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Zwift alternatives

Old 02-17-23, 12:36 AM
  #76  
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Originally Posted by Pacelineg
Seriously? I beg to differ. At least the Rouvy Avatar holds onto the handlebars.
Zwift
The bike in Zwift doesn't even have pedals?!?!

🤔
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Old 02-17-23, 05:48 AM
  #77  
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Have any of the Zwift competitors cracked the code on having avatars with long hair yet?
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Old 11-16-23, 02:45 PM
  #78  
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I totally second this. I love the calmer atmosphere of Rouvy. I don't mind the social aspect neither, and I prefer the endless selection of routes that are actually existing, not virtual.
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Old 12-25-23, 08:40 PM
  #79  
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Back to the original topic: I'm seeing how far through the winter I can get on free trials before I pick one to pay for. Fulgaz is ok, Rouvy the video freezes after a little more than an hour, and Zwift is an incredibly heavy app. I deleted everything extra off my phone and got it to work once, now it wants more memory. What other reasonably lightweight programs should I try? Mostly interested in training, not recreational riding.
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Old 12-25-23, 09:33 PM
  #80  
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Originally Posted by One Wheel
Back to the original topic: I'm seeing how far through the winter I can get on free trials before I pick one to pay for. Fulgaz is ok, Rouvy the video freezes after a little more than an hour, and Zwift is an incredibly heavy app. I deleted everything extra off my phone and got it to work once, now it wants more memory. What other reasonably lightweight programs should I try? Mostly interested in training, not recreational riding.
indievelo.
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Old 12-28-23, 02:33 PM
  #81  
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Ella Per and One Wheel rather than drag up a thread that started over a year ago why not try something a bit fresher?
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Old 12-29-23, 07:38 AM
  #82  
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Originally Posted by Black wallnut
Ella Per and One Wheel rather than drag up a thread that started over a year ago why not try something a bit fresher?
Looks like a totally different question to me.
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Old 12-29-23, 07:59 AM
  #83  
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Originally Posted by spelger
indievelo.
I just tried Indie Velo out of curiosity. The first thing that struck me was the relatively poor graphics and frame rates. Zwift has pretty slick graphics these days and this was a long way behind. But otherwise it looks ok. I rode one of the hilly loops and it felt quite realistic, although the often stuttering frame rate was irritating (maybe my graphics settings were not optimal). Simulated speeds look a little more realistic than Zwift. I didn’t do a detailed comparison, but I noticed that climbing speeds were fractionally slower than Zwift for the same power and slope.

So definitely a legit option, but I won’t be dropping my Zwift sub for this yet.
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Old 12-29-23, 08:43 AM
  #84  
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I rarely get below 35 FPS on indieVelo (usually in the 50s), but I do have the video options set to be less than the max. I've been told that they'll optimize the video to help with frame rates once they feel the mechanics are closer to "done". Still, it's fairly impressive for just being one guy. I'd probably spend more time on it, but I am well behind on mileage compared to my goals for the year, so I've been exclusively riding Zwift for the last 6 weeks or so to try to take advantage of their inflated speed/distance so I don't feel so bad about my year.
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Old 12-29-23, 02:39 PM
  #85  
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usually in the 50s? my max fps has been 13, really. but the laptop is a bit older, one i used to have in the garage. i can't complain about the graphics, Zwift looked awful when i was using it on the same machine too so i am not bothered.

IndiVelo is not bad really, especially considering it is free (for now). there are a few places where the grade changes are...unusual. like one moment i am at 2%, then it changes to 5, then 8 then 12 all in just a few peddle strokes. i have never encountered that in real life except for one place.

i no longer use IndieVelo since i've restarted my Rouvy subscription. I have no issues with Rouvy aside from all the button clicking and the whack-a-mole like interface they have.
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Old 12-29-23, 03:00 PM
  #86  
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I was running Indie Velo on a M1 MacBook Air and 27” 4K monitor. I think I had the graphics settings at 4K, but it was stuttering badly at times. The graphics themselves didn’t look very impressive either. By contrast, Zwift graphics look great and run super-smoothly at highest resolution on this same MacBook. No contest there. But then Indie Velo is still free and has a lot of options to play with.

Zwift isn’t perfect either. Drafting is still a bit iffy and I don’t like the way it hangs your power for a few seconds when you coast or soft pedal. But I think it does still offer the best overall riding sim, especially for group rides/races. Rouvy is probably the best alternative for real world route simulations.
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Old 12-29-23, 04:13 PM
  #87  
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Just cancelled Bkool resubscribed to Xert. I've never had any interest in the social aspects and virtual reality of Zwift and the rest; all I want is to do workouts. Trainer Road and Xert seem to be the best choices for workouts that modify themselves on the basis of your power and heart rate and other data as you work out. Xert is the cheaper of the two and works great at tracking changes in my fitness.
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Old 12-29-23, 05:06 PM
  #88  
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Originally Posted by Trakhak
Just cancelled Bkool resubscribed to Xert. I've never had any interest in the social aspects and virtual reality of Zwift and the rest; all I want is to do workouts. Trainer Road and Xert seem to be the best choices for workouts that modify themselves on the basis of your power and heart rate and other data as you work out. Xert is the cheaper of the two and works great at tracking changes in my fitness.
Another app to consider in the adaptive workout category is PILLAR. Developed in the UK by some legit sports scientists. No cycling sim here, just pure workouts controlled via a phone App. I've used it for a couple of years, but I now use it only to track my training stress and power metrics from Zwift and real world rides which import automatically. I find their actual training plans a bit too dull (mainly repetitive polarised sessions, which get a bit old after a while).
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Old 12-30-23, 12:09 AM
  #89  
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Originally Posted by himespau
I rarely get below 35 FPS on indieVelo (usually in the 50s), but I do have the video options set to be less than the max.
Originally Posted by spelger
usually in the 50s? my max fps has been 13, really. but the laptop is a bit older, one i used to have in the garage. i can't complain about the graphics, Zwift looked awful when i was using it on the same machine too so i am not bothered.

I'm getting around 15-20 FPS with indieVelo on my machine. Using a "gaming" laptop, but it is getting long in the tooth now plus my internet speeds are not the best.

Waiting to test the Android beta version of indieVelo to see how that looks!
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Old 12-30-23, 07:56 AM
  #90  
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I found that I had to take the detail and shadow distance down to about 100 to get those values (not sure if I'm in Ultra for 2k - I'm running a projector that can only put out 1080p, but usually run a bit higher than that for a few extra details). 5-6 year old AMD processor (Ryzen 5?) with a RX 590 GPU and ~16 GB RAM.
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Old 01-01-24, 09:43 PM
  #91  
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FWIW: the platforms I've tried so far, in order:

FulGaz: app tends to crash, didn't get to try it much because of hardware issues.

Rouvy: data is good, video freezes about 1 hour and 5 minutes into the ride. I like the workouts, but it sucks to spend the last 25 minutes of a 1.5 hour z2 workout looking at one spot on a random gravel road in New Zealand.

Zwift: very heavy app, loaded once on my phone, wouldn't load again.

BKool: video works, data is wonky. It gets power data from the trainer, no cadence sensor, but it insists on guessing cadence. Trainer resistance adjustment is unreliable, too: some routes seem better than others, sometimes no discernible difference in resistance between 3-4% and 10-11%. I kinda wish it either entirely didn't work or had a shorter trial period than 30 days.

BKool video with everything else about Rouvy would be great.
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Old 01-01-24, 10:57 PM
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what are you using for a device. i've tried all of those and never had any problems. i'm using an older win10 laptop with not the best graphics support. i currently use rouvy routinely.
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Old 01-02-24, 07:07 AM
  #93  
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Originally Posted by spelger
what are you using for a device. i've tried all of those and never had any problems. i'm using an older win10 laptop with not the best graphics support. i currently use rouvy routinely.
Samsung Galaxy A12. At least with Zwift that's almost certainly my problem: just not enough memory. But that's what I've got, I don't have the resources to upgrade at the moment.
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Old 01-02-24, 08:20 AM
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given a choice i would not be using a phone. not enough horse power and screen is woefully too small.
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Old 01-02-24, 08:31 AM
  #95  
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Originally Posted by spelger
given a choice
That's a critical caveat. Someday I may get a new computer and relegate my current desktop to trainer duty, but not yet. If anybody got some winning lottery tickets they're trying to unload I only need maybe $3-4 million to be in really good financial shape
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Old 01-02-24, 06:57 PM
  #96  
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Originally Posted by One Wheel
Rouvy: data is good, video freezes about 1 hour and 5 minutes into the ride. I like the workouts, but it sucks to spend the last 25 minutes of a 1.5 hour z2 workout looking at one spot on a random gravel road in New Zealand.
Couple things to check on your Rouvy setup:
  • Rouvy app is up-to-date
  • download the route beforehand, on weaker hardware stick to 540p or at most 720p video quality
  • in the settings, change graphics quality setting to automatic or low, switch between beta and standard video player
I haven't had a video freeze in a long time, but there were some previous buggy versions especially with the beta player. I run Rouvy on both an old Windows 10 laptop and an old Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10".
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Old 01-03-24, 09:34 AM
  #97  
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Originally Posted by spelger
what are you using for a device. i've tried all of those and never had any problems. i'm using an older win10 laptop with not the best graphics support. i currently use rouvy routinely.
+1
All those apps worked fine for me on an old iMac (2013). The video based apps work best with downloaded video, but I found streaming generally okay too with a reasonable internet speed. The only issue I had with Ful Gaz was pairing my Polar HRM. Pairing it only worked via the companion phone app for some reason. The desktop app couldn’t see it, even though it paired fine with my trainer. All the other apps I used had no issues with direct pairing of all my devices.

I am currently running Zwift on a M1 MacBook Air and that is super smooth in 4K graphics. I had to dial the graphics settings down a little on my older iMac to get a smooth frame rate, but was still pretty good. I wouldn’t say Zwift was a very hardware demanding app.
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Old 01-03-24, 09:51 AM
  #98  
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Originally Posted by PeteHski
+1
I wouldn’t say Zwift was a very hardware demanding app.
IIRC the Zwift android download was 1.7 GB, by comparison the BKool app was 4xx MB. My phone has 32 GB of memory, with 30 GB used (after deleting all unnecessary apps, videos, etc.). Yes, I'm running it on crappy hardware, it's what I've got. My wifi is about 50 Mbps up and 40 Mbps down, I don't think that's the bottleneck.
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Old 01-03-24, 04:01 PM
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Originally Posted by One Wheel
IIRC the Zwift android download was 1.7 GB, by comparison the BKool app was 4xx MB. My phone has 32 GB of memory, with 30 GB used (after deleting all unnecessary apps, videos, etc.). Yes, I'm running it on crappy hardware, it's what I've got. My wifi is about 50 Mbps up and 40 Mbps down, I don't think that's the bottleneck.
Zwift App is 32 MB on my mac
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Old 01-12-24, 06:15 PM
  #100  
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Rouvy distances

I just did my 1st Rouvy ride. Not bad, but I rode 70min at 154w and only did 27km - which is way off I believe. Any experiences with inaccurate distance on Rouvy?

Originally Posted by ilovebiking
Hello! I have been a Zwift user for about 5 years and use it most days in the off-season. It has been fine, but I am getting a little tired with it and wanted to ask for suggestions for a good alternative, just to try something new. I currently use a Wahoo Kickr. I like the interactive format of Zwift, just wanted to try a different experience. Any good suggestions? Thanks in advance.
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