Im new to cycling. I have no experience on a real bike, and i just bought the Zwift ride ith the kickr core.
I did my first ride, and I experience something weird with the virtual shifting. whether i put the bike in the first of 24th gear, when starting i dont really feel a lot of difference while getting up to speed. Only on climbs i can really feel a difference between the gears, but as a total beginner, i find it weird that i have to shift to gear 19 (with the flat gears setting) and i can still climb up a 6% hill.
And then my biggest problem is on the flat. In the highest gear (gears tuned for flat stages) i have to do 120+ rpm to try to keep up with people who are still passing me while riding with 60-70 rpm. It’s like i don’t have access to the higher gears and the difference between the high and low gears is really minimal. I also don’t have a setting in my menu to enable or disable virtual shifting, but i see the gears in the HUD.
Am i missing something?
Well at least we both learnt something through practical experiment.
The only other thing I can think is in the Wahoo app you can set a wheel size, and if set too low you will find yourself spinning like mad. Have seen that affect people still using real gears, may also apply to virtual gears.
Just went and checked mine and it’s 2.167. Quick Google says 2.130 to 2.200 range represents narrow racer tyres up to larger 40c width tyres. Whilst yours is outside that range, it’s only by a couple of percent, I wouldn’t think that’s the cause of your issue.
Is this consistent issue? I have this occurring to me sometimes (quite rarely). Note that the wattage is also then quite low - I was spinning at 120+ rpm on highest gear (virtual gear, using ride and core as well), while generating 200 watts.
For me it gets always fixed if I re-pair the device.
I dont know yet if its a consistent issue. I had my zwift ride for 2 days now, and after day 1 my ass hurts too much to try again, so ill have to wait a bit to retry.
Hi @Richard_Demmers welcome to the Ride side of Zwift. I see you’ve been running in Zwift for some time.
Shuji at Zwift HQ here. Can I ask you to post a screenshot of your Pairing Screen? What might be happening is an order of operations error. For bike trainers, pair the devices in the Pairing Screen left to right, top to bottom as you’d read the written word on a page, in this sequence:
Power: Must be paired over Bluetooth in order to use Virtual Shifting.
Resistance: Again, must be over Bluetooth. There may be a ~15 second delay before this signal appears after the Power signal is bonded to Zwift. That lag is normal and expected over Bluetooth.
Cadence: Yup, Bluetooth.
Controllers: Bluetooth? Absolutely!
Heart Rate Monitor: (If using)
Separate question: are you doing a structured workout? Those look like this on the home screen.
You’re probably familiar with intervals as a runner? On the cycling side, the game will automatically control the resistance for you (i.e. you don’t shift - all you do is increase / decrease your pedal RPMs and that in turn will adjust the resistance until you hit your wattage target.
If you are doing a structured workout - you’re using Zwift in ERG mode. ERG mode sets your wattage targets based on a percentage of your Functional Threshold Power (FTP). Right now - your FTP is set to zero, so manually change it (here’s how) to to a moderate number (say - 100 watts). You should feel some resistance after that. You can bump up the FTP number manually until you reach a level of resistance that’s challenging, but not ridiculous. But if structured intervals are your jam, you should consider taking an FTP test that measures your current level of fitness. I’d recommend the one called The Grade - it’s the most fun torture test IMO.
Please let us know if either of these scenarios helped improve the resistance level?
Thanks. I’m on a short vacation, but i will check this in 4 days when i get back home.
I can say however that i was doing a free ride, And not a structured workout so no erg mode.
Ok, thanks everyone, but the issue seems to have fixed itself. I still dont know what went wrong in the first place, but now shifting feels realistic and its a good experience.
Fyi, I think there is a bug somewhere ( or some weird connection issue) I have the weird behaviour happening on stream. But, I don’t have saved fit file since it occurred within first few 30 seconds of a race (which I then ended). Power suddenly dropped to 200 and even if I shifted up to the highest seq. Gear, the resistance would not really go up.
Hi @Marko_Jarvenpaa. Alejandro here from Zwift. We’ll need to take a deeper look at your concern. Please use the Contact Us link on Support.Zwift.com and one of my Support Colleagues will be more than glad to help you.
Well, let’s see if I can figure out how to reproduce it. It’s been happening quite rarely (maybe 3 or 4 times, only once in race luckily, but 2 or 3 times in a groupride / workout)
1 workout for sure → the wattage just got stuck suddenly - ie, it no longer followed the workout, but rather got stuck on one of the segments), and in group side - I think I had it twice in one ride - then I knew already about fixing it by re-pair
