didn’t accomplish anything during “free ride.” That wattage increase carried over to the next “ramp up” segment" – which started at a higher wattage than my first go-two ramp ups --so I finished that ramp up under more strain (which was fine) but when I got to the third “free ride” minute there was nothing – I even tried dropping to my smallest back gear but at 65 RPM I was bobbing up and down around 100 watts, depending on the incline/decline. That same scenario continued through the final ramp-up & free ride (increased wattage during the “easy” and “ramp up” but almost no resistance spinning 65 for the free ride minute).
Not the blue up arrow, the incline button (or the ± key on the keyboard). You will see an orange resistance bar to the right of the data screen at the top of the screen.
EDIT: Tested this morning and it seem like the ± button did not make a difference, I don’t know if this is related to the ERG bug currently.
- Thanks for digging into this – it is appreciated!
- I’m using an iPhone so no keyboard. I feel like that may be typical, I know a few dozen folks who zwift and all seem to run it off their phone or an iPad, and cable or cast to a TV for better viewing.
- I don’t see an “incline” button – I’ve got the “>|” button, which seems to skip ahead a segment, the pause/play button, the “erg is on” button, Up arrow, down arrow (to increase wattage), camera zoom button, turn around button, group text button and screenshot button.
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I will do a few more tests and will post a screen shot of the companion app with options to change the resistance.
I got experience after over two years of training with two trainers and had many competitions with result 5-13 place /over 200 people. I can tell you now, dirt destroyer with free ride when shlould be max effort is a waisting of time.
Just did this workout for the first time. The first free ride threw me for a loop. What I tried was making sure I was going up an incline when I got to that section. The steeper the better. I had to do a few u turns in the ramp up. Next time I will pick a steady climb route with lots of elevation gain.
I’ve just done this workout and was so disappointed as I had the same problem, they should do away with the free ride and adjust it to power output with a cadence of 65, I was just spinning out
I did this specific workout this afternoon. If you happen to be on a climb you can do high watts otherwise not. But why is it done like this?? couldn’t they just set a minute with over 100% increase in FTP? Basically, however, not even 1h30m of free riding during the training plan makes sense. If I make a plan I want each daily session to be well structured!
This is still broken as of 14Mar2024. The free ride needs to be removed or reworked so that it can demand a consistent amount of power and not demand on the terrain being ridden. As is, these free ride intervals gut the whole point of the workout.
Zwift, please do better! This has clearly been broken for years.