I hope the final prep is coming together for the Wahooligan Tour starting on Sunday!
As we get closer to the start line, we are going to have a few different things happening as well as places to congregate during the Tour:
The RGT Riding village. Use this road to warm-up, cool down or do some additional riding during the tour and use voice chat to talk to your fellow Wahooligan Tour riders and talk about your experiences on the road this year
Green Jersey: Highest number of individual donations
Daily Wahooligan Tour Jersey: highest fundraiser every 24 hours (calculated at 00:00 Mountain Time)
Team Competition: Highest Funds raised by a team in 24-hour window on Wednesday, March 15 (calculated at 00:00 Mountain Time)
The team prize will be a coupon to each participant to the Wahoo store as well as a private group ride for the winning team with Neal Henderson and Alex Stieda
STAGE 7
I know there have also been a few questions about stage 7. We have now switched on the To Get To The Other Side workout in RGT and also arranged a few rides to complete this stage:
The TGTTOS is not showing as a Tour ride in the tour calendar when I loaded the plan a while back. There is only a message about doing this on RGT. If I load it separately and add it to my plan on the Saturday will it still count as a part of the tour plan rides?
Signed up for the ride on Friday to get to the other side,
Signed up for a ride on Saturday to get back to this side,
Signed up for a the ride on Sunday to get to the other side again.
Hey Sir @Rupert.H, thanks for adding the links and the events!
Unfortunately, the times aren’t ideal for me in Central Daylight Time. Any chance of creating a couple more? Like a start between 2:00 pm and 6:00 pm GMT (i.e. between 9:00 am and 1:00 pm CDT)
When I clicked on the link a start time was posted for example Sat at 0700. I live in Ont Canada is that time already adjusted for my time zone? Im starting at 0700am
I have been on the fence about trying to do this on RGT given my poor experience with the platform. Today however sealed the deal, no way in HELL would I try to do an RGT rise with anyone else.
I had a Systm ride on my calendar which I was going to follow up with an RGT ride. Systm as always went off just as planned. Switched over to RGT and set up a ride. Kicked over to sensors as it usually take 45-60 seconds for RGT to find my bike. It connected, I closed Sensors and went to View the ride.
I pedaled for about a minute and a half so with 2:30 I could click on RIDE NOW and load the ride. Got off the bike, went to my laptop and clicked Ride Now, and it did nothing. Waited until it counted down to 2:00, clicked…nothing; 1:30…nothing; 1:15…nothing; 1:00…nothing; 45 seconds…nothing, 30 seconds…nothing! Finally with 26 seconds before the ride is to start, it began to load the ride. The ride was only 14 miles so I was hoping it would load fairly quickly so I was not too far behind.
It finished loading, but instead of launching the ride, I get a black screen with the words RIDE STARTED and a single option of selecting OK. So I get off my bike, go to my laptop and click OK. At this point I am AGAIN expecting the ride to start. NOPE! It takes me back to my home screen. I go back to the ride and it begins the process of starting to load the ride all over again.
I didn’t let it finish because I didn’t really want to start a ride with all the bots 3 miles ahead of me. If I wanted to ride alone I would set up a ride with zero bots.
I have been going back and forth with support for over 10 months. I have chronicled that death spiral before so I won’t go there again. In addition to support, I have tried every suggestion offered here and in lengthy exchanges with the RGT Facebook Moderator. For reasons unknown and apparently unsolvable, RGT just doesn’t work with my setup.
Please, I understand that for most of you RGT works just fine. For me it is the worst cycling platform I have ever used. I am thrilled it is good for you. I hope everyone enjoys the groups ride but I will do it on Systm since it is likely that if I tried to do it with others at one of the scheduled times, I would end up riding alone anyway, starting after everyone else is miles down the road.
I’ve been following your RGT saga since the start but don’t recall all the details Sir @Critmark and at the risk of having you blow your top, have you ever joined an event that was set up by someone else? Same experience? Have you ever joined a group ride that is set up as a workout? Same experience?
My plan, fwiw, is to join one of the RGT events for Stage 7a but use SYSTM to control the trainer where RGT will only be reading my power. This way, if RGT glitches out for whatever reason, I can still enjoy TGTTOS with the inimitable Sir @michael.cotty
To respond on his behalf, I don’t have half of the problems he does, but I run an IT consultancy and worked in the computer games industry for ~10 years, so you would hope (well I would hope) that I would be pretty much the safest case for “If it can be fixed at the user end, it will be”.
I’ve bailed on RGT myself currently, for different reasons, but partially related.
It’s not terribly stable, the servers allowing you to connect are not consistent, so I have definitely experienced the event of it simply not letting you connect to an event until you’re already going to be late for the start and I have had rides just drop out on me part way through also.
This is then completely compounded by the recent changes to auto-steer/auto-draft and the fact that banding never worked properly anyway.
My use-case for RGT is to ride with my ten year old son, we need banding for fairly obvious reasons and I like to put in a pacing group of bots simply because RGT isn’t exactly enthralling visually, it’s mostly empty environments and so (even in real life) it’s just a flat out better experience to cycle when you can see groups of other riders around.
Unfortunately, banding appears to only exist in the main group and doesn’t come into effect for sub groups. If either his connection or mine drops mid-ride then we drop out of the group, if it’s me then no matter how many times I tell him to stick with the group and I’ll catch, he stops.
We now don’t get banded together as a pair and with the recent steering change he can’t draft me either, so now we’re just two of us cycling together at his power output with me tickling the pedals to sit alongside him.
It’s simply not enjoyable.
There was a lot that needed working on in the platform, but I was fully invested in giving it a try. I love the concept of magic roads.
Unfortunately, it looks like the development effort was put into a feature that, for some of us, has simply broken the experience further.
I’m not sure I’m even doing the Tour this year, it just simply doesn’t look like the traditional challenge and I’ve got enough going on elsewhere, but if I do then it will be 100% in SYSTM.
Yeh, I’ve been following your (and others) frustrating experience with RGT Steering too Sir @Jon . The wahoominati are always watching
I’ll keep my fingers crossed that The Company finds a reasonable solution in the not too distant future. I remain hopeful, even if things seem sorta bleak atm.
Indeed.
I find it dreadfully frustrating and it’s easy to read me as “pissed off user, venting”, but as I’ve said elsewhere, my biggest frustration is that I can see that there are positives to the steering changes, but that the problem isn’t the introduction of steering, it’s the way it’s been handled and all of the subsequent communication.
I really like the idea of the RGT platform, especially Magic Roads. The execution wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough that it seemed to be worth the effort.
The problem is that the change simply doesn’t look like it was ever appropriately beta tested, there was no community engagement in advance, there was no rollback plan, there was never a need for it to be a hard switch in the first place and that the reaction from the RGT team seems to have been “Well, its changed now, so live with it. If you don’t like it then you find a way to deal with it”.
That’s my big problem with it. I’m not trying to argue that it shouldn’t have been done, I actually see the value in steering for racing, it just seems rushed and done with blinkers fully on.
The biggest issue has, entirely, been the response from RGT “representatives”, who seem to like to imply it’s our fault as users if we’re not prepared to just put up with it, or find a way to comply.
I explained that I have a Kickr Bike with Campagnolo gearing setup which precludes me using the bike’s buttons to steer, but that I like having a clean setup and don’t want to be having my phone attached to the bike or taping bluetooth buttons to the shifters. In response I was told “Campagnolo shifting isn’t worth it, just change it” and that I was being difficult for not wanting to use voice commands to steer, or to buy some bluetooth buttons to use.
It’s simply not my problem to solve. I didn’t think it was perfect, but I was happy enough to use RGT as it was, why should I as the consumer have to be prepared to make significant compromises to my setup to fix a problem that was created for me that just allows me to (sort of, I don’t even want to manually steer for draft) get back to where I was and won’t add anything to my experience.
It’s been the polar opposite of all of my previous experience of Wahoo and Sufferfest. I LOVE this community, I’m strongly invested in Sufferlandria and everything David has built. The Sufferfest side of Wahoo is, without any question, my favourite online community bar none, which is another reason why I’ve ditched RGT, I don’t want interaction there to sour my appreciation of what we have.
Yeh. I hear your frustration. And, obviously, you’re not alone (except when you’re alone, which is pretty much the entirety of our indoor training )
Well, if you’re disconnected from RGT and if I hear of a change that would improve your use case, I’ll try to remember to flag it for you Sir. (Do NOT rely on my memory for anything )
I rode TGTTOS on the Stelvio today. It’s really hard the stick to the structured ride as I climb, especially as I see riders who aren’t bots catching me from behind or riding slightly slower in front of me. It was a good ride, but eventually I ignored the workout and worked hard to stay with the rider who stared a mile behind me and caught me near the top. Right now I Don’t really see the point of a structured ride in rgt. And I didn’t get to listen to Mike Cotty.
)
)