The latest indieVelo update, V0.2.52, released on June 3, is a 1 year anniversary and introduces proper team time trial mode functionality.
Happy indieVeloversary!
indieVelo is one year old today. It is remarkable to look back on just how far it has come (for example, see the Features and Changelog—52 weeks, 52 releases!). However, the thing indieVelo’s developer, Dr. George Gilbert, is most proud of is not what has happened but how.
indieVelo has always been about “Transforming Cycling Together.”
Defining the future of virtual sport, ensuring credible and tactically interesting racing, and doing so from the ground up – not having a community, but being a community. The importance of that last pillar cannot be understated. With 100% of indieVelo’s roadmap determined by your thoughts, ideas, and suggestions, everything you see and experience in the virtual world is due to the users.
indieVelo’s developer, Dr. George Gilbert, may be just one person doing the typing, but indieVelo is actually being developed with the support and feedback of tens of thousands of dedicated and committed athletes who all share a vision of how much better online cycling could be. Above everything else, that is what makes it so special.
“I really cannot thank you enough – you are all amazing,” says Dr. Gilbert.
Here’s how to get indieVelo on your AppleTV!
1) Anyone with access to indieVelo on iOS (iPhone/iPad) should now automatically be able to access the AppleTV version too. Simply download TestFlight from the AppStore on your AppleTV, and indieVelo should be there waiting for you to run.
2) Anyone who is a member of the indieVelo Founders Club but doesn’t have access to the Apple versions of indieVelo can email: help@indievelo.com with the email address they use in the AppStore and will receive instructions.
3) Anyone not yet an indieVelo Founders Club member should click here to join, then email me as above.
To help celebrate, this week’s release (see below for full details) contains the most requested feature—a “proper” dedicated Team Time Trial mode.
- Drafting only between members of the same team.
- Timing is automatically taken on the N-th rider (team sizes and N are all fully configurable).
- Create and choose your own teams, and all wear your own custom team kit.
Additionally, just like an IRL TTT, when you are riding you won’t get to see how the other teams are doing, apart from at each checkpoint along the course.
At each checkpoint, you’ll see – live, and in real-time – the time gaps between the teams pop-up as they pass and you will need to use your skill and tactics to decide how to respond. Read more about this exciting new way of racing here: https://wiki.indievelo.com/docs/team-time-trials/
As usual, there is also a wide range of other additions, improvements, and fixes. These cover significant translation improvements (with 15 languages now supported), better bot AI for more dynamic racing, better connectivity, and further fixes and improvements to keep everything running nicely in the background. There’s also a new set of monthly challenges for June, including a flying lap of the velodrome after being paced up to speed in the Keirin.
Please note, however, that with the network infrastructure changes, if you use a firewall or anti-virus scanner on your computer, you may need to add indieVelo as a permitted application and/or enable access to UDP Port 7777 and TCP Port 7777.
Note for Mac Bluetooth users: If you find that the Bluetooth icon on the pairing screen has turned red, please follow the instructions linked from https://wiki.indievelo.com/docs/apple-mac-ble-permissions/ to first completely remove, and then re-add, permission for indieVelo to use the Mac Bluetooth connection.
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!
“Thank you all again. It has been a truly extraordinary first year, and I cannot wait to see what we all can come up with together next!”
George Gilbert
Patch Notes – V0.2.52 – Key changes from the last version:
- Added a dedicated Team Time Trial mode.
- Added new bot AI for Team Time Trials.
- Added new monthly challenges for June.
- Added support for 4iiii HRMs that bridge power/cadence data over BLE.
- Added in-world message when an event has a neutral start.
- Added Italian, Dutch, Swiss-German, Portuguese, Romanian & Hungarian translations.
- Added translator’s names to in-game credits.
- Support was added for non-Roman font glyphs, such as Chinese.
- Added lots more custom team kits & brandings.
- Improved bot AI to hold some energy back for finishing sprints.
- Improved climber bot AI to preferentially attack harder on climbs towards the finish.
- The improved warning is shown if HRM malfunctions during a performance-verified event.
- Improved human-only group rides to allow late join if no one joins the initial pen.
- Improved UI / menu navigation with controllers.
- Improved Spanish, French, German, Danish, Polish, Slovenian & Swedish translations.
- Improved translated text formatting.
- Improved display of current ERG mode state when first starting a workout.
- Improved team kit allocation will happen immediately upon joining a team event pen.
- Improved handling of trainer resistance when exiting the world.
- Improved network behavior when the firewall is blocking connection to the server.
- Improved error message shown when using an old version of indieVelo.
- Improved error message when reconnecting after a network dropout.
- Improved API error handling.
- Improved logging of BLE errors.
- Improved server audit logging of riders who others have blocked.
- Improved server protection against malicious port scanners.
- Fixed a bug when calibrating a spin-down trainer while using virtual gears.
- Fixed bugs with speed-only sensors are also showing up as cadence sensors.
- Fixed bug with manual braking if a menu pops up while pressing hotkey.
- Fixed bug with wrong ERG mode state shown on mobile versions.
- Fixed bug with aggressive bots setting not being displayed in event details.
- Fixed a bug with menu navigation when a button is transitioning.
- Fixed bug with spectating a Time Trial with a replay ghost recording in it.
- Fixed bug with network data received while disconnecting.
- Fixed bug with displaying 30-day Personal Records after an API dropout.
- Fixed bug with rider ranking history header text.
- Fixed bug with deprecated language translations.
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.
