I’m spinning an exercise bike under a metronome. The rhythm helps me not to lose concentration and not to give up, even when fatigue accumulates.
My training takes place in the ERG mode. In this mode, cadence (pedal speed) directly affects the load. The higher the cadence, the easier it is to pedal, and vice versa.
Previously, most of the training in Zwift did not include cadence tasks. Over time, I intuitively learned how to choose a comfortable cadence for each power. But when there are segments with different power in training, the cadence also changes.
When cadence is prescribed in training, it becomes inconvenient. You have to manually change the rhythm in the metronome app on your smartphone, which is distracting. This is especially noticeable at short accelerations — by the time you set a new rhythm, time has already run out.
One day I wondered: am I the only one interested in this? It turned out not to be. I found several messages on the Zwift forum asking me to add a metronome to the app.
I’ve tried workarounds. I found a metronome with presets — you can set the rhythms in advance and select them from the list. But it was a temporary solution.
A couple of off-seasons ago, I thought that cadence should change automatically. We live in an amazing time when you can create apps without being a professional developer. There is even a term vibe-coding — you formulate a request, get a code and a working result.
Today I got the #1 version of the ZWOtronom app for iOS. It reads .The zwo is a training file and reproduces all segments, voicing the cadence.
If the cadence is set in the training, everything is simple. If not, the application uses my logic: bundles of “power → comfortable cadence” based on personal feelings and practice.
Of course, there are nuances. I need to have a zwo file that I can upload to my device (iPhone 13 Pro). I use the XERT platform to generate a training plan for me, and in it I can easily get a zwo file that is automatically uploaded to Zwift. It is easier to synchronize the beginning of a segment in the application and Zwift at the beginning of the second segment using the “Previous” keys./Next one." And one more thing: I am now an “iOS developer” with a free account, so the application certificate needs to be “re-signed” once a week. Despite that, I think it’s a good experience. I am pleased with the result and continue to add new features to the application — for example, version 1.1.x adds localization to different languages, portrait/landscape screen mode and linear calculation of “cadence = power” groups.
Ideas often come to me when I pedal on the machine.
Under the metronome.
ZWOtronome.
