Using Zwift on rollers

graememacd

looking at setting up with Zwift as it currently looks like the middle of winter outside.
I have a basic (non resistance) set of rollers and a bike with an ant+ speed cadence sensor. Am I correct in thinking all i need now is the ant+ dongle and a zwift account on my laptop? Obviously as the rollers have no resistance there's nothing stopping me from spinning up to a certain speed, are there settings within zwift to make the rides a challenge?

StillGoing

Just the ANT+ dongle and a Zwift account. You need to be honest with your settings (weight doping is rife). I'm using rollers more than the turbo at the moment and tend to watch the large screen tv while training. I wouldn't want to be concentrating on a Zwift screen.

graememacd

Thanks for the reply. I will be honest with the settings as I want to use it to train over the winter. I assume any ant+ dongle will do? I already have one for my garmin running watch.
Will it also pick a up ant+ heart rate monitor?

LiamW

The same one you use for your Garmin watch will work & it will pick up your HR monitor as well.

markhewitt1978

It basically won't work properly with just rollers and speed sensors. Contrary to popular assumption Zwift does *not* just take the speed of your wheels and plug it into the game but uses your power output to determine your game speed. With rollers unless you have a power meter on your bike, or are using a trainer with a known resistance curve (so they can work out what speed means what power) then the in game power can't be computed.

That said you *can* just use the speed sensor and the rollers but your numbers might as well be from a random number generator and you risk your account being auto-banned.

graememacd

Thanks for the info all. It's worth a go using the free trial to see how I get on

StillGoing

markhewitt1978 wrote:

It basically won't work properly with just rollers and speed sensors. Contrary to popular assumption Zwift does *not* just take the speed of your wheels and plug it into the game but uses your power output to determine your game speed. With rollers unless you have a power meter on your bike, or are using a trainer with a known resistance curve (so they can work out what speed means what power) then the in game power can't be computed.

That said you *can* just use the speed sensor and the rollers but your numbers might as well be from a random number generator and you risk your account being auto-banned.

It will still base the OP's speed over the course using the cadence and speed sensors and adjust according to the average weight etc. Yes, it isn't truly accurate, but its a damned sight cheaper than forking out for a smart trainer if they don't want one. I don't think they're in it for competing in on line races, but more for a personal training program during crappy weather. If that's the case, they're only needing the numbers to assess their own progress.

graememacd

Turns out my laptop needs to update to 64 bit windows 10 before I can run zwift anyway. Got to work out how to do that first!

benjamess

I use zwift on rollers but with a power meter, you would just look stupidly quick using a rear wheel speed sensor

StillGoing

benjamess wrote:

I use zwift on rollers but with a power meter, you would just look stupidly quick using a rear wheel speed sensor

They wouldn't as Zwift will auto calculate wattage and adjust his forward speed just the same as someone using a turbo without a powermeter.