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I’m DC RAINMAKER…
I swim, bike and run. Then, I come here and write about my adventures. It’s as simple as that. Most of the time. If you’re new around these parts, here’s the long version of my story.
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Here’s my most recent GPS watch guide here, and cycling GPS computers here. Plus there are smart trainers here, all in these guides cover almost every category of sports gadgets out there. Looking for the equipment I use day-to-day? I also just put together my complete ‘Gear I Use’ equipment list, from swim to bike to run and everything in between (plus a few extra things). And to compliment that, here’s The Girl’s (my wife’s) list. Enjoy, and thanks for stopping by!
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Sorry that the first comment is a correction: “so I had to make due”, should be “had to make do”
Do as I say, not as I do.
Thanks!
I don’t like it. I love video games but Zwift, while it’s a game in a sense, is theoretically an indoor training tool. I guess if it makes it more fun for people to use then that’s fine but it just feels really weird to me since Zwift is more of a cycling simulator with its controller being your bicycle.
For every person that wants to see Zwift have more gamification, there’s another that wants them to focus on realism. They’ll never completely please both camps but I feel like they do a pretty good job of balancing two very different types of user experience. In the end, you’ll simply gravitate to whatever rides and/or races suit you.
Its like zwifting with an electric bike
A bit. Though, unlike an electric bike if you want to use the power, you have to pay the price with a wattage hit first…and for the entire ride as well.
Maybe that’s how Electric Assist Bikes in the real world should work! You have to generate the power yourself. Some sort of F1 style KERS system. I do see electric mountain bikes at trail centers, used by many people who for me miss the point of a mountain bike circuit, where you earn the downhill thrills.
In terms of Zwift, its not for me, but then I’m not into racing on it, and use it as a nice motivation to put myself through the pain of indoor sessions. But if as stated it will be an addition and doesn’t detract from simply riding, I can’t see the harm, and others may get enjoyment and it will add some complexity that riders might want.
What I would like to see in Zwift is the following:
Ability to have video calling – such as with a coach. A bit like what TR have introduced
Similarly, ability to share the training sessions live – so the coach can see the plan and metrics
A Fatbike! – I have one in the real world, would love the gimmick of having one, and some sandy trails, or snow covered single track to use it on.
Can’t wait till I get the banana peel and koopa shell!
Yeah, that would be awesome! They would have to implement the collision aspect first, though
Same thing I came here to say – blue shells for the win!
Seems like a somewhat different target audience than usual though…
So the REAL question… short first thoughts on stages bike?
It’s built super-well. I like the non-shifting front-end in terms of places to put tablet/phone/waterbottles/etc… I’d argue slightly better than the Tacx bike (and easily better than the Wahoo, which lacks any practical non-shifting front end usefulness).
Of course, inversely, the Wahoo shifting experience reigns supreme here (at a huge price premium). The Stages one is similiar to Tacx, different in different ways. Right now, Stages lacks the gear shifting configuration (which is kinda a big deal), but that’s apparently coming in the following days. I’ve seen it in beta, so I know it exists, but I don’t know precisely when it’ll drop in terms of if they’ll hit their timeline or not.
Ride feel I’m a bit mixed on. I’m waiting on the correct gearing to see if that changes my opinion there. The flywheel is massive, but the road-feel momentum doesn’t quite feel dialed in correctly. Again, I want to see if that’s a consequence of not having ideal gearing. It could be.
Power accuracy at first glance seems spot-on, but I haven’t pulled all the files into the Analyzer yet to start digging into them. I’m seeing a bit more variability in ERG mode than I’d like. Stages says that’s because it’s a bit more outdoor-like in terms of being more wobbly. I guess? I mean, the point of ERG mode is hardcore nail the wattage bits. It doesn’t seem to impact things much though in the grand scheme of things aside from the line being more wiggly.
Again, more soon.
Thanks. Can’t wait until the full review!
I think this sort of enhancement will appeal to the live streamers & entice viewers for the excitement.
Bring on all sorts of new race formats – drop races could have the last few riders every lap excluded in funny ways, for example.
This will boost the viewing audience & ultimately participants.
This is like F1 in the hybrid era. Drive around charging your battery so you can deploy it to pass someone.
But F1 is (or will be, sometime soon, I hope) using real cars with a real battery and real engineering.
Zwift is just a bad cartoon that just keeps getting worse. RGT is way better if you want a cartoon, or Rouvy/Fulgaz/BigringVR if you want real video of real rides (and none of these have bozos yelling “Ride On!” at you).
RGT? Isn’t that the one with 4 routes?
You may think “Ride Ons” are dumb but when I am hauling my fat a$$ up a hill, I will take any motivation I can get.
Right idea around increasing choice within a race but wrong execution in my opinion. It’s encouraging that they are starting to think through the race experience more.
I’d be more interested in different types of racing that don’t necessarily require extra effort to be fun, but are more equitable, rather than them adding specific boosts like this.
A “jerseys” concept for races that awards points for sprints, climbs, “primes” and overall would be far more engaging and would allow mixed categories to ride together more easily without encouraging sandbagging.
When are they adding blue shell to Zwift races?
But seriously, I think it adds a different element to racing. Some people will love it and some will hate it. The worst thing they can do is to make it standard across ALL races. The more sensible thing of course is to extend it to a wider beta, giving users a choice of voting with their participation on whether they want this feature around for good or not.
Shouldn’t they add a % of body weight penalty rather than the same weight penalty for everyone?
I could be wrong, but the way they’ve set it up would disadvantage light riders more than they are already disadvantaged on zwift wouldn’t it?
At first glance, yes. But then since the wattage bumps are flat-rate based, it’s an even bigger bump for those lighter riders, since that 500w is a massive increase for a smaller rider than a bigger rider.
Boost is hub spacing not a bottom bracket standard
Indeed, my brain was definitely not in boost mode. Fixed!
Why??? We’re not here to play Mario Kart. Just give us an option to exit a ride and go to the main menu without quitting the entire program. If that’s too easy, a feature to let us teleport to meet up with friends whether they are on the track would also be nice.
Stop playing games and get the Stages Bike review done! ?
A means to an end!
I’m mostly collecting power accuracy data now, but also getting used to ride feel and the shifting elements. All while burning a bit of time for the gear changing firmware/app update that’s supposed to arrive any day now.
This is not unlike the “attack mode” in the newish Formula E auto racing. Being a gearhead when this (attack mode) first came out I was dead set against it but it has grown on me. I suspect it will be the same with Zwift, not impressed at first but can see the value.
Checked the date of this piece, thinking that it would be 01 April. Sadly, no. What’s next? Jet packs for runners? Jewels falling from the sky that you can catch to buy jerseys? Creating an arcade game is the wrong direction.
I wasn’t a big fan of it. To be honest, I didn’t notice a difference when I used it, and not seeing a change in my power numbers let me wondering if it really worked. I found it a bit gimmicky
I doubt that this option changes much about who likes and who doesn’t like Zwift racing. If you liked doing races before, you will either hate Boost or find races with that option only slightly more engaging. I don’t expect anyone to have a really strong preference for boost-enabled. But now importantly, Boost surely while win over people who didn’t do Swift races before.
What I think Zwift should focus on instead is how to engage those not captured by the current modes off virtual racing. Continuous crits perhaps, where you can join and leave at any time, and of course the casual private group ride that is decidedly not a race. An integrated voice chat could do wonders for example, with some clever mute controls in the companion app that automatically silence your yapping at high watts. Or maybe something completely out of the box, e.g. offer some really silly game modes to casual group rides that are games first and races or training second and third (or third and second), like a virtual card game where some cards bring up wattage interactions. Just something to keep you low-level busy while pedaling and chatting, without requiring too much UI bandwidth (display and input), and also not to much mental bandwidth.
The option to buy a handful of pins will be available soon. In addition, the pump in spokes. Turbo boost why not but only in FUN races.
Zwift grows as de pandemic spread aroud the world. They have millions of users now, but they have to make the right decisions to maintain the paid users.
I don’t like the gamification, but I understand that it could be a new type of game. Maybe they have to differenciate “classic racing/training” between “arcade game”.
One thing I miss in the app is being able to listen to music while riding. They could consider integrating the Spotify account to listen to your favorite music.
On apple tv works well spotify with ZWIFT. Background music works well.
Thanks. I don’t have Apple TV. I have to check if I can listen to music and play Zwift on my Android tablet at the same time.
I never use the Zwift audio – I listen to my own music. This can be done in many different ways, from using another device to running a streaming app on the same device as Zwift. I don’t need Zwift to spend time doing that integration. I’d rather see them work on the UI…
You can run Spotify minimized, next to Zwift and use your phone. Did you know that you have full control? Just select source in the bottom left corner and blast away music on the same source as Zwift. This is far better option then having something integrated into 3rd party apps.
I too, did a Volcano one (1b) and being a 72kg rider, I found that the weight penalty for the race was quiet a lot (+5kg for the whole race) especially, when I only chose the Efficient energy boost.
I can see people weight doping (more) in this.
I also suffered as there was only 4 people in my race, I’m sure I would have had a better experience if there were more people, and possibly on another course. I think this would be great on a Crit course.
on my android phone, I can spotify and zwift.
I’m just skeptical that the “interesting variety of potential tactics” won’t eventually just be reduced to everybody figuring out the single optimal way to exploit this. Like with normal powerups there would seem to be a lot of different approaches, but the reality is “blow an aero boost for the sprint finish and nothing else matters that much”. I don’t think it would take long before 1 of the 3 boost options becomes the obvious best choice and nobody ever chooses the other 2, and how it gets used becomes predictable. At best I think different courses may yield a small number of different tactics. I just don’t see this anything more than “racing exactly as it was before – but now everybody is hitting their boost at the same time”.
very cool idea… sounds fun and adds a little different strategy element to racing.. why not? … you don’t need to throw in all the races just like power ups are not in all races…
Once you hit the charge button it goes all the way to complete the carge or you can turn it on for a couple of seconds, charge a bit, turn off e repeat later?
Cheers Ray
On the volcano course it did seem to whittle down the field a bit in the A race down to 5 of us. The boosts were never quite enough for us to not be able to peg back after a couple minutes of chasing. I did not realize you could use the boost 4, 2 or 1 times as well. I wound up saving a power up plus 200 watts for the final. Only used it once and ended up 2nd to a 500 watt. So UI definitely needs some improvement on companion app. I will be more curious to see the impact on a hillier course.
I like how I was +22 lbs for the race, and neither charged nor boosted once, because I had no idea that you had to use a companion app.
doh