Hi everyone. I’m new to the forum and newbie to Zwift so I’ll appreciate your experience to valuate this thing:
Sometimes, when I’m on minor downhills and certain flats and i’m not working high -better said, i’m on easy pedaling, just releasing legs under 50 wats or so-, the rpm and the watts go to zero and my avatar stops, although I keep pedaling. I tried the most exhaustive given guidelines to catch a possible connection issue and nothing changed. Furthermore, I think it is not the case because I can replicate this whenever I want, regardless of the randomness of possible interferences.
As you can see in this video . https://youtu.be/7EvGa73CZwg . my avatar unclips although I’m still pedaling -I turned off the sound so you can hear the cadence-. Then I send a bunch of watts and the avatar backs to pedal but, as soon as the cadence and watts normalize again, it steps to ground again. Is this the normal behavior? Your comments would be very appreciated. thank u very much.
I’m using Wahoo Kickr Bike with latest firmware. It occurs the same in both iOS, Mac and Windows with latest OS and app version, as well as in Bluetooth direct pairing, via companion app or under Ant+
If you are using inbuilt cadence (which I think the Kickr bike has) then easy pedalling is likely not generating power changes for the sensors to register the cadence. Best to use external sensor Juan.
Do you at least have an external sensor yu can use to check against?
I’ll repeat it with ANT+ but, as I said, I could be pretty sure there’s nothing regarding communications. I even tested it under ethernet and with every phone, watches and any other wireless device at home turned off to eliminate potential interferences (everything but the ant+, with an extension cable just to the bottom of the Kickr bike). I’ll repeat it to see and post the log here. Thank you very much Gerrie
Thank you Dean. Yes, this tests are all with the inbuilt. I have an external one in my outdoor bike; I’ll attach it to this crank to see and I’ll post. Thank you.
Hi Dean. I just tested it with an external cadence sensor in the crank. it made sense really, even i got certain feelling while this test as if it actually stay pedaling a little bit more at lower watts, but finnaly I got the same so it seems better related just to the watts thing. Here you are in video; the cadence number remains counting but the rider stops [https://youtu.be/ljVj-QkH6oM](https://youtu.be/ljVj-QkH6oM) Thank u
Hi Gerrie, I tested it under ANT+. here is the log: https://zwiftalizer.com/public/ecf39967-9041-4ebf-b46d-9b0f489f179a
(by the end of the test, riders nearby got frost for a second and a real connection failure occurs, with devices shown as “no signal” in the pairing screen, but by that moment I have already experienced my stops a couple of times)
I don’t know exactly how to read it, but in the caption it says 0 Rx and 0 Tx errors, while in the charts below it shows fails about 6~9%, is that ok?
Not sure if this will help, but what gear ratio do you have set in the Kickr bike’s settings? Maybe it is too low a gear ratio? It sounds like the bike is spinning down as you soft pedal and the watts go to 0 due to no resistance, hence, the avatar stops.
That is not great but I can see that you did not have ANT dropouts and that is a good thing.
that is very strange it look like the bike just send 0 power and RPM. Do you have a bike computer that you can connect via ANT+ and see if the power on Zwift and the bike computer show the same?
yes, I already did it with the Element Bolt before, it also shown zeros at same points as Zwift. I’ll retry it the same paying attention to the cadence in the Element screen, but I think you can’t select separated sensors when Kickr bike is selected; it is the only sender both for the watts and for the cadence, no matter if you have a third cadence sensor paired.
Hi Mike. thank u. Certainly it is more usual in lower gears but this videos are recorded with middle gears. It is weird to see that when the avatar is stopped and I’m still pedaling, I just shift up one gear and the avatar returns to pedal -I feel a subtle resistance increment for a second then- but as soon as the resistance normalizes, the rider unclips to ground again.
yep, I think you’re right. But I have to say I also relived some of my outdoor routes, just by moving the Element to the Kickr Bike with the replay mode where the Element controls the kickr bike, and it worked correct there: easy pedaling drops watts, but while the cadence remains, the speed is positive and the distance keep adding, furthermore, when speed is about 3 kph or lower, you can feel a resistance increase well to move you to stop well to force a higher pedal (to avoid the unbalance, as you would do in real outdoors). That’s the only thing confusing me if this could regard a device issue, a Zwift bug managing data or a misconfiguration by my side.
One thing you could do to help validate where the issue is, is to repeat a ride like that ride in the video (or anything repeatable), dual record your ride with Zwift and your Element bolt (would have to use Ant+). When you see an instance in the ride where your avatar stops but you are still spinning, take a note of the time. Do this a few times.
Then finish the ride and grab the fit files from Zwift and Wahoo. If its Zwift, then you should see an inconsistency in the data (cadence/power) in the Zwift fit file and not the Wahoo. I’ve used fitfileviewer.com in the past which should do the job.
thanks for the point, Dean. I’ll do it later today an we’ll see, but I think in other tests I made with both Zwift and Element, this last was shown 0 watts at same moments as Zwift, so it would indicate a more probable Kickr bike issue. But that was with Element in passive mode, and I’m not sure if there is any other mode that I can use to obtain certainty because as soon as you pair the Bike with Zwift, this catch it as controlable, so Zwift is who actually send the resistance values to the bike and not the Element, which is then a mere readings device. I’ll test it. thank u
so it seems better related just to the watts thing. Here you are in video; the cadence number remains counting but the rider stops 