Lots of Crit racing in the past 4-5 days.
picking up 9.5, 17.5 and 17.5 ranking points to take me back to somehwere half respectable in the C ranking charts. C racing is still tough, but in a different way to B. In B it was all about hanging on for as long as i could. However in C i'm sitting there waiting... waiting, not exactly cruising but i'm only hitting 281-283 average for the race which is OK for me. But tactically it's next to impossible for me to do anything different. I can't break away late, or indeed early, there's not enough power for that and i can't win sprints as i don't have one.
So i end up relying on some DQs and a bit of tactical positioning more than anything else. But, that said, it's more fun that being mullered in B that's for sure.
Not sure the legs have it in them today though..
Today was where the legs said "nah mate, no good"
It didn't help that it was the Dolphin layout, so the hill is a bit tougher that way. Was in the melting pot until 800m and lost it... Damn.
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=972475
Anyone having issues with power tonight? Took me 7 attempts of restarting zwift and my pc to get power to to work, despite hr, cadence and resistance working fine.
Then, when finally it did work, erg mode was automatically on/off every 20 seconds or so.
I thought maybe my Direto went bad but i connected my Wahoo Bolt which immediately connected the PM and showed power.
Ooh, that must have been the reason all my power dropped away at the end of the Quatch Quest ride, not that my legs fell off.
No takers for TTT this week? 6.30 this evening, 2 laps of Richmond Reverse.
Entry is in, start delay is 7.5 minutes. But so far, we have no riders.
If there's a last minute surge...
Sign up here to category D. https://www.zwift.com/events/view/978171
I can't ride today. Whatever happens I'll try again next week.
No legs for me after 417Flyup yesterday sorry lads.
Got the Tron bike this morning, right at the top of the Alpe. It's taken months to get there, but I worked out that since last friday morning when I did La Reine I have done 5000m of climbing in the last week. That's alot for me so now it's time to do some flatter stuff and work on speed.
The Team Time Trial entry is in for this week.
Thursday, 6.30pm, 1 lap (25km) of RGV on the French map. That's the shortest and flattest for ages.
Enter category D here: https://www.zwift.com/events/view/991230
I think might start doing this in its own thread each week (like the MNPR threads).
great, I've entered! Hopefully we have a few more takers this week. Haven't actually Zwifted since the TTT 3 weeks ago now (I think!) due to the nice weather & other stuff so would be good to get back on it!
Not a terrible idea starting a new thread, might stop it getting lost amongst the general Zwift chat. Do they have an off-season or is it on literally every week?
new thread is a good plan.
Not sure about 'flat' on that one though lol.
All being well I should be back in this week. I'm signed up and will keep an eye out for the new thread.
Just me, dangeourbrain and zilog for the TTT so far. Any other interest?
25km of flat France, Thursday 6.30pm
Sign up here to Category D: https://www.zwift.com/events/view/991230
@zilog6128 said
Do they have an off-season or is it on literally every week?
As far as I know it's literally every week. It is a bit relentless. Maybe we're having our own mini off-season at the moment...
@weeksy said
Not sure about ‘flat’ on that one though lol.
Nice ride this morning weeksy. Isn't the only hill on that RGV course literally a bridge... so small it's dwarfed by the bigger bridge next to it?
I've posted a dedicated TTT thread. It did occur to me that our habitual 6.30 timeslot was chosen at the height of lockdown and if we keep doing this there will maybe come a time when more normality for us all means that becomes less convenient. Just something to keep in mind, even if not until after summer.
I'll join the TTT tomorrow mate, will sign up later.
This mornings ride was nice. Suited me lots.
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=989403
I managed a decent start and the first 13.4km i sat with the As and Bs, but on about 13.5 some guy in A kicked off the front and people went with him... I had a choice, go or stay, i decided to stay as the groups split and sat with 5 others, including 2 Cs, who were later DQ'd. So in the end it turned out to be a pretty easy and convincing C win. As with all the combined start races, if you miss the shake up at the start, you're finished... Get in the right group, conserve energy and you've got yourself a win.
Trying to make sense of this questionaire Zwift sent out to some users... Looks ominous (read expensive)!
https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2020/08/zwift-considering-45-month-features-latest.html
There are some good updates to Zwift today that could be relevant to us on here. Quite a few changes but most importantly:
- France and Paris available as a meet up world (Tuesday night sprint circuit or Mont Ventoux commute?)
- Late join to meetups (helps those of us on commutes who oversleep!)
- Race results available on meetups (STW racing league?)
– Race results available on meetups (STW racing league?)
Even though i'm not going to win that... it has potential to be fantastic !
An STW series taking in different worlds, different styles of racing etc.... Yeah, i'd be all over it.
An STW series taking in different worlds, different styles of racing etc…. Yeah, i’d be all over it.
I'd b be happy to help try getting that off the ground.
We have a bit of time to get something sorted - something starting in September should be ideal as the nights are starting to draw in and people will be back on Zwift more
and people will be back on Zwift more
Especially if they close the pubs so the kids can go to school.
Anyone breaking out their wattmonster for the 9:45am today.. ?
Crit race with plenty of well ranked riders in, so if i can get lucky i may pick up a ranking point or 2....
I'm currently sitting 433.19 points which is good for 333rd in C... i'd like to find 10 points which would move me up to 250th.... but it's completely possible i'll get 0 lol.
I was thinking a mini-series to start with?
Say one weekday evening (Tuesday or Thursday) at about 8pm (to give people time to get home from work, sort out kids etc).
Would go on for 6 weeks from second week of September so would be finished before half term, therefore the majority of people should be about.
Everyone sets of together and races to the line in whichever way they choose. We would then sort out winners of individual categories (A, B, C, D, E). E can be a womens specific category but as the other cats are sorted in W/kg they are welcome to join in for whichever category they want (just Zwift seems to single out a womens competition in most events).
It would be a choice between points scoring for the individual categories (10 points for 1st, 8 for 2nd etc) or do it just on time with the time from the 6 races added together for an overall winner of the series. Time would mean you would likely get a mix of cats through the overall standing as the categories don't always play to peoples strengths on some course.
Courses would be a mixture so likely one hilly one, a couple of crits, maybe an ITT and a couple of more flowing rolling races scattered throughout the Zwift world.
Any thoughts?
We can then tweak the format for the pre-xmas version depending on the success of this one.
Hey. Hands off Thursday evenings robbo!
Apart from that it's a good idea. Is it too soon to tell how much functionality is being made available to avoid doing all that scoring manually?
Good point will make it Tuesday to leave Thursday for STW Team Time Trail then.
Hopefully doing a couple of early morning commute/group rides next week so will let you know what functionality we have then!
Hopefully doing a couple of early morning commute/group rides next week so will let you know what functionality we have then!
If a proper 20min ish crit is available as an option I could do a 6.45 start Monday or Wednesday and still be done in time to get to the office...
FWIW I think manual might be the way to go anyhow as we could reasonably handicap it to keep everyone competitive. Eg I'm a B but in a crit I'm sitting firmly in A outputs (but it doesn't count since its a sub 20min ride so no ftp...). Entering as an A the field amongst us lot would be relatively small and as a B I'll be racing folks who only just scrape 3.1w/kg.
A short series would be good if only to get a good base for each of us so we can make it a bit fairer next time.
If I know peoples FTP and weight I can work out a handicap for each course before hand. It wouldn't be that much work to do to add a handicap. I would use software to calculate the time for the course assuming all other factors remain the same it will give a time difference for each person to complete it. This can be taken of the time to give an overall leaderboard and we don't worry about cats.
I will see if I can get a crit circuit for a Wednesday commute Brian.
Arrrrrgh. That was not my best ever race. Bit of pre-race banter in the pen. On the Fri morning Crit race we often see either 1 or 2 U13 racers who seem to be CX racers outside and are awesome inside in C lol.
ME and a couple of others tried various tactics to break the youngsters but failed.... I died on my ar*e with about 1.3km to go....
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=992548
Just gone to www.zwift.com to update my weight from 80.0Kg yesterday to 79.3Kg today (dehydration is most likely cause) and you can no longer do decimal settings, not an issue in the past, struggling to recall when I actually used the turbo (early July maybe?).
So I'll be weight doping at 79Kg, if I'm mad enough to finally try the new French routes in this heat, while trying not to sweat into my healing open wound. 😆
Just seen this review of the new Elite smart steering gadget for Zwift on DCR
https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2020/08/zwift-steering-elite-sterzo-smart.html?fbclid=IwAR1_GV12ZQOMzuEagZp_sWfH39lsHhjPk26kXwxDG8w1uCqH17ZvRDGRkok
He was very positive about it! (Doesn’t work the same as MTB steering... in fact you cannot currently use it for that apparently!)
Price is only £75 which seems pretty affordable, the not smart version alone is £35 (haven’t got that but have something similar from Kurt, really like being able to noodle the front wheel about whilst on the turbo!)
Reckon I’ll be getting one! 😀
So I’ll be weight doping at 79Kg, if I’m mad enough to finally try the new French routes in this heat, while trying not to sweat into my healing open wound.
Pretty sure it's been no decimals on weight for as long as I've been on 9ish month? Can switch to imperial and then it does a conversion.
I think technically you're sposed to round up or down so 79.3 would be be 79 but 79.5 would be 80
Only 7 people turned up for the C cat 17.30 sprint race but a win is a win so I'll take it 😂👑
Hopefully be a bit cooler for the TTT on thurs tho!
Well done zilog, I've never won a race 🙁
ta! definitely gave it 100% as I had to make a deposit into my special ZwiftBucket immediately after crossing the finish line 😂
I assume thats the soggy towel tub, not that you actually managed to make your self sick.
If it was the latter, I hope it was a previously flattened paper cup.
That was awful. 7 days off tarmac day 2, not a race, but it really is a race, and I got stuffed.
Straight from the mtb and my commute onto the turbo in my commute kit.
I picked up a good group early on and held with them until you pass under the building about 1k from the first climb. Massively over heating so had to ditch my baggies at that point, turns out you can't keep pedaling whilst you take shorts off.
They had 45 seconds on me by the time I got moving again. With no group to hold and my hr through the roof I backed off and planned to catch the next group coming through.
Three groups blew through me in the climb, I just kept dropping gears and watts. I was into double figure wattage by the end of lap one and only going down.
I nearly jacked it in at the sprint on lap 2, I'd stabilised a bit but I was spending so much effort on keeping cool I was struggling to hold 150w and I'd lost as much motivation as power and drunk the full litre of water I had.
Got picked up by a group I could hold at about 200 which was the encouragement I needed to stay in and fortunately Mrs brain came home and replenished my water supplies and returned the fan just before the climb on lap two,without I don't think I'd have made it.
Not sure if it was the 50mi I already had in my legs today or the 38 degree heat in the man cave with no fan but that was possibly the most horrible zwift session I've ever done.
95th of 172 on the line
Oh man! Kudos for sticking with it and finishing. Sometimes it can be hell on the bike but it makes us stronger.
I hope my stage 2 at 6am isn't as painful.
Did better than me. I had internet drop out at the start and by the time I was back online I was virtually last. Repeated sprints to get up groups saw me in a reasonable group by just after the 1st sprint banner and I managed to get over the 1st climb with the front of the group, 2nd climb was ok but by the last one I was really struggling. Groups had been blown apart, no-one around me and sweating like a similie and a dodgy connection still I decided to call it a day after a lap.
Moral of today's story I can't do repeated 450W sprints through broken packs and then ride up hills.
Moral of today’s story I can’t do repeated 450W sprints through broken packs and then ride up hills.
Ah yeah, it sucks to learn that but it's a good lesson! Odd how often I need to relearn it though.
I hope my stage 2 at 6am isn’t as painful.
How did you get on?
Dangourbrain, not sure if it helps but with different circumstances I’m also tired and your race sounds very much like my attempt at 2 x sweet spot up Ven Top in a 33 degree mancave last night. I think the heat is more fatiguing that you reliase sometimes, I just couldn’t get the power out.
Didn't ride this morning, felt too tired at 5-30am so went back to sleep. Will probably do it this evening after work.
Sometimes you just need a lie in 🙂
Sometimes you just need a lie in 🙂
Fairly often in my case it seems!
not sure if it helps
It does a bit - roughly how long does Venn top take? Thinking I'm going to do that as a Sunday hills this week if anyone fancies joining me?
how long does Venn top take
I gave up before I reached the top. It depends on pace of course. Its 20km and I was averaging 11kmh yesterday.
It is relentless though, the KM's tick along very slowly.
So if I pitch for 2-2.5 I should be good. That might mean an earlier start than I'd like then to be finished on time this Sunday. Hmmmm.
Your ride yesterday has everything @dangeourbrain. Not the best day to start a tough ride overdressed without a fan.
how long does Venn top take
It took me 1:36 of which 1:31 was the strava climb segment at a (robotic) 3.2w/kg. That was in the never ending peloton of the etape though, so it would have been slower without the megadraft. I said afterwards I see no reason to ever ride that route again, and I still think that. I like zwift because it relieves the relentless of indoor riding. Ven-top does not exactly have that virtue.
I said afterwards I see no reason to ever ride that route again, and I still think that. I like zwift because it relieves the relentless of indoor riding. Ven-top does not exactly have that virtue.
I can certainly understand that one, mainly I'd like to get it ticked off and I guess, what with it being the first weekend of France being open to the masses, it should be a bit busier than normal so hopefully stand a chance of hooking onto a group for a bit of a shared workload.
It is relentless, I did it at around 2 to 2.5KW and it took me 1hr 46mins if I remember correctly. The worst part is from 6km to 12km, as the gradient is at its worst constantly, from 10% to 12%. It's tough and as it just goes on and on it's more of a mind game. I've done it once as a full route and the La Reine route also which goes within about 5km of the summit.
If I'm about on Sunday I'll join you, I may do an outdoors ride, but I'll be just cruising up.
You will easily do that in under 2 hours brian. I did it in 1 hour 53 and you are a lot quicker than me. I enjoyed the bit after chalet raynard more. It was more interesting the first bit is quite monotonous and boring.
Looks like I could finally be setting up the turbo rather than donating £13 to poor Zwift millionaires, my operation wound is healing nicely now, but the weekend thunderstorms have started. 🙁
Guess it means I can finally try the new France routes and maybe pootle stage 2 of the Tarmac SL7 event.
savoyad
SubscriberI said afterwards I see no reason to ever ride that route again, and I still think that.
My thoughts exactly, I did it on my kickr with a climb with the gradient set at 100% realism - it was the worst day on the turbo I've ever had and I've done a 6hr Zwift imperial century on the hilly route back when that was the only Watopia option.
It's so much harder than the Alpe, mentally more than physically I think, as it's just a constant slog with no live performance indicators such as segment average etc. Plus if you do it as part of a Chalet Reynard ride your distance to go marker stops at Chalet Reynard so you've no real idea of far you've left to go unless you know the distance from CR to the finish.
Oooooo that was a hot one! Stage 2 of Tarmac this evening, it was hot in the pain cave, managed to get into a small group fairly quick and kept with some of them all the way round the 2 laps.
The hills broke up the group abit but it didn't feel too bad overall. 55:45 for the race, came in 48th out of 117, 41 on ZP. Average of 240w.
La Reine on Saturday will be a challenge.
Yeah I reckon Le Reine is harder than Ven-Top and I like those sort of rides on Zwift!
I agree, I found La Reine much harder than Ven-Top. It must be that lead in and the petit KOM taking it out of you before the main climb.
You lot really aren't selling me on getting up that hill!
Good effort on stage 2 Craig, I really did not enjoy that one, night have been a boy better if I knew the course but barring the really obvious ones the hills all took me by surprise, somehow on lap couldn't actually remember them from lap 1 even.
https://www.zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=1006244
Bit confused today, I think my HR monitor was reading low, entered a short flat race, playing to my strengths. Off the start the C's were 5s ahead and I was leading them out, as a few As and Bs caught us I jumped on and were ended as a group of about 20, with 6 of us being C riders, over the next 15 mins, 3 of the C's were shelled out.
With 1.1km to go a pair of As split us with 8w/kg and I ignored them, concentrating only in holding the group.
300m to go it all went nuts and I held my own but didn't set the world alight.
End if race I got an FTP increase to 298w and a DQ from race.
I've now been put into B for the race and I hope not for the next 90 days lol.
Fun race and tough effort
I have entered the MAAP Stage 2 race tomorrow at 11 if anyone is about. I am on holiday this week but we have stayed at home and no plans for tomorrow so will be a good warm up before the TTT on Thursday as I have not ridden for 5 days! Longest break from the bike this year.
I think I will be doing the 7am one which is still Stage 1, but might just go for the group ride, not really sure which to do yet but I'm edging towards the Rising Empire ride as I've not done it yet.
What's the course like Robbo ?
2 options Weeksy for Stage 2. Long ride is Magnificent 8, shorter is Douche France, both flatish for the sprinters.
Flatish, there's no such thing. There's flat and not flat. Richmond, crit city, everything else
Douce France would likely be a good course for you I think Weeksy. A few bumps and one very short climb. Nothing like the climbs on the full Richmond circuit.
https://zwiftinsider.com/route/douce-france/
Douche would be no worse than Watopia flat really for slight rises here and there, but not pancake flat.
Douce France is proper witches tit.
LOL @ flat...
2%, -2%, 4%, -2%, 3%..0...3%
So not flat in my world.
I went off with the fast Cs... I held in there until 15.1km.... i then lost it... well, i kinda soft pedalled/quit.... then jumped on the next group who i sat with until 19km.... then again, got shelled.. It was then a fight with Robbos group...I don't know how many were in his group, i think 5-6.... but i had about a minute on them and 4km to go.
With 1.5km to go i had 24s.... So i'd lost 35-40s in the last 2km... it wasn't looking good for me.
With 700m to go i had 15s.... So i tried, i mean really tried !!! i crossed the line 2s ahead of Robbos group. !
Disappointed, well a bit... I should be holding onto a C race.. But it wasn't exactly a course that suits me... some of the 3% stuff puts me in the deep dark area.
It was pretty tough. No where to really get a breather on that course. For some reason I was a struggling to keep up on the slight downhill sections. I was in the second group on the road and not doing to bad but lost them in the downhill from the aqueduct. I settled into the next group which was about 60th and about 10-12 strong and stayed with them until the end of the line. Didn’t realise I was so close to you weeksy until the end and saw the results! Good recon for the TTT on Thursday. 35 mins for the course.
That's the problem I have, breathing, it's flat out all the way on that loop and the similar Casse-Pattes with the hill addition, you just have to find a group and hang on...I quite like it for that!!
I'm probably going to have a go in the morning.
For some reason I was a struggling to keep up on the slight downhill sections
This is not unusual - turn your trainer difficulty down and you go faster down hills as it's much easier to maintain power without spinning out. It also smooths out the transition between 0% & whatever where, on higher difficulties your trainer adjusting tends to suck a few W for a second or so causing you to drop off the folks in front without the same transition. In a big group that's sometimes enough to shell you irretrievably if you're towards the back anyway. (the reverse is also true which is why you often see a momentary spike in your power as you hit a slope before your trainer kicks up the resistance. The sticky draft though tends to mean it has no effect on the shape of the group.)
Oooooo that felt harder than it should have. MAAP stage 2 this morning. There was no race stage for some reason, just the group ride so I did that...its still a race!
Did my usual, off too hard and ended in one of the front groups where I felt a little uncomfortable and pushing hard. Managed to stay with them until the aqueduct where I got left for dead. Stayed with a couple of others who had the same and got to the sprint in the village before another group caught us.
Stayed with then until about 5km out where I got spat our the back again and couldn't get back on. My error of going off too hard in the beginning hadn't helped.
So it was TT for me until the next group came through with about 3km to go and they took me to the line.
A 35:46 which wasn't too bad but I reckon I had more in me if I can learn to pace better and not burn myself out too early.
That france course is pretty brutal, its power on all the way with no downhill to get your breath back.
Need to keep practising.
Got a couple of race reports to update.
I tried to do the 11am MAAP Stage 3 Race yesterday morning. 20 seconds before the start it crashed out so that was the end of that. The timings of that stage later in the day didn’t work out so I decided to do the 4pm Downton Dolphin 12 Lap Crit Race.
I had a good start and managed to get into the lead group on the road. It was tough going but I managed to keep up for about the first 8 laps, however, each time through the bumps at the end would put me further behind which I would then try and catch up on the flat section and hill. I got dropped from the group and remembered something dangrourbrain had said about turning trainer difficulty down. I did this whilst still riding and found it a bit easier to keep the power down when the terrain undulates (although it felt quite unnatural). I ended up in a group of 4 competing for 11th place out of about 85. On the last lap one of them hit the climb bit hard and dropped a burrito and got away from us. I had a aero left so saved it until the last bend and managed to get up to about 700W and dropped the other 2 to finish in 13th overall on the Zwift Companion and 7th on Zwiftpower.
This morning I again attempted the 11am MAAP Stage 3 race and this time it worked. I hit the first climb really hard and stayed with the lead group all the way through the first lap. It was hard though and I hit a new high 20 min power of 284W for lap finishing it in just under 20 minutes. I then lost the group the second time up the climb and was sitting in about 25th in a group of 4. It went back and forth a bit over the rest of the lap but I managed to keep up with them and use an aero just before the last corner and beat them in the sprint. I also got a load of PB’s for power from about 15mins through to 30 mins. I came in 21st overall on the Zwift Companion and 16th on Zwift power (think there were about 80 in total).
Ive done 4 races this week and my heart rate has gradually come down as my power has gone up so been able to quickly undo my week and a bit off doing any structured training. Back to the structured training this week with a couple of races and commutes thrown in!
Pacer bots just gone live on Zwift. Can be found in watopia, 4 different speeds.
https://zwiftinsider.com/pace-partners/
Still trying to work out if my issues with Zwift are with the Ant+ dongle or my laptop. I think it's more likely the dongle, but would be nice if i could narrow it down without spending money to find out. It's almost like when i insert it i then have to wiggle it slighlty off angle to get it to register. The problem with that is that it's not foolproof and not 100%. I sometimes get drop outs because of it. Last night on the TTT i'd just told the lads to ride without me and it started playing up... It wouldn't have made the difference anyway as i couldn't hold their pace uphill (but that's a whole other Zwift discussion i need to have)
So do i replace the dongle (it's my 2nd one) or do i get a Bluetooth HR strap and just use my phone instead for Zwifting. Screen size is a minor issue using the phone, but it's not the end of the world. But then again, i don't want to buy a bluetooth strap that doesn't work with my phone.
I've tried the Ant+ add-ons for Android but i still can't get the phone to see my Garmin HR strap.
Reason i need this is to race in Zwift you need a HR monitor to podium, if i'm racing, the odds are i'm somewhere near the pointy end in ZP so could do with it.
I'd be tempted to just get the dongle weeksy. For £10 with prime, if it doesn't solve the issue you'd probably get a fiver back on ebay anyhow.
I found running zwift on my phone was a total PITA on the occasions I've had to.
I have a spare dongle you can have @weeksy. You should get it tomorrow if I can get it in the post today?
I've been off Zwift since April. Going to start again in a couple of weeks. Always good to come back to this thread. I was going to have a go at Ventoux but I think maybe I might work up to that.
Also anyone tempted by the new Elite Strerzo smart? I watched DC rainmaker vid and convinced myself it was worth a punt.
Ventoux is hard but not as bad as I expected tbh. For me the first bit to Chalet Reynard is harder than the second bit up to the top. It's just relentless up up up at least near the top you get the iconic views you expect.
Seen quite a few reports of people having issues with sweat ingress causing problems with Sterzo, does look better in game that I expected though.
@weeksy is your laptop new enough to have Bluetooth? Worth trying that if it does to see if that solves the dropouts.
Do you plug the dongle straight in it via an extension cable. If cabled then try direct. If direct and you get a replacement then try cabled. Have you tried a different usb port on the laptop, could be that the port itself is damaged causing a poor connection.
It is possible to connect devices via the companion app (assuming your WiFi is strong in the zwift location). Though not sure you can connect the trainer that way and run the game on the laptop.
For a HR strap I've got one of the cheap decathlon ones that will connect by either ant+ or Bluetooth.
work laptop Nixie, BT disabled by policy. Get shot if we enable it
Robbo, don't worry mate, keep it as spares.
I'm testing a laptop now i bought for the wife a few weeks ago.
That's annoying. Strange they lock down Bluetooth but not usb.
Any scope for dual boot?
seems it's deffo the ports on the laptop, i assume through being over-used/word/kicked about lol.
If i use a bit of tape to ensure the Ant+ dongle is not moving/loose then it hopefully seems consistent.
Weirdly, using the new HP laptop i can't get a spanner for calibration on either the Ant+ or BT for the Snap, it sees it as FE-C but won't give me a calibration spanner. Even if i disable BT and just use Ant+
So apart from knowing the ports on the laptop are a bit duff, i'm no further on yet.