I’m tying this in to another thread / question here, RE virtual shifting for single cog users: Workout looks right in xert, does not look right when used in zwift - #12 by ulty
I’ve been playing around with the BikeControl (formerly SwiftControl) application on both PC and mobile to enable the use of Zwift Click hardware to control virtual shifting in other apps, although I haven’t tried it with EBC on the bike yet. (For anyone just wanting to test the app, you can download .zip, apk, etc directly from the app’s GitHub repository and manually install them, as well as purchase automatically installable versions through different app stores.)
My thought was that when doing a mixed mode workout in EBC to adjust the slope manually in the app to get the effect of virtual shifting, and use a third party interface like BikeControl to tie the Zwift Click to the EBC button presses.
However from some quick testing with EBC, it seems like slope cannot be changed from the auto setting in a mixed mode workout. So using auto mode, a workout starts in ERG mode @ 100%, then changes to slope mode @ the slope defined in the workout file. But pressing the +/- buttons does not change the slope, but instead continue to change the % difficulty. It is possible to change the mode from auto to slope during the interval, and then the +/- buttons will change the slope.
Slope I think defaults to 0% unless you have previously adjusted it, so if wanting to use it manually during a mixed mode workout you would need to ensure it was set to a % matching the workout file or some other positive value that would be a good starting point for a sprint.
Question 1: How does changing the slope (and % difficulty) in a mixed mode workout affect Xert’s interpretation of the work being performed during an all-out interval?
Question 2: To get the effect of virtual shifting in a mixed mode workout, would it be better to adjust the slope or the % difficulty?
Further comments and possible Feature Request:
The +/- buttons are kind of sluggish to respond and can’t be clicked in rapid succession. This makes it tricky to change the values appropriately when you’re trying to hit a 10 second sprint.
Can Xert make some changes to the EBC app to better accommodate single cog / virtual shifters? Depending on the answers to Qs 1 & 2, some options could be:
- Simply making the +/- buttons more responsive
- Allowing slope to be adjustable via the +/- buttons in auto mode when auto is implementing a mixed mode slope interval
- Adding a toggle setting for allowing / implementing / mimicking virtual shifting using the +/- buttons combined with other EBC changes (possibly a new increment scale for adjusting % difficulty or the trainer resistance?)
- Or of course, implementing some kind of full, separate, new virtual shifting feature
While using buttons in the EBC app to virtually shift gears is cumbersome in my opinion, it would at least provide the ability for virtual gear changes and allow for the use of third part apps like Bike/SwiftControl, QZ, and whatever else might be out there.
Thanks for listening. I really think there is some intermediate level of single cog / virtual shifting compatibility that can be implemented without Xert having to make direct BT connections to other companies hardware. Also, FWIW, the BikeControl developer has proposed and made an open protocol in an attempt to standardize communication between hardware and trainer apps, although no one has used it yet aside from him. https://openbikecontrol.org/