Film Testing Priority October 2024

You found a sync issue though, it was a fair bit out also...v5 should be a lot better

it's now updated (look for v5 or higher). Thinking about the watts, its a long climb at 30km, its got to be something like 2hrs...200watts is probably a pipe dream for many riders. Perhaps one day they they will  consider adding an E-Bike mode as was originally planned for TDA. It would be just a very slight change to the bike virtual speed formula. 

There's always the option to reduce Trainer Difficulty...

druidh said:

There's always the option to reduce Trainer Difficulty...

True, that gives you effectively more gears on a climb (it will increase your cadence for the same effort) & keeps the accuracy, which is vital for any competition/segment times etc. But this will not increase the frame rate on a climb, your going to be going the same speed no matter where the difficulty slider is placed. The only way to increase your frame rate on a climb just now is to do what they call 'weight doping', which is to reduce your weight in the settings. I suspect most of the customers do not know any of this. Its the same with the difficulty slider, most do not realise this gives you extra gears to save your knees, it does not actually make the climb any easier...if you are 100kg+ & pushing less then 150watts your still going to have the same slide show on the steeper grades.

A dedicated EBike mode would also artificially reduce your weight in the settings a fixed amount on positive grades only (to allow it to be used in its own dedicated category if events/climb segment times ever became a thing), I would have it 30-50% reduction in weight, along with a 50% reduction of the difficulty slider.  This would allow any customers to also increase the frame rate say 50-100% or so & open up the scenic climbs in our collection to almost everyone. Just now if your packing a few extra pounds & your not so fit, you could be reduced to a slide show no matter what you do with the virtual gear slider (difficulty). 

Another possibly better solution that might help some riders would be to actually 'recommend' some customers to set an 'ideal Pro cyclist weight' which could be offered to them based on their height rather than the real deal. This would also massively increase their speed on the climbs without causing too much issue with the various competitions. 

Phil70 said:

After reading I was also unsure if it was a global error in the Alt data, its tough to have anything too odd happen with all the rides data going through my filters the same way.  But even though it looks more like a kind of hilly terrain it is actually a major HC cat mountain that gains 1600m on Strava.  I think this could be more the terrain just looking less steep then it actually is.

For the low frame rate, running it at 200watts looks ok to me starts to get a little jerky at 150w. Im going to walk through the data though, there will be a v5 tomorrow hopefully. 

Thanks for checking it against Strava data. I must admit I'm really surprised. You described it really well by calling it "looking like a kind of hilly terrain". This is exactly how I've experienced this climb VISUALLY.

I still think the video does not look smooth. I realize that's the case with almost all car filmed videos. They can't drive at 15 km/h on busy roads. I did the climb at a steady 220w, 3.4Wk/g pace and it felt like the entire world was moving really slow and it bothered me. Maybe more than usual as I was also unable to enjoy the gradients much (resistance/widget vs visuals)

Thanks for your continued efforts on trying to make it better. If v5 means 5 iterations than there probably was already put much work into it :)

Phil70 said:

it's now updated (look for v5 or higher). Thinking about the watts, its a long climb at 30km, its got to be something like 2hrs...200watts is probably a pipe dream for many riders. Perhaps one day they they will  consider adding an E-Bike mode as was originally planned for TDA. It would be just a very slight change to the bike virtual speed formula.

Cool! I'll try to find some time and cycle the first few KM's again.

As to 200w being a dream for many riders... I don't think many of the <200w will even attempt this ride :)
On public you often only see the 'usual suspects' riding the HC's.

Phil70 said:

A dedicated EBike mode would also artificially reduce your weight in the settings a fixed amount on positive grades only (to allow it to be used in its own dedicated category if events/climb segment times ever became a thing), I would have it 30-50% reduction in weight, along with a 50% reduction of the difficulty slider.  This would allow any customers to also increase the frame rate say 50-100% or so & open up the scenic climbs in our collection to almost everyone. Just now if your packing a few extra pounds & your not so fit, you could be reduced to a slide show no matter what you do with the virtual gear slider (difficulty). 

Another possibly better solution that might help some riders would be to actually 'recommend' some customers to set an 'ideal Pro cyclist weight' which could be offered to them based on their height rather than the real deal. This would also massively increase their speed on the climbs without causing too much issue with the various competitions. 

I'm triggered reading this and I really have to reply and share my opinion on this... mixed feelings...

I'm against a ebike mode and I hate cheating with, or promoting changing, rider weight. Do 'we' really want to become more like other apps/services out there? I see it happen more and more with new features being added to the Tacx App. I appreciate active development but maybe look for more unique features?

For me Tacx mainly differentiates itself by providing really realistic rides/movies and a realistic rider experience. Also I can really enjoy Live Opponents which are better than me, but you have to deserve it... I don't appreciate a future where riders pushing 150watts up a HC and a cheated body weight of 40kg. I think CDA is still being applied in some way to calculate speed in the Tacx app. This is enough "cheating" for me.

I'm not blind for offering cyclist with lesser fitness the same great experience up these really well-filmed (HC) climbs. But please don't allow cheating on public rides (Or disable Live Opponents when a user activates modes like e-bike or when they suddenly drop 10kg's of body weight)

Disclaimer: I don't mean any offense with my reply above ^^

More on topic...

Does 048_Whitney Portal (California) or Sherman2 still need testing?

Peter Scheuten said:

I'm not blind for offering cyclist with lesser fitness the same great experience up these really well-filmed (HC) climbs. But please don't allow cheating on public rides (Or disable Live Opponents when a user activates modes like e-bike or when they suddenly drop 10kg's of body weight)

Peter Scheuten said:

For me Tacx mainly differentiates itself by providing really realistic rides/movies and a realistic rider experience. Also I can really enjoy Live Opponents which are better than me, but you have to deserve it... I don't appreciate a future where riders pushing 150watts up a HC and a cheated body weight of 40kg. I think CDA is still being applied in some way in speed calculation. This is enough "cheating" for me.

Oh no Im also very much in the accuracy camp for me, its why there would need to be some thought & consideration if we wanted the less fit riders to be able to enjoy the mountains as we do. So the can of worms with the feature would be that setting Ebike mode would put you with other Ebike users; you would be effectively hidden from multiplayer, although I can see the possibility of the elderly racing each other over the Raid Pyrenees, climbing at the same speed we can...just hidden or separated/identified Peter. 

I feel there are solutions if they look for them, Im willing to bet a lot of money that there is a sizable % of customers that only ride an Ebike outside. I bet half the customer base avoid our mountains like the plague. 

To me accuracy of the simulation is always the priority, but if the entire customer base could enjoy all of the rides in all of the locations & terrain..we can produce more of them :-)

Peter Scheuten said:

Does 048_Whitney Portal (California) or Sherman2 still need testing?

Ive marked this ride as OK, but yes please ride it if you have not, this is a proper climb & looks like it, some views off towards Death Valley. I filmed the original ride for TTS4 back in 2011, this is the updated version & it was good to see it again.