Was there any movement with reviewing if gear selection would become available in TR?
The only more relevant update is that we werenāt able to get a device to test from Wattbike due to limited supply.
We want to add gear mode support, the aforementioned advice is still relevant until then:
Hi, Iām a WBA owner (V1). Iāve run the Atom in ERG on TR on my old Samsung tablet, split screen running the Zwift Companion app, with Zwift in the background, and with a second tablet pushing YouTube music to my BT earphones. No issues.
Do not connect to the WB app first. This is most likely causing the drop outs as the device switches between the app and TR. I have no specific order how I turn things on, it all just works for me. Just remember not to have Controllable ticked on Zwift for your Atom and also connect to Zwift using Ant+.
WRT the power showing as going over and under target. The Atom has no smoothing so it looks very different to say a Kickr (we also have a Kickr bike), but it all averages out the same at the end of each interval.
For indoor training I prefer the Atom. For racing hands down the Kickr. The Atom is smoother for me. Obviously you have a gen2 which I understand has had issues with apps like TR but I wouldnāt be concerned about the āwavyā lines or power overshooting and then dropping. If Iām doing a session that has sprints, Iāll zoom past the target initially, then there will be a period of āgamingā the device to keep the watts up for the interval. After a while you find a way of doing it and it becomes second nature. It wonāt affect your training.
In short, ignore the Wattbike App (other than for firmware updates), stick to Ant+, and donāt worry too much about the waves as it all balances out.
Dear @IvyAudrain & @SarahLaverty,
Longtime listener, first time caller. I have been reading all about the progress to get āgear modeā working on the WattBike Atom & TR. Back in Dec '22 you were trying to obtain a unit to test. Did you ever get that and are you still trying? Because I have an Atom Gen1 which is great in ERG mode (with thanks to TR & WB for that match-up) but it suffers from the well-documented resistance-lag for very short intervals and I would like to see if gear mode would ameliorate that.
I feel sure that you have managed to speak to WB in the past year; with apologies for reanimating an old thread - please could you give an update?
With best regards and thanks for a great training platform.
Hey there,
Unfortunately, we still donāt have a Wattbike at TR HQ to test out, so we donāt have any updates on this at the moment. If we do in the future, weāll be sure to post about it here.
Or to reverse the question, is there a TR employee who wants to visit a Wattbike owner?
@ZackeryWeimer thank you so much for replying & thanks to the subsequent posters too, great suggestions.
I asked what Wattbike thought the barrier to success was and their operator replied: āI will certainly raise this with the required teams here at Wattbike to request if this is something that we can get involved with to help develop between Wattbike and TrainerRoad!ā. So it sounds as if they are enthusiastic to collaborate.
It was not tricky to contact them, I used: info@wattbike.com.
Apparently this gear-mode works well with Zwift so it must be possible in TrainerRoad as well. It seems a pity not to have full functionality on the Wattbike. Please could you reach out to them and reply with an update here? Good luck.
Hi Zachery. Any update on when/if we will have resistance/gear mode available on TR for the Atom?
No updates at this time ā weāll be sure to post about them if we do.
Interesting as Iām having a problem with ERG mode at the moment. I JUST setup my Wattbike today and havenāt been able to get ERG mode working with TR. I have a ticket open with TR Support who is currently researching the problem. Fingers crossed at the moment.
No, itās not fixed - and frankly, itāll never be fixed in that current hardware.
After all, thatās specifically why in the Wattbike Proton they changed the hardware gearing ratio, to largely eliminate this problem.
For me, Iāve found for the most part, ERG mode works fine (and actually on reflection pretty consistently) with TR and my Wattbike Atom.
Where is definitely doesnāt work well, is for very short intervals, typically above VO2, where the ācatch upā of the ERG means by the time the registered power reaches the desired level, Iām already half way (or more) into the working interval.
Conversely, for steady state longer than 1 minute, itās superb.
Iāve not considered using the Atom outside of ERG mode - I have friends who use their Atoms on Zwift in the gear-selecting mode and report it works fine for that platform, albeit I donāt have personal experience to verity that.
Can you share the details on your firmware version/software version?
Unsure why this happens? Iāve an atom v2 and itās perfect on Trainerroad. Really interested as to why this happens for you.
That yellow line doesnt look that bad to be honest - other than that weird instantaneous 100w swing - do you have a longer example?
), they yellow power line is smoooooooooth as glass in ERG mode on that unlike the helter skelter line from my Wattbike, also in ERG mode.
That kickr has ERG mode power smoothing on giving unrealisticly smooth lines
I hate ERG mode power smoothing - itās the devil