I just got the Wahoo Kickr Bike, and didn’t have this problem with my previous bike - sometimes my guy won’t go into a supertuck when he’s supposed to. So then I’ll pedal for a second, and stop again, then supertuck works. Anyone else experience this or know what’s going wrong?
To supertuck in Zwift three conditions must be met:
- You must be travelling at least ~36MPH (~58km/hr)
- The decline must be at least 3%
- Your power output must be below 11 watts
Zwift will automatically place you in the supertuck if all these conditions are true. You come back out of the supertuck once any of these conditions is not met – for example, if the road flattens out to a 2% decline.
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I have seen this happen on the odd occasion. I think it might be on certain descents.
I believe this is likely a display bug. I.e. Zwift is simply not showing you in the super tuck, but is actually giving you the benefits of it behind the scenes. I have at least noticed it several times myself, where I’d be out of the super tuck position, but was able to see my avatar on someone else’s Zwift (through streams), where I was supertucked, and I was able to keep up with a group of super tucked riders. So it would seem that the physics are working correctly - just the avatar on screen is wrong.
No idea what triggers this situation though, and you’re right that doing a few pedal strokes to get you out of super tuck territory (as outlined by Alex) and back into it will often get your guy to go into super tuck again.
Just wanted to bump this post. Is this reply the best way to bring it to the attention of an admin after the post has gotten old? This issue affects my riding in most of the races I do, even if the physics actually have me in supertuck but it’s not showing.
Happened to me for the first time yesterday in the ZRL Richmond TTT. Avatar did not go into super tuck down KOM 2 at 65kph despite having worked 3 times in the race already. Speed affected as immediately lost touch with the rest of the team - no way to get back on. Gutted. Really disappointing to be going well and have the game affect your result - fortunately team finished ok and probably no impact on points result.
Supertuck absolutely doesn’t work every time the conditions are met.
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I have noticed the exact same thing. I have had the Wahoo Bike for about a year now and only started noticing this happening once I got the bike. I never noticed this issue on the Kick Gen 4.
Some people listed they thought it was a visual bug I can assure you it is not. Last night I was not in supertuck in the bottom of the epic KOM returning from the jungle and my avatar was loosing ground fast on my TTT team who was super tucked. I had to sprint hard to get back on.
I fully understand the criteria of the supertuck and I was far beyond the speed and slope required.
I see this original post is quite old now. Hopefully this will resurface this question and someone can report a fix. Thank you in advance if that is you.
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The time to go into supertuck is dependent on the trainer model, in that different trainers take more or less time to report a power figure low enough for Zwift to engage supertuck.
The Kickr registers very low power almost immediately, so goes into supertuck almost immediately. The Kickr bikr is the opposite, and so is the Elite Direto.
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Yesterday I was coasting down a 5% grade and my avatar slowed to a stop. Never supertucked. Surprising!
What is your trainer difficulty set to?
Zwift halves gradients for descents as standard, making that a 2.5% descent at best, and if your trainer difficulty is less than 100% then it will further reduce it. For example, at the default 50% TD it would make that a 1.25% descent.
Thanks Steve. I had never changed the default. I will experiment with that. I wonder if trainer difficulty might explain the original poster’s problem as well. It’s a little bit non-intuitive that trainer difficulty would affect descending at zero watts, but it sort of makes sense.
Had this happen many times. It’s definitely not just the visuals as when it happens is when the rider gets spat out the back (yes, all speed/grade/power prerequisites to go into a tuck are met). Often have to do a short sprint to recatch the group and that also usually prompts it to get into the supertuck on a 2nd attempt.
I’m not sure that’s correct?
So long as the Zwift HUD is showing that the gradient is steeper than -3%, it doesn’t matter what your trainer difficulty is set at. What it will mean, however, is that you have to work much harder to generate sufficient speed (>36 mph) to supertuck if your trainer difficulty is set low.
Someone mentioned it takes longer for the Kickr Bike to reach 0 watts, but the avatar never goes into supertuck, even after something like 20 seconds, so I don’t think that’s the problem.
Another person mentioned trainer difficulty affecting supertuck, but I don’t think that’s the case either. Mine is set at 100%. Sometimes I get into supertuck on a 3% descent, but other times I just don’t, even on a much steeper grade.
Maybe if enough people continue reporting this problem, Zwift will take notice. However, with all of the issues I’ve reported to Zwift, they start to “work on it” but after a year or two the issue is still there.
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Yes, I wasn’t talking about the 5% threshold for supertuck in relation to TD. I was talking about the previous poster’s “slowing to a stop” experience. As you say, the TD would affect the building up of speed to hit the speed threshold.
No probs Steve, hope my comment didn’t confuse the situation even more 
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Any update on the bug?
This is absolutely something that needs to be fixed. It seems to affect only Kickr bikes?
Anything we could try to prevent this from happening? I’ve always stopped pedaling at once from the cadence I was doing. Will try to feather it down to see if there’s a difference.
Check what power your Kickr bike is reporting to Zwift (i.e. displayed by Zwift) when you’re freewheeling. If it’s not low enough then it’s the Kickr bike that’s the problem rather than Zwift.
I also see this happen sometimes and I’m using a Wattbike Atom, so maybe it’s something that affects smart bikes rather than trainers with bikes on (if you see what I mean).
I’ve always noticed that the Atom takes a few more seconds to hit zero watts than riders on other trainers, which means there can be a delay in me getting in to supertuck, but maybe 10-15% of the time the avatar NEVER enters supertuck, even though all the other criteria are fulfilled (gradient, speed, watts). The only solution is to briefly start pedalling again then immediately stop and hope that second time around I get the tuck position.
I do have video footage somewhere of me in a race coming down the Innsbruck KOM where I don’t get supertuck at first, then manage to get it by pedalling/stopping, then after a small bit where the gradient goes above -3% and so everyone in the group loses it, I don’t get it back again after the slope decreases once more and again have to pedal/stop. Will have a search and see if I can find it.
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