Sorry. In the Garmin bike computer, I have my profile set to Indoor Trainer, it in fact uses the Kickr from the standpoint of the trainer, however it is not using the trainer for power/cadence - that is coming from being paired to the Assiomoa Duals. It is possible that this is wonky, as far as how the Garmin is calculating or estimating speed, I haven’t thought this entirely through.
ahh ok. It’s garmin’s calculated speed somehow, assuming you’re on flat ‘terrain’
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Yes, I believe that is correct.
I suppose you could do a free ride test of a specific segment. One time using the Assiomas as power meter source for Zwift, the second time using the trainer as power source. Try and hold 200w or whatever constant over the segment and compare finishing times. Reduce trainer difficulty to 0% to flatten the effort as much as possible. Or better yet, just create a 200w ERG based workout for 20 minutes.
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Good call, I might try to do that.
Curious, in theory… could you get it work where you could get the free 25-30 watts and stop pedaling for 20 minutes but keep moving? Eg. try it out on Tempus Fugit
No, but failure to apply the firmware update could be construed as intentional cheating.
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If you could prove they even knew there was a firmware update. Shocker, but probably 90% of Zwifters may have never visited the forums.
Anything can be construed as intentional cheating, like owning a Misuro B+
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apparently yes to the former, probably not to the latter or they would be doing that already with other trainers that have early firmware issues
I wonder how pervasive and severe this issue is among those who use virtual shifting. A few months ago, I noticed the same thing on a descent with my Kickr Core - cadence and watts wouldn’t reset to zero, usually fluttering between 10-20W as I came down even though I wasn’t pedaling. As others have mentioned, a spindown on the Wahoo app settled things, but just a normal one, not the “factory” version. Every week or two, I’ll spin down to reset it as it does seem to eventually come back. I don’t have power meter pedals to compare against, but things don’t seem to creep back much toward the end of that two weeks for me.
As for my racing, I do think that virtual shifting has given me a slight advantage, but not necessarily with increased power. More with being able to better lock in an ideal cadence since my trainer bike is only a 10 speed. But again, I can’t be completely sure this is the case. I hope my power readings are reasonably accurate as I’d hate to be rewarded for phantom efforts I’m not earning.
In any case, it’ll be interesting to see how things feel once the trainer firmware is updated. Hoping it’s not too drastic of a shift, but I’d rather be placing legitimately than not.
It’s very hard to infer anyone is cheating with it currently - it might break a few hearts when they do upgrade the firmware…
but most people are idly using their trainer thinking it’s a recommended trainer by zwift, using their shifting & it auto calibrates, so I’m a good guy/girl.
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That’s a good question, and I think I have your answer. Please see if you can reference my screenshots above, and specifically locate the period in which I wasn’t pedaling - the Assiomo screenshot shows this period very clearly. When you look at the Kickr screenshot, note the behavior of the power - it hangs there, then is tapers down, but it takes an exceedingly long time. In testing, if you coast long enough, the cadence and power do in fact drop to zero - but it take a very long time, I would estimate 30 seconds or so. There might be a correlation between this, and when you do the factory spindown. On the first spin down, it takes a very long time to drop all the way to zero - around 29 seconds. In the 2nd spin down, this happens much quicker, and I assume this is more or less the phase in which the trainer does a quality control/assurance check from the first spindown.
Agree with you on what virtual shifting can assist with - this was one of the reasons I was really interested in it - just to help me get into an appropriate gear, depending on the scenario. For whatever reason, probably user error - my SLR 7 would allow me to shift to a gear smaller than what I have on my cassette, and my chain just goes right off (I am sure this situation was my own ignorance, and I could probably find my answer pretty easily on these boards). In general, I just wanted to be able to eliminate the kinetic variable of the chain having to move gears - and having different ratios to choose from.
Out of curiosity, you mention the non-factory spindown. Do you have the kickr v5? On my v6, it does not seem to allow me to do any normal spindown, it references auto calibration.
I have a Kickr Core, the trainer spec-wise a step below the v5/v6 Kickr. The normal spin down activation is located here for me:
I do recall reading somewhere, though, that the normal spin down is only available for the Core, and has been disabled (inexplicably?) for the Kickr v6.
Edit:
Found it. From Wahoo’s website about auto calibration:
“Do I still need to do a regular spindown calibration?
No - a regular spindown is no longer needed because the automatic calibration is always on. Additionally, regular spindowns are no longer possible with these devices (except CORE). If you have concerns, you can always ensure that coast for a few seconds in between warmup and your workout / ride / race.”
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This is just me, but with a Kickr v6 and virtual shifting, I’ve not had that issue at all - no problem getting to 0W, no problem getting to 0 RPM. Firmware is current as of today at least, v5.3.5.
Not sure if this is related to my lack of issue, but I’ve had a devil of a time getting the Kickr to connect to Zwift after the recent Zwift updates, whether it was via wifi or ethernet + DirectConnect. It fell into a pattern where I could do 1-2 rides and then couldn’t connect after that without rebooting my laptop. Seems to be working now every ride as long as I make sure to exit Zwift properly and then also close Zwift from the taskbar.
Perhaps but whatever triggers it doesn’t mean everyone will get issues.
I’ve ridden pretty much every day on my core + click since it arrived at the end of August and it’s not producing watts when I stop pedaling.
And I’ve not produced enough watts to race in D, so it’s definitely not overreading to any significant extent, if at all - and aside from the odd sit down faux-sprint I’ve probably not been above gear 13.
The only thing I’ve noticed with the cadence figures is, if you’re at the low end of the resistance scale, e.g the ridiculous workouts that tell you to pedal at 65w or something, sometimes the trainer will say you’re doing 120 cadence. Another time it happens if you’re soft pedalling for the robopacer to catch up you can get a spike in cadence that didn’t happen - it’s obviously part of their algo somewhere.
My understanding is that false cadence issue is also part of the same issue. Though it’s very hard to know the full extent of the issue with such little information from wahoo & zwift on this issue.
They emailed the Elite riders to tell them not to use it, so there is definitely an issue and they are aware it’s causing issues.
They should be making the community aware with the sane information.
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I think it might only affect those who use a larger front chainring and so have the flywheel spinning faster and less magnetic resistance.
Using the smaller chainring has its own issues and creates a ‘wobble’ feeling when pedalling.
Probably not enough inertia/energy in the flywheel at low speeds to create power, and then too much at high flywheel speed to control.
I’m using the big ring with virtual gearing. I did try the small but it didn’t go well.