With the number of oddities in Zwift, this is the one at the top of anyone’s list? I’m still trying to figure out why anyone would care. Could we also filter the people who are faster than me? They really annoy me. They minimize my suffering.
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Well Robert,
This is an easily fixable thing, changing the route to cyclists only, and if those people that were faster than you were faster because of a flaw in the system, then I’d say your comment would be accurate.
It appears there are at least 31 people that agree with this sentiment, but thank you for your value add comment.
I see 0 votes for your request, where are you getting 31 from?
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How do you figure 31 people agree with you? I see zero votes for this change
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Interesting. I hadn’t even paid attention to the vote being different from the likes to my initial request. Haven’t even noticed the vote button until you (both) pointed that out. I was referring to that number. Perhaps a feature request for the forum, clarify those two.
Either way. This conversation has now derailed from anything substantive.
To be honest, I’m not sure zwift look at this forum for feature requests anyway. If anyone has any evidence of a request happening, zwift responding to say “good idea we will get onto that” and then it happening within 5 years, I’d love to hear about it. It would give me the warm and fuzzies.
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Ryan:
The forum software reports the total number of “likes” for all the posts in the thread. At this moment there are 25 replies from 10 different forum users, the thread has been viewed 293 times, and those 25 replies have a total of 41 “likes.”
The real issue is why runners aren’t slowed by hills, which affects the experience for runners more than anything else. Excluding them from the road is, IMHO, irrelevant. If giant dinosaurs walking along the roadway don’t bother me, fast runners certainly won’t.
For runners being slowed by hills: if the treadmill inclines, then that’s taken care of. If the treadmill doesn’t incline, then the software could apply a speed adjustment, using one of the formulas available.
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Zwift has no way of telling if your treadmill inclination is changing or not.
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The Runn Smart Treadmill Sensor. sends inclination data.
There also seem to be “smart trainers” which can be controlled via bluetooth (like this one) but I’ve got no personal experience with them.
Sending is all fine - but nobody’s listening at the other end. Zwift does not handle the incline data from the (few) treadmills and sensors that broadcast it. Nor does it control the incline on the few treadmills that would allow it.
There’s been studies on how speed is affected by treadmill inclination, like this one.
So if I have a road inclination, I can calculate a theoretical speed reduction for the Zwift Road. Suppose this is 30%, so speed is 70% of normal.
Now I check the treadmill inclination. If this is the same as the road inclination, no problem. But if it differs, then I can calculate a speed reduction for the treadmill inclination. For example, suppose the treadmill is level. Then the speed will be 100% the flat speed.
So now I need to slow the pace of my runner in the game. In this example, I would multiply the treadmill speed by 70%.
Or perhaps the treadmill is inclined such that speed is theoretically reduced 15%. So speed at this inclination will be 85% of normal speed.
Then I need to adjust the runner’s speed by 70/85 = 82.3%.
So the game adjusts for differences between the treadmill incline and the road incline. For a bluetooth-controlled treadmill, where the game controls the incline, there would be no adjustment.
A further adjustment could be added for wind resistance, if there’s a model for this.
Zwift does not read this data from the very few treadmills and sensors broadcasting it. The rest falls off.
There are no such animals.
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I’m sure there are legal reasons why that type of treadmill doesn’t exist
On a bike trainer you can pedal at your own pace
On a treadmill, if it starts increasing incline, you can’t just run a little slower because the belt speed is set my the motor and not your legs.
Itd be a big liability as people may get thrown off the back of the mill as the incline increased
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A possible Bond scene comes to mind… Bond running treadmill, Blofeld remotely increases incline, further and further… panel in floor opens behind the treadmill revealing a pool of hungry sharks.
That’s a good point: can’t adjust incline without compensating with a speed change. But at least Zwift could get incline from the The Runn Smart or similar and adjust runner speed to a more realistic value for the effort.
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We know zwift currently doesn’t do that but if zwift wanted to then they could make it do that, or are you saying no treadmill (yet) outputs data?
I don’t buy the risk factor thing. I think they just haven’t gotten around to it. Running is still free.
We’ve gone from banning runners on AdZ to developing a feature-set for treadmills that have a marginal presence on the market. Solutions in search of problems.
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I got run past on my bike up a 13-15% grade in Tuscany in brutal heat. Not funny but then he turned and ran down and I carried on another 7km to the top and did 60km.
I’ve run past cyclists IRL too. It is a game though right. Does it even matter?!
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I am primarily a runner and am a cyclist second, and I can tell you that every time I run up the Alpe du Zwift, I use the inclination on my treadmill to match what’s shown (even though it is a super pain, because a lot of the time, the gradient changes every 2 to 5 seconds). I do go past some cyclists but some cyclists pass me. It’s not a nuisance: it is what it is, whether I’m a runner getting passed by a cyclist or a cyclist being passed by a runner.
If you ever get passed by Runner and want to know if he or she is using incline, just watch their speedometer the next time the road changes incline percentages. Any runner using incline controls will almost always change his or her speed when there is a 2-3% change in elevation or greater, regardless whether it is becoming steeper or less steep: The disparity is just too much, unless someone is doing a very specific work out. That might make it more clear to cyclists whether they are being passed by someone who’s running at 0% incline and on the Alpe for the view of that course, or whether it’s someone who is actually using incline the whole way up.
I’ve gone up Alpe du Zwift about a dozen times while running, usually two or three laps at a time (u-turning at the shark fin at the bottom), and enjoy that course more than any other mountain climb in Zwift. (A small group of us will be doing an Everest on it later this summer.) Please don’t take Alpe du Zwift away from us simply because you don’t like being passed by a runner who isn’t using incline. If I am using incline and pass you, would you want me taken away too?
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hey, you want an authentic real world experience on the Alpe, add a family of someone just behind you -a family who keep driving ahead of you and then pulling over to wait for and cheer for your dad -and so keep forcing you to pull out and swerve round them. again and again.
by comparison-some people running up the Alpe is something to be impressed by -it takes a lot of determination to run up it
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