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Zwift uphill very slow!
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Still finding my groove on indoor trainers - had wheel on and now a new Kickr Core. On zwift am I doing something wrong when going up inclines I come to an almost complete stop (2-3 mph). Got passed by a runner and couldnā€™t help but laugh! My Garmin is showing pretty consistent speed and watts (following a custom plan from coach on training peaks, and ERG mode on). But canā€™t help but feel a bit disheartened that the real distance / speed isnā€™t as accurate - fairly sure if I was riding at such a slow speed Iā€™d have fallen off šŸ˜šŸ˜
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Re: Zwift uphill very slow! [AndyDawson01] [ In reply to ]
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Itā€™s hard to tell if itā€™s right for you or not without knowing the gradient, power, and your weight.

You can alway tube down the hill simulation in your settings to make it easier.

Runners are not subject to elevation changes and itā€™s common to see them pass cyclists on inclines.
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Re: Zwift uphill very slow! [AndyDawson01] [ In reply to ]
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In my experience most similar issues come down to too slow a cadence. You have to keep a fairly high cadence or it just slows down to a stop.

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Re: Zwift uphill very slow! [AndyDawson01] [ In reply to ]
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You're in erg mode... it's never going to be comparable to riding IRL.
When you ride in erg mode, the power demand remains consistent regardless of the slope change of the (virtual) terrain you're on. If you don't anticipate these terrain changes and gear down in anticipation, your cadence can/will drop to almost nothing, and the force required to produce the wattage demanded ramps up accordingly.

Tech writer/support on this here site. FIST school instructor and certified bike fitter. Formerly at Diamondback Bikes, LeMond Fitness, FSA, TiCycles, etc.
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Re: Zwift uphill very slow! [AndyDawson01] [ In reply to ]
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If you're a heavier rider, I find zwift penalizes you on hills much more than in real life. As a side note, I'd recommend turning erg off and leaving it there forever or turning it back on very sparingly. Learning to hit my own power targets has been extremely beneficial for me. Outside of that, I'm ~200 lbs and slow as I am uphill in normal life, it's way worse in zwift. I live in Salt Lake city area, so I'm very aware of what it's like to climb steep gradients as well.
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Re: Zwift uphill very slow! [imswimmer328] [ In reply to ]
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imswimmer328 wrote:
If you're a heavier rider, I find zwift penalizes you on hills much more than in real life.

I do not think they get such a rudimentary calculation that wrong.

If anything, Zwift inflates all egos. There are a couple cat 1/2 or 3 roadies local to me that can hammer out a hilly 100k at over 20mph alone on a road bike. Not the everybody on Zwift it seems does that every ride. The real life momentum killers of sharp corners and stops means Zwift will always be a LOT faster than IRL.
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Re: Zwift uphill very slow! [AndyDawson01] [ In reply to ]
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You note you are following a plan from a coach. Did you mention this to your coach?

I ask because I still don't understand why people get so hung upon speed on the trainer. Speed on a trainer is completely arbitrary and not relevant to training at all.
I would hope your coach told you that it doesn't f-ing matter, as long as you hit your watts/cadence/HR whatever the speed in training has no relevance to the outcomes.


Secondary rant, I am sick and tired of "coaching" being simply delivering a training plan. That is not coaching, that is just a training plan, it is a shame there are so many out there that label themselves coaches and don't actually coach athletes instead simply give training plans.
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Re: Zwift uphill very slow! [AndyDawson01] [ In reply to ]
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So happy someone brought this up as Iā€™m going through the same issue. Iā€™m flat out on my Garmin, but barely crawling on Zwift. I was not aware of the ERG setting, but will disable that tomorrow and give it a shot.

Iā€™m on an old Tacx smart trainer while I wait for my Zwift trainer to get delivered, so I will definitely keep checking this thread for other advice. Thanks.
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Re: Zwift uphill very slow! [AndyDawson01] [ In reply to ]
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Garmin speed/distance is imaginary. It is just some number it makes up on your Garmin from the trainer.

In reality you are going 0.0 mph and have traveled 0.0 miles

Zwift takes power and weight and makes up a formula to give you speed specific to their world on their inclines.

None of it real. The speeds aren't real. The distances aren't real.
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Re: Zwift uphill very slow! [AndyDawson01] [ In reply to ]
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 Perhaps you could check your weight in the app. I did a race on RGT this morning and it required a weigh in and update of weight in the app. I did as I was supposed to but accidentally toggled the kg/lbs button too. I did not realize this until the start of the race when putting out 800 watts only translated into 4 watts/kg...I realized immediately what happened but there was no way to change it mid event so I suffered through it. My rider reacted much as you describe, super sluggish up hills and I could barely accelerate on the flats.
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Re: Zwift uphill very slow! [rrutis] [ In reply to ]
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rrutis wrote:
Perhaps you could check your weight in the app. I did a race on RGT this morning and it required a weigh in and update of weight in the app. I did as I was supposed to but accidentally toggled the kg/lbs button too. I did not realize this until the start of the race when putting out 800 watts only translated into 4 watts/kg...I realized immediately what happened but there was no way to change it mid event so I suffered through it. My rider reacted much as you describe, super sluggish up hills and I could barely accelerate on the flats.

I once had my Zwift settings somehow get changed after doing a system update on my iPad right before a race. Found that trying to sprint with 216kg up the "Leg Snapper" in Innsbruck was indeed a leg snapper...

"I'm thinking of a number between 1 and 10, and I don't know why!"
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Re: Zwift uphill very slow! [thin_concrete] [ In reply to ]
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If you're following a workout (power versus time) it won't matter if you're in ERG mode or not (except you may not be able to achieve your desired power if not in ERG mode, without messing with trainer difficulty setting). Lets give an example where the workout calls for 100w and you happen to be going up a 25% grade. In real life, you downshift to your smallest gear (say a road bike with 39/28), if you had a power meter you'll find that you would have to exert more than 100w just to stay upright, if you truly wanted to stay at 100w you'd need to either spin unrealistically slow or have much lower gearing. If you put an MTB drivetrain on and had a 26t chainring and 50t rear cog, then maybe you could get down to 100w at a normal cadence, but you would actually go 2-3mph and maybe fall over. In Zwift without ERG mode, it'd be similar to real life. You'd downshift all the way, you'd still be putting out more than 100w so you can't hit your target power. If you turned trainer difficulty all the way to zero, then it'd be like there is no elevation and you would be able to hit 100w, BUT you'd still go 2-3mph because that's still how fast you go when you go 100w up a big hill. ERG mode is basically like a CVT transmission with a goal of hitting your target power. At 100w and 25% grade, the "virtual drivetrain" will adjust so that it's a super low gear, which means you can achieve 100w but go real slow.

Garmin speed doesn't matter. That just measures wheel speed, but ignores resistance. Garmin has no physics model to convert power to speed (with other conditions like elevation, like Zwift does). If you are in ERG mode doing 100w and upshift a few gears, you'll still be doing 100w but the trainer will be spinning faster. Garmin thinks you're going faster even though you're still pushing 100w. While all virtual speed isn't real, Zwift speed/distance will at least correlate to outdoor riding, Garmin is completely BS.
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Re: Zwift uphill very slow! [AndyDawson01] [ In reply to ]
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I believe that Zwift has a mode or its built in.....I can't remember which...that cuts the grade of a climb in half. Meaning if it says 8% its really only 4% harder.
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Re: Zwift uphill very slow! [Rideon77] [ In reply to ]
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Rideon77 wrote:
I believe that Zwift has a mode or its built in.....I can't remember which...that cuts the grade of a climb in half. Meaning if it says 8% its really only 4% harder.
Trainer Difficulty. It only matters when not using ERG mode. It also only changes what the trainer feels as change in resistance when on a grade, but the power versus speed stays the same. Say you're cruising along on a real road at 200w and it's flat, you're in the middle of the cassette and you hit a 10% grade hill. You downshift 4 times to get in a gear that still lets you spin 200w at the same cadence. If you did this in Zwift at 100% Trainer Difficulty, you'd do the same thing, downshift 4 times to maintain the same 200w. But if Trainer Difficulty is set to 50% (which I believe is default), then you'd only need to downshift 2 times to maintain the same 200w. This would have no effect on the speed in the game, 200w up a 10% grade hill won't matter what Trainer Difficulty is set at, you'll still go the same speed. It only affects how drastic the grade changes are felt at the trainer. If you had Trainer Difficulty set to 0%, then hills won't affect the resistance of the trainer. So same example, you're in the middle of the cassette spinning 200w and you hit a 10% grade hill, you won't feel anything at the trainer, just keep spinning in the same gear at 200w. But your character will go up the hill slower and down the hill faster, because 200w up 10% grade is slower than 200w on flat, and slower than 200w on a descent.

Adjusting this is useful if want to shift less on the trainer, or you run out of gears on the trainer. Relating to the discussions above, if you don't use ERG mode but are doing a Z2 endurance ride in a hilly map, then at 100% TD, you may not be able to keep your power low enough. You can lower TD so that downshifting will have a greater impact and let you go slower to maintain a lower power output. Or putting TD to zero lets you use gears to mimic a workout and you don't have to adjust gearing at all when you change grade.
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