New version 0.7.4.0 – Virtual gearing, virtual cornering and localization

Version 0.7.4.0 is out now. Get it from the Downloads page.

Virtual gearing

This version introduces the possibility of using virtual gears in any trainer that supports ERG mode. Virtual gearing means that you won’t use your bike shifters and instead you’ll be using Zwift Play shift buttons or a keyboard (keys Numpad 7 and Numpad 9) to gear down and up. The amount and gear ratios are fully configurable in the ini file, but they come preset with the same configuration as Zwift Hub, featuring 24 gears.  By default virtual gears are disabled.

Just remember to leave the chain on your bike as straight as possible and never use your bike shift levers. If you want to learn a bit more about how this works, I’ve written a full article about Virtual gearing

Keep in mind also that there are several factors that will change the perceived load in the trainer, and some of them you won’t feel them like in real life. Wind is an important factor, you can make a turn into a street and that nice wind on your back that was helping, it’s not there anymore, and you’ll feel it in your legs, but not on your face!

Virtual cornering

The unrealistic speeds on downhills provided by the virtual speed calculations many times caused crashes on tight turns, or made possible totally weird 90º angle turns at impossible speeds. With the new steering model there is a physics calculation of the maximum speed a bike can take a turn at and if under auto pilot, the bike will slow down on every turn to match the maximum speed.  If the user is controlling the steering manually, using the keyboard, Sterzo or Play controllers, their steering will be limited to a maximum angle dependent on the speed, so in order to take some tighter turns, the user must use the brakes (keyboard ‘S’, Play brake levers or Kickr bike brake levers).  If the option ‘avoid obstacles’ in the menu is disabled, the driving experience is fully manual and you will fall from the bike if you enter a tight turn over speeding. You need to either brake, ease your power or open your steering angle as soon as a red screen effect appears if you don’t want to end up hitting the ground.

Every bike has different steering capabilities, so choosing the right one for the terrain you’ll be riding at is important again. Fat tire bikes can do tighter turns at higher speeds especially in soft terrain. A road bike will have a difficult time turning in dirt.  The weather affects the steering angle as well. Wet conditions lower significantly the speed and angle of turns.

I’ve also written an article on Virtual Cornering that you can read if you want more information on how this works.

Steering dead spot removed

The steering dead spot has been removed (previously it was a minimum of 20%) and now it can be set as low as 0% for the Zwift Play controllers or 1% for better Sterzo experience.

As part of the new steering model, the fine steering keys have been also removed and the fine steering setting is now assigned to the normal steering keys ‘A’ and ‘D’. Fine steering does not apply to steering devices, those are tuned using the calibration.

Auto braking changes

The mod has historically had the feature of braking to a stop if it detected zero cadence and power for 10 seconds.  This is to allow people with no braking devices to access the menu and end their activity easily, but was a bit unrealistic for people with braking devices, so now, if you have one of such devices, you can coast indefinitely. You will only come to a stop if you use your brakes or the environment reduces your speed to zero.

User interface changes

After adding the virtual gearing feature we needed a way to show the gear you are actually using. The cycling computer was fully crammed with data, so it was decided to remove two of the pieces of information in there, which were related to the environment and not your performance (wind speed and terrain grade), and move them on top of the mini map. It just makes more sense.

In the freed up space we’ve placed the cumulative climb and the current gear, as long as an indicator of when the brakes are being applied, either automatic braking or user triggered braking.

Localization

With the help of some of GT Bike V users, all the messages and texts in the mod have been translated to Spanish, Portuguese, German, French, Italian and Korean.  If you are running the game in one of those languages you will see the mod messages in your own language.  If you find inaccuracies in the translation or texts that are overflowing their spaces, please let me know.

Keep in mind that all the texts in the workout files and course definitions is only available in English though.

FIT file improvements

The FIT files generated by the mod now contain laps for every completed course and for every segment in a workout. They also have been tweaked to provide ‘Training Effect’ in Garmin Connect when you upload the file there.

Donations

We would like to remind you we have a donations page for those who would like to support the project. Thank you to every one that has already donated, your contribution is much appreciated and is helping to maintain the servers. You can see all the details in Donations