The latest indieVelo update, v0.3.0, released July 1st, 2024, moves the platform to open Beta and enhances Ranking transparency and function.
On July 1, 2024, indieVelo will transition the platform to open Beta, taking another significant step forward. Here’s your opportunity to help shape the future of cycling esports.
See the full report and interview with indieVelo’s founder, Dr. George Gilbert, here.
This week’s release (see below for full details) contains two big updates: moving to an open Beta and improving the rating system to make it easier to understand and use in event leagues/series.
Open Beta: indieVelo can now be downloaded freely on PC, Mac, Android, and iOS (iPhone and iPad).
https://indievelo.com/downloads
It is a huge step forward and allows even more riders to try indieVelo out and give their feedback. With over 25,000 committed athletes, coaches, and event organizers already using indieVelo in the Closed Beta, opening it up further now allows for the development and testing of larger-scale features and the technology needed to power the next generation of online cycling platforms into the hundreds of thousands and beyond.
Rankings: indieVelo has always used four separate underlying Elo-based ratings to track your abilities in different types of races – Sprints, Endurance, Time Trial, and Climbing – but displayed a more conservative ranking. At the same time, it learned about your actual capabilities against other riders.
From this release onwards, your displayed ranking will converge to match your underlying rating much more quickly (for most people, within three events). This means that everyone will have much greater transparency over why the fully automatic matchmaking allocated them to the pen it did, and a better expectation of who everyone will be racing against when entering an event.
Further, indieVelo now also displays a combined “All-Rounder Ranking” (ARR), taking into account all 4 of the underlying categories. This is particularly useful for event leagues & series where matchmaking often needs to be done consistently over a range of different types of event so the same people can race each other each time, rather than the default of tailoring the matchmaking to each specific event and course.
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.
As usual, there is also a wide range of other additions, improvements, and fixes. These cover age-adjusted Performance Verification checks, new monthly challenges for July, more options for what to display on the custom UI, more valuable data displayed on rider racing history profiles, better handling of rage-quitting to prevent gaming rankings, and the usual range of back-end improvements to keep everything running smoothly and efficiently.
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 again for your continued support and encouragement. With 100% of indieVelo’s roadmap decided by what you want to see, please keep your suggestions coming. There’s still a long way to go, but I can’t wait to see what we come up with together in this next phase of defining the future of virtual sport!”
George Gilbert
Patch Notes – v0.3.0 – Key changes from the last version:
- Added Open Beta.
- Added All-Rounder Rankings.
- Added age-related Performance Verification checks.
- Added ability to remove remembered riders from login screen.
- Added time/distance/elevation to results history menu.
- Added “work” as an additional custom UI option to display.
- Added new monthly challenges for July.
- Added lots more teams & custom event brandings.
- Improved rankings to converge more quickly to the underlying rating.
- Improved rage-quit penalty to make it harder to game.
- Improved layout of various menus.
- Improved diagnostics when using menus.
- Improved server auditing of TTT results.
- Improved handling of updates if original files become corrupted.
- Improved launcher pop-up messages while installing.
- Improved launcher to better handle blocking by anti-virus scanners.
- Improved launcher error messages throughout.
- Fixed bug with startup sequence on iOS sometimes stalling at 100%.
- Fixed bug with single pen events sometimes not using full bot allocation.
- Fixed bug with display of ranking being limited to 1800.
- Fixed bug with distance ahead / behind shown in custom UI.
- Fixed bug with capitalization of some units in custom UI.
- Fixed bug with workout sync instructions sometimes being shown incorrectly.
- Fixed bug with error handling if FIT File microservice isn’t running.
- Fixed bug with rapidly opening and closing some menus.
- Fixed bug with parsing invalid dates.
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.
Hi,
Where exactly is the ARR figure displayed please? I’ve looked on my Profile page and the Profile History tab (on Windows and Android) and can’t see it – only the four separate ratings for Sprint, Endurance, etc.
Thanks
Martin
Good question, Martin. I suggest that you raise it on the indieVelo Facebook group. You’ll get a thorough answer and access to a lot of information. Good luck.