Virtual Shifting with zwift ride - help needed

Bugs and Support
1

Long time zwifter, of around 6yrs, just bought the Zwift Ride frame, handlebars and Wahoo trainer to replace my old setup of road bike on an elite turbo.

So I updated the wahoo trainer to the latest firmware. KICKR core 101C, firmware 1.5.36.
I have connected all Wahoo sensors via my existing ANT+ dongle, on a USB cable, dongle next to the turbo trainer.

When starting zwift, I allowed the latest update and waited for it to complete.

I turned on the handlebars, (both sides) and ANT+ could not find them, so I opened the companion app, and linked them via my phone.

I’ve been on zwift twice now with the new setup and I love it! Most of the buttons work fine, only the shifting, when I press I get haptic feedback but nothing happens and nothing on-screen.

To add, when I first paired my phone to the handlebar, it performed a firmware update so I’m at the latest level there too.

So I really need virtual shifting to work as I’m recovering from leg injury, and I had to stop last night because single speed was too much on the injured muscle.

I was under the impression you could toggle virtual shifting on/off from the preferences tab in settings, but there is no virtual shifting listed in my preferences, so I’m not sure what to do, some posts suggest updating firmware but mine is fully up to date.

I have a couple of questions really:

  1. Does zwift support pairing the cadence/power etc from ANT+ and zwift ride from BLe or do I need to look at pairing the KICKR with my phone too? Ideally ANT+ for everything is my preference so Zwift doesn’t rely on my phone.

  2. Shouldn’t the virtual shifting preference be showing under settings>preferences and how do I get this to appear if it’s not?

Am I doing anything glaringly obviously wrong or do you have any suggestions of changes?

2

Virtual shifting only works over bluetooth. Get a bluetooth dongle and get rid of the Ant+

1 Like
3

Is that both sides I take it, so the turbo trainer and the virtual shifting need to be on BLe? If I buy a BLe dongle, and connect all devices to my zwift PC, is that a better option?

4

Unplugged the ANT+ dongle and connected everything through BLe (phone in this instance) and it all works, I now see the gear selection in the top left

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I have bought a USB BLe dongle to see if I can replicate without needing my phone - I’d rather my zwift PC was the hub for connecting. I’ll update this thread if it works :slightly_smiling_face: