I’ve been Zwifting for 2 weeks now, really enjoying it. It’s motivating me to get on the bike, especially now there’s snow on the ground :(.
Riding this evening I was having trouble seeing the little icon showing your position on the map which indicates the upcoming road gradient. My eyes are not as good as they used to be. That’s when the idea struck me;
Represent road gradient by color on the map. Roads that are red are incline, the darker the red the steeper the gradient. Downhills can be represented by green, again the darker the green the steeper the decline.
I’m not colorblind, but there are some people, you must allow users to select their incline and decline ‘shades’.
My eyes aren’t like they were when I was younger either, I can only make out the wattage number without my glasses, so much info on the screen and I can’t read any of it. Even when I project it onto my movie screen I cannot read the numbers. I would like to be able to resize and choose items to view on the game screen. If this can’t be resolved I don’t see how I can justify using this platform.
The replaced the old gradient map with the new mini map, the old one was the size of the mini map and clearly showed the grade; why they removed it as an option is beyond me, it exactly answers what you’re looking for; we should be able to click the mini map and cycle through maps, one being the old gradient map. I find it interesting that new users who have not used the old gradient map see the need for it.
Yes, Zwift needs better way to see gradient coming up. Like Rouvy maybe Zwift can show a line at the bottom that moves with the rider to show upcoming bradient changes. Or as suggested, show it on the road somehow.
I just upgraded to an interactive smart trainer (Elite Direto). The big gradients (both uphill and downhill) I can anticipate and switch gears accordingly, the black graphic with the orange numeric indicator are somewhat readable.
What’s impossible to anticipate are the rollers, those nasty little 3-4% tiny hills that prevent you from maintaining a rhythmic cadence. There’s no way to anticipate those at all with the image above, even with 20/20 vision.
Therefore, if the color scheme described above cannot be applied to road colors, then can it be applied to the black gradient behind the orange numeric?