It’s absolutely not psychological. I most often do not look at the gradient, and sometimes I don’t even look at the ZwiftApp during workouts. I only look at the ZwiftApp the entire time during workouts if it is a group workout or if there are stupid cadence targets to hit and I actually give a care about those targets on that day.
It has been happening for a very long time.
If you tend to spin faster while riding, you’ll be less likely to notice. If you pedal at around 72rpm average like I do, you’re far more likely to notice. If I force my cadence higher, then I can reduce this - but then the workout gets annoying because I’m staring at the stupid coach dialog that I most often get annoyed by. There shouldn’t be a resistance feedback “feel” difference in gradient.
You can check out the threads on 1.69 and 1.68 and 1.70 and see others’ comments about it. I started posting about this after someone else did.
I brought it up two years ago and thought it may have something to do with ERG Mode Smoothing but I know Tacx Neo2T users who expressed this, and the workouts feel so terrible on varying terrain, and unless I set it on something like Alpe or Oh Hill No or Climb Portal, it’s very noticeable. I often pick Neon Flats as a route so I can somewhat enjoy the workouts, but even the gradient changes there cause this to occur.
I can also confirm it in the FIT files of the workouts following the elevation gradient changes.
You can see it clearly with these videos I took on 5 October 2023, without shifting:
Higher gradient = higher cadence at same target average power.
The team should do some due diligence to investigate.
indieVelo does NOT do this. Zwift does.
If you shift way up into a “harder” gear it lessens the effect but does not eliminate it.
Zwift has the best workout library and I want to enjoy it without having to go into other apps.