No sure what you mean by the right ‘type’ of trainer, but in the controllable trainer section its listed as the tacx flow, and in the power source section the same again

What he means for example with my Snap I get

Kickr snap

Kickr snap FE-C

The 2nd one is the controllable one

Ah ok,for me  theres only one option which is tacx flow .

Just download the app from the app store and it will pickup the trainer through Bluetooth.  But if you want to use a HRM I think you will need ANT+ (anyone confirm?).  I’ve got an old TV mounted on the wall in the garage and run a usb-c to HDMI cable from the MacBook to the TV.

With a MacBook Pro the Zwift App can connect either with Bluetooth or ANT+ to the trainer, cadence sensor or HRM – if it’s a Bluetooth one anyway.

Note: if you want to use The Sufferfest app on a Mac, the trainer will only connect via ANT+ , thought the Sufferfest iOS app will connect via Bluetooth.

I use a Bluetooth speaker for music at the same time and that can be problematic. The speaker connection seems prone to dropping out with three other Bluetooth devices connected, so I sometimes use an ANT+ dongle to connect the cadence sensor, but with a Mac you should be able to connect everything you need with BT as long as your cadence and HRM are bluetooth compatible obviously, but it may be worth having an ANT+ USB dongle on an extension lead – put the dongle close to whatever sensor you’re aiming to use – as a back-up / addition particularly if you use a bluetooth speaker or earphones.

Edit: I’ve found the Zwift support guys pretty efficient if you mail them and there’s a lot of online info on the Zwift support portal both general and specific to particular trainers. Google is your friend on that front.

Julians – i have the same trainer and you dont need to select a trainer as it will only see yours as you have stated. The only thing i can think of is if you have accidentally set zwift to erg mode ON which means there will be no resistance change. Log back in to zwift and start riding and look in the menu to see if erg mode is activated.

… or accidentally set difficulty to zero ?  I don’t think this removes all alterations but it might feel a bit like that

got it working now, not sure what I did to make it work, just unpaired the flow in zwift, unplugged the trainer from the power, waited for a few minutes, plugged the trainer back in, then searched and paired up with the tacx flow, and it just started working.

I’ve done that several times today and it made no difference, but this time it all just started working – seems a bit flaky to me.

anyway, good its working – hopefully it will stay working now, cant be bothered faffing with it every time I want a ride.

Just did the 4.20 one lapper as a C

Finished 4th and then DQ’d for w/kg (my 95% was 3.2 apparently – thought that was OK, or do they use full average power?)

Anyhow, good fun and I guess back to B next time (though I’ll get a few kickings as I was at full whack to produce that much for 13 minutes)

just did the WBR 3 Lap Jungle Hilly Race 1815, was 50/50 after doing a 1 lap figure 8 hilly race yesterday, but im at work tomorrow, so thought well why not

was a bit weird, there was a 13km run in to the start of the first lap, then im sure it it said 3 laps and 40.1km to go, but my rides logged as 36.5km ?!?! not sure whats happening there (13km ish in, then 3x 7.87km laps makes 36.5km right) when it came up 40.1km to go, i thought ah christ bugger that, but carried on

anyway, not my favourite course as the downhill isn’t steep enough to recover from the uphill effort, saw welshfarmer say it was off from the docks in the comment yesterday, so managed to jump and stick with the front group of 20ish up until the start of the epic kom hill, then got dropped but had managed to put a decent amount of time into the “c’s” behind me, with seemingly only a few in front, had 1 rider with me for more or less 2 laps, managed to put a decent gap into him on the last hill, which he didn’t get back, tried chasing down a couple of C’s 15/20 seconds in front of me on the final run in, but couldn’t peg them back

results initially said 9th when i looked after a 10 minute recovery spin, but now saying 2nd? got a red mark for average heart rate though, but its normal for me, yesterdays has changed from 4th to 3rd as well

https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=46179

was a bit weird, there was a 13km run in to the start of the first lap, then im sure it it said 3 laps and 40.1km to go, but my rides logged as 36.5km ?!?! not sure whats happening there (13km ish in, then 3x 7.87km laps makes 36.5km right) when it came up 40.1km to go, i thought ah christ bugger that, but carried on

I did same course yesterday and did exactly same on my distance counter thing.

dirtyrider – you won “who has the highest avg heart rate” The podium finishers tend to get booted if they have no HR but I think in BandC they are leaving them in after that. ZP (zpower) users are booted straight away.

I ended a silly 7 day period with my 4th race and not the flat one I had intended. 3 sisters instead. Perfect for my attributes of too heavy for my power :0)

Sensible off the line and into the second group. This broke up up the KOM climb and I ended up with mostly by Cs and a couple of fellow B riders.

Setting off up the Epic a couple of suspect C’s went off at an unsustainable pace for me and the 2 B’s shot off a little while later. Trying to maintain a steady pace the B’s eventually came back then went again as I shook my head thinking I’d see them later. Couldn’t hold the last small group that caught me before the top and then set off up to the mast. As there’s a big downhill rest after this I set off at a higher effort of around 250watts:3.1w/kg and slowly pulled riders back. After the steep corner I upped this to 280+ watts and reeled in, and dropped,  everybody who was within range (including the 2 Bs) bar one C who had about 12 seconds on me. Couple of big efforts on the uphills on the way down and I was with him by the bridge and we shared the work to the Volcano. Slim lead of around 20 seconds and 40 seconds on 2 others.

Got on the front on the Volcano and worked hard to maintain 240/250 watts which put my partner in trouble as the 2 behind were linking up and a big effort up the steep ending and before the descent started gave me about 40 seconds but the time gaps are a bit variable on differing terrain so had to crack on once at the bottom to maintain the lead.

Overall nothing startling as a result and I could feel the effort. Strangely enough all the Cs ahead of me got bumped or upgraded…

5 minutes to find to get up with the next meaningful group on the road. 70odd starters but only 42 finishers.

https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=46186

Just did the 1 lap job, brutal from the go, first bit of silverware though 🙂

https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=47112

Changed my training a bit on Zwift, I was doing the 4wk ftp booster to give me a solid footing and and accurate(ish) ftp value.

Now training for the multiples of 100 mile sportives i have this year, long ride training on zwift, my god is it monotonous and my ass hurts!  Cannot wait for the warmer weather so i can go out instead, self admitted fair weather rider…

Nice result Tiger, some impressive average watts going on there. I best add you to the list of people to avoid in flat races!

i did 3 laps of UCI course today in the EVR race and i can officially announce that it is the hardest course out of the lot. The 3 climbs at the end of each lap are just pure torture. I pulled between 450-500w on the first climb and i still got dropped even with a feather power up. The guys racing today were just too fast, each climb was full gas which just wasnt sustainable. I hung on to a group for dear life and ended up 7th in B but i was completely out of gas.

Yeah blader, that UCI course is brutal, that first climb is perfect for me but then there’s just not long enough to recover before the next one, then there’s nothing at all left in the tank for the steep at the end. I love it 😀

I did the WBR one lapper yesterday and experienced my first technological mechanical, ant+ dropped out for a couple of seconds and everyone in the group that I was in just disappeared into the distance. Up to that point it had been a really good race with everyone tearing chunks out of everyone else at 5.5+ on the front. It was a 13 minute race and the winner had a 5 min power of 5.4w/kg. in the end i picked up a straggler from the lead group and beat him in the sprint. Still a good work out and did another 40 mins or so after that, was rather enjoying being on the bike.

Rode for 90 minutes last night. Back with a functioning Bluetooth speed sensor (also cadence and HR). zPower on my Sartori (set as a Blue Motion and resistance 4) looked credible for heart rate and road riding. Four hilly climbs and 51 km would be about right.

Anyway, ordered a Kickr 2016 off the website as reconditioned Snap and Kickr units are back in stock. Cheapest Snap is £300 now. https://uk.wahoofitness.com/devices

Still not worked out where the group rides and races are listed on iOS, but not that bothered. Might do another 50 km tonight with a bigger iPAD to see the numbers 🙂

Chickening out of a full on race tonight. If anyone else is doing the SZR 2 lap Evening “Joyride” at 6 then I will see you there 🙂

I have done a few of their Joyrides and they are anything but fun!

I went real-world today with a blast on the 29er on the roads. Had to drop my car off at the garage for servicing and MOT, so came back on the roads with a 28km bimble, well, i say bimble, i was trying pretty hard considering !

Times, pace and stuff were all pretty good, felt strong and happy.

Making some decisions and debates tonight now as i’ve been struggling at times with a bit of neck pain. So i’m considering consigning the Isaac to the loft and decomissioning it. I’ve done the attempts now at Crits, i don’t see myself doing the Crit thing again, so there’s really no need to do any work on the Isaac now.

I can fit the rear wheel off the Isaac on the Parkwood as they’re both QR, but admittedly i have to remove the rear caliper from the mount, but it’s only a 2 minute job after all so no biggy. I have used a Hybrid tyre before but it steals about 30-40w when riding, which may not seem a lot, but when racing on Zwift, it’s actually a pretty massive factor, it’s the difference between winning C races and finshing 10th..  The other alternative is to come up with a plan where i can fit the turbo tyre onto an actual 29er rear wheel, but it really would have to be an exceptionally narrow rim to manage it. We’ll see… But i can see the Isaac being banished after tomorrow.

It’s something i ought to think about selling, but i’d feel really bad as it was a gift from a neighbour who’s now moved to Canada, but he’d have only ended up giving it to charity. As far as i know it’s a decent frame, carbon Isaac Pascal, with full Campag 10 speed, Campag brakes and i believe decent wheels… But i have no concept of what something like that is worth.

Scaled, ordinarily i would like those climbs but for some reason Richmond seems to make everyone go watt crazy on the the flat section. Last couple of times the starts have been lightening fast with no let up so by the time you get to the climb you are already blowing hard. Today the start was actually pretty comfortable and i was ready for the first climb but hitting 500w and still getting dropped is just too fast for me. 3 laps of that nonesense and i was goosed. The climbs being so close together means i am just staring at the crankset trying to forget the pain.

Any zwift tips for an old, slow fat (91kg) bloke apart from stay off the beer and crisps?  Done a couple of 1 hour+ sessions averaging 110 watts and enjoy the timed hill climbs and sprints.  Are any of the group rides suitable or will I get left riding alone? What about the fitness plan rides?

shinton, I think some of the group rides (workouts maybe) might allow everyone to stay together regardless of their actual power, as long as you keep pedaling

… or else if nothing else works, go on the zwift diet™ and lose 40 kilos.  Nobody’ll care unless you’re racing

Hi Shinton. I am an oldie (50+) and started this year at 93 kgs (now down to 86.8 as a result of diet and Zwift). I would definitiely recommend some group rides as they will certainly push you to try hard, just make sure you sign in as a Group D to start with. If you feel you can’t stick the pace even as a D then get going on some of the ERG mode workouts where the turbo will automatically set an appropriate resistance for your ability (based on your FTP which you will of course have already ascertained 🙂 ). You will soon be looking for ways to improve you power, such as making sure your roller is spotless, you have a good slick tyre pumped up to 100 psi etc, etc..

Another 90+ kgs here.

You’ll probably find that you’ve got legs that are used to push 90kilos around and don’t lack power on flat courses this gives you a decent stab at keeping up with groups

One of them dreaded days here today…. Rest day ! I really don’t like them and they rarely seem to help. But i’m at 160km up to now for March which is honestly enough for me in a week, so having the day off makes sense. Whether i can manage it, is very much open to debate 🙂

Another 50 km around the Richmond course. Rather enjoyed the three laps, and could probably have done another 90 minutes. Rode using a standard iPad rather than my mini, and can now see the inclination graph – that used to be bigger! I can also see the group rides menu on log in as well – missed them previously. Still can’t read the names of the cyclists though. Don’t really want to bring it in from the garage, but I could run it on the home cinema via Apple TV Airplay. Might get a bit warm though. We also had an iPad Pro mk1, but this doesn’t fit into the Tacx tablet holder. I’m also rather wary of using this holder on my Kreitler rollers. Looks an easy way to log distance, but not quite the same.

I probably need a fan.

Will consider a group ride/race when the Kickr arrives, and I look forward to power comparisons.

So, as per previous posts I have a new tacx flow smart (2240) trainer, and since switching to this trainer im loads faster in swift , looks like my power is approx 20 watts higher than when I was using my old dumb cycleops mag trainer.

The flow is calibrated correctly according to the app, so which number is correct? The one from the flow or from the cycleops?

I’m inclined to believe the cycleops more as when I ride in zwift on the cycleops with mates that I also ride with in the real world, were all in the same order, ie the person in real world that is faster than me is also faster in zwift. However when using the flow I am the fastest person, which is deffo not right.

Is there a gotcha to calibrating the flow correctly? Like I say the tacx app reckons its calibrated correctly.

Maybe the cycleops is a little pessimistic, and the tacx is optimistic?

When riding on my own I guess its no problem, as any improvment in relative, but being loads faster than others who in the real world I am slower than is irritating (for them)

I assume the cycleops trainer was using a virtual power curve so i would say that this one is likely to be less accurate than your smart trainer.

Had a very interesting race this morning with MGCC crew. The race was advertised as road to ruins but its london course today so i figured the race was likely to falter. Spoke with the organiser who had no idea what was going to happen so we all lined up not knowing where we were going or for how long.

A fast start again and a couple of miles in it seemed were were heading for box hill so london loop but this time only 1 lap. Normally its 2 laps so decided i could burn more matches up box hill so i might try and get a breakaway. Sadly 2 Korean riders had other ideas and i had to hit 5w/kg and constant 370w all the way up just to hang on to them. I crested box hill in 7:04 with a hr of 180 and thighs full of lactate but i was 8 secs behind 1 of the Koreans. I knew i had to go hard up that steep kicker before the descent so i hit 500w up there and managed to just catch him as the downhill started. So me and 2 Koreans heading for the podium spots.

i soft pedalled down the hill to try and recover for the nasty ramp in the subway section. I always get dropped after that section as i have nothing left for the run in. I decided not to look at the screen and also to keep pedalling hard after we have crested it. Boom i hit the ramp doing 560w and managed to get a 1 sec lead and just kept turning a big gear. I was only doing 76rpm but in this gear i was doing 320w+ and so i had  0.7mile to hold on to my 1 sec lead from the 2 chasers. It was time to unleash the yorkshire grit and fight the pain to the end. I kept it in high gear and made sure my cadence never dropped and just went for it. I could see them hitting some big numbers but so was i and now i had a 3 sec lead. I was now shouting and begging for the line and there it was and i coasted over and won GOLD by 3.62 secs. Now that hurt a lot but the satisfaction was immense. Stats ended up as avg 295w with max hr of 182.

Yeah the cycleops was using the zwift calculated virtual power. All my riding mates are also using virtual power. I suppose it could be that the virtual power is pessismistic, but when we’re all on the same kind of trainer were all comparable,but now i have gone for a smart trainer i cant really compare with them.

Kind of shows how much discrepancy you can get across different zwift setups, makes comparing yourself to others difficult.

Awesome work Blader… You’re a bit of a BEAST !

Well done Blader, that sounds like everything went more or less to plan, you were just prepared to hurt more than you thought you were!

Hopefully CVR racing tonight, but now we’re at the sharp end the timezones are all shifted and the 10pm racers are all going at 7pm, that’s firmly in my eating/putting kids to bed window.

Scaled thats one of the reasons why i didnt compete in the cvr league, the times were either too early or too late for my famiy life. I shall try and keep an eye on tonights race as there have been quite a few good ones, good luck.

i tried a sprint segment after the race to see if i could max out my trainer (limit is 800w). No idea what i got up to as for some reason it hasnt saved but i am 99% certain something was smoking at the back wheel, i do hope it was burning rubber and not electrical components. Will try it out on Thurs.

LOL seems to be a theme going on here, i could smell burning yesterday after a couple of sprint efforts at max cadence (148!) the trainer had crept forwards a few inches and I was dangerously close to my foot heater, so much s that i’ve singed the hair off my right leg 😀

Ha! My turbo had been creeping forwards also and as one leg crept forward it went into a lower bit of floor and I fell into the fireplace

Zwifting is hazardous!

(fireplace is not used so no burning though)

Tiger and scaled that is funny, who would have thought it would be so dangerous to be stationary. One of the guys on the mgcc race a couple of years ago was heard on discord  riding in to a wall. It transpires everyone heard a loud bang and crash so they asked around and one of the guys on his rollers had come off and hit the wall in his basement. No harm done but it does come up now and again in conversation.

Pah. Smart trainer idea gone down in flames after the cat went to the vet and ran the bill up.

That is a bummer Kryton. Hope the moggy is OK now though?

My Zwifting may take a bit of a knock in the next days/weeks. I’ve decided to retire the Isaac now. So will be doing all my Zwifting/riding on the Parkwood. I’ve currently got a Hybrid tyre fitted.

I previously had this tyre and did some testing.

Isaac, Conti GP4000, SPD-SLs
5:00 @ 200W in ERG
Max HR 119
Ave HR 115

Parkwood, Hybrid tyre flats
5:00 @ 200w in ERG
Max HR 130
Ave HR 123

Parkwood, ContiG GP4000, Flats
5:00 @ 200w in ERG
Max HR 123
Ave HR 117

Re-test Isaac, Conti GP4000, SPD-SLs
5:00 @ 200W in ERG
Max HR 121
Ave HR 116

Isaac, Conti GP4000, Flats.
5:00 @ 200W in ERG
Max HR 120
Ave HR 116

I didn’t test to see how many watts are lost using the Hybrid tyre and Parkwood, but the HR was 7bpm higher for the 5 min test on the tyre. So what i’m thinking is to pick up one of these

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Tacx-Home-Trainer-MTB-Tyre-T1397-Folding-28-x-1-25/381070230297?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649

Tacx Home Trainer MTB Tyre T1397 Folding – 28 x 1.25

The main thing stealing my power (or upping my HR) on the Parkwood test didn’t seem to be the pedals or the riding position but the tyre. The 700×23 i currently have as the turbo tyre doesn’t fit the Mavic 29er rim as the rim is too wide but i’m thinking the 1.25 (32mm) will fit better on the rim i have. With luck, i’ll then be on a pretty much level playing field for my usual speed/power. If not, then i’ll just have to come to terms with being back firmly in C rather than B, which honestly makes very little difference to me.

Not sure if i’ll test the hybrid tyre today as i may have to shoot into Reading to collect my car after servicing etc.

Well interestingly (to me…) i jumped on for a ride with the Hybrid rubber on. The route took in Leith Hill, which couldn’t suit me less as a course

Comparing times, speeds and HR to a previous race attempt, it wasn’t that bad actually

Today was 19min 35 and Jan time was 18min 15. Which may seem a chunk, however, looking at the HRs

Today was Av157, Max 166 and Jan was Av172, Max 176. So on the race in Jan i tried a LOT harder to get them 1mins 20sec. I’m sure someone cleverer than me can work out from the Watts what the difference would be.

Average 227w and Average 259w.

Wasn’t planning on pushing hard today, although 157 isn’t exactly bimbling, but then again, it’s not flying.

All in all, i enjoyed it 🙂

London Hilly 2 Lap WBR 🙂

Tough, was on my own most of the race and finished very mid table, but got a chunky FTP increase according Zwift

Edit: Just looked at Zwiftpower and may have done okay in C Looks like some Chinese profiles may get filtered out on silly power and no HR

What does that put you to now ?