This may sound silly, but I don’t quite understand the use of the sound effects in cycling. They seem to appear at random with no connection with the sensors’ data. Is it just me?
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I’m talking about the sounds of like ‘vroom vroom vroom’, braking, … in the ‘on location’ section. Maybe it depends on the video. Sometimes it looks like you’re supposed to change cadence, gear, …, but sometimes it seems totally random.
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The sound effects are synched to the workout targets and not to your sensor data. They should happen on changes in power or cadence targets, regardless of whether you achieve those targets. If they are happening randomly, it sounds like a bug.
PS: welcome to the forum 
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Hey @prenaud, welcome to the forums!
Maybe this will help. While some of the sounds might seem random, they are not supposed to be.
Swoosh = prepare for a change in effort
Vroom vroom = get ready to increase power/speed/cadence
Braking = get ready to decrease power/speed/cadence
Ding Ding = surge/settle
Ding = get ready to stand/ stop standing
Gun Shot = give it the beans, i.e. sprint/go hard/go very hard
If the sounds don’t quite match your efforts there could be a problem with the video being out of sync. If that is the case, best to let The Company know.
If you don’t like the sound effects, you can always either adjust the volume, or turn them off all together. There are some workouts where there are no sound effects at all because the frequency of efforts changing is really too high. Eg. The Pro Rides.
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That’s awesome. Thank you both for your great answers.
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Always happy to help (others to suffer 
)
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Pet peeve: A Ding is coincident with when you are supposed to stand, and also when you’re supposed to sit (usually). So, one sound means two opposite things. It’s easy for a single ding to get masked by video sounds/music. Sometimes, there is a STAND banner at the top of the screen, and sometimes not. Also, there is no alert prior to when you’re supposed to stand, unlike changes in power or cadence which are indicated in those boxes by the appearance of a new value and the red progress bar.
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I’m just the messenger, better bring that up with…oh, wait, there’s no one left 
Edit: also, fwiw, I’ve never been bothered by ding to stand and ding to stop. Though I do occasionally get thrown off by a gun shot sound where it’s not a full-on sprint or a super hard effort.
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To clarify, it’s not the ding that bothers me. It’s the lack of prior alert, inconsistency, and sometimes inaudibility of the ding. To me, the gunshot means one thing, is easily audible, and I’m already well aware of of the upcoming effort as it’s clearly shown in the graph and data block with progress bar.
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I suspect the lack of warning is intentional and by design. FWIW, I’ve always treated the STAND dings as “optional”. I’ll regularly stand when prompted and the relative power expectation is high(ish) but I will invariably say, often audibly, heII no when the power expectation is low(ish).
I’m not following you on the inconsistency thing though. Are there specific videos where you’ve found this? Are there specific instances where the ding is inaudible? If so, if you point them out in the Nit-Picks and Typos thread, and tag Sir Rupert, you might get them fixed.
Edit: I’ll also add I don’t stand if the cadence is high eg 75ish+ unless sprinting.
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I have switched off the sounds completely, because especially the breaking sound was getting on my nerves. I may switch it on again to see if it helps to reduce attention to the displays.
I think I just clued in. I don’t have a power sensor, so I deactivated the power and RPE targets on my screen. So, maybe the warnings that seem to appear at random are related to those targets. that I don’t have on my screen. I’ll activate them next time…
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What type of trainer are u using @prenaud ? Even without a power sensor, depending on what you’ve got, they do have virtual power.
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I doubt it. I have a basic CycleOps Fluid2 and I bought a couple sensors (speed/cadence).
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The fluid 2 can use virtual power. Check it out here
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Great! I will try it tomorrow. Thanks.
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. Check back in and let us know how you get on.
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I got some readings for power, but I’m not too sure to to make of them…
Well, your next step is to do a fitness test. The “easier” one is Half Monty as it isn’t nearly as daunting or fatiguing as Full Frontal which is a beast and takes a bit of practice to get the pacing right (unless you’re used to doing all out efforts for 5 minutes and 20 minutes via old timey style FTP - Functional Threshold Power - tests).
Also, you ought to check the metrics set up in the app to see how they might align with your efforts. In your Athlete Profile when you open the app, there will be some default numbers that you can edit prior to testing or you can do a few workouts and see how the default setting align with your effort (too easy, bump the numbers up, too hard, bump them down) but you should def do a fitness test, sooner than later.
Edit: in a nutshell, the power targets you see on screen are what you should be aiming for, and the number below it, is what you are actually producing, or in your case, estimated to be producing based on the virtual power curve for the Fluid 2.
Here are a few app pics to show how to get to the Athlete Profile
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