Elite Rollers Support (Power Curves are Available from Elite)

The Archives Archived: Feature Requests
1

Please could we have support for Elite/Other rollers which have resistance. The Elite Arion Mag Rollers have resistance curve profiles which are available from the manufacturers webpage so a speed to power calculation has already been done. Many people prefer the natural road feel of rollers and Z power for generic rollers is a poor option with a watt cap at 400W. 

http://cdn.elite-it.com/sites/default/files/imagegallery/Arion-Mag.jpg

S

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2

Ditto on this, I used Zwift for about 5 minutes, I was destroying myself pushing over 300 watts (Speed/Resistance published Elite Power Curve) my avatar had me tootling along at a sedentary pace…

 

Until there is support for the Elite Rollers, Zwift unusable, I will continue with TrainerRoad, where it apperas to work quite nicely.

3

Hi,

I was hitting the same problem - riding Elite Arion Mag rollers seems to highly underestimate my power output. So I found the file with power curves of trainers supported by Zwift (in this thread: https://support.zwift.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/204551853-Trainer-Power-Curves), figured out the power curves for Elite Arion Mag from the chart and tried to find a supported trainer with a similar power curve. There is a very good match for  position “0” - Minoura B60 L-L - that’s within a few percent (apart from lower speeds) and a reasonable match for position “1” - CycleOps Magneto.

Here’s the document I worked this out in: https://docs.google.com/a/sedlacek.biz/spreadsheets/d/1MSBVytooQOyLc8fEb5kNnD8F5D9SJltMAH_ZxnkmR3I/edit?usp=sharing

It shows the error at each speed for various trainers with similar power curves. It also shows how massive the error is for the unlisted trainer and rollers.

I haven’t tried this yet but expect it will work much better than the Unlisted rollers I have been using so far.

Cheers
Pete

4

Thanks, I’ll have a look. The unlisted rollers is pointless. Obviously, Zwift should just sort it out!

 

Thanks again

 

John

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5

Hi,

I made changes to the document sharing so that anyone with the link can view without signing in to Google. I’m using Google Apps and the default was to share only within the organisation which I didn’t notice. Sorry for that.

 

Best regards

Pete

6

Petr

Do you think Zwift will create a proper profile for these rollers?

If so when?

PS

I ride position 2 as it represents the best match to a real road.

7

Hi all,

I rode today in position 0 with the Minoura B60 L-L trainer selected and the power displayed by Zwift is bang on to what the spreadsheet shows. Question is how far from reality it is - I wonder if the Elite Arion Mag power curve includes power required to move a bike on top of it. Either way the rider’s power output will also vary depending on bike quality, tyre pressure etc.

I will try to borrow a power meter to verify.

John,

Your guess is as good as mine… I’m not affiliated with Zwift, I’v just recently become their customer. Not sure why they didn’t do it yet for any rollers, it would be so easy for them. Perhaps some deal with makers of “proper” trainers?

I can try to find a supported trainer matching position 2 curve, but I expect the error to be greater, especially at lower speeds (which might not matter too much though).

By the way, I have a secret tinkering project  - to create an addon for “dumb” rollers/trainers that would consist of:

  • a speed sensor (hall effect sensor + magnet) attached to the roller,
  • an ANT+ radio module to emulate a power meter, and
  • a microcontroller (Arduino or similar) to continuously compute the current power output from the speed based either on a vendor-supplied power curve or even better a real one measured using a borrowed power meter

This should work with any rollers or unsupported trainers.

Additionally, I’d love to make an extension module  for this box for rollers/trainers with manually variable resistance consisting of:

  • a mechanical contraption to control the resistance (for our Arion Mag think stepper motor + threaded rod/leadscrew),
  • another ANT+ radio module (one could possibly do both, not sure) to receive ANT+ FE-C data (target grade) from Zwift

The resistance range would then be mapped onto a grade range. This would turn the rollers/trainer into a “smart” trainer.

Our Arion Mag doesn’t have a big resistance range (800 W max at 60 kph) but for many it might be sufficient (and definitely better than nothing). Or perhaps we could try to extend the range a bit by making the magnet stronger :wink:

Anyway, I wish I had more time for this. This feels like a project that could be successful on Kickstarter :slight_smile: Any input welcome.

Cheers
Pete

8

Dear Zwift team,

Please add support for the Arion Mag. I’m using the cycleops mag one as substitute now, but doesn’t feel very accurate at low speeds.

Thanks in advance,

Kris

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