I rode this today and was only eight minutes behind your time. I think whenever we get a chance to ride together IRL, we'll be a good match up.

Hey John, I noticed that. You have so much trouble with that app. Is that PC version? I'm running it on AppleTV box and works fine.
Interesting thing about my indoor riding is that I'm much more aggressive then in real life riding. When I'm riding outdoors I love to look around, stop to take a picture, have a snack along the way. I never chase segments or anything similar. Just enjoying being outside. I'm hoping and looking forward to us riding together. All the best.

Happy New Year! 🎉

Yes, I'm running the Windows app for FulGaz. I haven't been able to determine any rhyme or reason as to why it crashes. It works great for many rides then, out of the blue, it will crash. As far as I can tell, their AppleTV app works good if you have fast internet. Our Starlink has gotten much slower in the last year, and has been having frequent drop outs. I've been downloading the videos to an external HDD before riding them. I don't think you can do that with AppleTV.

I used to push much harder on my trainer than in real life. Since my last bout with Covid, not so much. Before I could usually average around 200 watts for most rides. Now I'm doing good to average 180. Like you, when I ride outdoors, I stop a lot, take lots of breaks, and many pictures.

Hey Ivan,

As I was going back through comparing our times on other rides, I noticed that on many of them, your time is within a few seconds of the person who filmed the video (the Duration time shown for each ride). That's only happened to me once or twice out of 50+ rides.

I'm wondering, is there any chance your FulGaz app is set to Steady, as opposed to Reactive? That would explain this. As I recall, Steady is the default setting. I find this is kind of odd since of Reactive mode, it says, "This is the mode most people will choose to use." So why not make it the default, then?

You can learn more about the ride mode settings here: https://support.fulgaz.com/hc/en-us/articles/360004670852-Understanding-Steady-Reactive-and-Challenge-modes

Another mode they offer is Challenge mode. I'm thinking that next time I do a ride that you've done previously, I may try it, using you as my pacer. That will give me a much better idea of how we might match up IRL (assuming, of course, that we both do the ride in Reactive mode).

John

BTW, I'm guessing you're back in Toronto...?

Yes, I'm back home in Canada. Made it just before that big snow/deep freeze storm. I tried riding in reactive mode and video was choppy so I went back to steady. What I understood is that video runs at pre-recorded pace but you still make your own time. Maybe I'm wrong. I couldn't ride with choppy video, it was making be dizzy. You were right, I cannot download videos on Apple TV box. I also don't have the greatest internet speed which is probably the reason for inconsistent streaming. We have extreme fast internet available but I'm refusing to pay big corporations insane amount of money for it.

Ivan,

Glad you made it home safely, without Covid this time.

From the FulGaz site: "Steady mode locks the ride at the same speed the ride was filmed at. If the person filming the ride took five minutes to climb the hill, so will you. In this mode it does not matter how hard or easy you pedal, the video speed will remain constant at the original speed." So it appears that your speed will be the speed of the rider that filmed the video.

There is a way to download videos to a NAS and stream them from there on an AppleTV. They explain how to do it here:
https://support.fulgaz.com/hc/en-us/articles/360019713512-Setup-and-troubleshooting-MAMP-Streaming-NAS-Configuration-
Sounds pretty complicated to me, way above my pay grade.

I have over a hundred FulGaz rides downloaded to an external HDD in 4k. They look very nice. But the fact that I'm riding downloaded videos make the app crashes even more baffling.

I'm with you on paying so much for internet. We don't have many options where we live, so we bit the bullet and signed up for Starlink. $600 for the equipment and $100 a month. When we first started using it, we would regularly get download speeds between 150 and 200 Mbps. Since then, they've raised the monthly subscription to $110 and we typically only get 50 to 100 Mbps download speeds. Nothing like paying more for less, huh? 😠

I remember reading somewhere that when the war in Ukraine broke out, they relocated some of the satellites from the US to there to help both civilians and the military to maintain reliable internet. Not sure if that's the reason for the slowdown or not, but it seems like a logical explanation.

Take care,
John

BTW, I've only had the app crash five times in 51 rides. There were three other times when the resistance got off and I had to restart the app the get it back on. So a total on eight rides where I've had issues.

That is the first class robbery. Satellite internet has been always expensive. Many years ago, I was their dealer and installer in Canada. That is the only way to get service in remote areas. Don't trust what they are saying, just making stories so you can easily swallow rip-off. How come they never moved satellites above Africa to help people there? Regarding FulGaz videos, I like that they are filmed by the cyclists but on the other hand, videos filmed from the car have better view and don't shake that much. When the recording guy stands up on the uphill ride, I cannot look at the screen because of too much shaking. Makes me feel dizzy. Maybe I'm too close to my 50" TV. I'll be riding VeloReality for a bit. I'm hoping to get away from the cold in February for some real riding. I'll try to get to Canary islands. There are some nice mountains over there. Should be fun. Stay healthy, Ivan K

When you mentioned your post Covid condition, it made me think about my lack of breath and energy after my infection. There must be some connection between those two events. I hope we get over it but it's almost a year and I'm still not feeling 100%