Hi Zwifters, my name is Evan and I’m an engineering director at Zwift, and I’d like to give you a brief update on our recent game releases.
Shortly after we started the 1.57 game release on January 23, we received a few customer reports of potential issues with trainer resistance, with several reports coming from individuals who were using the Tacx FLUX S trainer. Out of an abundance of caution, we rolled back the 1.57 release so we could safely investigate these reports. In the interim period, we released a small update 1.57.3 on Jan 31.
Today’s release of version 1.58 includes all of the changes that were originally scheduled to go live in 1.57 (you can see a list of those changes here), plus the new changes that are listed in Shuji’s post above.
Over the past several weeks, our teams performed a thorough investigation into potential resistance issues, including working directly with customers and collaborating with the great team at Garmin Tacx. Overall, we were not able to reliably reproduce issues with trainer resistance in Zwift. However, we did put some additional protections in place in game version 1.58 to help mitigate potential issues like this in the future.
For individuals who experience resistance issues, we have a few recommendations:
Several customers that we worked with were able to resolve their resistance issues by performing a calibration routine for their trainer using the appropriate manufacturer’s app. For Tacx FLUX S users, you can download the Tacx Training™ App that is available from Garmin on Apple App Store and Google Play Store and follow the in-app instructions to perform a calibration.
For individuals using Tacx FLUX trainers in ERG mode (e.g. workouts in Zwift), we discussed with the team at Garmin Tacx and confirmed that some level of mechanical shifting is always required to adhere to power levels at the upper/lower end of the ranges for this trainer, which is covered in more detail on this Garmin support page. This means that if you are having difficulty reaching power targets in ERG mode, shifting to a higher gear is required if the power targets are in the upper end of the range, and shifting to a lower gear is necessary to hit power targets in the lower end of the range.
Thanks for your patience as we tested for these potential issues. We have a ton of great features in the works for you this year, as well as significant ongoing investments into improving existing issues and quality-of-life improvements in Zwift.