I successfully use Trainerroad and zwift every time I ride where I want Trainerroad to be in control. That works no problem. However, on Saturday I did a Trainerroad workout as per normal, but when it was done, I wanted to extend the workout and free ride zwift. I switched Trainerroad to resistance mode and enabled control in Zwift and it sort of worked. What I noticed was that every 5 seconds or so, Trainerroad would try to pull control back even though it was in resistance mode. The feeling was kind of like the rear was slipping as it switched between the two and then back. It wasn’t unbearable, but was a little annoying. Has anyone done this in a way that worked?
My set up is running both Zwift and Trainerroad on the PC through ANT+ and Bluetooth.
Don’t have a good answer as I’ve never tried it, but I imagine that it’s probably a lot harder to do zwift in control and TR as just receiving. I think TR wants to own the control over resistance, while zwift has the option to not pair control and just read power.
You never want to have both apps with control of the trainer. That gives the see-saw that you experienced.
It’s a mistake to have a workout running in ERG, or Resistance (with anything over 0%) in TR if you want to have Zwift controlling to match terrain.
Having Z with control is OK, if you want to have your trainer controlled to match the terrain in Z. For TR, you have 2 main options.
Option 1: Kill TR all together, so there is no chance of any double-dipping between Z & TR for the trainer. This is the best and most consistent way to get what I think you want.
Option 2: If you want TR running to capture the riding, make sure it is not in ERG, and in Resistance at 0%. I have done this with “Free Ride” workouts to capture both. The 0% is OK, so TR won’t be sending instructions to the trainer. I don’t even guarantee this to work properly, but I think I’ve done it this way in the past.
Yeah, when I want to extend my ride (and more than just “Extend Cooldown”, this is what I do…just kill TR and enable Controllable Trainer again on Zwift.
But I track my training on Training Peaks, not TR so it doesn’t matter to me if the TR calendar doesn’t get all my data. It is all on TP for me…
yes, I get killing TR would work, but then it gets into the de-dupe logic that Strava uses to prevent both the TR workout and the Zwift workout to be uploaded and it becomes a pain to untangle. I could kill both, but don’t really want to start a second activity when it’s just one bike ride. I’ll try the 0% idea next time and see if it works.
I’m not sure if the app sends a single resistance level request, gets the ack, and leaves the trainer alone. I have a bad suspicion it will keep sending the demand even if it does not change. And I’m not sure that would depend on the actual resistance level sent.
I assume that Strava is your data accumulation app. You could kill TR, leave Zwift to record (and now control), delete whichever activity Strava decides to load (I could never understand that logic, it seems to change from time to time), and re-download the Zwift recording (which would include the complete activity).
Bad auto correct in my original (I am not sure and took a stab at “hey” = “OK”, but not sure).
Either way, I haven’t done that doubled app with TR @ 0% in a long time. It may not work (if it ever did). I still suggest that ditching TR is the best way to make sure Zwift and the trainer work properly. But Option 2 is worth a test at least, because it might work.
Thanks for this. Option 2 seems to work still circa November 2023. I wanted to do my Pahrah opener in Zwift without sending it to my head unit (and the sprints are too short to do in ERG).
I don’t know about Zwift, but the way I do this in Rouvy is have it set to receive power via ANT+, but the controllable aspect via Bluetooth. I then have TR set to connect via Bluetooth, and make sure to start this first. Because this locks the Bluetooth connection to TR, Rouvy just sits there saying it can’t connect the controllable, but connects power so I can still ride. Then when the workout finishes I close TR, which releases the Bluetooth connection, and after a few seconds Rouvy connects and I can ride on in sim mode.
What I’ve settled on is having Zwift connect and control my trainer over ANT+ (and connect to my PM and HRM using that too), then TrainerRoad in its minimized mode (that took forever to find!) connect to my PM and HRM over Bluetooth. Key point being that ironically I’ve just had the TrainerRoad app forget my trainer entirely. Doesn’t need it, has power from the PM directly.