The latest indieVelo update, v0.3.10, released September 9th, 2024, introduces the ability to race up a category, new menu, & five new routes.
This week’s release of indieVelo (see below for full details) focuses on another highly requested feature – the ability to ‘Ride Up.’
indieVelo typically uses an Elo-like rating system for fully automated matchmaking when riding an event. It’s straightforward but highly effective.
- If you beat riders who are rated higher than you, you move up in rating.
- If you lose to riders rated lower than you, you move down in rating.
These ratings are then used in the fully automated event matchmaking to ensure that indieVelo always places you in a pen with riders of a similar ability. It eliminates sandbagging and ensures you get a high-quality race every time.
Sometimes, however, you may want a more challenging race. Perhaps that’s part of your training plan. You’re curious to see what it feels like to be in a faster race than usual, or you’re just the kind of person who likes a challenge.
Regardless of your reason, indieVelo now gives you the option to choose to ‘Ride Up’ into a higher-ability pen.
When joining an unranked multi-pen event, select the ‘Ride Up’ option (from the bottom left corner of the screen – move your mouse over or tap the screen there to view it). When the pens close with one minute to go before the start, you’ll beautomatically placed one pen higher than you otherwise would have been.
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, including 5 new routes to explore and lots of improvements throughout to make the UI smoother and easier for everyone to use.
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, then you shouldn’t have to do anything to get the new version, as indieVelo will just 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
The full patch notes are below!
“With 100% of the indieVelo roadmap determined by your ideas and suggestions, every piece of feedback is incredibly valuable and really makes a difference to the continued improvement of indieVelo each and every week. Thank you, everyone, for your continued support and encouragement.”
George Gilbert
Patch Notes – v0.3.10 – Key changes from the last version:
- Added ability to ‘Ride Up’ into a harder pen in unranked events.
- Added ability to select riders to ‘Chapeau’ by their chat messages.
- Added 5 new routes.
- Added lots more custom team kits and event banners.
- Improved pairing menu to make number of devices found more obvious.
- Improved visibility of cursor in text input fields.
- Improved handling of Enter/Return/Tab keys in text input fields.
- Improved virtual gearing configuration limits.
- Improved resilience of BLE layer when invalid data received.
- Improved bounds checking of configured values.
- Improved terraforming.
- Improved memory usage.
- Improved download size.
- Improved performance / FPS throughout.
- Improved wording on various menus.
- Improved diagnostics when lots of bots are in use.
- Fixed bug with display of the current sort order of routes.
- Fixed bug with rapidly changing the viewed rider.
- Fixed bug with viewing rider profiles with favorite custom routes.
- Fixed bug with muting/blocking multiple chat messages.
- Fixed bug with error handling when logging in.
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.
