spelger

i just finished up a Rouvy challenge. three big climbs. saved the worst for last since it was my last weekend to complete it.

the filming was fantastic. the one that filmed it had some sort of weird mast on his motorcycle. from the shadow it looked weird, then i cam to the first switch back. normally you lose sight of the road due to the camera always pointing forward but not on this route. the camera mast apparently had a swivel on it and kept the road in full view for every switch back. there were about 40 switchbacks on this route.

Virtual route - Passo Stelvio - Prato | OmniMode (rouvy.com)

one annoying thing about this route was that nearly all switch backs had the grade really screwed up. just before the turns the grade would almost double, then once completely in the turn and shortly after it would decrease so much that some actually went negative. at first i thought this was the Italians making the ride easier for bikers but it became apparent that that was not the case. if this is something that Rouvy added as a nicety then i say no thanks. but i wonder if it was a side effect of the swivel mounted camera. if so it needs to be fixed. this particular version of the route was tagged as an OmniMode route.

zacster

In real life when you go up switchbacks there is frequently a steep grade going into and around a switchback. It may be that Rouvy has that start a little too early and then compensates at the end. Grade is much easier to capture over a longer range than a single switchback.

unterhausen

Maybe videoed with a discount 360 degree camera.

biker222

There are some other issues with OmniMode showing helmet of avatar the entire ride even with Camera Distance set to ME.
They will probably be coming out with software update to fix these issues or I will turn off the Auto 360 Camera in settings to see if this works.

spelger

if this were my first ride with switchbacks i'd believe you. but i've ridden more switchbacks than there are hours in a month and normally (for me at least) the grade does change a bit but nothing like what i experienced on this route. i've since pulled down the ride from strava and they show nothing like what i experienced. i believe the Strava grade profile more than the Rouvy grade profile just because Strava's should only get more accurate as time goes on.

spelger

i've turned off this feature actually. i didn't really like the still shot with a cartoon me "riding" by. i much prefer just the video. and i'll say it again, this was magnificently filmed. the best i've seen so far. and i calk that up to the way the switchbacks were filmed.

zacster

In the greyed out section at the bottom every one of those peaks corresponds to the switchback. And every one of those switchbacks took a little more out of my will. You can see at the very end that the grade goes negative. That's when I turned around. My total elevation was +5700' at that point and I had enough. It had been 20+ miles of non-stop climbing with only 114' of downhill. I tried riding it on Rouvy one time and couldn't even make it up the first section as it felt so much harder. In fact, it is the ride that made me swear off Rouvy as I never felt it was realistic.

More about my ride up Haleakala here: https://www.bikeforums.net/road-cycl...p-volcano.html