Hi!
New to Zwift. I bought a Zwift Hub and a smart trainer mat. While I ride my bike keeps moving forward, curling up the middle of the mat in a way that my pedals touch it and make a noise. I had to get off the bike today twice during a short ride to adjust the mat.
I already put two heavy furniture on each end of the mat. Zwift Hub is quite heavy in itself and I put a couple of weights in front of the Hub but it still keeps moving forward.
Any ideas what I am doing wrong?
Could you recommend a Garmin heart rate monitor that would work with Zwift?
I have an old one (I guess it is the Garmin HRM dual, but I am not sure, it looks similar), but I couldnât figure out how to connect it to Zwift.
I wonder if one of those grippy rug pads would help keep the mat in place.
Your old Garmin HRM may be ANT+ only (assuming it is not the HRM-DUAL which supports Bluetooth). If youâre running on Windows, Mac, or Android, the cheapest solution would be to get an ANT+ dongle. The HRM-DUAL has a Bluetooth logo on the back of the snap-on gizmo, and it says HRM-DUAL in tiny faint type that nobody over age 12 can read.
If itâs being tossed around because of the energy youâre putting through itâŚfirst, good job Thatâs putting effort into it, lol.
I donât know that a grippy mat will do the whole trick. If the trainer/bike is sliding, yes. If itâs jumping around, itâll jump off the mat too.
One place to look is at your pedaling and riding technique. I like to sprint, and my front wheel comes off the floor sometimes (indoors) because of the extra weight of the trainer in back. Outdoors, itâs sometimes my rear wheel that will skitter around, because Iâm leaning out over the bars. But you can put power through the pedals more smoothly, and less smoothly. Itâs not ideal for much of your power to be going into tossing the bike around, up and down off the floor. If you can smooth out your pedal stroke, even at higher power, you can put more of your energy into moving the bike forward, and less into moving it up and down.
So yeah, sometimes the bike will want to jump around underneath you. And rocker plates or weights can help. But learning to pedal more efficiently will go a long way as well.
no, this is not normal, it shouldnât be moving around at all. Are you sure you have the base installed correctly? The longer piece should be in the front. I think the color coding should make this obvious, but just incase you did it backwards?
And Iâm certainly no expert myself on this, there are times I look like a frog in a sack during hard efforts.
There are pedaling drills you can do, âfull circleâ pedaling, to help smooth it out. Starting at lower wattages, you can set Zwift to instant (not 3 sec) power and focus on nothing more than trying to keep the power as steady as possible. If youâre clipped into the pedals (or have straps), trying to pull your foot up on the back side of the stroke can help. (No one actually manages to put upward force on the pedal that way, but trying to can make it smoother.)
Also focus on your torsoâtry to keep your shoulders from rocking and bouncing. Start while seated, and eventually move to standing while trying the same thing. Ideally, all your motion should be in your legs, with your torso/head staying relatively still. Check out Ellen Van Dijkâs pedaling and torso in this videoâyou could rest a glass of water on her back, and sheâs hammering here
Thank you very-very much.
Yeah, I have been rocking and bouncing with my shoulders. I am clipped in and I pretty much only push on the downstroke (and jerk back upwards).
I will definitely work on my âfull circlesâ. Thank you
No problem I find it helpful when I work on these things even just to say âsmoooooothâ to myself in my head during the drills. Kinda silly, but it seems to help. Cheers.
Iâm not sure that pedalling in circles is the best advice. you arenât really meant to lift up on the pedal for an efficient pedal stroke (this might actually make the skipping and rocking even worse).
Mark Cavendish described his pedal stroke as pushing down from the top of the pedal stroke and then pulling your foot back as if you are trying to wipe something off the bottom of your shoe.
it sounds like youâre moving your upper body around quite a bit, try and keep this movement to a minimum, any movement you do that isnât turning the pedals is wasted energy.
As I mentioned, no one actually manages to put upward force on tbe pedal by âpulling upâ on the back end of the stroke. All you can do is lessen the downward force a little bit. This has been shown numerous times since power meters became common. So if youâre stomping on the pedals, trying to exert force all the way around the circle, in the direction of the pedal stroke, can help smooth it out. For a while some people were claiming that it was possible to perfect some kind of stroke where your power input was even all the way around, and everyone who couldnât do it (read: everyone) was made to feel like they were failing. Iâm not talking about that at all. Just one way to think about it, and one way to work on it. Most of the force by far will still be on the down stroke, even with a âsmoothâ stroke.
There are other ways to think about the same concept, including the scraping method, or focusing on bringing your foot up and over the top from the back, and not just stomping down. Maybe one of those will work better for some than others. Iâve never seen anyone make things worse by trying any of them. I think understanding whatâs happening and paying attention to fixing it is half the battle.
Thatâs putting effort into it, lol.
