Zwift - Cruzbike Activities (races and group rides)

[ratz]

I pulled out my old Kurt Kinetic trainer (non-erg) and gave Zwift a try. I have never been much of a "trainer" rider, but these new apps like Zwift look interesting, so I thought I would give them a try. On first ride, I got my rider up to 40 mphs and a power level of over a 1,000 watts. Was blowing by everyone and got an on-screen recognition for breaking the 1000 watt threshhold. Obviously, something was not right (I'm a D class rider). So, I turned the knob on the trainer and increased the resistance a bit, and then could hardly break 200 watts or 10 mph. Gave up after looking on the web and not finding any guidance for how to adjust the resistance on a "manual" trainer for apps like Zwift, Trainer Road, etc.

So, the long and short of it is that I now have a Wahoo Kickr on order. Looking forward to giving these apps a legitimate try once I have the new erg trainer.

Don't feel bad I had a Kinetic for 2 years; rode it 10 times. Yuck. Kickr I think I rode 200+ times last year. So either I'm here to encourage you or warn you

 

[RojoRacing]

I pulled out my old Kurt Kinetic trainer (non-erg) and gave Zwift a try. I have never been much of a "trainer" rider, but these new apps like Zwift look interesting, so I thought I would give them a try. On first ride, I got my rider up to 40 mphs and a power level of over a 1,000 watts. Was blowing by everyone and got an on-screen recognition for breaking the 1000 watt threshhold. Obviously, something was not right (I'm a D class rider). So, I turned the knob on the trainer and increased the resistance a bit, and then could hardly break 200 watts or 10 mph. Gave up after looking on the web and not finding any guidance for how to adjust the resistance on a "manual" trainer for apps like Zwift, Trainer Road, etc.

So, the long and short of it is that I now have a Wahoo Kickr on order. Looking forward to giving these apps a legitimate try once I have the new erg trainer.

Zwift Riders on Facebook is probably your best single spot for all things Zwift from setup to usage. Make sure you view the pinned post at the top and read through everything first or chanced getting flamed a bit for asking simple questions answered in the pinned post. https://www.facebook.com/groups/zwiftriders/

 

[RojoRacing]

Here's a copy and past of the pinned post


Welcome to Zwift Riders! READ THIS! USE THE FACEBOOK SEARCH FEATURE. 99% OF YOUR QUESTIONS CAN BE ANSWERED USING SEARCH AND THE LINKS BELOW!

***POSTS ABOUT IN GAME CHEATING WILL BE REMOVED OR BLOCKED FROM COMMENTING IF FLAGGED BY THE COMMUNITY***

The #RIDEON Philosophy: https://www.facebook.com/groups/zwiftriders/permalink/433144273558550/

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GET STARTED HERE

http://zwift.com/get-started
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Zwift RESOURCES:

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Zwift Manual by James Gill:
http://www.titaniumgeek.com/.../zwift-user-manual.../
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Zwift SEARCH
http://www.zwiftsearch.com/
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Zwift TEAMSPEAK Voice CHAT

Download the smartphone app or
TeamSpeak here: http://www.teamspeak.com/
Server address: ts21.gameservers.com:9149
How to use TS:

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Zwift BLOGS
http://zwiftblog.com/
http://zwiftblog.com/map/
http://zwiftblog.com/route-details/
http://zwiftblog.com/links/
http://zwiftblog.com/vortex/
=========================

Zwift Community KNOWLEDGE BASE
http://kb.zwiftriders.com/
=========================

Zwiftcast PODCAST
http://zwiftcast.com
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Zwift EVENT CALENDARS
http://zwift.com/events and http://zwiftcalendar.com

The goal of zwiftcalendar.com is to show all group rides not listed at zwift.com/events
Calendar Support Contacts: Michael Neal and William Kwan
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RELATED FACEBOOK GROUPS:
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Zwift Racers
https://www.facebook.com/groups/ZwiftRacers/
For discussions about bike racing on Zwift.
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Zwift Workouts
https://www.facebook.com/groups/947705935301439/
Share workouts and related discussion.
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ZWIFT Swap Shop
https://www.facebook.com/groups/965050553590514/
Need to sell something? Don't do it here. Go to the link above.
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SUPPORT, FAQ:
You can post SUPPORT questions here. The community may help with the small issues; however, you need to post on Zwift's OFFICIAL SUPPORT site: https://support.zwift.com/
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What TRAINER to use:
https://www.dcrainmaker.com/.../annual-winter-2016-2017... and

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SETUP Trainer Road & Zwift to run at the same time:

and https://www.facebook.com/groups/zwiftriders/permalink/369234263282885/
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This is NOT the official Zwift Facebook page. That can be found at https://www.facebook.com/gozwift
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RIDE ON!

 

[RojoRacing]

@trplay do you not have a free strava account?

 

[RojoRacing]

That sounds like a loaded question, but yes, and I like that blue poka dot jersey of yours the best. The only thing is those are old records not like my fresh one. Edit and now a real question. What do you have your slider scale set on when you race and what do you recommend?

I asked because I found you in the ZP results but you don't have your strava account linked because your name black and now blue so you can't select and view all your results and stats. It's kind of cool and helpful you look at your race history and see how you've progressed once you actually have a few more race under your belt.

My slider is ether at 0% or 100%, never anything in between. 100% for all races the rides when I'm viewing zwift, that means I'm actually riding zwift and looking at the zwift monitor and riding with the people around me. After a race I'll move the slider to 0% so I can just leave it in one gear and just spin easy as a cooldown while checking the results and surfing the web. The other time I use 0% is if I'm want to just ride a steady 180-200 watts while watching a movie and not have to keep shift for the hills.

Now if your like Larry and Ratz with a super tall shortest gear ratio you may want to only ever go up to 75% so your cadence doesn't drop into the 50s. You want to end up in your shortest gear on the steepest working hard to maintain your cadence or else you aren't getting the full simulation. I hope in the future Zwift adds buttons to the slider so you can click it in 5% increments so you don't have to guess at where 75% or 80% is after going back from a 0% session.

 

[ratz]

Now if your like Larry and Ratz with a super tall shortest gear ratio you may want to only ever go up to 75% so your cadence doesn't drop into the 50s. You want to end up in your shortest gear on the steepest working hard to maintain your cadence or else you aren't getting the full simulation. I hope in the future Zwift adds buttons to the slider so you can click it in 5% increments so you don't have to guess at where 75% or 80% is after going back from a 0% session.

Better would be if you could just enter your Ring Sizes and Cassette range and have it force you to ride what you brought to the race But I suppose the slider is best for most riders; since 50% of the roddies ride what the shop installed without knowing

FWIW my QXL 36T x 30-12T is pretty sufficient for most things in zwift Don't really have a problem until the 14% grade. But then the climb isn't that long. Same in the real world it was fine for Portland but Bigger hills the slider probably does need to come out and play.

 

[RojoRacing]

Better would be if you could just enter your Ring Sizes and Cassette range and have it force you to ride what you brought to the race But I suppose the slider is best for most riders; since 50% of the roddies ride what the shop installed without knowing

FWIW my QXL 36T x 30-12T is pretty sufficient for most things in zwift Don't really have a problem until the 14% grade. But then the climb isn't that long. Same in the real world it was fine for Portland but Bigger hills the slider probably does need to come out and play.

If it's at 100% then that is riding what you brought to the race.

 

[RojoRacing]

For those of you on windows here's cool heads up map that marks your current position on the map in real time. Could help you learn you way around the courses.
http://zwifthacks.com/zwiftmap/

 

[RojoRacing]

You can't attack the subway steps with momentum and expect it work like real life, it's not tuned correctly. I can attack hard into it at 8wkg and still get slowed to 5mph. On a positive note it's the same for everyone.

For me sometimes 4.2wkg feel easy and other times 3.5wkg seems hard. I look at it as an average during the races since the group is constantly attacking and surging. I can hold a super stead 4.0 on watopia mt if I'm on my own.

 

[RojoRacing]

Effort is effort I don't care about my MPH. If I'm riding solo I'll ramp up my effort about 50% just because it's habit on a climb and I don't want to be in that low cadence granny gear for very long. If you're on a kickr snap it's only simulating 12% but with my Neo it's simulating the actual 17% so quite a bit harder meaning more down shifts. In a race we hit it all out and clear it in a few seconds in hopes of snapping off a few more riders from the group.

 

[ratz]

With the non-neo trainer you also have the heavy fly wheel effect.(Neo is magnetic if I recall and can "brake" it fly wheel to improve realism).... If you want to simulate attacking an out door hill. Get in your biggest hardest gear; and drop the hammer before you hit the bottom get that fly wheel spinning as fast as you can, then just rapidly feather your shifter as needed and hang on for dear life, it will never be the same as outdoor but it helps. If you hit it as a fast speed that doesn't include a fast flywheel you will be under simulated and you won't have momentum anything like out doors on your side and you will go backwards really fast; guys sitting in the zwift group draft would have this problem.

We see the same thing in ERG mode; I will hear someone say oh that work is easy; and I'll check and they did it in 53Tx11T. I challenge them to do it in 36x15T and they try it and discover a whole new world of hurt slow flywheel=more work for the rider. Regardless of the fact that the fly wheel speed makes that big of a difference; it still underestimates the real world because 150lb fly wheels are impractical to ship from supplier to buyer.

 

[RojoRacing]

Thanks for the thumbs up but that was Ms. Daisy. I have a major problem with zwift to strava because we both share the zwift account. Guess I might just have to get two accounts ;( Geez Ms. daisy was awesome on that last ride. Problem is her numbers are going to knock me out of the D level group. Ain't that a kick in the rear?

So the zwift account is under her name or you change it each time you ride? I figured it was her based in the female avatar. She was moving along pretty damn good at 2.5wkg when I saw her.

 

[RojoRacing]

I just realized a nifty way to watch someone race in real time. The guys who live stream some of the races and commentate use this method. If say I'm going to race an event and you want to watch it unfold then all you need to do is enter the event yourself but if there are separate categories you'll want to enter A with me. You don't even need to pedal but you can if you want to log some miles in while you watch. Join the race like normal and when the race starts you just click on anyone's name on the right and you can follow along with the leaders. The cool thing about joining the race is when you do zwift will only display the rider who are in the race in your nearby riders list on the right so you can't accidentally get lost by selecting someone else. Sadly if the race had separate starts for each cat you won't be able to jump backwards and view the other cats because they won't appear on your list. If you don't want to be included in the results just quit the event before you cross the finish line.

 

[RojoRacing]

You can certainly join a race before start you watch session but I don't know if zwift will automatically send you to the start corral without some kind of connection to your equipment. I give it a test tomorrow.

 

[RojoRacing]

Ok for those of you without a trainer who want to join a race for the purpose of watching you can but you have to do it a certain way.

These are the windows PC instructions. Sign up for free 7 day trial, and download the Zwift program. When you start the program it'll take you to a pairing screen to pair your trainer devices. At the bottom of this page will be an option for SKIP or just watch, make sure to select SKIP. This will take you to another screen with a big RIDE button in orange at the bottom, and the top right will have all the upcoming events with how many mins till each starts. Now just select the event you want to watch and if it has ABCD options at the bottom make sure to click the letter of the group you want to watch. Now click the RIDE button and it'll take you to the zwift open world general start area. Next you'll see on the bottom left a blue join ride button with a countdown, click that to be taken to the starting corral. when the event starts the screen will change from the corral view back to the ride view and the right side of the screen will have a box with all the participents names. your going to want to click on any of those names when the event starts so you camera is taken with the group. You can now click different names in that right box to jump to each rider and using the number pad on your keyboard you can switch views as well.

If anyone would like to watch I'll be joining the 9am PST Zwift Race which is an E event which means there are no seperate cats, it'll have everyone from A's to D's all together. My code name in game will appear as "..BWAHAHA"

 

[RojoRacing]

Watching in person as stated above is cool but I think most will get a better experience watching one of Nathan Guerra's Live streams. He knows a lot of the regular racers and does a fairly good job talking up the race as well as explaining how everything works. The race in the link below has an exciting finish so give it a watch, no I'm not in it but I did watch bits and piece during my lunch the other day.

https://beam.pro/NathanGuerra?vod=749811

 

[RojoRacing]

315 riders in today's race. Good 15-20 riders under 2wkg for those of you worried your not fast enough to race.

 

[Jeffrey Ritter]

Hi all. Today was my first day mounting my Silvio v 30 onto my Kickr and onto Zwift. As a beta user of Zwift, I am delighted to find this Forum thread and join the Cruzbikers on Zwift. Happy to answer questions for the Zwift newbies and look forward to learning from y'all about racing and going long on my Silvio.

 

[Jeffrey Ritter]

RoJo thanks for taking the time to figure all of this out and then sharing it. It is a bit overwhelming for us who are just getting started. Now Cruzbikers check it out! I can see a Cruzbike or recumbent community getting together for group rides. Why not have Cruzbike get in front and lead the way?

Well, on Zwift, we have no aero advantage on the DBs. Pure power.

 

[Jeffrey Ritter]

I pulled out my old Kurt Kinetic trainer (non-erg) and gave Zwift a try. I have never been much of a "trainer" rider, but these new apps like Zwift look interesting, so I thought I would give them a try. On first ride, I got my rider up to 40 mphs and a power level of over a 1,000 watts. Was blowing by everyone and got an on-screen recognition for breaking the 1000 watt threshhold. Obviously, something was not right (I'm a D class rider). So, I turned the knob on the trainer and increased the resistance a bit, and then could hardly break 200 watts or 10 mph. Gave up after looking on the web and not finding any guidance for how to adjust the resistance on a "manual" trainer for apps like Zwift, Trainer Road, etc.

So, the long and short of it is that I now have a Wahoo Kickr on order. Looking forward to giving these apps a legitimate try once I have the new erg trainer.

You are really going to enjoy the Kickr's ability to simulate the road experience. Just stay honest on your weight, etc. and the game will accurately line things up for you.