Does anyone have any actual experience with ‘rocker plates’ on Zwift? Essentially they are a large platform on top of which you put your trainer, which allows the trainer to ‘bob’ side-to-side and sometimes forward and back slightly. The list of benefits (and drawbacks/sceptics!) are legion but I’m just wondering if anyone here has had a go with them on Zwift?
The main things I’m wondering are:
Do they affect your power noticeably on the screen (i.e. loss from the squishing vs increase from more muscle groups being employed)?
Do they cause any noticeable lag or fluctuations for intervals/ERG (e.g. when the trainer adds sudden HIIT resistance and you wind up, is your response dampened by the rocking)? Basically, if you’re doing 30sec on/off HIT, does this become impossible to get the stars because of lag.
I’ve had a rocker plate for a long time and I didn’t specifically worry about the things you’re asking but here’s my $0.02 worth.
It doesn’t take much force to rock the rocker plate so I seriously doubt it’s taking much of energy out of the system. I certainly never noticed my average power seeming lower and my trainer power is still consistent with my on the road power #s.
I don’t perceive any issues with ERG mode.
At this point, I would not want to ever ride a fixed trainer again but it did take me a little time to adjust (4 or 5 rides). The rocker adds some has some inertia so when standing and sprinting it felt different than on the road. I’ve adapted now and don’t notice it anymore. It took a try or two to get the bike mounted on the center line and the plate perfectly flat that bothered me at first. I now notice it if one side is low on the air but I live with it until I remember to add air.
Got mine over Christmas, certainly loads more comfortable seated and makes standing more realistic and a more comfortable and better workout. I can also stand and sprint whereas I couldn’t do that affectively when static. Re power loss, I’ve either lost 10% because of the rocker or I’m just a bit slower with less sleep and poorer diet over Christmas, will know more in the coming months. I feel like it’s a better workout so might be quicker outdoors but it’s been too cold outside to test
When you watch riders going out of the saddle indoor you see many of them doing it wrong - swerving towards the “active“ pedal instead of swerving away from it as you would do outdoor. Maybe a rocker plate accumulates the little loss caused by this (if there is any at all?!?).
I’ve been using a rocker plate (side to side only) for several months spanning last winter and this winter. Last winter I also went from rocker plate to none and back to rocker plate when I painted it. During those weeks I did some full on sprints and my peak output was within a few watts on and off the plate. I could also not feel any difference in term of effort to power output in any of my rides.
In fact this morning I did a 30 second 70%, 30 second 130% FTP workout and had no issues spinning up to hit the power numbers. I’m doing the build me up plan and did a workout a few weeks ago with 15 seconds on/off with bigger power swings and had no issues (other than my legs!) with that either.
The only issue I had initially was rocking the wrong way when standing up. Once you recognize this issue it is easy to remedy and it becomes second nature after a couple of rides and you won’t think about it again. I actually blame this happening on me riding on a trainer exclusively for a month or two and then getting the rocker plate. I think if I had gone straight from riding outside to indoors with a rocker I wouldn’t have had any issues. I believe that over the month of riding inside exclusively my body/brain had learnt that I don’t need to balance on an indoor bike so when I pushed down on the right pedal all my weight went down on the right side and the bike would have tipped to the right of it could.
