travelerman

I've had a Cycleops M2 for a few weeks; started with Zwift, then went to Rouvy to check out the real location video rides (plus, it is the native app for the trainer that updates its firmware).

With Zwift, the user is able to lower the effect of the resistance on climbs, which I did to try to dial in a more realistic application of force. I have found no such adjustment with Rouvy, which is frustrating because the ascents are in no way comparable to real-world climbing.

I can pedal a 12-15 percent gradient at an average speed of between 8 and 10mph (real world); a 5% gradient in a Rouvy training video is nearly impossible - lowest gear, much mashing, and I end up abandoning the ride after only about 6 miles.
I have run both cold and hot calibrations, but this is still occurring... I have contacted customer support, but until they decide to respond, I was wondering if anyone else has experience with this training app, and knows of a workaround...

gregf83 

8mph up a 12% grade is pro tour level if you're doing it for a decent amount of time.
Perhaps it's closer than you think.

travelerman

It can't be closer than I think when I am barely able to maintain 5 mph up a 5% trainer-simulated gradient (when real-world, I'm usually around 12 mph on the same gradient).

gregf83 

Have tried a rolldown calibration?

siggersd

I've got the new kinetic t-6500 and yes there's something off with the rouvy interface. It works flawless resistance wise with its native software and works well on zwift. I've rode a bunch of courses on rouvy, a couple actually felt good, some were questionable but hard to say due to their nature of difficulty, some were just God aweful. The worst ones literally go from 30kph to a brick wall poor transition, 30 watt jumps where I'm putting out steady effort, but the worst is I know what output I can sustain. I've done an ftp test, and with rouvy I'm only able to sustain a much lower output. For me it's reading about 30-50 watts lower, and in race mode there's no way to compensate. Not sure if this is my particular trainer or not, the only way to really be sure is to use an independent power meter. Personally I do have a hunch that it's trainer specific though. It's discouraging looking at the numbers, it's also a bit dangerous because one will try to push harder than they should. It's incredibly frustrating because this has the potential to be a great tool, however neither rouvy or kinetic is making a formal statement on it. If anyone else is having discrepancies I encourage you to please write them and explain your findings as well.

siggersd

I do calibration each ride. It's supposed to be about 7 seconds

siggersd

Exactly how I feel...

rbeckley

I did an 18 mile ride up a hill and back in Rouvy today. I didn't think I would make it up the hill, even though the gradient averaged about 5% and maxed about 8%. When the gradient got up to 7% or above, I could hardly keep my pedals turning, even standing up on the bike. My FTP was over max. My heart rate was maxed out. Having ridden in Zwift for the last 2 years, I hit that same point when the grade is about 15%. In Zwift, I have done Alpe du Zwift 5 times, pushing in a low gear to get to the top, but never having to push as hard as I did today in Rouvy. Something is different with Rouvy. Unless I find a solution, I will have to give up on it since I will not be able to do any rides that have a gradient > around 6%. That eliminates most rides. I have a question in to Rouvy support and will post the response if I get one.

siggersd

Which trainer are you using ?

Pirkaus

siggersd

Pirkaus, it's clearly an issue with the algorithm that controls the resistance, it's not compensating for inertia, on flat or uphill. Zwift tends to do this better, also recently I've been using road grand tours, free to use as well. It has a setting to adjust the downhills to 100% which in turn carries momentum. The only issue with grand road tours is if you stop or drop the ant+ signal it takes a while before it realizes you're moving again. Worth giving a try though to compare. Seems like both rouvy and kinetic in my case just don't seem to care that the product is sub par. They have admitted that it's not working properly but no definite answer on when it will be resolved and they still take your money. Take a look at the reviews on the kinetic fit app! You'll get some insight as to how far the rott travels. I'm a bit disgusted that the industry is selling products without proper testing and development. It appears that we are paying to help them work out the bugs.

rbeckley

I am still having problems with Rouvy with any hills over 7% grade. I am on a Trek Madone bike hooked to a CycleOps Hammer (original) smart trainer with a Wahoo heart monitor and a cadence sensor. I am running Rouvy on my Microsoft Surface Pro 6 laptop with Windows 10. I downloaded the route that I rode.

Rouvy Support suggested I check and reset my Bike Weight parameter. This morning, in Rouvy, I set my bike weight (was 24; now 19 pounds), made sure my weight and height were correct, set wheel circumference to 2090mm, did a Re-Calibration and then road the same route (American Fork to Suncrest Summit Out and Back) as yesterday. My FTP is set to 150 watts. That may be a little low (maybe 160 is correct), but I did not do a new FTP test. I'm not sure if that affects this problem. I'll try that tomorrow.

With those settings, the ride up the hill was slightly (5%?) easier than yesterday, but I am still peaking out when I hit 8% or greater gradient, whereas in Zwift, I have done 15% or so before peaking out. I am standing on my pedals pushing 200+ watts at that point and just maintaining it. I was planning on doing the "Trail Ridge Road" next but see that it has a 13% gradient. That would be a dead stop for me. Maybe that ride is beyond my capacity and takes someone that can do 300-400+ watts. However, I have done the 15% gradient up to the Tower in Zwift many times. I'm not sure which (Zwift or Rouvy) is more realistic, but I emailed support again to see if they had any other suggestions before I "X" off any Rouvy ride with a gradient >8%. I do like Rouvy and hope to use it as an alternative to Zwift a couple times a week. In Zwift I have ridden all routes, many times, including 5 times up Alpe de Zwift.

siggersd

The FTP settings should have no impact on a virtual route, only in a planed training ride where you target zones. Some trainers have a max gradient, and usually those steep sections are just short anyways I wouldn't worry about it stating 13% it's likely a very short portion. You're right about the bike weight it makes a difference. One thing about zwift if you're not already doing it is setting the difficulty to 100% in order to get a proper comparison.

rbeckley

Siggersd, Thanks for your last reply. That explains the difference I am seeing. I wasn't even aware of the "Trainer Difficulty" parameter in Zwift, but when I checked it is at 50% for me, as defaulted by Zwift. So, in Zwift, those hills are mellowed out for me instead of being like the "real world". Yet in Rouvy, they are the real thing! That Zwift option is really nice and allows a non-pro rider like myself to climb anything in Zwift without hurting my knees or overstressing my heart. I am leaving it at 50%. I wish Rouvy had the same option. Without it, I will have to either skip those rides with high gradients or add a super-granny gear to my bike. If I understand it right, the super-granny gear option would be the hardware equivalent of setting "Training Difficulty" down from 100%. Thanks for your response to my notes. Search the zwift web site for a good article on "using the trainer difficulty setting".

siggersd

rbeckley there is a setting in rouvy to make the difficulty easier but you have to be in training mode (I believe that's what it's called) This means you can't participate in any events though. You can adjust it during the training ride on a slider scale. All that said it still though, in its bare form with difficulty set to normal levels there's still a ways to go to make it right. Maybe we expect too much, maybe the companies promise too much. It's a struggle for market share within a niche market where lack of transparency is apparent.

redlude97

Are you using Zwift at default trainer difficulty or 100%? Default is 50% so you're only doing half the gradient. Very few people can actually do alpe de zwift at 100% trainer difficulty

boundah

I had the same problem with climbing (grinding in lowest gear at only 7% gradient etc). I increased my wheel circumference setting by c10% and that made it much more like my real-life feel. AFAIK it makes no difference to power reading - just simulates lower gearing. PS I use Wahoo Kickr Core.

siggersd

So I searched for an alternative and found one called BigringVR and wow it was really fantastic. It has almost all the same routes and hard climbs plus a bunch from col collective. It connected right away from my desktop without a hitch. Highly recommend giving it a go.

peter_d

Resurrecting this thread from last year to see if there was any input from Rouvy re the OP's original problem. I recently upgraded from the Kurt Smart 2 to the Kurt Control power unit on my older Kurt frame and am seeing the same thing as the OP did with his Cyclops trainer, 5% grade in the app feels more like 10% in real life and at what Rouvy shows as a 7% grade I can feel the resistance unit pulsing high/low, I assume because the app is telling the trainer that it's at it's limit of 10% grade which would mean that there's around a 3-4 % discrepancy between what Rouvy shows on screen and what the app is transmitting to the trainer. I don't see any way to compensate for this within the Rouvy app. I do calibrate before each ride btw. .

stuartofmt

I just started with a Kinetic Rock and Roll Control. It may be that I have the calibration incorrect (calibrated to 6.9 on Kinetic Fit app) . This was also my first AR / simulated / smart trainer ride. I just did North Applegate (12ml 735ft in 53m) thinking it would be an easy "in" . I'm also using the Mac beta. Yeah, I know, too many variables :-(
In any case, this was a disappointment. I regularly ride longer distances with steeper climbs about the nearest comparison is a segment that is 8 ml 1200ft in about 56min. This was easy compared to the Rouvy experience.



The hills started (according to effort required) before getting to the hill on the video. At one stage I was recording something like 2mph yet my on-bike computer indicated about 8mph. Lucky I was on a trainer or I would have fallen off !! Even on the 2% inclines the effort required was WAY harder than in the real world. Also - the power, although pretty even, was lower (~140W) with a LOT higher effort than I would normally see from Strava's estimates for what, in the real world, is lower effort. Subjectively - I'd expect to have seen an average ~ 180W(based on Strava for similar efforts) I realize that Strava is just an estimate but thats not the issue.

The issue boils down to Rouvy (and or the trainer) seeming to initiate resistance in advance of actually getting to the hill, and then applying resistance way out of proportion to what I'd experience in the real world. Not to mention having a speed indication at times that was fancifully slow and plainly wrong.

Any advise - or suggestions on what / where to try would be greatly appreciated. One thing I can do of course is try some other apps and see if the premature / too high resistance is just a ROuvy thing or points to the trainer ....

peter_d

According to earlier posts in this thread Zwift has an in app way to ease the resistance but I can't find anything similar in Rouvy. Too bad cause I really like their ride videos. Unfortunately I signed up for 6 months so I'm stuck with it for a while. I have a triple crankset that will fit the bike I use on the trainer and I'm actually considering putting that on. At least we can't complain about the workout being too easy.
I plan to contact Kurt, if this is a common problem they must be aware of it.

stuartofmt

Later today - I will try the same ride again - but this time with the Rouvy iPad app. It's sufficiently different to the Mac beta ....
Also - I do not think (could not easily see) where calibration is present in the Mac app. So there may be some relief there ...

I do not mind having to work harder than I expect BUT when the road ahead seems to have ~ 2% grade and I'm struggling - it's a bit discouraging :-(

Will report back on anything that I find.

peter_d

This may help
https://support.rouvy.com/s/article/...language=en_US

zacster

And I thought it was me. My big frustration with Rouvy was always that I couldn't seem to do the hills. A mountain that I attempted to climb in real life and couldn't make to the top felt twice as steep in Rouvy and I didn't even get to the harder section of the climb last year when I tried (iPhone 7 version.) When they released the Mac software a few weeks ago I tried again because I'd been discussing this mountain on a thread here and wanted to check a few sections. The area of the ride that was 5% or so was extremely difficult, and when it went to 8% there was no way I could do it. It also went to 8% resistance (or more) in advance of the screen so it just felt like the trainer froze up on me. My trainer is a Kickr Core and works beautifully with Zwift and The Sufferfest.

I wanted to like Rouvy but I found the iPhone version too difficult to use and confusing too, and while the Mac version's interface is a bit cleaner it still feels like I'm missing something. I wish there was a way to dial in resistance like there is in Zwift. It may well be that Rouvy's resistance is correct but riding outdoors has a way of lessening the mental stress. All the Zwift resistance does is give you more gears, it doesn't credit you with being superman, just if you are in your 34/26, and you are at 50% it'll feel resistance wise as if you are in a 34/52, and your Zwift speed will reflect that. I've tried Zwift at 100% and had the same trouble as Rouvy.

peter_d

As someone in an earlier post suggested I downloaded the Bigringvr trial version to compare with Rouvy, it has some good features and the videos while not as numerous as Rouvy's are of great quality. I'm an inexperienced virtual cyclist but a very experienced outdoor cyclist and the power/speed and grade simulation in Bigringvr is much closer to real world than Rouvy. I also find the transition as the grade increases to be very abrupt in Rouvy, it feels like the app makes the trainer clamp down very suddenly which is very unrealistic and actually causes an instant of wheel slip. The same transitions in Bigring are much smoother and feel more natural. I'm still unsure if this is completely an issue with the Rouvy software or if the Kurt Kinetic Control just doesn't play well with Rouvy's app