Pack Dynamics 3.0 Update [November 2021]

On my Kickr Bike in workouts, there is about a second or two of lag when going from segment to segment. BLE responds much quicker. It’s just that with BLE, I have to undergo some histrionics to get it to keep the HRM paired with steering enabled. Sometimes I can disable steering at the pairing screen and then the HRM works. And sometimes clicking my heels together and chanting, “We’re not in Kansas anymore” doesn’t do sh*t…

Other than the fact that steering is disabled in just about every ride and race, this is my only complaint about the Kickr Bike. Great otherwise with no dckin’ around with chain maintenance of crp on the floor.

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My interest is always piqued when I see references to Bluetooth being quicker to respond, but then when people say their trainer was taking several seconds to change resistance on ANT+ it makes sense. None of my trainers have ever been anywhere near that sluggish.

So I can confirm ANT+ has solved my problem. I have bought a 12 foot cable. I have seen about 8 dropouts in 3 rides now. This is why I did not prefer ANT+. But the small 1 second dropouts are better than 40-60or every race being out of the draft due to my steering bug that wold not move my rider back in lane. I could tell in 10 seconds that the problem was gone. I cam up on a rider. Moved left , passed them then moved back right. In the past 6 months my rider would not move beck in the lane. I would stay in my current lane until I got behind another rider, then I would move lett or right again and not shift. If the odds are against you eventually you will hit all the way right or all the way left and never come back until a turn in the road. If the road turned I would snap to the opposite lane and cross over the middle. At that point I would accelerate and put a bike between me and the turn to stop me in the middle lane again. So Iw as using other riders like bumper cars. Get pushed out to the side. slide to the back. And then wait for a turn to accelerate to get stuck on them. ANT+ has solved that. Not sure how better to explain it. HOPE THIS HELPS SOMEONE ELSE!

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That may be a bit long for a USB cable.

I’ve had the Kickr Bike since the first part of December and had the same problem with being pushed to the outside of a group with bluetooth. Ended up going back to Ant+ for group rides and racing.
As posted earlier I have noticed quicker responses from the bike doing workouts with bt vs Ant+.
It’s too bad that we have a piece of equipment with great features but cannot appreciate them….

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Not mine either. I moved over to use ant+ with all the bugs on gradients being reversed, no climb feature on kickr bike, etc, Bluetooth seemed to be affected but not ant+. Then the bugs with kickr bike riders being pushed out of draft, etc.

I never noticed any difference in response between the two. However I do notice a difference in power measurement between kickr bike and the Tacx neo 2T- the neo 2T measures power with very little lag and in very small increments while the kickr bike measures more in bigger jumps/steps. Interesting that…

I went on Tempus Fugit yesterday with the huge C group and noticed at the LAX turnaround riders getting pushed into the middle of the opposite lane on the road. Did Zwift change something…

That was taken from macOS version of Zwift.

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Is that power smoothing? Worth looking it up.

The standard allows for USB 2.0 cables up to 5 m (or equivalent in royal body parts), beyond that you do need an active cable though.

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Yes I agree it is. But my bike is that far from the source. So I prefer Bluetooth. BUT until they fix the DAMN bluetooth steering issue I prefer dropouts over out of draft in races.

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Allowing for it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a good idea though. A longer cable means increased resistance, meaning less current to power your dongle at the end of the cable. And you’re relying on the quality of the cable itself to aupport that distance well. A long cable to a self-powered (say) printer is very different to a long cable to a dongle relying on that cable for power.

Interesting finding last night.

Paired bluetooth, steering on, badge hunting new route in neokyo.

Thrown out to the side, disabled steering, still out to the side no matter what I did.

Unpaired bluetooth - paired as ant+.

Immediately avatar took up position with all other avatars and behaved.

Weirdly though, i could still deploy power-ups from the hoods. I thought that was handled via bluetooth and didn’t work on ant.

Makes me wonder if what we see in pairing screen is actually accurate.
I’ll dig out the log later and see if that sheds any light.

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This was reproducible.

Pair the Kickr Bike via Bluetooth and enable steering.
Enter a world.
Go to pairing screen, unpair “controllable teainer” and pair as Ant+.
Resume playing.
Hood buttons still work to deploy PU and u-turn.

If you pair as ant+ from launch these buttons do not work.

This is irrespective of how the other two power/cadence are paired. I paired them as BT in both cases and do not alter that.

Zwiftalizer does show the repairing as an ant device in logs, so there is something low-level going on here.

Either wahoo is able to send BT keypresses over power/cadence (unlikely) or Zwift “keeps” the previous pairing session alive.

If its the latter that could explain the steering issues as some parts of zwift will still think steering is active, even when it is not/has been disabled.

Probably needs HQ to look into it.

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Almost 2 months later and still the same BS.
Group Dynamics is the worst I have ever experienced on Zwift, and I have been here since pretty much the beginning. I constantly get pushed aside, and my avatar is glued to the left or right side of the pack, being disadvantaged the whole time. The only way I can get into a normal slipstream is by dropping to the very back, but the avatar does not always move into the slipstream; no, sometimes I almost get dropped because it does not move. Being in a small group breakaway is even worse and just useless nonsense. If I am in a breakaway on the road, I instantly get into the slipstream and do not ride on the opposite side of the road. All the issues have been reported for months, but nothing has been done; no, Zwift would rather create some new routes instead of fixing the BS just mentioned. If you cannot have a fair dynamic, revert to the first one where everyone was treated the same way because the current one is the biggest BS I have ever seen.

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I forgot to switch to ANT+ before the last ZRL race of the season.

Now, I got dropped as I was racing in a league well above me, but found a group of 4 or 5 of us riding round. Kept getting pushed out to the side - zero draft, against 4 other riders, some of whom were getting 90+% draft.

When it is at the point of making racing inequitable and unfair, it needs fixed imho.

Think @shooj is the only staffer who has seen this though, not sure of who would be best to report to.

Me yesterday riding up Alpe on my own, first sector.

I’m doing 3.8w/kg and some workout rider comes up and passes. I get shoved out to the right side and over the white line almost into the rock wall.

How is that acceptable dynamics behaviour?

Kickr Bike connected via ant+ USB dongle on Mac OS Monterey and latest version of Zwift.

This always happens. @shooj

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It was probably a blessing that you were doing the Alpe tbh, no drafting for the majority of it, so being pushed out is no real detriment anyway - just visually distracting.

Still needs a fix - at least confirmation that its being investigated would be a start.

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Is this reported in the Bug forum, or just here in the “What’s New” forum?

But the best is when Zwift priorizes to sell their steering tools, which are only working with Bluetooth.
In connection with such a pack dynamic behaviour these tools aren’t fun, but only useless.
First they should try to fix all these very old, long lasting big bugs instead!

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This is noticeably worse for those on handcycles in a pack. Times on my ride tonight where one poor chap was literally taking corners whilst pointing at the outside of the bend.

See this image (which is bad enough tbh), they went around the upcoming right-hand turn maintaining that same angle.

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@Dave_ZPCMR

Thanks for the notice. I’ve flagged it up to the team

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