dr_lha

Wake me up when they add Bluetooth support. As the owner of a Bluetooth HR strap, Speed/Cadence Meter with a Bluetooth Power meter on my fluid trainer, their non-support makes Zwift a non-starter for me.

NukiWaza

They claim to be working on it. I have found the best source of info to be Facebook weirdly enough. They seem to be very responsive to items there.

dr_lha

Yeah, they've been claiming that for over a year.

NukiWaza

Hmmmm that is discouraging. They have a lot of ground to cover so delays in feature delivery are to be expected. It would help if they would put up a list of expected improvements and where they were ranked, and expected delivery dates and so fourth. I am a software developer my self and understand how diffacult it can be to implement seemingly simple features, but I have found that over communicating helps go a long way.

it is a good reminder to buy items that are both ANT+ and BLE for maximum long term viability.

I guess using the apple watch for heart rate is rught around the corner, right guys? guys? right...??

largefarva

Might be a dumb question for you guys...but I'll ask anyway. I'm curious as to what cadence range we should be shooting for while on our trainers. I've found that riding at a slightly lower gear so I can maintain 100 RPM or slightly better is causing a good bit of discomfort "down there". I'm wondering if maybe I should up the resistance a gear or two and try to maintain 80-90 RPM instead....the main thing I'm worried about is tiring out my legs because of the higher resistance. If I were to stay in the lower gear that I have been in for the last couple of weeks and lower my cadence to 90 or so my heart rate suffers which is obviously telling me that I'm not getting a very good workout. So I'm just curious if there is a general rule of thumb for riding on a trainer....I want to keep my heart rate up but at the same time don't want to kill my legs (due to too high of resistance) or cause the major discomfort I've been experiencing (due to too high of a cadence for me right now).

chaadster

The short answer is that you should be doing a variety of workouts to train a range of pedaling speeds.

Relatedly, it's probably not your RPM that's causing discomfort; look to bike setup, clothing, technique, etc. in other words, you should be able to pedal at 100rpm without discomfort.

Flatbroke

Try working hi/low cadence and see if the helps you. Warm up and work up to 90 then go 105 for a minute and back to 90 alternate up to 120 and on the last set spin as fast as you can for as long as you can sustain. Also try using one leg strokes practicing full revolution without bouncing the stroke. Focus on pulling up at 5 o'clock position. Do it for 1 min a leg and work up to 3 min.

Breaks up trainer work outs

largefarva

Thanks for the advice guys. Tonight I tried doing what I was thinking earlier (lower cadence but higher gear) and ended up burning out after about half an hour....had to take a break to get something to eat (but we also did wait quite a bit longer than usual to get on the trainers tonight after dinner than we usually start). After I got back on the bike I had a hard time keeping my heart rate up above 120.....so my little experiment was a complete failure. I ended up having to ride a bit longer than usual because my legs were just tired and well, I was just tired overall.

I did take another break a bit later in my ride to adjust my saddle pitch, and pointed the nose of my saddle more downward. This seemed to help a bit as far as my discomfort was concerned. So tomorrow night I plan on going back to my original trainer session plan and see how it goes.

I kind of do a hi/low cadence type of thing with trying to keep my average cadence at 100 or around there. I usually start out in a higher gear and pedal around 105-110 RPM to try to get my heart rate up to 120-130+. Usually after about 3-4 miles I reach that point and then I usually downshift to the usual gear that I have been pedaling in and maintain the cadence around 95-100 for the most part. When I do notice my heart rate dropping to around 110-115 I either pick up the pace (cadence to around 110-115) for a minute or so...or I up shift to the higher gear and just maintain the same cadence for the most part. I will try varying my cadence more like suggested to see how that works for me.

As far as using one legged strokes....cheap platform pedals as of right now. I plan on getting some clipless pedals sometime in the nearish future but I first need to figure out which pedal/shoe combo I want to go for. I was thinking Speedplay light action pedals because of the float (I have bad knees) but have been turned off to them because of the skating on ice feeling I keep on reading about....I just don't think I would like that at all. The other pedals I'm interested are Look pedals with the red cleats for more float (9 degrees if I remember correctly). I've heard people with bad knees have had good luck with them too. Regardless though....I really want to get into some clipless pedals because I've heard so many good things about how much they help with pedaling and efficiency.

WonderMonkey

My body in general is power.... slow twitch stuff. I'm working my higher cadence to see what fast twitch I really have to make sure that my slower cadence just isn't habit. To find out my magic cadence I target a range but if I find my rump hopping or bouncing I focus on keeping it still which using a proper spin. In time I've noticed I can easily keep a higher cadence but there will be a point to where my body just doesn't deal well with "whatever" and I've found my cruising cadence.

So really what I'm getting to is if you are working on using the full spin find where you start bouncing and focus on not. There is a point where you just can't help it but then you know you are on the very high end of what you can do. When I'm on the trainer or even out on the path I work my cruising spin, a higher cadence for a while (to try and establish a new cruising cadence) and also on the ragged edge where I am bouncing a bit. Because of this I'm establishing a "new normal".

NukiWaza

Not sure how many of you have got a chance to look at the new workout mode in zwift. It has a number of classifications.


FTP Test
6week FTP Builder
12 wk FTP Builder
Time Trials Specific
Less than an hour to burn
60-90 minutes burn
90+ Burn
You first Century
12 week winter plan beginner.


Interestingly enough when I first logged in it stated my FTP looked wrong and asked if it would like me to have it estimated. I clicked yes and it gave me a silly high number like 265. Once I saw that this was going to result in sustained efforts of 200 watts I immediately lowered my FTP to 170. It probably is higher than that but my knees wont take that kind of sustained effort yet.


Being new I selected the 12 week beginner.


I have done the first workout and I found it strenuous and longer than I would have chosen if I had developed it my self. That said I was able to complete it. 150 minutes: 10 minute warm up start at 100watts then 120 then 140. The main workout was 90 minutes at 125 watts. 10 minute cool down which was the revers of the warm up.


The rest of the works out I am just guessing at the wattage.
2) Rest
3) 140 minutes majority looking like 125 with spikes to 140-150 at
4) Rest
5) 220 minutes that look like day one.
6) 251 minutes the looks like day one with red lines in it, I am guessing thats go as hard as you can.
7) Rest


Week two is filled in but the rest of the weeks are just labeled as coming soon.

chaadster

I'm looking forward to checking it out here today, but man, they're spec'ing 1:50min workouts?! That's a long time on the trainer, and kudos to you for doing it. Zwift is really taking the bull by the horns here, as they realize that they've got the richest virtual experience going, and can really rewrite the book on what trainer sessions look like.

Zwift is amazing, and with it out of beta, it's going to be a great winter of training!

chaadster

I think fast twitch is where the power is; slow twitch endurance has a power element, of course, but the high power comes from fast twitch.

Personally, I find the trick is taking advantage of the strength of big legs without blowing up from mashing it too much or redlining the cardio from too much spinning. I can do 95-100rpm work for several minutes, but it's costly in terms of HR elevation, so I limit it to shorter bursts of my higher power efforts on the road. Squirts up to 120-140rpm really spike the HR, so I save that for closing sprints, because ai don't recover well from that kind of intensity.

The meat of my road riding seems to be 85-90rpm, where I'm making decent cruising power and I can keep my HR under control. Bouncing up and down from tempo HR to threshold is difficult for me, so I focus on improving it. Naturally I run like a diesel, but I want that TDI turbo boost, too!

Cheese Head

Any good free apps or sites for inside training? I have a bluetooth speed/cadence sensor and wahoo heart monitor I would like to be able to use without having to buy more stuff. Oh and I have a Kurt Kinectic road machine. So no smart trainer.

AFD13

I havea question about these electronic trainers like the Wahoo, BKool... if they adjust your resistance do you set it in a certain gear and forget it and let it do all the adjustments on its end?

NukiWaza

I have looked around and there are few options that I found that were free and provided much in the way of features.

NukiWaza

Actually it is the opposite of that. You set your bike on it and then switch gears as the trainer changes the resistance on you. So with zift you will see a hill and then find yourself slipping down to the granny gear to get up the hill.

I know I spend too much time talking about zwift but it is what brought me to my smart trainer. DC Rain maker has a review of the new workout mode.

dagray

BKool has the app that is a free download. you can buy a premium subscription that gives you more functionality, but they have routes you can ride for free. It may read your blue tooth sensors.

dagray

the beauty of these trainers is like for me right now being able to rest 2/3 of the way through a 30 mile ride, and the other beauty is if I am pressed for time I can just quit the ride, save it so I get credit for how ever far I went to completion of the route and go on to what other task I have to do in real life.

Cheese Head

Thank you, I'll check it out.