Zwifting - I think I need help!

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

Decided to be a guinea pig for Zwift Play Controller. Partly to take advantage of the cut-price offer. Sold the elite stereo smart steerer block on eBay.

[gibbo]

So it's Tour of Watopia again and I've done 3 of 5 stages. I've tried my hardest on all so far and my W/kg and power output are noticably higher than previous efforts of free cycling/ meetups which has left my legs in an almost permanent state of soreness.

I even went back and repeated stage 1 as a felt I held back a bit on the first attempt. I'm not repeating the same stage 3 course since it's a climbing one...

Anyone completed all stages via the on-demand feature?

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

Anyone completed all stages via the on-demand feature?

Hell no. One at a time, please!  It's not a race..It's not a race..It's not a race..It's not a race.. Ok, It's a race..

[Jaded]

Just followed a robot-pacer in a group. A different experience for a not too serious Zwifter.

[Legs]

I like the idea of the robo pacers, but I’d only use them to do a long Z2 ride.  That said, it requires a bit of concentration to stay close to the pacer and it’s very boring doing long Z2 rides, so I find that the time passes quicker if I put on a long erg-mode workout and watch a film on the big screen instead.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

On 1 Jan I did my first training run on Zwift, thinking it would be quite a social easy ride for NYD, but no, not a bit.  There was nothing about ERG in the invite and anyway I have never used it.  Whenever I was told to increase power, I did so and it seemed to have no effect - I was reaching cadences of 115, just to keep up, so I thought.  Then I got a message to say I could increase my ERG power using the menu bar, so I did that and slowed the cadence a bit.  Towards the end the resistance ramped up  and it was very tough, but I did my 40 minutes with an average cadence of 95, somehow finished about 150 out of 300 odd and didn't die..

Still puzzled about how it works!

[Legs]

Asterix, the group training sessions are ‘rubber-banded’, so all of the avatars move along at roughly the same speed regardless of the power they’re doing, whether or not they’re using erg mode.  If you’ve got a trainer which supports erg mode, I’d highly recommend using it for any workouts other than spiky-profiled spring sessions - it’s much easier to achieve the power targets than constantly trying to match your gearing and cadence to give certain powers.

Zwift has a difficulty rating scale for workouts from 1-5, which I think is worked out as a function of duration and overall TSS.  Only Z1- and Z2-focussed workouts are going to be ‘social easy rides’!

[L CC]

I'm regularly surprised by how poor the understanding of how Zwift and trainers work and interact is, among long time users (including me).

[TimC]

The ‘rubber-banding’ was modified last year for group workouts to allow sub-groups of similar w/kg to form and for the sub-groups to separate by pace. I was quite surprised when I last did one that I ended up in a small group of 4 or 5 riders out of a total participation of 200+. After half an hour or so, we were a couple of Km behind the fastest riders. Yes, it was definitely rubber-banded in erg mode.

[Legs]

Oh, that’s interesting (although completely pointless, really!)

[TimC]

Oh, that’s interesting (although completely pointless, really!)

That's what I thought!

[Jaded]

I'm regularly surprised by how poor the understanding of how Zwift and trainers work and interact is, among long time users (including me).

Also not long time users 

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

Ah! So that’s how it works!

Thank you

[LateStarter]

but I did my 40 minutes with an average cadence of 95,

Still puzzled about how it works!

What Trainer, my Tacx Flux won't allow me to do much more than low 70s, very very heavy all the time even downhill, I think I have a dud but it's out of warranty so I guess that's it! I am not buying a trainer costing more than my bike. I will just go to the park and pretend I am zwifting

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

Wahoo Kickr.

It’s my second one. The first had trouble because at some points it halved my cadence so I was climbing at about 30rpm. Sent Wahoo all the reports and they swapped it for a brand new one. Luckily I had kept all the packing. The problem was a weak Bluetooth signal I believe.