I’ve just returned a Wahoo Kickr and gotten a replacement because of this issue, and on my first ride, am having the same issue.
The best way to describe it is that I can start a ride (eg Watopia) fine. I can climb 400m to the main peak, then take the road up to the tower. If however, while climbing, I let off the power for a second (eg to coast and take a drink), when I go back on the power - all resistance is gone. At this point, I can change gears to my highest gear (50 big ring & 11 back ring) and spin at 110rpm and put out 50 watts on a +15% grade, and of course not move.
I had the same problem with my last Kickr I just returned. I think its a Zwift issue. It has also happened when:
- on the flats, drastically changing power from say 275 to ~600 in a sprint - then suddenly no resistance
- on a regular climb, if I drastically change power to “power up” the hill
- as described above, if I drastically change power from a stop
On my previous Kickr, I discovered that on occasion (not always) if I could just stomach it and crest the hill with very little resistance (and no power readout) in my highest gear at 110 rpm, then it would “reset” when the grade went back to flat and I’d get resistance back. But of course when you’re climbing a 1 mile hill at 1 mph (in top gear at 110rpm) you just have to give up.
I’ve had this experience with both my ANT+ dongle as well as using the bluetooth over the Zwift Mobile Link.
This just has to be a Zwift issue with not communicating the appropriate resistance to the Kickr under significant changes in power.
My setup:
- Good PC, 16GB Ram, i7 chip, though crappy video card
- ANT+ dongle with extension cord that is about a foot from the Kickr
- I have an 8-speed cassette on the Kickr, not sure how that would matter
- I have learned to religiously do a spindown. I do that using Bluetooth on an Ipad.
- I installed the Kickr firmware it prompted me for each time
Can someone help ?