So Zwift shows you who has real power and who has virtual with a lightning bolt? never noticed that. Does strava, or do they think everyone has real power? Might highlight some fishy looking rides, e.g.https://www.strava.com/...14424?filter=overall. KOM did 474 watts for over 21 min and 161 HR? I'm suspicious! But maybe he's just a super stud, idk.

yeah, the app is cool, I jumped on the iOS invite so I've been using that beta too. I check every once and awhile to see if I spot any pros (while not riding). I've "ridden" with King, Ten Dams and Evelyn Stevens. Still searching for Jens.

One thing that is a little frustrating I've noticed is how the leaderboards are unique to each person. I may take a sprint or KOM, but that's only compared to efforts after I joined (I believe...the leaderboards always look empty, especially the Orange one, my first lap). So it might be that I think I took it, but no one else sees me in the lead (or vice versa, people may see me as the leader when I don't). At least that's my understanding of how it works.

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Only Good Days and Great Days

If you upload the ride from the .fit or whatever zwift saves it will have power data. As far as strava is concerned that means you had power and will put a lightening bolt in the KOM data.

If it were just a regular street strava segment power with no bolt would mean their estimated info based on your weight and type of bike you were on for the ride and a lightening bolt for the people who had real power meters.

Basically can't go by the lightening bolt in strava for any zwift ride.




Used it last friday for the first time when I only had about 30 minutes and couldn't fit in my scheduled TR ride. Not bad, didn't love it, would only use it again if I setup dual ant+ sticks and can do a structured workout while also using it. Stand alone not so much my thing, may just set it up for the GF to use with virtual power since she mentioned that she liked having some structure on the exercise bikes at the gym vs nothing on the trainer at home.


My one suggestion would be throw in some sort of warmup mode. I was thinking about it the whole time I was using it that it sort of takes a ton of restraint to not just get into it. If there was way to be in the game but it not having you on the loop, like a staging area off to the side where you are virtually on a trainer, like you might do before a crit or a TT. You can see the feed of who is there, watch people go around, get warmed up waiting for a friend etc. It could then still give you some virtual power data and include all your information in the fit file for tracking purposes.

Zwift Strava segments are pretty much meaningless. Between the virtual power and the fact that people can put any rider weight they want in their options field, it can't be trusted. So just ride for yourself and don't worry about the Strava KOM results. I've seen riders in the game that have held 10 to 11 w/kg for minutes at a time.

I totally agree. KOM hunting and leader boards don't matter to me at all.

Mrtopher. I will say that initially i found it hard not to go for it all the time with this app.too. I have logged over 300 miles on it now and find that feeling the need to compete all the time fades quickly if you are structured workout minded. I too sync trainer road to be able to do interval workouts and the like.

I think it lends itself very well to rides over 45 minutes. I can only do islagiatt...or other long TR rides so.many times before I get bored of just looking at a blue graph or sufferfest video I've seen countless times. The ability to do both at the same time is great... and with Zwift workouts coming it will all be integrated which is great.

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"4 wheels move the body, 2 wheels move the soul"

Yes Zwift shows you who is virtual power and who is real power by the lightning bolt. Mrtopher is correct that Strava and the like don't know the difference.

In regards to cheating in the game. It can be done with virtual power, weight, and power meter calibration. It is something that is inherent to the nature of this kind of game (TdG has the same issues). I don't see any way to rectify it, and to me, I am willing to accept it. I won't cheat in real life, I won't cheat in the game, and if others choose to that's their own self esteem issue.

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"4 wheels move the body, 2 wheels move the soul"

Ok, so I did the first round of testing. I tested Trainer Road's virtual power to that of my powertap. The results were good for trainer road. I probably should have done Zwifts first considering this is a Zwift thread... but I didn't ... I am going to duplicate the test later once my trainer has fully cooled down to keep test protocol the same. I understand that this is not a perfect test. To better test I would have done individual incremental intervals starting at low wattage and gradually increasing (and potentially descending again to make sure temp. drift wasn't a big issue.) But this was meant to be a simple test to compare Avg. wattage.

EDIT: Here is a link to the video I took about 12 minutes in, the trainer was warmed up. While the numbers don't always match the wings back and forth were presumably pretty close to equaling out. You can see trainer road is set horizontally across the bottom of the screen showing virtual power on the left hand side. http://tinypic.com/...amp;s=8#.VNP5Yi4bJVc

Setup: Simultaneously run Zwift and T.R. Using 2 ANT+ sticks

T.R. set to virtual power using Kurt Kinetic road machine. 100psi in Continental GP4000sii tire, 3.5 turns on resistance knob ...





Zwift set to Powertap G3 :




Here are the results

Trainer Road Avg. (virtual) Power 211 vs. Zwift Avg. Power 209 (powertap)


I did notice some slight discrepancy in power as the trainer warmed up. (virtual power was low) ... I had planned on doing a full hour but zwift's server went down, and I thought it was my internet connection. I will do the same 25 minute in my next test. I did take 3 videos and a few pics of my setup I will upload in a minute and add to this post.


Zwift via Powertap:



Trainer Road via virtual Power:

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"4 wheels move the body, 2 wheels move the soul"

Ok, did my Zpower vs quarq test on a KK R&R. i'm not familiar with virtual power protocol since I've never used it, but i did my normal trainer set up - trainer specific tire, enough tension so the wheel doesn't slip when i jerk spin the wheel with my hand hard, about 2.5 turns past first contact, maybe 2.25. ride was recovery, but i threw 2 short efforts to see a high end comparison. I used strava for the comparison.

garmin/Quarq
avg: 188
Norm: 203
Max: 1013

zPower
avg: 186
norm: 202
max: 989

HR averaged 119 for both, so doesn't seem like either lost any significant amount of data.

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So I've been waiting since November, checking every single day, for my invite. Finally got it tonight and was thrilled. Downloaded the program, let it update for 10 minutes. Then I go to start it and it doesn't work several times.

Turns out I don't have the minimum requirements for the graphics. I wasn't far off either looking at a chart.

Ain't that a real kick in the nuts?

Have you tried sending them a report including a DxDiag report? It's likely that updating your video card drivers will fix the issue.

Edit. I should note. I had the same issue as you. Did what I listed above
And was able to run the app on my laptop. The frame rate wasn't great but it worked and the graphics were still great.

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"4 wheels move the body, 2 wheels move the soul"

What exactly is a DxDiag report? And should I just submit a ticket to them with that info?

Yes. Go to the windows symbol on the bottom left of your pc screen. In the search or run box enter DxDiag and hit enter
It will run a report. Hit save all information on that box. Save the file and send it with your ticket.

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"4 wheels move the body, 2 wheels move the soul"

I'll get right on that now. Thanks for letting me know I could do that.

Let's hope it works!

Thats cool so you had really similar results as I did! I am curious if the results are the same across the range of watts from low to high. When I get bored I want to try and do some 3 minute intervals starting at say 140 watts going up by 20 watts at a time and seeing if it is even across the board or if we just happened to get good results due to the fact that we were both near the 200 watt range.

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"4 wheels move the body, 2 wheels move the soul"

No problem. While you are waiting for a reply. You can go to the manufacturer of your laptop/pc's website. Go to the download section for you specific model. Then download updated drivers if they exist. It is important to know if you are running 32 or 64 bit windows as they will have different drivers. You can check to see if the drivers you have are up to date by looking at the video section of that DxDiag report. If the latest ones listed on the manufacturers website are what appear in your report you are likely out of luck. Make sure it also lists Direct X 11.

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"4 wheels move the body, 2 wheels move the soul"

I am on DirectX 11 so I'm good there.

Currently downloading a graphics driver that Intel recommended after auto-detecting what I have now. I think I'm in luck but we'll see.

Great, best of luck.

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"4 wheels move the body, 2 wheels move the soul"

I'm up and running! Thank you for all the help, wouldn't have had a clue what to do without you.

I'll have to get a ride in tomorrow after school.

Hrm, when you got your invite email did it not mention driver updates? I've not seen the latest one we're sending out but I thought we'd put that in there weeks ago.

Sometime this spring I'll have time to go back and figure out all the strange issues on "old" drivers so the experience is smoother, but right now on machines that are a bit older you'll almost always have to update drivers. It's not totally atypical of PC gaming, and bigger games even get drivers specifically released to fix issues just for them.

There's learning on both sides of the fence here, so I'm glad we're having this extended beta. :)

It did give me a link to the FAQ's, which eventually led to the information about updating drivers. I probably should have checked that first.

I've finally got around to using it after last weeks trainer rides for ToS. Its a nice change from a structured workout,

user name is Jmatheusik

I think i'm going to bring a better TV into my bike room that hooks up with the computer.

Did another ride last night and was noticing strange watts/kg for myself like many have mentioned they noticed for others. Doing about 80% effort was showing 4 w/kg which I'm not currently doing at 100%... almost but not quite.

Logged into my online profile after and none of my height/weight info had saved.

So my guess would be that many people you see with wacky readings may simply just have not entered it, not sure what the default weight it was using for me (maybe I'll calculate later) quick math says probably about 150lbs.


Doesn't seem to be something you can edit in the program itself, only saw a place to do it online so possibility people are just not realizing they need to go there to fix it.

This is a good point. You do have to manually go in and set it. I didn't know that either until after my first ride. I am 150lbs so maybe that's why I didn't notice a huge watt/kg difference after changing it.

I wonder how many people on the island haven't set that info. It would certainly be nice if that info was a little easier to access as it does make a major difference. It would also be nice if that info was displayed next to the rider.

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"4 wheels move the body, 2 wheels move the soul"

Just did my first ride.

I don't have a powermeter. I'm using my TravelTrac Comp Fluid and an ANT+ speed sensor. Is there a certain amount of times I should turn the knob?

At first I only did it until it was contacting (usually don't do that but just wanted to test on Zwift) and with minimal effort I was up to 40mph going uphill in the game. I then turned it 1.5 times after contact with the tire and it seemed about right based on my ability level. However, is there actually a recommended amount of turns/contact with the tire?

Someone could decide they don't want the wheel to touch and cruise along at 50mph if they so please with the classic trainers.

Is that a supported trainer? I don't recall seeing it on the list last time I used zPower. Anyways, no they don't list tire psi, amount of turns, or anything like that, yet. It should be giving a wheel slip message and shutting your down if it detects unnatural acceleration. I would say either you entered a different trainer than you are using. Or you are encountering serious wheel slip. Crank it down until it doesn't slip even in a massive sprint. Up the big hill I think I am doing like 7mph at 280 watts or so (that's a total guess based on memory) ... what does it say your Avg. watts are for your total ride?


EDIT: On my ride today 257 watts for "Zwift Island KOM" 14.8mph

.... the lower speeds come into play in the 10% incline parts, is what I was thinking of.

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"4 wheels move the body, 2 wheels move the soul"