MyWhoosh vs Zwift

[ColinJ]

I just set up my TV to use the new connection. I watched a YouTube demo video which it completely choked on last night (1 stuttering frame every few seconds). Now, glorious 4k HDR at a smooth 60 fps!

 

[ColinJ]

I just set up my TV to use the new connection. I watched a YouTube demo video which it completely choked on last night (1 stuttering frame every few seconds). Now, glorious 4k HDR at a smooth 60 fps!

And I just did a 1 GB software download in 32 seconds - I like this!!

I will finally give MW a proper test in August once I get back from my summer holiday.

One thing that had not occurred to me was how nice it will be to ride on smooth virtual roads with no real motor traffic to worry about. I did a 101 km ride in the Vale of York on Wednesday and the roads were generally much quieter and better surfaced than round here. Cycling in comfort and safety was so much more enjoyable than getting battered by rolling over rough tarmac and being imperilled by lunatic drivers. I look forward to that on the coming smart trainer sessions.

 

[ColinJ]

And I just did a 1 GB software download in 32 seconds - I like this!!

I will finally give MW a proper test in August once I get back from my summer holiday.

I was going to do a road ride this evening but the promised sunny intervals are absent so it is feeling chilly (~16 degrees) in the overcast, blustery conditions. Ideal opportunity to play with MyWhoosh instead then!

Oh dear, a compulsory 4.88 GB download before I can continue... 2 minutes 45 seconds later, on with the show. This full fibre connection is excellent!

I will report back later...

 

[N0bodyOfTheGoat]

I was going to do a road ride this evening but the promised sunny intervals are absent so it is feeling chilly (~16 degrees) in the overcast, blustery conditions. Ideal opportunity to play with MyWhoosh instead then!

Oh dear, a compulsory 4.88 GB download before I can continue... 2 minutes 45 seconds later, on with the show. This full fibre connection is excellent!

I will report back later...

Not a good wind for Cragg Vale?

 

[Supersuperleeds]

I did an 8 mile ride in Columbia on it this morning. Should have been 1,500 feet of climbing, Strava gave me over 2,000 feet. It's no way as nice as Zwift, but the price differential means I'm sticking with MyWhoosh for the winter.

 

[ColinJ]

Not a good wind for Cragg Vale?

I don't really want any help going up there - I just don't want to be held back too much by the wind!

TBH, I didn't look at the wind direction. It just looked depressing in the valley today so I didn't want to go out. After lovely blue skies for months we are back to gloomy greyness a lot of the time. I hope that we get another few months of sunshine before the winter!

As for MyWhoosh... There were some issues getting everything working again but eventually I sorted the problems out.

I did a ramp test and discovered that erg mode feels very odd! No control over virtual gears, just pedal at whatever the desired cadence is, and let the trainer adjust the resistance to suit.

I probably chickened out 30 seconds early, being worried about overdoing the effort and triggering a bout of Afib. My heart rate peaked at 160 bpm and I know that I can get 2 or 3 bpm higher than that if I go really deep. My calculated FTP was only 195 W, which is 5 or 6 W lower than the last time I checked it, but I am slightly lighter now so my power-to-weight ratio is about the same - 2.5 W/kg.

I think I need a longer warmup for that test so I will do an extra 30 minutes before doing another one.

The bottom bracket on the bike started clunking on the higher power bands of the test. I remember having bottom bracket problems with that bike in the past but never managed to resolve them. I will have another go if the noise starts to bother me too much.

 

[N0bodyOfTheGoat]

I probably chickened out 30 seconds early, being worried about overdoing the effort and triggering a bout of Afib. My heart rate peaked at 160 bpm and I know that I can get 2 or 3 bpm higher than that if I go really deep. My calculated FTP was only 195 W, which is 5 or 6 W lower than the last time I checked it, but I am slightly lighter now so my power-to-weight ratio is about the same - 2.5 W/kg.

I think I need a longer warmup for that test so I will do an extra 30 minutes before doing another one.

If you haven't done regular z4+ on your turbo in recent weeks, chances are you will get some unacclimatised heat shock, resulting in a higher heart rate for a given power. So compared to outside, the calculated FTP will probably be lower, on calibrated turbo and outdoor bike power meters.

I don't recall doing a MyWhoosh ramp test, but you don't need a warmup before doing the Zwift ones, because they ease you into it. In Zwift, iirc you freeride for 5mins and then the ERG resistance begins (100W for standard, maybe lower for "lite"). Every minute, the resistance goes up a step, which is 20W for standard and 10W for "lite." Your estimated FTP is simply 75% of your best one minute of power.
Going on your numbers tonight, you would be attempting the 260W interval, so you would have done 5mins freeride plus 7mins of increasing minute intervals to get there.

I just plugged 8.77Km and 294m climbing at 3.2% average into http://bikecalculator.com/ along with 78Kg rider and 9Kg bike, with no headwind 195W would give a Cragg Vale time of 29.29 minutes with no wind... And without recalling your best time, I'm sure it was much closer to 25mins than that, in which case you aren't turbo heat acclimatised!

And a 10kph tailwind would reduce the above effort time by 3mins.

 

[ColinJ]

If you haven't done regular z4+ on your turbo in recent weeks, chances are you will get some unacclimatised heat shock, resulting in a higher heart rate for a given power. So compared to outside, the calculated FTP will probably be lower, on calibrated turbo and outdoor bike power meters.

I haven't really used the turbo properly yet because the weather has been so good, I haven't wanted to mess about indoors.

Calibration... Hmm, I haven't looked into that. I will have to see if my turbo trainer needs it, and if so, how it is done.

I did suffer from heat overload on my turbo trial run so I invested in a powerful 3-speed fan which I made sure to switch on as soon as I was warmed up this evening.

I don't recall doing a MyWhoosh ramp test, but you don't need a warmup before doing the Zwift ones, because they ease you into it. In Zwift, iirc you freeride for 5mins and then the ERG resistance begins (100W for standard, maybe lower for "lite"). Every minute, the resistance goes up a step, which is 20W for standard and 10W for "lite." Your estimated FTP is simply 75% of your best one minute of power.
Going on your numbers tonight, you would be attempting the 260W interval, so you would have done 5mins freeride plus 7mins of increasing minute intervals to get there.

The MyWhoosh ramp test works in a similar way but goes up in 6% percent steps rather than fixed power steps. That makes more sense to me. It was 260-something Watts that I conceded on.

I decided on my last Cragg Vale attempt that I needed a much longer/harder warm-up. I was gasping for breath for the first 5+ minutes but then found it easier on the steeper parts of the climb later that I was making a harder effort on. I can't think of any reason for that other than not being warmed up properly.

I just plugged 8.77Km and 294m climbing at 3.2% average into http://bikecalculator.com/ along with 78Kg rider and 9Kg bike, with no headwind 195W would give a Cragg Vale time of 29.29 minutes with no wind... And without recalling your best time, I'm sure it was much closer to 25mins than that, in which case you aren't turbo heat acclimatised!

That sounds like the full Cragg Vale climb including the extra almost flat bit from the Oliver Collinge sign at the bottom to the start of the hill climb TT course. The TT course is more like 7.7 km at 3.8%. On my PB ride I managed 27 minutes at an average of 211 W.

And a 10kph tailwind would reduce the above effort time by 3mins.

I have plugged different windspeeds and gradients into bike calculator. It is amazing how much difference a slight wind or gradient makes. Now that I have power meters on my bikes I can see on rides how much difference slopes make. I often end up doing 50% more power up a minor bump in the road just to maintain my cadence in the same gear.

 

[Buck]

@ColinJ - there is a way to get the Zwift click to work on MyWoosh. YT. Video here explains the software and you can use with zwift click, play or ride. If you can find a cheap Click, you are sorted.



View: https://youtu.be/FHGYes1IxCM?si=geqhdHSxuRGxDHv6

 

[ColinJ]

@ColinJ - there is a way to get the Zwift click to work on MyWoosh. YT. Video here explains the software and you can use with zwift click, play or ride. If you can find a cheap Click, you are sorted.



View: https://youtu.be/FHGYes1IxCM?si=geqhdHSxuRGxDHv6

Thanks!

I got a Zwift Click with my Victory smart trainer. I am running the MyWhoosh app on my Apple TV box, which that software wouldn't run on, but... hopefully I can run it on my Android tablet with the MW bridging app.

I will see if that works when back at the turbo.

 

[ColinJ]

Aaargh!!!

I just got it working but how I did it makes no sense to me... I clicked the LOGOUT button on the MW app on the Apple TV but the app still seemed to be logged into my account afterwards because I could still see and edit my details! Then suddenly the bridge app and TV app were talking. WTF!

Damn... I had forgotten this and it has taken me 2 days to rediscover it!!

I have been swearing at my TV while trying to get the various parts of the system talking to each other...

Anyway, eventually I got it working again this evening!

I have been using the link app so I could use its on-screen virtual gear shifters but I was doing a zone 2 workout this time in erg mode, so I didn't need to change gear, and therefore should not have needed the link app. The link was being used though.

At some point I put the link app into the background so I could mess about on YouTube Music. I expected the link app to carry on in the background but it dropped out, which killed comms between the trainer and the MyWhoosh main app.

I reloaded the link app and comms were quickly reestablished, but it seemed that erg mode was no longer working properly, AND the link app virtual gear shifters were not working either so I was stuck in a virtual gear which meant me pedalling at 55-70 rpm rather than my preferred 90-ish. I kept going over the power that I was trying to output, and then falling back to under the target. So much for zone 2...

Anyway, I am getting there. I am confident that I will have a fully functioning smart trainer setup in time for winter...

... 2029!!

 

[Milzy]

Some people pay to ride indoors. But I'm not some people.

 

[ColinJ]

Some people enjoy riding up and down icy ungritted 15% climbs in winter into banks of freezing fog 200+ metres above busy valley roads which other riders are enjoying as they are soaked in salty, gritty spray by aggressive drivers overtaking them too fast and too close, trying to force them onto the remaining kerbside ice patches... I'm not some people!

 

[ColinJ]

It was raining most of the day here yesterday so I decided to do an hour on the Victory trainer.

I did it in erg mode so I didn't need virtual shifting and therefore didn't bother using the link app. That meant it was simple to connect the trainer's Bluetooth directly to the Apple TV box rather than going indirectly via my tablet, with all the fiddling about that involved last time.

I had put a new saddle on the bike to try to solve the genital numbness that I suffered on my first decent test ride. It helped slightly and I got out of the saddle for 15-20 seconds every 5 minutes, which also helped, but I was still worryingly numb after an hour. It has taken a couple of hours for the problem to ease! I can't go on like this so I will have to have a serious think about what is causing it. There must be something in the setup that isn't right... I didn't used to have this problem on my sessions on the old turbo, and I don't suffer anywhere near the same discomfort out on the road either.

Apart from that, it was a good session. I did a little warm-up, then 53 minutes in my zone 2. (140 W, about 2/3 of my FTP.) That is 20-40 W less than I average on most of my local rides so my breathing was fine throughout but my legs could certainly feel the effort by the end. They are not used to relentless effort. Normally, my effort levels are shooting up and down all the time depending on the terrain, traffic, junctions etc.

I think that 2 or 3 of these a week through the autumn and winter should make a big difference. (I will also start doing more interesting free rides once I have got a hardware shifter for the virtual gearing.)

For my own reference in coming months: Heart rate 130-135 bpm, cadence averaging about 85 rpm. I expect that heart rate will eventually drop into the 125-130 range for the same session. After that I would start doing it at (say) 145 W, 150 W, and so on.

 

[Brusgaard]

I think that 2 or 3 of these a week through the autumn and winter should make a big difference. (I will also start doing more interesting free rides once I have got a hardware shifter for the virtual gearing.)

For my own reference in coming months: Heart rate 130-135 bpm, cadence averaging about 85 rpm. I expect that heart rate will eventually drop into the 125-130 range for the same session. After that I would start doing it at (say) 145 W, 150 W, and so on.

Take a few rounds with the Zombies, that should get your heart pumping.