Paterburg & Utah - first use notes

[ghetto]

(I moved this post from V-Ride network -> 1st ride)

Hi all, here we go, hope this is of interest or help to someone or the devs.

I go found VR via the Zwift Facebook groups, I'm spending time on the turbo as I wait for a bust clavicle to heal. I'm an MTBer at heart not a roadie.

It took me a while to get Paterburg up and running, it's not the most intuitive process and I'm pretty stubborn. A lot of people would have given up. Anyway, got it, it works.

Maybe instructions are in the manual. Like everyone, I didn't read the manual.

I spent a long time trying to figure out why I couldn't see any online riders as the instructions said I should, I thought I was following the instructions wrongly. Then I realised VR is a new business and there aren't any yet - so that could be clearer.

Paterburg is good fun, it's a hard loop just the right length that a few laps is a great workout. I'd really like if the whole lap, not just the cobbled climb, was a segment.

The tractor makes me laugh this time ... "this time I won't go in the gravel, this time ..... oh".

Now I've read the manual I understand all the symbols in the HUD.

So I bought Arches, Utah for a contrast. As a Euro the desert is exotic to me! I rode 14.4km to the top of the second climb, at an average of 173w (2.24w/kg). The one thing I've got to say is I am riding slower than the camera on the climbs so the foreground gets a little shuddery, to me that spoils the immersion a bit, it's a shame and it discourages me from buying more. I know I'm no athlete but I doubt I'm a lot below the average.

Are there other vids where the climbs are shot at a slower speed? Paterburg wasn't so bad.

Also Arches was a 4 hour download to UK, so not an impulse buy! I would think Cloudfront could help you here.

I didn't test it empirically but it felt to me like the cadence was significantly under reported, though wattage, speed and heart rate felt about right. I'm on a TACX Vortex smart.

For gradients, Arches maxes out about 5% the same as my Vortex so the trainer was used to good effect.

Hope that helps, good luck with the business, I'll keep an eye on it.

[ghetto]

One thing I meant to add - I would find w/kg a useful metric in the HUD as it's changes are smoother than total wattage and it's a good metric for comparing riders.

(& thanks for your follow up message to inbox).

[youpmelone]

Hey Ghost, I went through the same process as you did.
moved here via TTS (rubbish) and Zwift (boring), and recently described the process of moving to adobe lightroom.
Was pretty lost the first time i used it now all makes sense.

VR is awfully simple if you're the one who coded this, for the rest of us it is either reading the manual (I did not even know there is one), looking up the videos online or just click all buttons and see what happens (my approach). After a few times it comes naturally.

just give kotya your input and he'll code it in or adapt if possible. He's built in pretty much everyone of my ideas, and that happens nowhere.

As I see it, if you want your dream riding software this is your only option (i tried all) you just need to massage kostya a bit.

Regarding the stuttering, I had the same.
Turned out my windows 10 setup needed tweaking, cpu was maxing out and overheating.
Not much VR could do about that. Took me a saturday morning now all runs smooth with 20% cpu use.
The only thing i needed to disable is the hardware acceleration toggle in VR. That creates instant stuttering for me.

what is your setup and do you have the hardware acceleration enabled?

[VeloReality Video]

About stuttering video when climbing steep hills at a slow speed - this can be caused by the frame rate just becoming so slow that your faced with almost a slideshow. The cause will be the speed the ride is filmed, if your able to ride at the same speed the ride was filmed your going to have a very smooth frame rate at what ever speed the camera can record at which is about 24 - 30fps . Note the key here is riding at the same speed! if the climb was filmed at 30mph & your doing 10mph then you could be at 10fps which is visually a bit rough but still acceptable....go any slower & your going to get a more stuttery experience. We aim to film as slow as possible, but the side effect of either a slow speed or higher frame rate is either a shorter ride or bigger video file....so its all "swings & roundabouts" (British saying)!

Some new films on the way are filmed at cycling speed from a specially built bike that can take the weight of the cinema kit without too much added bike movement but even this will be faster then many riders & slower then others...& then you also have less distance or perhaps a lower quality bitrate to make into a ride that is not too big to download. On a mountain I normally aim for 20 - 15kph. As camera tech improves there will be a generally sharper, better image, plus filming at typical cycling speeds or faster frame rates together with better codecs cheaper storage, faster download speeds...things will improve but Im sure that the quality of the simulation you have with VRide software is the best on the market that I know of right now.

[ghetto]

Hey both good to hear from you.

I find I enjoy Zwift, but that's not to say I won't enjoy VR too. They're pretty different. I'm pretty sure I won't go back to non-interactive videos though, shame as they were good for their day.

Yeah I got the 'ware figured about by just clicking about too, I'm a software dev myself but it still took a while. It's easy now I know, but it may discourage newcomers. I'm sure VR are on that as it'll cost them business.

Regarding 'stuttering', my setup is fine tho thanks for the suggestions, the issue is that on Arches I was climbing slower than the camera so the ware has no choice than to reduce the framerate for accurate distance progression, so movement close to the foreground isn't too smooth (like the roadside vegetation, the crow that flaps across the road etc). You could put this another way and say that for Arches my fitness was less than optimal! For fun I actually put a lot of effort in to try and match the camera speed but it wasn't going to happen, it's too fast for me.

However I'd guess I'm at or slightly better than average fitness so a lot of people could experience the same. I didn't notice this on the Paterburg climb. Also sometimes people want to relax and ride slowly!

Film speed must be a tough call for VR. Software updates can be patched and pushed but making a film is a pretty much one time thing. @vr what I would say is don't overestimate your typical customer. For every athlete or committed rider there are probably 5 to 10 leisure/'health' riders. If indoor riding is growing, that's probably where the growth will come from. You guys are probably committed riders, so actually you are not your typical customer.

Regarding file size vs quality: go for quality. Infrastructure capability improves daily, what may feel like a problem file now will be fine in a year. Plus Cloudfront can serve them for you much faster than S3.

I'll try one of the euro films. Tempted to Ventoux 1 but suspect it may be (to use another British phrase) "biting off more than I can chew". (Though I did ride Ventoux IRL, but from Malaucene direct and over the top then down to Sault, rather than via Bedoin). We'll see, I'll report back.

& the tractor still makes me giggle, how the rider has to dive for the gravel once he sees there's a tool on the back much wider than the vehicle! & how it happens (of course) the same every lap. Groundhog Day. That will become legend.

[VeloReality Video]

I'll try one of the euro films. Tempted to Ventoux 1 but suspect it may be (to use another British phrase) "biting off more than I can chew". (Though I did ride Ventoux IRL, but from Malaucene direct and over the top then down to Sault, rather than via Bedoin). We'll see, I'll report back.

Very good points thanks for the feedback, Your almost right, Im a life long cyclist with a long deep history in racing with 13 years racing here in Belgium, but started with touring, Ive long since retired from competition but still ride with friends at the weekend etc, Kostya though is more the type of fitness based cyclist loves the outdoors & cycling but not so much the cycling club culture, history & pro cycling side, so we have both sides of the cycling coin covered..

As for the Software ease of use, its been discussed a fair bit in the past, the software can run from a SD card & we did think once it would be a great idea to just hand them out at expo's bike shops etc with a full working plug & play ride ( a short one like the Paterberg)...its then you realise that small things do need to change to make it 100% obvious what to do without the need of click everything to see. if you have any suggestions I'm very sure Kostya would love to read them.

For the Ventoux..Part 1 is the Bedoin side...its the toughest! We also have the Sault side that you descended this is a fair bit longer but less steep.. part 2 that joins the two climbs is actually a really nice easy ride up the Gorges des Nesque its only about 2-3% ave grade with caves & villages...loads of blossom on the trees.. its a very special 3 part ride, not often possible to have Snow on the Ventoux & the blossom with clear sky without that mistral wind!

[ghetto]

yeah I remember the wind!

A loop of the base of Mt V is a nice ride too, in particular the contrast of the 'northern' feeling north side and the Mediterranean feeling south side.

[VeloReality Video]

yeah I remember the wind!

There is a Part 0 a Prequal! filmed later into the year but it takes the road along the northern flank of the climb so you can by using the join rides tool (bottom left of the video menu tab) ride almost all the way round the Ventoux without actually climbing it!!! You need all 4 parts though to make this more hmm "sociable" route use all of Part 0 then use Part 1 up to the hard left turn on the climb (where it gets hard & stays hard...cut this bit all away) in place we will turn right with with Part 2 by cutting away most of the Ventoux descent until you reach the same corner...this will take you to Sault which is just 20km or so away from the Start of Part 0

This link should take you to them all https://veloreality.com/?s=ventoux&post_type=product

[ghetto]

Ventoux 1 looks very beautifully filmed, I could just sit and watch it as 'slow tv' without riding. You picked the perfect season. Well done.

It looks pretty fast for me, though I've not ridden it yet.

Does the download have the same frame rate as your master film?

What's the pixellation just before 1hr 29m, after the memorial?

[admin]

Ventoux 1 looks very beautifully filmed, I could just sit and watch it as 'slow tv' without riding. You picked the perfect season. Well done.
It looks pretty fast for me, though I've not ridden it yet.
Does the download have the same frame rate as your master film?
What's the pixellation just before 1hr 29m, after the memorial?

Are you playing it in separate video player? They're all ok in such situation. However when you ride hills it is most likely that you are moving way slower then the car and here comes stroboscopic effect. I guess it depends on one's eye, I can pretty much see it even when watching this type of videos in external player at native frame rate. For video to be completely smooth at car speed it has to be filmed at least at 60fps and this will lead to insanely huge files to download and will overtax your system