[Closed] Sufferfest/ Wahoo Questions

How do you use the gears on Sufferfest?

You don’t.  In Rouvy or Zwift the idea is to replicate real riding so you change down to go up a hill, change up to go faster on the flat, etc.  When following a workout in SYSTM the app/trainer sets you a power target and since power is a product of cadence and torque the slower you pedal the more torque you have to produce.  What gear you are in is irellevant

Thanks so i am better to leave the chain in a gear ratio that gives a chain line as straight as possible and not move it?

Hmmm, I've tried several different trainer apps with my smart trainer, and they all used ERG mode whereby you don't need to change gear so I'm not sure what you are doing or why you think you need to change gear!

Next time, try leaving it in gear and pedal harder 😉

Having said that, there are a couple (well, at least one!) workout which requires you to use gears on SYSTM. I can't remember which one, but may be you selected that one??? The little workout write up and on screen instructions tell you when "levels" are needed instead of ERG node

EDIT: I'm assuming you are actually following a defined workout. Ignore me if you are doing a "free ride"

I haven't worked out the sound thing. I run music through an old iPad and a mini preamp thing and Chromecast the pictures to the big telly.

Effectively two separate systems. I had the old speakers and the nobsound amp was pretty cheap and good.

if you have to stop pedalling at any point on Sufferfest/SSTYM, if you pedal backwards for a couple of revolutions once you start going again the power level will reset to zero and then slowly build back up to your target power.

How do you use the gears on Sufferfest?

Depends what you are doing and what you want to achieve. You can use either Erg or Level mode in SYSTM.

Erg will adjust the resistance to make sure you hit whatever power target is required, the slower your cadence the higher the resistance and the higher your cadence the lower the resistance. Sounds like you are in erg as when you stopped you were at a cadence of 0 so needed a lot of power to get going again. I use erg almost all the time and just make sure I am hitting the cadence targets, the trainer/app takes care of the rest.

Level mode will allow you to use your gears to make things easier/harder, it does give you more control but is a lot harder to hit your targets consistently.

My power chart after an erg workout is lovely and smooth and just where it should be, after something on level mode it is all over the place. I only really use level mode on 4DP tests and a couple of the old sufferfest sessions where you have very short (20-30s) intervals.

I'm not sure if it makes much of a difference, but I'm on a Kickr bike which emulates the gearing on my road bike so I guess my experience is relevant to you but am not 100% sure.

These pages might help:

https://support.wahoofitness.com/hc/en-us/articles/4402565516946-A-Guide-to-using-ERG-mode
https://support.wahoofitness.com/hc/en-us/articles/4402565219218-A-Guide-to-using-Level-Mode

Thanks all useful advice.

Its annoying that I cant get music playing through the TV at the same time, but I guess I can put another speaker in to the setup.

Although I think this type of training is more efficient, I am not sure I will stick with it after the free trail as I do really like the POV riding stuff that was on Rouvy and others ie FulGaz

One final thing how does it know what power I can put out ? ie the first ride I did it put FTP about 220w which for me is slightly too high.

DO I actually need to do a FTP test first to set it up correctly?

DO I actually need to do a FTP test first to set it up correctly?

Yes if you don't have correct numbers from other tests and even then there are some differences between devices so FTP test on this setup is beneficial. And 4DP test is quite fun to do and proper workout too.

You can update your numbers manually if you prefer - go to "My Profile" (top left button), Athlete Profile. It's definitely worth doing a test though so you are on accurate numbers, which you can take across into other apps if you move on.

There is a "Fitness Test Prep" 7 day plan which will take you through Half Monty (FTP ramp test) and Full Frontal (4DP test) along with a few other sessions.

You can also reduce level of effort during a session, for example if FTP of 220w was too high you could have knocked the session down to 90% to see how that felt.

If you like POV rides, have you tried any of the ProRides? You're basically chasing a pro rider round a real race. If you have up to date numbers (4DP or FTP test) then it'll scale your effort/targets to make sure you get the most out of it.

If you like POV rides, have you tried any of the ProRides? You’re basically chasing a pro rider round a real race. If you have up to date numbers (4DP or FTP test) then it’ll scale your effort/targets to make sure you get the most out of it.

Also the On Location rides are good, they nicely mix a workout with some stunning (French) scenery. I've been working my way through the Inspiration films when I need a recovery ride, too. Just need to work out how to switch off the subtitles for the English and Spanish language films...

Following as I'm trying to get to grips with this. Gave zwift a v brief go but just too glitchy screen mirroring from the android app. May try again with apple TV.

Trying wahoo system (got a kickr core), and finding it frustrating on a couple of goes. Clearly set my FTP too low, and did a GCN over/under workout which should have taken my HR into the 170s, but because it doesn't matter what you do with gears or peddling it just sets efforts on % FTP so I couldn't get my HR over 151. I realised this about 10 mins in, giving me the option of bailing (which I never do - once I bail on a workout that's it. Shoot me), so resigned myself to half an hour of frustration. On the upside my FTP must be better than I thought.

True story. Sorry everyone.

@johnx2,
That would be a fundamental issue with using any training app if you have the wrong FTP set, that's why people have said about doing an FTP test of some sort before cracking on to training.
Having said that there are a couple of things that you can or could do:
1) use the percentage controls to nudge up the effort, you can increase it to somewhere around +20% I think.
2) change it to level mode and use your gears, and stick it on a higher level of that's still not hard enough!

And not to get too far into it as I don't know your training background, but HR values can be a bit variable any may not always be the best guide. IT sounds like the RPE was lower than you were expecting though.

Trying wahoo system (got a kickr core), and finding it frustrating on a couple of goes. Clearly set my FTP too low

As @ico86 says you need to do a ftp test to get the right values - in Systm you can find it in Library > Fitness Test > Full Frontal (4DP Test). You need to do it in Level Mode (rather than Erg) to allow you to set the difficulty using gears+cadence. Once you've done it Systm will use its results to set up how hard or easy you should go in the other workouts, for these you'll probably want to be in Erg mode.

Be warned it's a right **** of a workout, you'll certainly feel it after 🙂

^^^Thanks. Did one. It hurt, but clearly not enough and I know I need to do another. Just am not in a particular hurry to do so for some reason. (Pain.) In the meantime I have nudged up the ftp just 5% which has had the effect of making me me heading outdoors for my last couple of rides. (It was the horrible weather last weekend and Monday made me finally try to get to grips.)

I need to find some fitness from somewhere so do need to get on the thing again, or get the roadbike back out.

I find level mode pretty hard to manage changes in effort. If you are going to do Full Frontal in level mode (as is recommended) then I would highly recommend spending 30 mins or so on another session to get a feel for where your power levels are with respect gearing. Depending how far apart your gears are you will almost certainly see a spike in power when you change up a gear, this can take a little while to settle down and if you don't realise this you can end up skipping up/down gears, increasing/decreasing cadence, basically making life very difficult for yourself! Something like the shovel would probably be a good one for practicing level mode.

And 4DP test is quite fun to do and proper workout too.

Just do the Half Monty ramp test would be my advice to start with. It'll give you 20-minute and 5-minute figures which is mostly what you need unless you're doing a lot of short sprint intervals and is less dependent on testing than the 4DP version. It's also significantly less unpleasant.

Sigh, what I meant to say was that the ramp test is less dependent on pacing than the full 4DP test which can be tricky to get right the first time you do it. Sorry about that.