My statement that “no question that this is an issue”, was not a blanket statement that suggested it is a universal issue. The fact is, in just the few responses here, in addition to a YouTube video, there are multiple people who are experiencing the issue. Given the sample size, it is safe to say that the issue is effecting a good number of people.
My firmware is current, and I will simply do a factory spin down frequently.
To me, that basically says it all. The elite riders in many cases, are sponsored athletes. If Zwift is telling these athletes to avoid using the same setup that they are selling to consumers, I don’t think I agree with this - people who are competing want a fair chance, and while I’m not delusional about the extent to which people take advantage of weight and so forth, this is a company who is selling something that people believe is pretty accurate, and while it isn’t effecting everyone, it is effecting people.
The issue came back the very next day after the factory spindown. I was going to race, but I didn’t have time to mess with doing another factory spindown, so I opted to dual record a much longer sample. I struggled with the best possible way to take the power data (over 4000 data points) and best visualize them in a meaningful manner - this is not my strong suit, I know people who are proficient at expertly taking data and putting it in the most meaningful format, but I’m not that guy. I use data to make decisions. I will include a few screenshots. These are from Intervals.icu. The top portion contains summary data, such as average power - in this case, the kickr/virtual shifting resulted in an average power of 226, whereas the Garmin/Assiomo Duals (Yes - power pedals set at exact crank length, calibrated, and most current firmware) resulted in an average power of only 197. I watched as the issue gradually became worse during this 80 minute ride.
My best attempt at trying to take all data and visualize the effect on the ride itself. It is a box-and-whisker chart, but what it helps do - is just visualize the advantage in a different way. The boxes represent the heaviest concentration of data points, and from there, we can see the power ranges compared against each other. In the case of the Assiomo/Garmin, that range is between 144 watts and 234 watts. For the phantom watt special (kickr v6 and virtual shifting), that range moves up to 171 to 265. Therefore, this helps us validate a performance benefit across the ride - the average watts does this too, but I’m just trying to emphasize the advantage visually.
I am more than fine sharing the .fit, .gpx, or .tcx files - I have no problem with that.
All, I’m backing away from this. It has me too involved, primarily because I got an unfair advantage from this issue. I am getting OCD about it, and it’s time to step away. I have made the issue known. I posted to GPLama’s channel, he said if Wahoo and Zwift acknowledge and will release firmware, he doesn’t see any reason to look at it. He does see potential issues with how hardware and software is validated for sanctioned esports - I’m paraphrasing, but you can check it out under his cogv2 teardown. My point back was simply that I don’t think having this issue buried in a sub-thread would be perceived as adequate by the “everyday” zwifters who compete against the unfair advantage. I digress. Appreciate everyone for taking the time to weigh-in, read, and most of all - for being active and suffering along side me in Zwift. All the best.
I sort of get his point. I’m not sure making it widely public at this point helps. It could lead to people exploiting the bug, and certainly lots of complaining and accusations from non-KickR owners.
There are likely 3 camps of racers;
Those who don’t know about the issue who are going to lose 5 to 10 % power.
Those that do know about the issue and have been trying to race fairly. similar to you they have been worrying far to much than they should be about their expensive 1% accuracy trainer and having the inconvenience of having to power cycle and do multiple spin downs before a race. - I’m in this camp as I think most are who’ve been following these threads.
Those that know about the issue and are happy to gain the random power boost. - hopefully very few.
My concern has been Wahoo not acknowledging there was a bug, and having many sleepless nights trying to find the source of the fault, and doubting my numbers.
Finally it’s been confirmed that Wahoo are working on a firmware update, timescale would be nice though.
The broader issue is all the inaccurate trainers used for racing, from wheel on tyre pressure to spin bikes and everything in between.
IndieVelo has power checking algorithms and will boot people out of races. I’ve never been booted, but I know people who have. Oddly some of them then stay away from the platform and show no interest in reaching out to iV to check the logs and see why they were kicked from the race.
I don’t know why Zwift can’t do similar. Some performances and power numbers are clearly bizarre.
it’s all they can do, and all they can really be expected to do… i made this point to someone else, but canyon and specialized recall thousands of potentially lethal bikes every other year it seems, and people still buy them. man, i still wouldn’t say no to a free s works myself
as far as this issue goes: us, as users, are responsible for our own conduct. at the end of the day
Use zwiftpower to upload both files and you willl see them side by side and it will do all the visual bits for you with a couple of clicks.
Probably worth marking it as private when you do this.
The only issue I see with this, not everyone will update their firmware - plenty of people hold off various updates until others have gone before them, or they simply don’t know they need to do it etc.
In this scenario, I’m not sure anyone can be accused of nefarious activity, as there isn’t a fix available.
Transparency is always the best way forward, hiding it doesn’t help anyone. The more people who are made aware of the issue, imho the more people who will apply the fix when it’s available. If it’s brushed under the carpet people won’t know & wont update.
I think it would be appropriate for Zwift and Wahoo to make a greater announcement about this than there has been. Leaving off questions unfair advantages or disadvantages as a consideration or a the lack of time scale for a fix being announced, the main thing that bothers me about this is that they are actively promoting and advertising the Zwift Ride with the Kickr Core using the cog as having plus or minus 2% accuracy when they know that as currently configured with the latest firmware that it cannot meet that standard on a consistent basis. That does not seem like a prudent (or perhaps even ethical) business practice.
Lee, thank you for this. I should have dug this out, I didn’t even realize one could do this kind of comparison by uploading the dual recordings right into Zwiftpower. I am absolutely doing it. This is great. Thank you.
You make good points, both this one and earlier. I feel the same way. Thank you.
I purchased a Kickr move. Which replaced my kickr 5. I really wanted to try virtual shifting. I love the virtual shifting, but sometimes I could feel odd resistance in my pedals. Seen this thread which got me 
. I turned Virtual shifting off and my bike felt normal again. I mounted my Assioma pedals and did a comparison. I compared the two on Zwift power. Almost identical. The 15sec power was off by 2.8%, but the rest were basically identical. I’m going to leave my setup like this, until Wahoo has an update. Then I will retest, with virtual shifting.
I kinda second guessed myself on whether to continue posting. I spent about $1k and pay a monthly fee, I think at minimum I’ll take advantage of using this to post my experiences with the products and services rendered. For those who experience the issue, please beware: I suffered my first failed factory spindown of the kickr v6 today. It simply hung on the second spindown. I pushed the back button and did it again - it acted very strange but did say it completed it. I then powered off the kickr and powered it back - as is suggested. All of this resulted in running too close to the start of my race, and I had no warm-up. I got absolutely crushed, it was the worst experience I’ve had. I kept telling myself to finish it, because it was going to dual recorded and uploaded to Zwiftpower - and so it has been. I made it public. The results are fine - actually had an average power of 3 watts lower on the kickr, versus the Assiomo. I don’t know whether this dual recording is just seen from my ride on Zwiftpower or what, now that I’ve done it.
looks fine
That looks spot on…
What more can they say? They’ve basically acknowledged the problem and say their next firmware will fix it.
I mean contrast that with zwift who barely acknowledge anything. In fact it’s somewhat ironic zwift going out of their way to acknowledge this and post when they completely ignore about 90% of the posts to this forum on faults and foibles with zwift that have existed for a decade.
I think the thing is to get this into perspective - a vanishingly small number of people race and a vanishingly smaller number of them are using virtual gearing - and you can fix it with a spindown. I don’t know that I’d be doing factory spindowns because doesn’t it say in the app that these should be done sparingly?
It’s really not that big a deal. No one is dying here. I mean unless people with other trainers are forced to calibrate or use a 2nd power device then anyone could use an uncalibrated trainer for the past decade. This autocalibration thing is relatively new and, bugs aside, should make it better - and as I said higher up, it’s not something that breaks immediately and makes it unusable - I’ve not even experienced it. Whatever triggers is, may you’re triggering it, maybe you’re not.
I’ve got a factory spindown here for anyone struggling to cope until the firmware appears :-
physician, heal thyself
That’s one approach. I wouldn’t have spent my money on the product had I known, and it has been an issue since April.
As far as the mention that I’m potentially triggering the issue, I think you mentioned that you weren’t yet able to generate watts for D category. I don’t know if it takes a certain power to trigger the issue, but I’m glad you are not experiencing it.
One point I do agree with, is that you are correct about the warning related to performing factory spindowns. Given they are the manufacturer of the hardware, I assume they have their reasons for this warning, and it makes me nervous. As I mentioned, my last one didn’t go smoothly, not at all. I don’t want anyone to break their trainer. I understand your position, but I respectfully do not share it - at all. It does matter to me, and I think it does matter to people who I race against. I fully respect your position on the issue, but as you mentioned in a previous post that the problem doesn’t exist for everyone, the same holds true for the fact that your “spindown” isn’t a viable alternative to the situation for everyone either.
I’ll try the counting and imaginary beach before the next race, see if that helps. Thanks for the advice. 
