I have several workouts I’ve created in Zwift of various durations that consist entirely of multiple “Free Ride” blocks. For example, I have a 90 minute workout with 5 x 15 minute Free Ride blocks, followed by 2 x 10 minute Free Ride blocks, and then 1 x 5 Free Ride blocks.
I understand resistance does not change with terrain when using a Free Ride block - and that’s what I experience. However, I’ve recently noticed that the resistance will change as I finish one of the 15 minute Free Ride block and start another 15 minute block. It’s a usually an increase in resistance as the block starts and stays that way for the duration of the block. When this happens, the resistance remains constant and does not change with terrain. Then when the next Free Ride block starts, the resistance drops back to what it was for the earlier blocks.
I can tell this happens because my cadence drops in order to maintain the power I was riding…and I then need to change gears to get back to the cadence I was riding.
Why, when starting a new Free Ride block, does the general resistance change occasionally change? Seems like it should remain constant amongst all Free Ride blocks.
Free ride resistance will change depending on the terrain, for example if going around the hills of Watopia it will be as the gradient of the hill and how much power you want to put out. If using ERG mode power will remain constant.
Paul, you misunderstand my question. Resistance changes with terrain when you’re riding in SIM mode. I’m referring to the “Free Ride” block which can be added into a Zwift workout. And in that case, the resistance does not change.
The issue I’ve encountered is that constant resistance level for a given block is not always the same.
After some further research, I believe I’ve found the problem. When I view the script of “Workout” files I’ve created, some of the Free Ride block entries have FlatRoad=“1” while some of the others have FlatRoad=“0”.
The FlatRoad tag needs to be set to “1” for Free Ride. The fact that the workout builder is occasionally setting it to “0” is apparently a bug in Zwift.
Have there been any developments with this, @HelenB ? I’m in the middle of a drawn-out conversation with Support about this issue. I’ve been using Zwift for a few years but never had the issue until recently. I see that in all of my old custom workouts, and in Zwift’s workouts, Free Ride sections say FlatRoad=“1”, but now when I drag’n’drop a Free Ride block into a workout, the text says FlatRoad=“0”, and my trainer responds to gradient changes in these blocks. Yes, I can fix it by changing the 0 to 1. (Or by setting the trainer difficulty to zero.)
I’ve sent 4 emails in the current conversation, mentioning the FlatRoad thing in 3 of them. To me it seems clear: drag’n’drop - save - go to text file - see FlatRoad=“0”… but there’s been no acknowledgement of this at all yet. Am I really on the wrong path? They asked me to send ride log files with my last response. We’ll see…
I never got any help from Support on this. But what I found was that when I used Zwift to create a workout with Free Ride blocks, it would be created with FlatRoad=“1”. But if I subsequently edited or copied the workout, some of the entries would be created as or changed to FlatRoad=“0”. So there’s a bug in the Zwift workout builder.
I stopped using the Zwift workout builder and just manually create / edit the workout files on my PC using a text editor.
I would suggest perhaps re install apps and re calibrate trainer (which is suspect you already have)