Macbook air from 2019 + wahoo snap connected via ant+/usb adapter.
The bluetooth is not as reliable and takes forever to pair.

That's weird. I've got my Snap on Bluetooth, Garmin HR over ANT+, clean as a whistle.

Wonder if it's an OS issue, or if a re-install of Zwift might help.

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

Yeah, I had a few ant+ dropouts on my old toshiba laptop. It’s probably 8 years old now. Today I installed zwift on my wife’s newer (~18 months) Lenovo laptop (i7, 8g ram) which has Bluetooth and the connection to both my S&C sensor and my tickr were flawless.

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

I might be getting Zwift soon - looking at trainers - maybe Kickr Core from LBS.

The ability to ride forever anytime is highly alluring to me right now. Especially as my 4 gyms are closed and its raining for 2 days.

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https://www.strava.com/...tes/zachary_mckinney

I've posted this elsewhere on the forum, but just to save you the trouble...

‌Here is my review of the Bowflex BXT116 on Amazon.
‌
‌Works great with Zwift. Chose this because of native Bluetooth connection for Zwift. Am using it with Bluetooth HRM and Zwift on IPad Air3. Connects easily and consistently. Just hop on and run; pairing is seemless and efficient. Really didn’t want to hassle with intermittent running pods or changing batteries. Speed is very accurate.

Treadmill itself is very well built and stable. Platform is smooth, wide and rock solid. Controls are easy to read and use. Lots of top and bottom racks for drinks and phones and towels. USB plug keeps iPad charged. Speaker is decent as well. Control for speed and elevation on main display, but I usually use controls built into lower handle bar; this is a real big plus when running hard.

Built in fan is an unexpected benefit. Wasn’t on my list but its sufficiently powerful for me. It’s small and has decent flow, but more importantly, it Can be adjusted to blow higher/lower.

Negatives- built in display shows speed but no pace or avg pace. I use Zwift and it shows on the iPad but it would have been nice to be able to see pace.
Treadmill acceleration and deceleration is very gradual. So if you’re doing very quick intervals or explosive ones, it’s not super responsive.
Think is heavy, like 300 lbs, but I still need to re-adjust position after 6-7 runs. Most of my runs are at 6-7 min mile pace so your results may differ. Longest run has been 13.5 miles. Double digit runs and sub 6 intervals are common for me.

Overall awesome equipment. Not cheap but well built, high quality throughout, good features. Until this came along, haven’t run 13 miles on treadmill. Now routine.

I may get shot down for this one but I'll just be honest....

I'm considering signing up to Zwift as the races seem to be a good way to do some high intensity training as an alternative to completing outside (difficult to hit the intensity) or completing indoors whilst watching a movie (not massively inspiring).I know the races are just for fun / a training tool and shouldn't be taken too seriously. Nevertheless, I'm a bit (possibly irrationally) put off by some of what I've seen and read regarding being disadvantaged as a bigger / heavier / more muscular cyclist.

In some of the data I've seen people seem to be finishing races at identical times on relatively flat courses with > 100W difference in average power. I realise use of drafting / powerups and many other factors is clearly going to impact average watts in my example. I also realise the dramatic effect of weight on climbing and I know Zwift has a algorithm for factoring in both this and assumed CdA based on weight. Nevertheless I've ended up with this perception that Zwift unfairly penalises those who are bigger / heavier / more muscular by focusing on W/KG even on flat courses.

So my question is what are people's view on the accuracy of the Zwift algorithm please? I.E on a flat course will a 90KG cyclist with a FTP of 400W ride away from a 45KG cyclist with a FTP of 200W (assuming there both flat out) as if they are standing still as they would do so in real life despite the fact they are both at 4.4W/KG?

Cheers

in my opinion/experience whatever you are as a climber relative to a roleur on the road will be pretty well replicated in-game. this could determine how you choose your races. what i would so, tho, is if you like to just get the stuffing kicked out of you from time to time, in a fun way, then look at rides, not races. here's the thing about rides. is there a finish line? either by distance or by time? if there's a finish line, it's a race. so...

if you look at an event that has ride leaders (see the profile of this guy, just up this morning), and these are good leaders, who work to keep the group together, it's really a better workout in my opinion. because the point is not to drop you, it's to keep you from getting dropped. if you don't get dropped you'll continue to ride at a high level for a longer time period. it'll also give you a sense of where you do well or poorly relative to other riders as the terrain changes.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I'm liking hoping on to the odd race for a high intensity, short workout. But I can't be the only one who finds it frustrating to not know who you are actually racing against on the road because of the huge amount of people that either are cheating, or sandbagging in the wrong category??

Today's crit, broke into several groups, no surprise. I was in a group of about 20 people holding positions of about 40th to 60th out of maybe 160 or so. We finished that way, did somewhat of a sprint at the end.
Little did I know, that after zwift power did its filtering, we were actually the lead group outside of 2 riders about 10 seconds ahead. Had no idea we were really at the front of the race...

i don't know, but that sounds like a backdoor brag to me ;-)

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Lol, I'm in 'C' group, nothing to brag about... :(

Yes, the bigger watts will win over higher w/kg on flat course. In fact one of the biggest gripes in Zwift racing is that it FAVORS HEAVIER riders. That’s more a product of the cat system, as the cat system is based on w/kg. So the lighter rider in your scenario, would have to push a higher w/kg to keep up with you, but that higher output could get him upgraded, while you stay in your cat. This makes it easier for bigger guys to dominate categories that aren’t A, because the w/kg needed by the smaller riders to win the non A cats, won’t let them stay in that category.

As a 93-94kg rider, I find the inverse to be true with respect to hills: any time you have an extended climb in the vein of the Epic KOM or Box Hill, the importance of w/kg spikes and larger riders are straight off the back. In both cases (flats favoring heavier riders, hills favoring smaller riders) it's an approximation of reality, but one that feels exaggerated. I can't complain too much, as I have a terrible IRL sprint that looks a lot better in Zwift, but it feels like something that has not been experimented with/honed much over the last few years (along with the ridiculous draft benefit).

Yes that is correct on Zwift

Fun Fact:
You can export a GPX file of your Zwift run or ride in Strava and then load that into Google Earth to watch your activity there. Works pretty cool with New York and if you rode the future skyway, you get to see where that takes you in present day New York. Watopia doesn't work so good as its coordinates are at some remote South Pacific island that doesn't relate to Zwift at all.

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Proud member of FISHTWITCH: doing a bit more than fish exercise now.

and they go down hills faster

The double draft reflects the reality of the road and getting dropped. the W/kg for a relatively lighter guy 75 Kg is if I stay with a 93 kg to a 100 Kg person on a flatter course my 20 min power on w/kg will get me filtered out of C and put into B.

The reality of a real hill and a virtual hill is it sucks to be 100 Kg and if you are on crit city rather say innsbruck or NY then you wont pay any penalty for being heavy as the pinch is so short and you get to go down it.

Ok thanks for the insights all - seems like they’ve got it fairly well accounted for. Might need to give thing thing a go (+ the group led sessions) once the sun goes away!

My 7-year old son and i are having an argument. He thinks that when he has a chance to get a Powerup, that he has to click immediately otherwise the powerup will go away. This happened yesterday. As the powerups were randomly going from Truck to Feather, etc. it ended up stopping on nothing. Correct me (or rather him) if i'm wrong, but does the Powerup wheel sometime give nothing? Is there a time limit that you have to click it before it goes away?

No, sometimes it just gives you some number of XP rather than an actual power-up you can use. You'll get a tiny boost on your progress bar instead

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Me: https://carnivoreendurance.blogspot.com/...ever-comes-next.html

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when the powerup wheel stops and no powerup is shown you are awarded +10 XP points. the indicator shows up in the same location as the mileage XP points and then goes away.

So it really doesnt matter when you click the powerup? ie. there's no rush to quickly click it before it goes away?

No rush. I never click on the powerups while they are cycling through.

No rush. once assigned to the rider it stays until you use it (or quit).

Repost from: https://forum.slowtwitch.com/...s_on_Zwift_P7217573/

For a while now, we have been running Duathlon Zwift Racing Series (DZRS), with fixed slots every Saturday and Sunday, to accommodate as many different timezones as possible. Detailed information: https://z-games.net/...n-series-info-rules/

For the last two weeks, going into our 3rd week now, we also started the new Z Games ZWOW format, which doesn't have fixed slots, but a 24 or 48-hour format to complete the workout (Z Workout Of the Wednesday/Weekend) with time cut offs.

With the ZWOW format we also managed to accommodate rowing users, therefor the Triathlon format. Well aware that rowing is still not officially supported on Zwift (even tho, routes are in the game already), but we've managed to get around that.

Also, the ZWOW format enables anybody who doesn't have a treadmill to complete their runs outside!

Detailed information: https://z-games.net/what-is-z-games/

We also set up two Facebook groups:
1. Zwift Triathlon: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ZwiftTriathlon/
2. Zwift Duathlon: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ZwiftDuathlon/

Everything is done on a voluntary basis, I hope posting about this is ok, the COVID times are hard on everybody and this might help some to stay fitter and keep them on the competitive edge through the quarantine and limitations we are facing.
I'm aware it's not 100% bulletproof, but it's a start. We had some big names already joining us, like Lars Petter Storm and the performances were a big wow (crazy running times!)

Row/Run/Ride On!

Dan, I am still struggling with getting my Garmin 945 HR w strap to pair with Zwift. I use a Wahoo Kickr and an iPad. I have been able to do it w the virtual run but that doesn’t help as I only use Zwift to ride.
Any suggestion would b greatly appreciated....