Liking it pretty much so far coming over from Zwift and Trainerroad. I mainly like doing structured workouts and training plans. Zwift was OK but I got tired of their virtual worlds and somewhat wack workouts and plans. Trainerroad was good (no vids or music) but I wanted to try SYSTM’s 4DP metric along with having the cycling vids. I’ve done a couple of weeks including the Half Monty and Full Frontal tests. So far so good. I’m running a Saris Hammer, optical HRM, and cadence sensor, all connected via an ANT+ dongle dangling on a short USB extension ~18" below my notebook computer. A few minor observations and comments.
Power changes in ERG mode seem a bit delayed (~3-4 seconds) compared to what I’m used to. Perhaps other apps anticipate the change and send the new power level to the trainer a second or two before it becomes current.
Despite having the cadence sensor live and connected, the app often defaults to using the trainer for cadence and I have to set it back to the cadence sensor when I start the workout. Not a big deal, but I’d preferred it reliably remembered it.
I know I can change the trace in the workout to show power, HR, or cadence, but I don’t see an indication on the graph of what is being displayed. Different colors would be good, as would being able to display more than one trace at a time.
Having workouts with no vid or music is a bit rude, IMO. I can get some other music app or vid going, but that’s like Trainerroad. A big reason I’m trying SYSTM is for the vids. I’d prefer there were always music and vids. As it is, they can be turned off in the settings if so desired.
Not quite sure if “rude” is quite the word to use but surely you must see that, in order to meet the required volume of training content, it isn’t really feasible for the team to research and create videos for all of the types of workouts?
Perhaps that is on the roadmap somewhere but they haven’t got there yet.
As an alternative, it might be nice if NoVid workouts could be (somehow) “mashed-up” with the Open videos so the workout can be undertaken while watching “in-SYSTM” video content.
That’s consistent with what many of us have seen. The ERG setpoint response with a Bluetooth connection to the trainer is much better. Do you have this option?
Agreed - I’d like to be able to see both power and heart rate traces.
I think @titanicus has covered this well. The effort to add video and music to a workout is non-trivial. I’m happy to have the wider range of workouts, even if it does mean some don’t have video and/or music. Also, I feel like there are enough video-based workouts that you could probably never need to touch the NoVid sessions. I understand that the NoVids are often included in the plans, but you could substitute those for a video alternative.
Yeah. I’m just asking for any old cycling related vid, not something synchronized to the workout, just not a blank screen. I don’t think that would be hard. So far in my experience with the structured workouts, the vids aren’t all synchronized anyway.
Yep, I can switch the to Bluetooth for the trainer and other sensors. Previously, I’ve found ANT+ to be more reliable, but I can certainly try BT and see if it improves the power latency.
I’ve found much the same with my Tacx Neo 2T on a Win10 PC. ANT just wasn’t usable for any workouts with sudden power changes, as the delays were significant but also very inconsistent so couldn’t be anticipated well. Bluetooth is virtually instantaneous for me.
Have you looked at the Inspiration and On Location categories? Those all have cycling-related videos or footage, in a different style to the Sufferfest category.
I imagine there are number of IP and/or copyright related issues associated with getting the rights to any video to use with the workouts, so it’s not just a matter of grabbing some content and attaching it to the workout.
I kind of like that there is a sub-category of workout where you can choose your own video/audio, but that’s just my perspective.
I’ve done 14 or 15 workouts and don’t remember which had well synchronize vids or not. It’s kinda moot anyway as I’m only asking for something other than a black screen during a workout. Any cycling related vid is better than nothing.
Yes. I’ve looked at the other ride types, and they’re nice, but I’m primarily interest in structured workouts that are part of a training plan. For those, any vid would be better than a black screen, and easily done, IMO.
[quote=“way9e0, post:7, topic:15945, full:true”]
…I imagine there are number of IP and/or copyright related issues associated with getting the rights to any video to use with the workouts…[/quote]
For my purposes, they could run a vid they already have rights to and use for other workouts or ride types. That would be preferable to a black screen.
It would seem like it would be cheap and easy for Wahoo to embed a video player and let users supply the video distraction of their choice during the no vid rides.
Then again, I can do this already on my Windows setup by simply having a video player window over the SYSTM window, so personally I’d rather see them put their efforts elsewhere.
I do this a lot, for almost all Inspiration rides in fact. It’s really easy and the small player option in Systm works well for it. Amazon, NetFlix, Disney, Sky and YouTube give quite a selection. There have been some very positive shoutouts for the GCN+ content also.
Unfortunately this isn’t an option on the iPad version, as the SYSTM app doesn’t support any multitasking options for the iPad.
Like the OP, I would love to watch anything other than a blank black screen, but the lack of multitasking support for SYSTM’s iPad app prevents this.
As it is, the NoVid workouts, despite having a much greater diversity in intervals than any of the video workouts, make it difficult for me to put maximum effort in as there’s no added stimuli/distraction beyond a blank black screen, and I find it difficult to use them as such.
Even if Wahoo doesn’t add an option to display any old video from their library, regardless of syncing, it would be great to have the iPad app support multitasking so that users could watch YouTube or any other video app while using a SYSTM NoVid workout.
True. I limit the display to just power, cadence and heart rate (although I ignore heart rate, I like seeing that I’m still alive). In Settings>Display you can make the font as big as it will get. That might help a little. But hopefully, you’ll mostly be watching your movie so it won’t matter that much. Most of the no vids have pretty infrequent power and cadence changes.
I realize as I’m writing that if you have a smart trainer, this should work fine. If you have a dumb trainer and have to focus on the power numbers, it won’t work quite as well and will be more distracting.
