Hi!
So, I have an issue with my setup running zwift with a kickr core and doing workouts without ERG mode. It seems that while in workouts (without ERG!) elevation is no longer an issue, at all. For example: yesterday I was doing a Zone2 workout going up and down the grade (Oh Hill no route) and throughout the session I was holding 205-240W, 85-92rpm in “8th” gear (so that´s 36-14 I think). It made absolutely no difference if the elevation was 12% or -3%. Re-pairing the trainer mid session made no difference either. As soon as the training session was over the magic was broken and the elevation started to make itself known again… (and of course trying to pull those 85rpm in that gear on the grade requires waaaaaaaaaaay more than 240W for me).
It basically seems like as soon as I´m in a workout zwift (or the trainer, don´t know which) treats the route as flat all the time. I don´t think it´s been like this all the time and it seems completely messed up. The first time I noticed it was when I first tried a workout on the Mountain Mash route when that was still pretty new.
Any idea on how to fix this?
With ERG mode off in a workout I expect you were in incline mode. When the workout ended you reverted to SIM mode.
Hmm… Hadn´t heard about that before but yes, that makes sense! So how to I get out of it? It´s horrible and makes working out on anything but flat routes absolutely mindboggingly confusing for the brain in my opinion.
If you want SIM mode, just do a free ride on that route. If you want to manage your HR to stay in zone 2 during a free ride I would use a cycling computer, smart watch, or phone app to set a HR target range and beep at you when you stray out of it.
all those are options…that (in my opinion at least) would be much better handled by zwift, where I already have the workouts setup… If I had wanted a flat route to train on I would have picked a flat route. Freeride is freeride with nothing urging you to stay within certain power zones so also not really a good solution. I am frankly a bit taken back by this, not what I was expecting at all
Zone 2 training is about keeping your HR in zone 2, and Zwift doesn’t support any kind of HR based training.
In the past they said they would release a route-based workouts feature but it was quietly shelved and the announcement deleted, and then more layoffs happened, so I’m not optimistic about that happening, but it’s a reasonable thing to want. I’m not exactly sure what it would have looked like. Perhaps something like the Zwift Academy baseline rides from a couple years ago.
It´s not specific to Zone2, this goes to any kind of training. If I´m not in ERG mode I want the resistance to match the topography and it´s up to me to generate the Watts the workout tells me to. If I´m going up a steep hill that naturally means I have to gear down and/or reduce cadence. This incline mode just confuses the brain since it completely removes the connection between what we´re seeing on screen and what we feel in the pedals. If I wanted that I´d to ERG.
Route-based workouts seemed like an interesting idea but what I want is nothing that complicated, I just want workouts to stay in SIM mode (unless going ERG of course), thereby more closely emulating IRL workouts and keeping alive that little bit of “realism” zwift provides…
So most workouts in Zwift not default to ERG mode? Have you created custom workouts where you turn off ERG mode?
If you are creating custom workouts have a look at the free-ride workout block type which uses SIM mode and leaves it to you to decide on the intensity. If you add a textblock before that workout block as a reminder you could maybe come close
ERG or not ERG is not really connected to the workout. If you turn off erg in one workout the next workout will start with erg off. The workouts I´m running are regular workouts with power targets set that´s all. And I just think it is sad indeed that it seems to be a design decision that workouts can only be performed in erg or “incline” mode, I really wish sim mode would be an option at the very least to keep the workouts closer to IRL life and not butcher the immersion like incline mode does. As I said before: if I want a flat route I can pick a flat route…
I’m pretty sure there’s an easy way to edit the workout file to add the flag to tell it you want to feel the gradient. I don’t know what that flag is though. The workout file is text-based - it’s XML.