Did my first ride with the controllers on Repack Rush. I’m not a gamer but even for me the steering is intuitive; sliding your index fingers in the direction you want to go just makes sense. And it’s responsive; easy to make slight adjustments to your line.
The controllers will fit on the SB20 but it’s a really tight fit! The Stages bar tape is very thick and the elastic band also has to make it over the bike’s sprinter shifting buttons. Plus there will be a gap under the hoods so you also have to use the included shims to keep the controllers stable. If I was going to be removing and installing the controllers regularly I’m pretty sure the band would eventually snap.
Before installing you want to disable the functionality of those sprint shifters because the elastic band is going to engage them.
I understand why Zwift lists the SB20 as incompatible, but it is doable. If I’m still using these by the winter, maybe I’ll replace the stock bar tape with something thinner and remove the sprint shifters which I have never used.
Takeaway: It would obviously be great to see native steering support for the SB20 but to be honest, now that I’ve tried the Zwift Play I think I’d be hard pressed to switch to steering via the Stages buttons; they’re fine for shifting but I think they’d feel a little stiff for steering. Hope this helps other Stages riders.
You can relocate the sprint buttons on the handlebars. I have attached them near the fork on the handlebars. Now my SB20 is fully compatible with Zwift Play.
Did the same thing as @Heribert_S and these sprint buttons are now useful for me and the Play fits better.
Did any of the SB20 owners have BT issues when using the Play? I connect SB20 and Play directly to a PC and not via companion app. It dropped 3x during a 45 min ride but came back after 30 sec or so.
The sprint shifters are connected by wire to the brake levers. Leave them pugged in and just unwrap the bar tape and reposition the shifters up to the handlebar to just a few millimeters from the stem. You can hold one end in place with the end of the bar tape. For the other side closest to the stem I just did a wrap of electrical tape.
First, I removed the original handlebar tape (from top to bottom). Then, I removed the electrical tape that secures the cables to the handlebar tube. Now, I just had to reposition the sprint buttons, reroute the cables, secure them with electrical tape, and apply a new handlebar tape (there are many YouTube videos available for this).
Here’s a pic of my setup. Only complaint is that for the left side climbing shifter, the wire going into the brake lever isn’t long enough to rotate the shifter 180 degrees, so in this setup the shift button closest to the stem shifts to the small chainring instead of the large one. Awkward. I thought I could re-assign those buttons in the app, but since it plugs into the same port as the lever shift buttons, which work as you’d expect, it would switch those as well.
To get it to work “normally” I realize now that i’d have to unplug the left climbing shifter and plug it into the free port on the stem. Not willing to redo the whole thing and functionally I really only need the right climbing shifter anyway, since it’s the rear cassette I’d be shifting with my hands in the climbing position.
But the Play controllers work great and are stable.
