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Virtual everesting observation
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Why do it at less than 100% “real” trainer effect?

I see these 125w efforts and there’s zero chance folks did it in a “realistic” mode.

I couldn’t dedicate that much time to do that if it was a huge compromise.
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Re: Virtual everesting observation [burnthesheep] [ In reply to ]
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burnthesheep wrote:
Why do it at less than 100% “real” trainer effect?

I see these 125w efforts and there’s zero chance folks did it in a “realistic” mode.

I couldn’t dedicate that much time to do that if it was a huge compromise.

125w is zone 2 at around ~180-ish ftp? - might not be less than 100%, But just takes longer for people starting out?
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Re: Virtual everesting observation [brasch] [ In reply to ]
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why would 125W not be realistic? Unless those 125W gives you a super fast time up AdZ (and even then, if the person is very light, it could be legit), there's no reason you can't everest at 125W, it will just take a lot longer to do so.

Riding on the trainer is quite different than riding outside in this regard, in that you can push very low watts uphill and not have to worry about balance/tipping over at low speed.
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Re: Virtual everesting observation [burnthesheep] [ In reply to ]
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Because a 34/34 up a 10%+ gradient climb will probably put you at 250W+ at 90 cadence and most of us cant do that for 8 hours

Strava
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Re: Virtual everesting observation [rsjrv99] [ In reply to ]
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rsjrv99 wrote:
Because a 34/34 up a 10%+ gradient climb will probably put you at 250W+ at 90 cadence and most of us cant do that for 8 hours

Exactly.

Unless it is some super light riders and insane gearing, it isn’t climbing. It’s just putting out watts over time.

Alpe du Zwift has 14% grades.
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Re: Virtual everesting observation [burnthesheep] [ In reply to ]
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burnthesheep wrote:
Why do it at less than 100% “real” trainer effect?

I see these 125w efforts and there’s zero chance folks did it in a “realistic” mode.

I couldn’t dedicate that much time to do that if it was a huge compromise.

better question is why you are creating a thread about this, as if someone anointed you the arbiter of proper virtual everesting protocol

so it's not you cup of tea; perfectly fine. Just make sure to do it in the fashion you deem proper when you decide to do virtual everesting..

As with many things that irks in real life, the questions should be asked are: does this inconvenience me, does this inconvenience my cohorts, does this inconvenience society at large, and if it does, how does it inconvenience? Whatever "deleterious" effect everesting at 125W may elicit (if this were any deletorious effect in the first place) is surely miniscule enough that one might as well have a more meaningful discussion about how many angels could dance on the tip of a safety pin.

Instead of kvetching, why not appreciate other's feats for what they are: dedication of time and energy in the accomplishment of a non-trivial feat?
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Re: Virtual everesting observation [burnthesheep] [ In reply to ]
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Question: Is putting the trainer difficulty at 50% different than getting a bike with insanely low gearing (ex. 22F/40R) and doing it at 100%?

The biggest issue with everesting on AdZ (IMO) is that you can hop off the bike for ~12min each rep and stretch/rest/eat while your avatar supertucks down the mountain, whereas IRL my arms hurt from all the braking decending AdH and the legs tighten up.

ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)
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Re: Virtual everesting observation [echappist] [ In reply to ]
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echappist wrote:
burnthesheep wrote:
Why do it at less than 100% “real” trainer effect?

I see these 125w efforts and there’s zero chance folks did it in a “realistic” mode.

I couldn’t dedicate that much time to do that if it was a huge compromise.

better question is why you are creating a thread about this, as if someone anointed you the arbiter of proper virtual everesting protocol

so it's not you cup of tea; perfectly fine. Just make sure to do it in the fashion you deem proper when you decide to do virtual everesting..

As with many things that irks in real life, the questions should be asked are: does this inconvenience me, does this inconvenience my cohorts, does this inconvenience society at large, and if it does, how does it inconvenience? Whatever "deleterious" effect everesting at 125W may elicit (if this were any deletorious effect in the first place) is surely miniscule enough that one might as well have a more meaningful discussion about how many angels could dance on the tip of a safety pin.

Instead of kvetching, why not appreciate other's feats for what they are: dedication of time and energy in the accomplishment of a non-trivial feat?

That’s more superfluous than my original questioning.

Just thought there WOULD be rules or standards for the virtual grey stripe. Maybe not.

If I was mistaken, whatever.
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Re: Virtual everesting observation [rsjrv99] [ In reply to ]
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rsjrv99 wrote:
Because a 34/34 up a 10%+ gradient climb will probably put you at 250W+ at 90 cadence and most of us cant do that for 8 hours
i barely did it for 15 min today.

80/20 Endurance Ambassador
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Re: Virtual everesting observation [Titanflexr] [ In reply to ]
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Titanflexr wrote:
Question: Is putting the trainer difficulty at 50% different than getting a bike with insanely low gearing (ex. 22F/40R) and doing it at 100%?

The biggest issue with everesting on AdZ (IMO) is that you can hop off the bike for ~12min each rep and stretch/rest/eat while your avatar supertucks down the mountain, whereas IRL my arms hurt from all the braking decending AdH and the legs tighten up.

I believe in real Everesting the idea is you come down the mountain the same route as you go up like real mountaineers do. A lot of deaths happen coming down to camp4 so this is why the real thing involves coming down and repeating the same climb. So I can see why the real life version is so much harder than the virtual version
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Re: Virtual everesting observation [burnthesheep] [ In reply to ]
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There are rules:

https://everesting.cc/...al-everesting-rules/

But they can only do so much in checking the results....

Strava
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Re: Virtual everesting observation [burnthesheep] [ In reply to ]
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Is that average power for the entire ride? Not much power being used on the way down.
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Re: Virtual everesting observation [Cup] [ In reply to ]
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Even if it's average, that means that they are probably taking ~2hrs per climb; so 120min of climbing followed by 12min of 0W descending. It does impact the power, but not that much. They are probably climbing at ~135W.

ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)
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Re: Virtual everesting observation [burnthesheep] [ In reply to ]
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burnthesheep wrote:
Why do it at less than 100% “real” trainer effect?

I see these 125w efforts and there’s zero chance folks did it in a “realistic” mode.

I couldn’t dedicate that much time to do that if it was a huge compromise.

I assume you've missed the point of how trainer difficulty works?

125w is 125w no matter what the trainer difficulty is set at. if you set it at 10% or 100% your in game person is going to travel at the same speed at 125w. The only difference is the perceived change in gradient between those flatter sections and the steeper bits.
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Re: Virtual everesting observation [chunkytfg] [ In reply to ]
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chunkytfg wrote:
burnthesheep wrote:
Why do it at less than 100% “real” trainer effect?

I see these 125w efforts and there’s zero chance folks did it in a “realistic” mode.

I couldn’t dedicate that much time to do that if it was a huge compromise.


I assume you've missed the point of how trainer difficulty works?

125w is 125w no matter what the trainer difficulty is set at. if you set it at 10% or 100% your in game person is going to travel at the same speed at 125w. The only difference is the perceived change in gradient between those flatter sections and the steeper bits.

Yup. I look at it as turning my training cassette from an 11-25 to a 11-36. LOL. Watts are Watts. I just don't have to grind away at 40rpm.
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Re: Virtual everesting observation [NordicSkier] [ In reply to ]
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NordicSkier wrote:
chunkytfg wrote:
burnthesheep wrote:
Why do it at less than 100% “real” trainer effect?

I see these 125w efforts and there’s zero chance folks did it in a “realistic” mode.

I couldn’t dedicate that much time to do that if it was a huge compromise.


I assume you've missed the point of how trainer difficulty works?

125w is 125w no matter what the trainer difficulty is set at. if you set it at 10% or 100% your in game person is going to travel at the same speed at 125w. The only difference is the perceived change in gradient between those flatter sections and the steeper bits.


Yup. I look at it as turning my training cassette from an 11-25 to a 11-36. LOL. Watts are Watts. I just don't have to grind away at 40rpm.

Ahem. Maths, you all have none. You WOULD be grinding away at 40rpm.

Alpe du Zwift has 14% grades and averages 9%. At my 70kg plus a 9kg bike at 150w you'd be going up a 14% grade at 4.5kph. Which in a 34/36 would be almost exactly a lovely 40 rpm or so.

At the average grade of 9%, that'd be an average of 60rpm to go about 7kph.

Point being, it isn't a mountain or a hill if you cheat it out to the point that you can't even buy the gearing you'd need on a road bike in real life to do the climb.

Either way, the "rules" posted said 100% trainer difficulty. It also said if your trainer % grade maxes out at a grade lower than the target mountain in Zwift, choose a shallower mountain.

I think I've killed this one, horse is dead, I'm done. Sure, great efforts........but NOT a true virtual Everesting.
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Re: Virtual everesting observation [chunkytfg] [ In reply to ]
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Gearing is a critical tradeoff. It's not 11hrs at 90rpm vs 11hrs at 65rpm; your time goes up a lot as a result of the lower wattage allowed by the lower gearing.

Let me answer your question with a different question:

If someone did an IRL Everest on an MTB with a low enough gearing to allow them to spin up climbs at 90rpm, would you consider it invalid? Regardless of your answer, I think it should be the same across Everesting and vEveresting.

JustinDoesTriathlon

Owner, FuelRodz Endurance.
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Re: Virtual everesting observation [burnthesheep] [ In reply to ]
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burnthesheep wrote:
NordicSkier wrote:
chunkytfg wrote:
burnthesheep wrote:
Why do it at less than 100% “real” trainer effect?

I see these 125w efforts and there’s zero chance folks did it in a “realistic” mode.

I couldn’t dedicate that much time to do that if it was a huge compromise.


I assume you've missed the point of how trainer difficulty works?

125w is 125w no matter what the trainer difficulty is set at. if you set it at 10% or 100% your in game person is going to travel at the same speed at 125w. The only difference is the perceived change in gradient between those flatter sections and the steeper bits.


Yup. I look at it as turning my training cassette from an 11-25 to a 11-36. LOL. Watts are Watts. I just don't have to grind away at 40rpm.


Ahem. Maths, you all have none. You WOULD be grinding away at 40rpm.

Alpe du Zwift has 14% grades and averages 9%. At my 70kg plus a 9kg bike at 150w you'd be going up a 14% grade at 4.5kph. Which in a 34/36 would be almost exactly a lovely 40 rpm or so.

At the average grade of 9%, that'd be an average of 60rpm to go about 7kph.

Point being, it isn't a mountain or a hill if you cheat it out to the point that you can't even buy the gearing you'd need on a road bike in real life to do the climb.

Either way, the "rules" posted said 100% trainer difficulty. It also said if your trainer % grade maxes out at a grade lower than the target mountain in Zwift, choose a shallower mountain.

I think I've killed this one, horse is dead, I'm done. Sure, great efforts........but NOT a true virtual Everesting.

If you've got 125 W then don't you just find a shallower virtual climb that's 15 miles long at 5% and do it 7 times at 7.5 mph (easily spinnable with reasonable gearing)? You'd still be using ~90% of your power for climbing even though the grade is lower.

But does it really matter what "virtual mountain" someone is climbing or if they tweak the difficulty to ride a different "virtual mountain" at unrealistic gearing? At 5kph you could be riding uphill with training wheels so as not to fall over and it would make no difference to your climbing speed. Nobody's setting Everesting records at 125 W so why does "virtual slope" matter?
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Re: Virtual everesting observation [burnthesheep] [ In reply to ]
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Thankfully I'm 64kg and have a 7kg bike, and a FTP just north of 200W.
My times up the real mountain and the virtual mountain are pretty close.
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Re: Virtual everesting observation [NordicSkier] [ In reply to ]
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NordicSkier wrote:
chunkytfg wrote:
burnthesheep wrote:
Why do it at less than 100% “real” trainer effect?

I see these 125w efforts and there’s zero chance folks did it in a “realistic” mode.

I couldn’t dedicate that much time to do that if it was a huge compromise.


I assume you've missed the point of how trainer difficulty works?

125w is 125w no matter what the trainer difficulty is set at. if you set it at 10% or 100% your in game person is going to travel at the same speed at 125w. The only difference is the perceived change in gradient between those flatter sections and the steeper bits.


Yup. I look at it as turning my training cassette from an 11-25 to a 11-36. LOL. Watts are Watts. I just don't have to grind away at 40rpm.

While watts are watts, the physiological overall cost of doing the same watts at 40 RPM is not exactly the same as 80 RPM. Spending a lot of time at the higher crank torque value is a bit different than at the low crank torque value. I am surprised that they even allow a virtual option. Without the descending related fatigue and without your saddle pointing upwards essentially all day, its not even remotely the same challenge.
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Re: Virtual everesting observation [devashish_paul] [ In reply to ]
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devashish_paul wrote:
Yup. I look at it as turning my training cassette from an 11-25 to a 11-36. LOL. Watts are Watts. I just don't have to grind away at 40rpm.


While watts are watts, the physiological overall cost of doing the same watts at 40 RPM is not exactly the same as 80 RPM. Spending a lot of time at the higher crank torque value is a bit different than at the low crank torque value. I am surprised that they even allow a virtual option. Without the descending related fatigue and without your saddle pointing upwards essentially all day, its not even remotely the same challenge.[/quote]
One can easily switch their gearing to spin at 80rpm up AdH in real life to get the same physiological cost. You don't HAVE to grind up AdH at 40rpm.

As for Everesting... it's a complete arbitrary challenge. Everesting on Zwift is nowhere near as difficult as real life, so if someone wants to keep records, they should be separate challenges.
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Re: Virtual everesting observation [NordicSkier] [ In reply to ]
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NordicSkier wrote:
devashish_paul wrote:

Yup. I look at it as turning my training cassette from an 11-25 to a 11-36. LOL. Watts are Watts. I just don't have to grind away at 40rpm.


While watts are watts, the physiological overall cost of doing the same watts at 40 RPM is not exactly the same as 80 RPM. Spending a lot of time at the higher crank torque value is a bit different than at the low crank torque value. I am surprised that they even allow a virtual option. Without the descending related fatigue and without your saddle pointing upwards essentially all day, its not even remotely the same challenge.


One can easily switch their gearing to spin at 80rpm up AdH in real life to get the same physiological cost. You don't HAVE to grind up AdH at 40rpm.

As for Everesting... it's a complete arbitrary challenge. Everesting on Zwift is nowhere near as difficult as real life, so if someone wants to keep records, they should be separate challenges.[/quote]
Haha....if I wanted to spin up Alpe d'Huez at 80 RPM at an intensity that is sustainable all day to Everest, I would be down at sub 2.5W per kilo. At that level, I would have to check what gearing is available to have low enough gearing to go that high RPM, but keep in mind that when the wheel speed is really slow and rotational and linear momentum are low its just harder to maintain high RPM....but on a trainer you could keep wheel speed high at low power to cheat to a high RPM at low power more easily. Wheel speed ends up being important when trying to spin even with low enough gearing.

So in any case, real Everesting and virtual are two completely different animals. For the record, I did the real Alpe d'huez at the end of a 3900m vertical day (not even half everest) that included doing Galibier. I bonked badly coming into the village at the the base of the ADH ski station and could not do the final 1.5 km to the top and stopped for food, and then did the rest, but I was pretty shelled at the end and the descent was just plain tiring and it was getting cold with a drizzle. It was at the end of 6.5 hrs of ride time and 7.5 hrs with stops. Being out twice as long the descents would be really taxing mentally.
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Re: Virtual everesting observation [NordicSkier] [ In reply to ]
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NordicSkier wrote:


As for Everesting... it's a complete arbitrary challenge. Everesting on Zwift is nowhere near as difficult as real life, so if someone wants to keep records, they should be separate challenges.


All of cycling is a completely arbitrary challenge. Using a compact with 32 is harder than using an extended range AXS which is harder than using a triple with a granny gear or an MTB with super low gearing. Which one of those doesn't count to Everest on?

Here's another hypothetical for people: For those of you who are opposed to turning TDS down, are you also in favor of minimum grade requirements for an IRL Everest? Because that's the same thing. A 3% grade will allow you to spin up even with normal road gearing, but you're going to be on that 3% a long damn time. I don't think anyone really thinks that 175W at 90rpm feels the same as at 45rpm, but if we're comparing irl to virtual, it has to go both ways too. There are always tradeoffs. What, should irl everesting have maximal cadence and minimal grade average now too?

If you make one aspect easier, you make another aspect harder. TDS might allow you to spin a lower wattage at a more comfortable cadence, but that lower wattage is going to necessitate additional time. That's no different than choosing a shallow grade to climb. Every rider will optimize for their strengths, irl or not.

JustinDoesTriathlon

Owner, FuelRodz Endurance.
Last edited by: justinhorne: Jun 8, 20 14:51
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Re: Virtual everesting observation [justinhorne] [ In reply to ]
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justinhorne wrote:
NordicSkier wrote:


As for Everesting... it's a complete arbitrary challenge. Everesting on Zwift is nowhere near as difficult as real life, so if someone wants to keep records, they should be separate challenges.


All of cycling is a completely arbitrary challenge. Using a compact with 32 is harder than using an extended range AXS which is harder than using a triple with a granny gear or an MTB with super low gearing. Which one of those doesn't count to Everest on?

Here's another hypothetical for people: For those of you who are opposed to turning TDS down, are you also in favor of minimum grade requirements for an IRL Everest? Because that's the same thing. A 3% grade will allow you to spin up even with normal road gearing, but you're going to be on that 3% a long damn time. I don't think anyone really thinks that 175W at 90rpm feels the same as at 45rpm, but if we're comparing irl to virtual, it has to go both ways too. There are always tradeoffs. What, should irl everesting have maximal cadence and minimal grade average now too?

If you make one aspect easier, you make another aspect harder. TDS might allow you to spin a lower wattage at a more comfortable cadence, but that lower wattage is going to necessitate additional time. That's no different than choosing a shallow grade to climb. Every rider will optimize for their strengths, irl or not.


While I agree with your general take, the argument you should be making is that setting trainer difficulty to 50% is not appreciably different from choosing to climb using a 30x50t in lieu of a 30x25t IRL. Both allows one to utilize a much higher cadence (basically double) to tackle the same hill (I'll grant that using a cassette with a 50t lowest gear may come as the expense of 200 grams over a cassette with a 25t lowest gear).

More importantly, if one were to slap on a cassette with a 50t lowest gear on the trainer at 100% difficulty, then there is no difference to using a cassette with a 25t lowest gear and difficulty at 50% (minus whatever minuscule difference attributable to a few extra chain links) . The OP just assumed that 125 or 150 W is done at 50% difficulty setting, without accounting for the fact that whatever one could do outdoors to ease the gearing could also be applied indoors.

The whole ridiculousness of someone setting rules for indoor Everesting is that there are a whole slew of factors on what to enforce, and the anointed one picked trainer difficulty as the one (at least for now). Outdoors, especially during summer time, temperature will also slow down ascents later on in the day. Indoors, one can do all of that effort in a temperature controlled setting. There are charts for estimating effects of heat, and it's rather significant, (especially going from a cool 60 F in the morning to 85 F in the afternoon). If one chooses to do it on a big hill (say 1000 m per ascent), then pretty soon, availability of oxygen also has an effect. On the trainer, one is at the same atmospheric oxygen pressure the whole time.

To get worked up over the fact that someone choose to do virtual Eversting on 50% difficulty (or gasp, 25%) and ignore the fact that someone bothered to spend about 12 hours doing it just seems petty, not to mention it's tempest in a teapot. Par for the course for roadies I guess (and I speak as a former road racer).
Last edited by: echappist: Jun 8, 20 17:51
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