Team BKool CycleChat

[berty bassett]

Classics and Pros are both fast downhill

mine must be bust !!!

 

[StevePurcell_SCC]

Can I get a clarification ? in the league as long as I do the stage within the dates specified my result counts, Im not sure

 

[Monte]

As Breedon mentioned, check the freehub isn't loose, I've had this on my bike (Campag scirocco wheels). In any event take the wheel off and check the hub bolts. It's worth cleaning up the freehub while you've got it apart.

I think I've found the culprit - bkool skewer was very worn... I wouldn't of thought about wearing out a wheel skewer but guessing makes perfect sense when the bike is clamped in, stresses would have to go somewhere.

 

[Scott G]

Hi Guys. New to this. Upgraded my old trainer to a Tacx Genius so can now use Bkool. Have signed up for the UK Leagues and rode stage 11 the other day. Username Scott G. Unfortunately it has come back with a failed classification attempt on the grounds of Low Velocity, Lost signal and Coherent weight....No idea what any of this means. This the place where I can get some help? Thanks.

 

[kipster]

Can I get a clarification ? in the league as long as I do the stage within the dates specified my result counts, Im not sure

That's right

 

[RickB]

Hi Guys. New to this. Upgraded my old trainer to a Tacx Genius so can now use Bkool. Have signed up for the UK Leagues and rode stage 11 the other day. Username Scott G. Unfortunately it has come back with a failed classification attempt on the grounds of Low Velocity, Lost signal and Coherent weight....No idea what any of this means. This the place where I can get some help? Thanks.

Not one of our leagues but familiar with the problem.

Its just down to whatever parameters the league admin have used on setting up the league session. if they have put fairly low figures in you will fail to classify automatically. All it means that an admin has to approve you ride and it'll be listed. The only time I wouldnt approve a ride is incomplete session or some ridiculously quick time from a bug.

 

[BILL S]

how is it possible that I beat bill s on stage 1 of the mountain goats my time 33.59 watts normalized 178 max 668. bills time 35.55 watts normalized 289 max 844
the way I rode it was to power on then quick breather of a few seconds as the wheel start to slow down power on again I'm running a compact keeping on big ring front middle ish rear @BILL S @AAAC 76C

Rob, I think you just had a lucky ride and by some bkool quirk you were able to do the ride quicker than usual. Quite a large wormhole perhaps. Your rides are normally consistent and as expected so as far as admin is concerned the ride is fine. Something you could check before you do the next league ride is that the "slope reduction" is set to zero and the wind is turned off. It is possible that these settings could accidentally be moved from the standard setting of zero. Most of the time of that ride is the up-hill slope so I don't think your on-off riding style will have made any difference to the time taken. I tend to do the same on the down-hills too.

 

[AAAC 76C]

I believe that the resistance should be quoted as torque rather than power, and the maximum 1200 Watt figure is another "optimised" Marketing claim, calculated using the maximum possible rpm and therefore only applicable at very high speeds. On steep climbs, the speed and therefore roller rpm will be much lower and therefore the maximum torque will be reached at a much lower power figure, more like 250-300 Watts (if speed is around a quarter of max or less).

Although I do not have the knowledge to 'argue' this sort of subject facinates me and I always try and look for logical assimulation that might help explain things better.
However I will have to google the eddy current magnet subject and inform myself better.
But if you replaced the magnets with a physical brake to provide the resitance than the effort to turn the flywheel/sec at a slower speed would be less that that to turn it at a higher speed, although not neccisarly linear, so I would not expect the slope to have a huge impact on the maximum power that could be acheived regardless of the rate of ascent.
However I would imagine that the impact of the increase in ascent would be far closer to linear than forward speed where resistance and therefore effort in a great part proportional to velocity squared.
Infact if you set your BKool at maximum restance at a standstill you would be able to stand on the pedals and get next to nowhere.
I once did a stage with a 45% climb in and I went down to 6kph and less at over 600 watts whereas the Pro competitors progress beyond the short 45% slope due to the lag they have now built into the firmware.
I have also seen a good example of a BKool maxing out on a guy that had joined Cyclechat,and even pointed out to BillS. Somehow I do not beleive his resistance was changing and he was able to hit 1200 watts and flat line.

However I must agree that BSim was developed exclusively for BKool Turbos and market pressures have litteraly forced them to open up the 'compatibility' in both directions however unless there was some from of ISO regarding SW operating interfaces I expect there will always be issues when not using OEM products.

 

[BILL S]

Sorry for all the questions, just trying to get a grip of how BKool works. I thought everything was clear and then.....on that link you sent Gareth beats Ryan by 2 minutes but produces 3.95 w/kg vs Ryan's 5.04? What am I missing?

Rob, You are not missing anything. I take a good look at the league results and that was Gareths first league ride. I told him that the ride was too quick for the power/weight and I asked if he could check everything to confirm that all the settings were correct. I did wonder if it were related to his unit being a Classic2 but I thought there were a few of us with classics that were performing as expected. Again it was a slope related issue but we never did get it fixed. Unfortunately Gareth didn't do many more league rides. I think he did get bkool to dial into his unit to do a diagnostic but they said there was nothing wrong. I think he gave up with us unfortunately.

 

[AAAC 76C]

Although I do not have the knowledge to 'argue' this sort of subject facinates me and I always try and look for logical assimulation that might help explain things better.
However I will have to google the eddy current magnet subject and inform myself better.
But if you replaced the magnets with a physical brake to provide the resitance than the effort to turn the flywheel/sec at a slower speed would be less that that to turn it at a higher speed, although not neccisarly linear, so I would not expect the slope to have a huge impact on the maximum power that could be acheived regardless of the rate of ascent.
However I would imagine that the impact of the increase in ascent would be far closer to linear than forward speed where resistance and therefore effort in a great part proportional to velocity squared.
Infact if you set your BKool at maximum restance at a standstill you would be able to stand on the pedals and get next to nowhere.
I once did a stage with a 45% climb in and I went down to 6kph and less at over 600 watts whereas the Pro competitors progress beyond the short 45% slope due to the lag they have now built into the firmware.
I have also seen a good example of a BKool maxing out on a guy that had joined Cyclechat,and even pointed out to BillS. Somehow I do not beleive his resistance was changing and he was able to hit 1200 watts and flat line.

However I must agree that BSim was developed exclusively for BKool Turbos and market pressures have litteraly forced them to open up the 'compatibility' in both directions however unless there was some from of ISO regarding SW operating interfaces I expect there will always be issues when not using OEM products.

Well I looked up Eddy Current Brakes and got this:
The braking force of an eddy current brake is exactly proportional to the velocity V, so it acts similar to viscous friction in a liquid. When the conductive sheet is stationary, the magnetic field through each part of it is constant, not changing with time, so no eddy currents are induced, and there is no force between the magnet and the conductor. Thus an eddy current brake has no holding force.
So it looks like BKools will create a higher resistance at a higher speed of rotation of the flywheel = the speed of the roller which is your ground speed.

 

[one_legged_rider]

Bkool trainers freewheel???
If I stop pedalling my classic trainer stops more or less straight away.

Curse, looks like i've bought the wrong model.
I'm also starting to wonder if i'm missing the inertia simulation

 

[RickB]

Bkool trainers freewheel???
If I stop pedalling my classic trainer stops more or less straight away.

Curse, looks like i've bought the wrong model.
I'm also starting to wonder if i'm missing the inertia simulation

Not really freewheeling as such - when going downhill at say 7% the speed will turn blue to indicate its simulating freewheeling so we can just ease off and pedal slowly but not lose speed. I had a classic on 30 day trail originally and cant say it felt much different to the pro I eventually ended up with. The main difference by teh sounds of it seems to be a smoother (longer transistion) programmed into the Pro which gives Pro users an advantage when coming off a downhill onto an uphill as we can hold teh speed for longer.

 

[Whorty]

Which would normally equate to my time plus 5% as I'm usually the 'tail end Charlie' in the Chain Gang stages - so there is an obvious incentive to complete in all stages if you don't want to suffer from my level of unfitness.

However, I have to say I feel as though I am making decent progress, for a near OAP and being over weight as well.

It's the 5% penalty that forces me to ride every stage ... I might be slow, but I know that those who don't ride a stage will always have a worse time than me

 

[BILL S]

I have also seen a good example of a BKool maxing out on a guy that had joined Cyclechat,and even pointed out to BillS. Somehow I do not beleive his resistance was changing and he was able to hit 1200 watts and flat line.

Yes I remember that. His ride was 1200watts the whole way. I didn't know he was in Cyclechat though. Do you know if it was a one off or was his unit broken? I think bkool would have struggled to refuse an exchange on that one.

 

[kipster]

@bert1971, I saw an email about a post you made but I can't see the post? To answer the question in the email notification, the current league is made up of real rides imported from Strava, hence they have the name of the ride on Strava. The first route is one I do with my son, Liam, hence the name. I will try and give better descriptions of rides in the future