Do I need a Bkool Premium subscription?

[MasterDabber]

I'm currently on my 3 months freebie membership of Bkool Premium which came with my Bkool Pro. I occasionally use Bkool for rides but not that often preferring to use BigRingVR and VeloReality.
When my freebie subscription runs out I'm considering not renewing it but don't want to screw up any of the functionality of the Pro. I understand that my membership would revert to basic membership. Will that allow me to maintain required levels of updates (firmware) for the Pro? Any exposures otherwise?

 

[MasterDabber]

Well, no tales of impending doom if I don't renew so I guess it's probably OK (other than not being able to ride Bkool video and 3D. Decision time not for a bit longer.

 

[CXRAndy]

You will revert to basic 2D rides, no group rides, or leagues. It will be useful to train for particular hills in basic form

 

[Daddy Pig]

Why don't you jojnt a group ride it may change your mind! We are having either a handicap race tonight or handicap team time trial.
We are on the team bkool cyclechat pages if you want to have a look...

 

[MasterDabber]

You will revert to basic 2D rides, no group rides, or leagues. It will be useful to train for particular hills in basic form

Thanks Andy. My main concern was whether updates etc would be impacted by me not being a Premium member. As far as the rides go I only occasionally use Bkool and prefer BigRingVR and VeloReality although I must admit Bkool does offer a wide selection.... I'll ponder on.

 

[MasterDabber]

Why don't you jojnt a group ride it may change your mind! We are having either a handicap race tonight or handicap team time trial.
We are on the team bkool cyclechat pages if you want to have a look...

I've thought about joining a group ride but tbh the timing doesn't really suit me. Being retired I tend to do my riding during the day and never ride in the evening. I regularly dip into the racechat pages and see all your frustrations. Again, something for me to ponder.

 

[Daddy Pig]

Thanks Andy. My main concern was whether updates etc would be impacted by me not being a Premium member. As far as the rides go I only occasionally use Bkool and prefer BigRingVR and VeloReality although I must admit Bkool does offer a wide selection.... I'll ponder on.

Bkool also do a monthly subscription so if you need it for the winter months only that may work for you.

 

[MasterDabber]

Bkool also do a monthly subscription so if you need it for the winter months only that may work for you.

That would certainly be an option. I'm in France for about a third of the year anyway and don't have a turbo over there so a yearly subscription would probably be a bit wasted.
As it is I'm paying for Strava Premium and at some point BigRingVR will start charging so there's a limit on the number of subscriptions I want to shell out for.

 

[MasterDabber]

One thing that does tempt me to stay on is being able to load my own routes. I know there seems to be a lot of problems with this working successfully and I've only done it twice with a couple of my French rides. Both worked OK and were available in a relatively short time (I can't remember exactly how long but certainly under 24 hours).

The experience of riding them was pretty similar to the real thing with the exception of one or two very steep bumps that, in real life aren't there and that inserted themselves into a gradual downhill section of 5 miles or so. The first time I tried it I was caught out and struggled to crunch my gears into something usable (I hadn't been looking at the gradient gauge as I was expecting to be "going for it" in a big gear ).
Having said the negatives the ride time was pretty similar to my real world times as were the Strava segment times. I'm back there tomorrow so should be able to test again for real.

 

[ibooij]

@MasterDabber You can also load your own routes in BigRingVR. If you place an MP4 or AVI file and a GPX file in your Videos folder (by default located in Documents\Big-Ring\Videos, but you can add more folders, e.g. on usb drives), the ride will be picked up by BigRingVR as a "local" ride.
Make sure that the names of video and gps files are the same, except for the extension of course. If the video and the gps file start at the same point and the timestamps of video and gps files match, you should be able to ride your rides in BigRingVR.

When we started filming our own rides about a year ago, we started in this exact way.

 

[MasterDabber]

@ibooij That's very interesting. I've just arrived in France and won't have access to my turbo for a few weeks but I do have my Garmin 520 and my basic GoPro. I'll have to see what I need to do regarding synchronisation of the two timestamps but I'll do some reading up. If I could recreate some of my French rides to play on BigRingVR that would be great.

Btw, you may recognise me as Derek J on Strava.

 

[ibooij]

@MasterDabber If you make a new video, what you can do is the following:

1. Make sure the GPS has a fix.
2. Start the camera start riding
3. At a point that will be easy to recognize in the video, start the gps recorder
4. Afterwards, cut the first part of the video until the point where you started the gps.

When you've done this, your video should be synchronized. Of course, gps doesn't always work flawlessly, due to reflections, buildings, etc, so the distances might sometimes be a little bit off. Using a Garmin Edge 520, you will have barometric elevation readings, so the altitude profile will be ok, except when there's a thunderstorm around, but then you shouldn't be out filming anyway!

Indeed, I made the MasterDabber-Derek J connection.
Have fun in the Lot, I hope the weather will be good!

 

[MasterDabber]

@MasterDabber If you make a new video, what you can do is the following:

1. Make sure the GPS has a fix.
2. Start the camera start riding
3. At a point that will be easy to recognize in the video, start the gps recorder
4. Afterwards, cut the first part of the video until the point where you started the gps.

When you've done this, your video should be synchronized. Of course, gps doesn't always work flawlessly, due to reflections, buildings, etc, so the distances might sometimes be a little bit off. Using a Garmin Edge 520, you will have barometric elevation readings, so the altitude profile will be ok, except when there's a thunderstorm around, but then you shouldn't be out filming anyway!

Indeed, I made the MasterDabber-Derek J connection.
Have fun in the Lot, I hope the weather will be good!

@ibooij Thanks for that... all makes sense. I'll give that a try soon. That another great feature of BigRingVR.
Hope to get out on the bike here in the Lot soon... after a few jobs at the house... like cutting the grass.