Hey Guys,
quick one - do you need to change gears in races or does it work like ERG mode?
Cheers!
hi,
You’ll need to change gears. Depending on where you set your difficulty slider will also effect how much you have to change gears. Lower = less gear changes but you will have to produce the same power whatever setting you have it at.
thank you, guess some day I really need to buy something else than a singlespeed 
single speed will work but yeah you would probably enjoy a geared bike better for zwift. Does not need to be anything fancy if just using indoors. 2nd hand bike for trainer
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Yea, I am probably buying a beginner Cube like the Attain, so it’s nothing too expensive but also it makes fun to take outside. I am in 500km on a Singlespeed right now on Zwift and it is okay-ish, however it is really annoying to ride anything but ERG
Just to be clear: having a single speed does not mean you have to ride in ERG. It does mean that you would need to pedal faster/slower to change speeds, but your power would increase/decrease accordingly. In ERG mode you would just be at the same power at whatever cadence you pedal.
In other words, unless I’m misunderstanding, riding the single speed bike in Zwift, is just like it would be riding it outdoors? Probably makes sense to have the trainer difficulty on a single speed down around 20-30% especially if the race is occurring on a hillier route.
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To my knowledge you can not use ERG mode in races as there is no set power that it is trying to get you to ride to, unlike a planned workout. I have a 60t 1x chainring on my bike at the moment as I’ve been racing IRL so when I jump on Zwift I’ve turned the trainer difficulty down next to zero (maybe 5%ish) so I don’t run out of easy gears when the virtual road tilts upwards.
I also have the VeloBike adapters for my track bike to which I’ve used on Zwift but I haven’t been brave enough to race on the single setup yet. Even with the low TD setting shifting is nice.
I did not know about the difficulty setting, however it all sounds like it is possible, but to get real into it, gears are highly advised
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you can turn td down to 0 or 10% and your trainer, if it’s a DD, will pretty much mimic a fluid trainer with exponential resistance. i do that even though i have gears mainly because i like to train like a track sprinter. but unless you are turning a big gear and are happy with sub 70 cadence between climbs then you probably won’t be able to do much in the sprint
if your gear is small i would just leave it high, you will be pedalling at a range of cadences but that is not a bad skill to learn