I’ve got a quick Friday post for folks today, which is a posting of the Bikes, Beer, and Tech ‘studio audience’ edition of the FIT File podcast recording we did at the Tour Down Under (TDU) about two weeks ago. For those unfamiliar, this is an event we’ve held for I think three or four years now, and started at the Tour Down Under as just a way for people to geek-out with various sports tech companies. Anyone and any company is invited. Each year the event has gotten a bit bigger and we’ve had to upscale the venue.
This year the Rapha pop-up shop at the TDU, which acts as a cycling hub for all sorts of events at the Tour Down Under – and this year they were game for us to occupy the space for an hour or so hosting the FIT File Podcast onstage. Atop that, Wahoo covered everyone’s beer!
(Look, we’re even on the sign in the back!)
We ended up tweaking the format away from just Shane and I recording the FIT File with audience questions, to also having Murray Hughes and Neal Henderson from Wahoo. Murray’s been at Wahoo since rocks were formed, and while I have no idea what his actual title is – it roughly translates to ‘all dev roads lead through Murray’. Meanwhile, Neal comes from the sport science side of things, and has coached numerous Olympic athletes and teams while more recently joining The Sufferfest and in turn Wahoo.
You’ve got two options for listening to or watching the whole thing. First up is that it’s been uploaded to the typical FIT File Podcast feed as episode 99. You can press play here on this page, or you’ve got four options for where to find the podcast:
A) iTunes: If you’ve got an Apple device, we’re there!
B) Google Play Music: Yup, we’re here too (and on Google Podcasts app)
C) Spotify: Of course we’re on Spotify now – you can even cache it on your wearable too!
D) RSS Feed: Follow along using the direct RSS feed
Or, you can watch the video below. This was just filmed on a GoPro in a dimly lit warehouse pointed at a stage with a bright wide open door behind it. I didn’t think this one through very well. But hey – it’s great to stick on in the background and just watch from time to time. Here’s the video, but I’ve listed all the topics below:
And finally, here’s the rough round-up of topics that we discussed with the approximate timestamps, but we really meandered quite a bit within these bands:
0:00 – Bikes, Beer, and Tech Explainer
1:50 – Introductions
5:40 – The impact of less accurate power meters in the pro peloton/athletes
15:30 – To Murray: What was the most difficult Wahoo product feature to develop that you thought would be easy?
19:50 – What has surprised us in the last 12 months in sports tech?
26:00 – Do pros and elite athletes use indoor training apps/devices the same way as consumers?
28:00 – Why can’t we just plug our trainers into WiFi?
31:35 – To Wahoo: What’s Wahoo’s power meter plans for Speedplay (since acquisition)?
32:25 – To Neal: As an elite coach, what do his athletes screw up the most?
34:14 – What do we expect with Zwift’s entrance into trainer hardware?
37:35 – Is reliance on tech taking away from riding a bike?
41:30 – To Neal: What does he see with mental health in the pro peloton/elite competitors, and coping with pressures?
With that – thanks for watching or listening, and thanks to Rapha and Wahoo for providing the venue, beers. And finally – thanks to all those that came out to listen! It’s always awesome to catch-up with folks!
I could perhaps see doing something similar to this at Sea Otter in California in a few months with a different crew of characters (and obviously, audience participation too) – if there’s interest.
And finally, in semi-related news – I found these stickers on the table in the Rapha pop-up shop. Clearly, I took a few:
Have a great weekend all!
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I wish they answered the question about Speedplay pedal power meters. I really want them to exist.
I’m the guy that posed the question to Wahoo, even though I ride Look Keos (and use Favero Assioma pedals;-) ) since I know tons of people hope that they might get Speedplay based power meters.. Murray from Wahoo wouldn’t commit to any specifics but he did hint that they bought the company for that reason, more or less. We can only wait and see.
Love the sticker… I looked at the image before reading what you said about it and I thought, “Oh cool, they made little promo pieces for this podcast… no, wait… nine hours… whaaaa..?” Definitely fits you.
Hi Ray. Follow-up question from when I met you at the Garmin TDU stand:
I understand that e.g. NEO will report 2-4% lower wattage than a pedal- or krank based power meter due to the loss from drive-train friction. But do you happen to know how Zwift compensates for this? Doesn’t this mean that it is a pretty clear advantage, particularly for those involved in the Zwift racing scene, to use the power from pedal-based powermeters rather than from their smart trainer? I assume they compensate in some way as 2-4% actually is a pretty large variance and can mean the difference between winning a Zwift event and from being just another name in the long list of participants.
thanks! all the best from Norway 🙂
Hi Martin-
No compensation for it. Zwift assumes all power is equal. It’s not uncommon for folks to use a secondary power meter for racing, though most of the times it’s more to do with responsiveness than the extra few percent.
Cheers!
ok thanks for the info. Seems like an outdated assumption considering recent trainer accuracy levels.
Also on a more general level: I guess FTP should be the threshold power produced before any loss in drive train friction… Won’t the FTP calculated in Zwift by e.g. a NEO therefore under-report FTP? Seems a bit odd to not add a couple of percentage compensation instead of knowingly reporting an inaccurate figure.
Hi Martin, I don’t mean to derail this or cause any offence (as I’ve made some assumptions) but if you’re really after a solid measurement which you can compare between performances using different measuring equipment or even between riders then FTP should really not be it! FTP is a measurement, nothing more. It’s a measurement of the systems in use, just as much as the riders actual power output. So the only real way to directly compare it is with the same equipment, rider and even conditions. I’d love to tell you to use something else but as you’ve found with PWM variance between measuring points – it’s a minefield of variance and inaccuracy across the board with no real uniformity. A couple of % here and there at so many different points – dive a little deeper and you’ll begin to question so much more… Particularly when it comes to Zwift (and particularly Zwift racing)!
Hi Martin, I don’t mean to derail this or cause any offence (as I’ve made some assumptions) but if you’re really after a solid measurement which you can compare between performances using different measuring equipment or even between riders then FTP should really not be it! FTP is a measurement, nothing more. It’s a measurement of the systems in use, just as much as the riders actual power output. So the only real way to directly compare it is with the same equipment, rider and even conditions. I’d love to tell you to use something else but as you’ve found with PWM variance between measuring points – it’s a minefield of variance and inaccuracy across the board with no real answer. A couple of % here and there at so many different points – dive a little deeper and you’ll begin to question so much more… Particularly when it comes to Zwift (and particularly Zwift racing)!
i’d love to attend this live if you have something similar at Sea Otter (pending time/day of course).
Ray, would you consider adding a woman to your stage lineup please? Bobbie would be great!
Yup, in fact, already got some ideas swirling (and talking to people) about just that at Sea Otter. 🙂