Team BKool CycleChat

[<Tommy>]

Work, mine involves day 1 of a 2 day conference for IT Managers in Milton Keynes. I know how to roll......

Any recommendations for local whiskeys? I collect them so like to know what whiskeys exist. The next ones I'm looking to get are Swedish.

I used to collect a bottle of the local tipple wherever I went and having traveled a bit around eastern Europe it's a miracle I'm not completely blind. One I remember vividly is 'unicum' from Hungary. A drink as foul as the name suggests!

Can't help on the Swedish whisky front though I'm afraid...

 

[kipster]

I used to collect a bottle of the local tipple wherever I went and having traveled a bit around eastern Europe it's a miracle I'm not completely blind. One I remember vividly is 'unicum' from Hungary. A drink as fowl as the name suggests!

Can't help on the Swedish whisky front though I'm afraid...

http://mackmyra.com/ several to purchase from these guys!

 

[bridgy]

Cheers all, will attempt to join in on Thursday.

Just gotta figure out how it works :-)

Hi Scott and

Geoff's excellent opening post on this thread - https://www.cyclechat.net/threads/bkool-faq.191965/ - is worth a read, as it should answer most questions about how the league races work etc. It's not all plain sailing though, as there's regularly little glitches that affect the races, but don't let that put you off!

 

[bridgy]

An update from Bkool on the website problems I highlighted to them:

They've fixed the problem with adding additional ghosts if you challenge someone.

Another minor problem I pointed out (clicking on a rider's number of attempts now brings an error page instead of additional details of their ride), they claim is fixed, but it isn't.

They claim that not being able to see ALL stage in a current league (only active ones), and not being able to see individual stages in past leagues is "not a bug". I have pointed out that it wasn't the case before the update, and being able to see those stages is useful (not least for setting up handicap leagues for Geoff). It's a slow process - once again I suspect the person I'm talking to knows less about the website than we do, and is confusing being able to "see" those stages with being able to "ride" those stages...who knows?!

 

[theboxers]

An update from Bkool on the website problems I highlighted to them:

They've fixed the problem with adding additional ghosts if you challenge someone.

We should make your mail the go to for reporting 'features' and 'improvements'. Someone has got to get put on bkools email block list, it may as well be you

I am getting more error pages than ever. This is not when trying to change, schedule or view sessions, although I do get some. I get it when jumping from one section to another ie home to share or my activity to sessions.

The viewing of upcoming league stages allows you to plan your activity leading up to them, you don't want to do a HIIT session the day before a chaingang up Alpe d'Huez.

Bsim's limitation on number of items viewable in each section is frustrating. I have more favourites than can be displayed.

That's a couple of those that I have

 

[bridgy]

We should make your mail the go to for reporting 'features' and 'improvements'. Someone has got to get put on bkools email block list, it may as well be you

I am getting more error pages than ever. This is not when trying to change, schedule or view sessions, although I do get some. I get it when jumping from one section to another ie home to share or my activity to sessions.

The viewing of upcoming league stages allows you to plan your activity leading up to them, you don't want to do a HIIT session the day before a chaingang up Alpe d'Huez.

Bsim's limitation on number of items viewable in each section is frustrating. I have more favourites than can be displayed.

That's a couple of those that I have

Ha! They probably are getting a bit sick of my emails! They are polite and do at least respond, but the problem is always that however clearly I try to explain something, they always start off denying or misunderstanding the problem - maybe a language issue too, as they're based in Spain.

The thing that always gets me though, is that problems with the website or simulator are instantly and glaringly obvious to us, but often seem to go completely unnoticed by Bkool staff, which makes me wonder if they even use it themselves?!! Otherwise I can't understand why these things don't also frustrate them!

 

[gbrown]

They claim that not being able to see ALL stage in a current league (only active ones), and not being able to see individual stages in past leagues is "not a bug". I have pointed out that it wasn't the case before the update, and being able to see those stages is useful (not least for setting up handicap leagues for Geoff). It's a slow process - once again I suspect the person I'm talking to knows less about the website than we do, and is confusing being able to "see" those stages with being able to "ride" those stages...who knows?!

What is the point in showing past leagues, if you cannot see individual stages!

The pages showing the individual stages do in fact exist, they have just lost the links to them of the main page. If you know the stage id you can pull up an individual page, it's just not likely that you will be able to guess the id (a four digit number assigned by bkool)!

You can go to the individual page if you click on the stage name of any active stage.

http://www.bkool.com/classification/showIndividualStageClassification/6201

Unfortunately, there no longer seem to be anywhere to click to link to a stage once it ceases to be active (so for all past leagues and stages).

The page does still exist though and it works, you just can't get a link to it. I have one still in my history so I can see the stage number and the link still works!
For example, this one is from the September Chaingang.

http://www.bkool.com/classification/showIndividualLeagueClassification/1901

Not being able to get the results page for any stage that has closed, even for a current league, is A MAJOR BUG!

There's even a heading for the Stages in the league page, it's just followed immediately by the overall classification so there is no list of the stages, just the heading.

This is a blindingly obvious bug that should have been picked up in testing and if it slipped through should have been fixed as soon as it was reported!

I'm afraid it shows there is very poor quality control in bkool's processes, a huge issue for a company wanting to take on the American's Zwift, with all their advantages (money, profile, marketing...)

A proper routing of testing, release control and responsive support/bug fixing is not even expensive, compared to the cost of gaining or loosing reputation and market share.

Having spent my life in software design and production, this is heart breaking to see, especially for a system I so want to succeed! All software has bugs, it's how you deal with them that makes the difference.

Geoff

 

[bobinski]

Ha! They probably are getting a bit sick of my emails! They are polite and do at least respond, but the problem is always that however clearly I try to explain something, they always start off denying or misunderstanding the problem - maybe a language issue too, as they're based in Spain.

The thing that always gets me though, is that problems with the website or simulator are instantly and glaringly obvious to us, but often seem to go completely unnoticed by Bkool staff, which makes me wonder if they even use it themselves?!! Otherwise I can't understand why these things don't also frustrate them!

This. I think there are 2 arms to the business, the trainer and the software and even that is then split between sim and website and there is not a lot of communicating going on. So much should be glaringly obvious to them as users...if they actually use it.

My Youngest broke his arm at the birthday party i was in charge of
Anyway, at home looking after him so may sneak a bkool ride later if anyone wants to join in. Just dont tell social sevices

 

[BILL S]

Ha! They probably are getting a bit sick of my emails! They are polite and do at least respond, but the problem is always that however clearly I try to explain something, they always start off denying or misunderstanding the problem - maybe a language issue too, as they're based in Spain.

The thing that always gets me though, is that problems with the website or simulator are instantly and glaringly obvious to us, but often seem to go completely unnoticed by Bkool staff, which makes me wonder if they even use it themselves?!! Otherwise I can't understand why these things don't also frustrate them!

So frustrating trying to deal with them. I'm convinced that they don't actually use it themselves.
Like you say, they usually either deny the problem or misunderstand it. I almost fell off my chair when they replied to my last complaint to them about the dead stops saying they knew about the problem and were going to fix it with their next update.

 

[gbrown]

The viewing of upcoming league stages allows you to plan your activity leading up to them, you don't want to do a HIIT session the day before a chaingang up Alpe d'Huez.

You can circumvent this, if you want to see upcoming stages, or indeed previous, closed ones, as the numbers of the stages appear to be contiguous.

For example, the current Handicap Chase league has two stages active (Week 2 and 3), and their individual pages are available if you click on the stage names...

http://www.bkool.com/classification/showIndividualStageClassification/6201
http://www.bkool.com/classification/showIndividualStageClassification/6202

So if you want the next stage, week 4, just change the number to the next up and up pops the page...

http://www.bkool.com/classification/showIndividualStageClassification/6203

There are no results, as the stage has not yet been run.

This would also work for previous stages, that have closed, just decrement the number.

Actually, there is still a stages list button on each page, and next to it a forward and backward control that does the decrement\increment for you, so you can choose an active stage and then step backwards or forwards through the pages.

If you knew the numbers for the stages of past leagues this would also work, but finding the numbers is the problem!

THEY HAVE JUST LOST THE ENTIRE STAGES LIST FROM THE LEAGUE OVERVIEW PAGE!

You would think this would be spotted and fixed very quickly!

 

[berty bassett]

Any recommendations for local whiskeys? I collect them so like to know what whiskeys exist. The next ones I'm looking to get are Swedish.[/QUOTE]

Not sure milton keynes has a whiskey - you might be better off drinking the canal water - either will make you feel bad in the morning !

 

[theboxers]

THEY HAVE JUST LOST THE ENTIRE STAGES LIST FROM THE LEAGUE OVERVIEW PAGE!

This

You would think this would be spotted and fixed very quickly!

Mañana, mañana

 

[bridgy]

My Youngest broke his arm at the birthday party i was in charge of
Anyway, at home looking after him so may sneak a bkool ride later if anyone wants to join in. Just dont tell social sevices

Dad of the Year!

Good tactics for avoiding children's party duties in future though!

 

[bobinski]

Dad of the Year!

Good tactics for avoiding children's party duties in future though!

Yeah, behind every cloud...

 

[BILL S]

This. I think there are 2 arms to the business, the trainer and the software and even that is then split between sim and website and there is not a lot of communicating going on. So much should be glaringly obvious to them as users...if they actually use it.

My Youngest broke his arm at the birthday party i was in charge of
Anyway, at home looking after him so may sneak a bkool ride later if anyone wants to join in. Just dont tell social sevices

Col du Tourmalet? Or Bonnette by any chance Bob?