Originally Posted by
dmanthree
I realize it's not the same as a real hill, but, well, it's way better than nothing. And my speeds up Watopia's hills are pretty similar to my speeds in real life. "Close enough for government work."
Do you have trainer difficulty set to max? My reading of eg. the below link, makes me think that using anything less than max is basically a lie -- example in linked article is that a 10% gradient will feel like 5% if difficulty is set at 50%. Your watt output capability doesn't change, but I read that Zwift will attempt to make your speed realistic to the watts your outputting for the grade displayed; but it just will feel like an easier hill than it would be if set to 100%.
The guess as to why Zwift defaults to 50% difficulty is that many smart trainers aren't capable of reproducing eg. 18% gradients. What I'm wondering, is then whether it makes sense mostly to set trainer difficulty to percentage that maps the highest gradients you'll see in Watopia to what your trainer can really emulate. Eg. if your trainer can emulate only up to 12% gradient, and Zwift has 18% gradients, then setting trainer to 67% would make sense? This would ensure that at least an 18% Zwift gradient would feel different than a 12% gradient, albeit both would be easier than real life.. Setting to 100% would mean a 12% Zwift gradient would feel identical to an 18% gradient... I think(?)
https://zwiftinsider.com/using-the-t...ting-in-zwift/