Fat guy needing help

General Discussion
1

Hey Everyone

I’m new to Zwift and I could use some help/advice.

Full history below. the tl;dr is covid messed me up and I’m clawing back my health. I’ve been on a recumbent bike and I want to perform a similar workout I was doing on that bike. Which was a pretty mild up and down of resistance going from 70w-120w over 45 minutes.

In set up a custom workout. Very simple. warmup to 70w. Periodic increase up to 100w. Cool down for a few minutes. 20 min workout.

Problem is I have no resistance at all. Starting out I have to gun the thing to over 100w to begin moving, which hits an rpm I cannot sustain, especially as the resistance just vanishes. I try to force a slow RPM expecting the ERG setting thing to meet me half way with resistance. It does not and the in game bike stops while I’m still pedaling.

The low watts are needed, my ftp is around 80, and I don’t have the cardio health to push my hr over 160 for long. I’m just not there yet. The goal is to get a zwift workout i can do for 20 mins, push it 30, then push it to 40 then start increasing those watts. I need help making it happen though.

My health story for context

I use to be an alright athletic guy. Hiking, skiing, scuba the fun stuff. But Covid hit me in 22 and slammed me with months of pneumonia, I was bed locked. Got blood clots, survived a PE, and gained 60 lbs. 23 was a year spent trying to recover, but got a second round of clots that demolished my efforts again. Lovely Christmas present. A year ago from today, I was unable to walk to the back of a grocery store.

Now I can walk for a couple miles just fine. Thanks to my recumbent bike and a lot of regular walks. I’m down 17 lbs, my resting hr was almost 90, its now below 70, and I want to keep improving. I got friends who use zwift, sing its praises, and I want to do the things with them.

2

Why not just do a free ride? The you don’t need to worry about Erg mode. All you need to do is use your gearing and cadence to adjust the effort level.

3

Can you share details about the trainer you are using, and what you are running the game on? It sounds like the trainer might be disconnecting, but specific suggestions for troubleshooting depend on those details.

4

Fair question. I gave that a try, had to gear up a lot to find resistance and by then I wasn’t at a place to do that for 20 minutes, but its worth revisiting.

5

I’m using Zwift ride, Kickr core 2, using Microsoft Surface to play the program. Ordered it from zwift a week ago.

6

Do you know which Surface you have? They have made models with an Intel CPU (works with Zwift) and also with a Snapdragon CPU (not supported for Zwift and will not work well).

Since you are on Windows, I recommend uploading a Zwift log file to trainerdx.com so you can see whether there are any problems communicating with the trainer. If you do that and hit the Share button, you can post a link to the log report here for input. You may need to mangle the URL a little to get it to post, like stick a space in ‘https’ or something like that.

You should also use the Zwift Companion app to check for firmware updates to the Zwift Ride controls (in the Equipment menu) and use the Wahoo app to check for firmware updates for the trainer.

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7

Firmware is all up to date. Here’s the log from trainerdx /public/52cb85d0-89b1-44a5-a70b-9d9e8da46f86

8

OK so the laptop has an Intel CPU and is supported for running Zwift. There are no trainer disconnections in the report. There is a network interruption at around 11AM.

You do have the option to pair the trainer via Bluetooth instead of WiFi and I would try that as a troubleshooting step. I’m not sure that will make any difference but it’s worth trying.

3 Likes
9

I’ll give that try later. Thanks!

10

Bluetooth was the answer. Just did my first workout. Was fantastic. I still got to get used to it all but everything is working great. Thanks for all the help!

7 Likes
11

Ride on :+1::wink:

12

I’ve got nother to add here except to say… How awesoem is it that someone has come in asked for some help and some dudes from the internet have sorted him out, unreal. kudos to you, sir.

5 Likes
13

Zwift community is legit.

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14

Hi!

You could set trainer difficulty to zero or somewhere in between zero an full then you don’t have to bother switching gears. That could be of help. This will enable you to ride any course you like to. This way you won’t experience the challenges of the climbs but you won’t benefit as much from the slopes either.

1 Like