New Strava Virtual Speed and Distance setting

I tried out the new strava speed and distance settings today but it made no difference at all compared to my trainer and chainring/gear selection the previous way. The speed and distance was exactly the same as previously.

Please email support@trainerroad.com so they can review the issue.

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Sorry for the troubles!

There’s an issue that we’re currently investigating and we’re rolling back the feature in the meantime. Should have it sorted out very soon. :grinning:

Excited to get this out for everyone to try!

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From what I can tell, when using a KICKR Core TR calculates speed (and therefore distance) based entirely on the raw speed of the flywheel. What this means is that in erg mode (which I always use for TR) if I use a really big gear I’m going to be racking up way more miles (and higher speeds) in a given workout than if I did the same workout in a much lower gear, even though my power output is identical regardless.

But one thing about the KICKR Core (and possibly other smart trainers) is that because of how the flywheel works, at a set power output, it actually feels different to be in lower gears vs. higher gears because there’s much less inertia when the wheel is spinning slowly. Thus I often choose my gear based on the sort of thing I might be simulating: i.e. lower gears for climbing and higher gears for sprinting.

All this to say: I think TR should calculate speed/distance based on power rather than raw flywheel speed. While this shouldn’t really factor into it, when folks are uploading stuff to Strava, and distance is one of the things that Strava uses to report on progress, it’s this little thing that might nudge people to use a bigger gear to keep distance numbers as high as possible, when in fact it would probably be better to pick gears based purely on road feel.

I don’t actually do that myself, but it would be one less bit of “static” for someone deciding how to do workouts.

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I moved your post under an existing topic (just earlier this week) that actually shows this is well under way. It was apparently quietly released as a new feature, but had issues from the outset. As a result, TR pulled it for now (post directly above your now merged one) and will presumably reinstate it when that issue is resolved.

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Wow. That’s a weird coincidence, and awesome (not that it was rolled back, but that it’s in there at all). Really excited to have the working version of this feature available!

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I get the feeling it will be released again very soon once they rectify the bugs in the previous release.

Count me in (see below). Chad mentioned that this was initially released “quietly.” Will the re-release appear in the release notes popup that we see when there’s an update or should I just check settings periodically?

I spotted it by accident by going to the “ride sync” strava settings.