The latest indieVelo update V0.2.22 released November 6, 2023, fulfills user requests for Negative Virtual Gears, Ride Leader Controls, Terrain-based Workouts, and more to make things Just Work!
One of the reasons why indieVelo is growing so rapidly is its focus on the features you want. That might sound obvious, but with 100% of the roadmap determined by your requests, we tailor each and every release to keep progressing toward the shared vision of what online cycling could be.
In addition to major updates, it’s crucial to focus on the finer details – those minor adjustments and enhancements that enhance an app’s user-friendliness and overall usability. For example, this week’s release (see below for full details) includes:
Negative Virtual Gears: The ability to use any bike on any trainer from any manufacturer and smoothly and instantly shift virtual gears down (as well as up) with just a key press and no noise or physical wear-and-tear on your bike.
Ride Leader Controls: The ability for a ride leader to set the strength of rubber-banding in a group ride or group workout to any value at any time, keeping everyone together or letting them ride off whenever they wish.
Terrain-Based Workouts: The ability to choose not just between ERG-on and ERG-off for workouts, but with just a simple key press (hotkey: E) to set the resistance you feel to either match that of a flat road, that of the terrain you’re riding over, or that of the workout you’re doing.
On top of these, there’s also a vast range of other additions, improvements, and fixes to workouts, events, and pairing (see below for an important note on this for Mac Bluetooth users), as well as the underlying infrastructure that keeps everything running smoothly.
Oh, and also, there’s a new monthly challenge for November – one lap of the infamously tricky-to-pace North Lake Loop against the clock – see the in-game leaderboards for how you fare against your friends, teammates, and others worldwide!
Do you want to steepen your indieVelo learning curve? Check out our How-to-Guides page for details!
If all has gone well, you shouldn’t have to do anything to get the new version, as indieVelo will self-update the next time you start it up. If you find any problems, however, instructions on how to manually update are on the website: https://wiki.indievelo.com/docs/updates
Please note that, depending on when you installed indieVelo, you may see a warning message recommending that you update the installer/launcher to the latest version. If you see this, download it again from https://indievelo.com/downloads, and the update will automatically apply. The entire process typically takes a minute or two, often much less.
The full patch notes are below!
“Please keep your ideas and suggestions coming. It’s been amazing to chat with you about all the ideas submitted so far, and it’s a real community effort to build the future of online cycling together. Thank you, and I can’t wait to see what the future brings.“
indieVelo founder Dr. George Gilbert
Patch Notes – V0.2.22 – Key changes from last version:
- Added negative virtual gears to allow down-shifting below your physical gear ratio.
- Added ride-leader controls to allow real-time adjusting of rubber-band strength.
- Added Terrain-based resistance mode when doing workouts.
- Added ability to do group workouts synchronized from TrainingPeaks / intervals icu.
- Added support for a wider range of Unicode characters in names/event descriptions.
- Added November monthly challenges.
- Added lots more teams.
- Improved range of virtual gears to enable even higher top gears.
- Improved pen allocation algorithm to better test riders who are doing consistently well.
- Improved rating algorithm to better protect against attempts to sandbag.
- Improved rating algorithm to more quickly recognize consistently improving riders.
- Improved various default graphics settings to be more aligned with the hardware available.
- Improved support for a wide variety of power meters over BLE.
- Improved support for various older (pre-FTMS) trainers over BLE.
- Improved support for Tacx Flow trainers over BLE.
- Improved BLE scan performance on Mac.
- Improved handling of reconnecting FTMS trainers after a BLE drop out.
- Improved handling of errors if they occur when loading.
- Improved handling of errors if API authentication fails.
- Improved handling of errors if the server stops responding.
- Improved resilience of API to errors in parameters.
- Improved pacing of WWW requests in various error situations.
- Improved peak and spread of database lookups.
- Improved thread prioritization for increased performance throughout.
- Improved ride leader chat to not display during ranked events.
- Improved ride leader chat in group rides will also be displayed with the main chat.
- Improved custom event creation menu.
- Improved disallowed word filter.
- Improved various icons.
- Improved log spam.
- Fixed bug with results of events sometimes appearing twice.
- Fixed bug with editing group workouts not showing previously selected workouts.
- Fixed a bug with an unhelpful log about fonts for unsupported Unicode characters.
Semi-retired after more than 20 years as the owner and director of a private Orthopedic Physical Therapy practice, Chris now enjoys the freedom to dedicate himself to his passions—virtual cycling and writing.
Driven to give back to the sport that has enriched his life with countless experiences and relationships, he founded a non-profit organization, TheDIRTDadFund. In the summer of 2022, he rode 3,900 miles from San Francisco to his “Gain Cave” on Long Island, New York, raising support for his charity.
His passion for cycling shines through in his writing, which has been featured in prominent publications like Cycling Weekly, Cycling News, road.cc, Zwift Insider, Endurance.biz, and Bicycling. In 2024, he was on-site in Abu Dhabi, covering the first live, in-person UCI Cycling Esports World Championship.
His contributions to cycling esports have not gone unnoticed, with his work cited in multiple research papers exploring this evolving discipline. He sits alongside esteemed esports scientists as a member of the Virtual Sports Research Network and contributes to groundbreaking research exploring the new frontier of virtual physical sport. Chris co-hosts The Virtual Velo Podcast, too.
