Zwift review

I recently bought a Wahoo Kickr Snap smart bicycle trainer and started a subscription to Zwift. I like what Zwift does and the app works well, although it's hard to know whether to go to the app, the companion app, or the website to do things. Fortunately I bought a one month subscription instead of saving money and buying a whole year.

I'm running the Zwift app on a Dell laptop with 8gb ram, 256gb SSD, Intel I3 processor and although it takes a while to get going, it runs the cycling simulator well. When I'm done with a ride I have to go my main computer, download a FIT file, and upload it to RideWithGPS. This is a bit of a pain, and it doesn't look like Zwift is going to make this any easier.

Zwift is cartoonish

Here's a screenshot from the Zwift simulator. It's adequate but not great. The big problem is the website which has had two major bugs creep into production in the last few days, both of which prevented me from uploading my results to ridewithgps. I also found you could configure the screen above to some extent, but it doesn't remember your settings so it goes back to the defaults on the next ride. 

Zwift has plenty of routes, but only three "countries" are available at any time. I'd really like to ride what I want, when I want.

So I checked out rouvy.com.

Rouvy is photo-realistic

It looks gorgeous. Running the app on my Dell laptop looks fantastic, but it exceeds the capability of a low-end laptop and lags occasionally. Running it on my mid-level Samsung tablet is smooth as silk. I may replace the laptop with a mid-level desktop.

Rouvy also has a large number of routes and I can ride any of them whenever I want. I've only looked at three so far, but they look fantastic. Once you have an account you can preview any course you want. The courses are categorized and, as I'm using the trainer for physical therapy right now, I can view just the flat courses if I want.

I have configured my account to automatically upload my workouts to ridewithgps. Here's a link to the tutorial ride I did. No more fooling around with FIT files.

Rouvy is a little cheaper than Zwift at $144/year vs $14.99/month. It ticks all my boxes.

Walking again

It has been two weeks since I fractured my hip and I can finally kind of walk without crutches. I've been doing self-physio (by the time I can see my doctor, I'll be dead or cured) by riding flat Zwift courses on my trainer. It also works as therapy, because if I can't workout I get irritable. My power and miles are down, but it's better than nothing and it really helps mentally.

I tried going to the BBC website and watching shows on their iPlayer at https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer while I'm working out but it only works if you're in the UK. I have similar problems with GCN+ and their territory restrictions. So I got a subscription to NordVPN which, among other things, lets me pretend to be in a part of the world where I am not. It lets me watch BBC content which is restricted to the UK and races that are not available in the US. I'm so naughty.

On the plus side, I was going to drop my GCN+ subscription but now I can watch all their race coverage, I'm going to continue it. So it seems GCN comes out ahead from all this.

Hoping to go for an easy bike ride with Amber next weekend.

I bought one of those ultrasonic cleaning machines and tried cleaning a chain ring. It is rubbish. After 18 minutes of ultrasonics in a warm 5% simple green solution I still could not tell which half had been immersed. It would have been quicker to clean it manually. It's going back.

Can you tell which half has been cleaned (it's the top half)

While I had it apart I hand cleaned the cassette and the two bigger chainrings. I can't get the smallest one off without pulling the bottom bracket and the tool to do that is unreachable until I can walk better. I also replaced the chain because I had broken the last one too short. Stupid mistake, and expensive. But my bike is a lot cleaner now.

I also wired up the taillight on my Brompton because when I installed the rack the light sits further back and the old wire was too short. It has been a busy day. It's amazing what you can do when you don't need to use crutches. Need to clean the Brompton tomorrow.

Crashed Friday night :-(

So every ten years or so I seem to have an accident that keeps me off the bike for a while. I went for an after-work ride to Seal Beach Friday evening and as I was riding along the beach path, there was a pedestrian and his girlfriend walking up the middle of the trail with a walker coming the other way on my left so I went to pass them on their right.

As I always do I clearly called out "I'm going to pass you on your right". His brain wasn't working properly so he moved to his right. His girlfriend stayed where she was, clearly the smarter of the two, but this left me with nowhere to go. I rode into him, bounced into a wall, and then went down. Fortunately I wasn't going very fast, but still managed to badly sprain or fracture my hip. I also got some road rash on my elbow which bled a lot.

The pain wasn't that bad while cycling so I kept riding and turned around only at the end of the beach path. I rode 30 miles after the accident and didn't realize how bad my hip was. When I got back to the car I realized my right leg would not support my weight. I couldn't walk. Driving home was a bit painful, but getting down the steps to my house took at least ten minutes and a lot of pain.

I  bought some crutches from Walmart of all places, but they were the only local store with crutches in stock so kudos to them. They've really helped and I was able to go to work yesterday but it was exhausting so, as there's snow predicted today, I had to take to day off. I'm not sure when I'll be back on the bike, but it's looking like at least a week before I can even get on the trainer.

Yeah, I'm bummed. Hopefully this won't affect Lejog.

Wheels, racks, and Zwift

I had to get Sherry's rear wheel trued and that, together with a new tire, fixed the thumping problem on the trainer. But while her wheel was in the shop I mounted my Serotta on the trainer and noticed my rear wheel needed truing too. Unfortunately the shop noticed one of my spokes pulling through the rim so I need a new rear wheel. They offered to rebuild the wheel on the existing hub for $340 but I decided to look for a quote from Peter White, who builds amazing wheels.

He built my front dynamo hub wheel about eight years ago and it has never needed to be trued. This is impressive. I called them up this morning and I'm getting a new Campy Record 10 speed hub, a solid touring rim, spokes, rim tape, and build for $385. After shipping it will be a little over $400. I'm expecting this to be the last rear wheel I will ever need.

Hopefully the old rear wheel will last until the new one arrives.

I got a rear rack for my Brompton from Perennial Bicycles and installed it Tuesday. It took about an hour to install with no blood, tears, or cussing. I used my new Topeak torque wrench which made it easier. The new mudguard sits very close to the tire. I hope that isn't going to be a problem.

I needed to remove the wheel to install everything. I can always use the practice because one day I will get a rear wheel flat and fixing them on a Brompton is not a trivial exercise. The only tricky part about the rack installation is that both the bolts that attach the rack stays to the frame are installed with the head to the left as you look at them from behind. Fortunately the old bolts and the excellent instructions both made this obvious.

I had a great workout yesterday setting a personal best 821 Watts and getting 10th place on the London sprint 30 day best times. Of all the riders that have ridden the sprint in the past 30 days, I placed 10th. I'm pretty chuffed about that. How many Watts am I going to have to generate to get 1st place? It doesn't bear thinking about.

San Clemente Ride

Since Covid hit Amber and I have not done the ride from Anaheim to San Clemente over Santiago Canyon but we thought we'd give it a try and we brought Edgar along with us because he's never done much climbing before and we thought he'd enjoy it 😈

We started from Anaheim at 9am and fortunately it was cool because the climb was harder than I remembered. This is the first time I've ridden this route with the Wahoo head unit and you might be pleased to know it's 8% near the top. I did a little psych with Edgar and when we reached 1000' elevation for the first time I told him the top was at 2400'. Then eight miles later, when we reached 1200', I told him it was only 1400'. So we were practically at the top already. Hopefully that made the climb easier for him.

Here's us summitting cheerfully.

On the descent, just as we slowed for the turn onto the Aliso Creek bike trail, Edgar said he had a flat. I put Schwalbe Marathon tires on his bike so it's not supposed to get flats. Here's the culprit. As you can see, it's a machine screw that would probably have flatted a truck tire.

I booted the tire, slapped in a new tube, and we took off none the worse.

We ate at Ballpark Pizza at mile 43 which is a long way to ride especially with the climbing. We ordered cheesy bread and a medium pizza. I was going to take a photo but I was too hungry. It was amazing.

From there it's an easy 12 miles to San Clemente Pier Metrolink station. We arrived ten minutes before the 2:58 pm train which took us to Anaheim Canyon. We had the whole carriage to ourselves. I'm sure it had nothing to do with the smell.

Once at Anaheim Canyon we rode back to the bike path and then to our cars. Now we know to use the sidewalk instead of fighting the 91 freeway on and off ramps, it's a nice, safe five miles.

I don't know how this works (but I like it)

I had to take my wife's bike's back wheel in to my LBS because it was out of round and making a thumping sound on the trainer. While it's in the shop I put my Serrota on the trainer and, for some reason, I'm getting much better power numbers. 

A few months ago I replaced the bottom bracket on my Serrota with a very high end one with 'ceramic bearings' and other fancy and expensive sounding features, mainly because you couldn't buy normal bike parts for love nor money. The bike shop told me the new bottom bracket would save me ten Watts or so, but I didn't believe them. I just assumed they were making up reasons to sell me a $150 bottom bracket.

But after putting the Serotta on the trainer and one training session, Zwift said it had calculated a new FTP of 237 Watts. I've no idea how it did that, but I will take it. I wasn't even trying. It's a fine line between a personal best and a heart attack and I think I'm getting close to it 😁

Update: I got my wife's rear wheel back and it was still thumping. I decided to replace the rear tire and found the tube was knotted up near the stem. No wonder it was making a racket. I removed and re-installed it and all is good now.