West London VR brings you the Cycling VR-Skillz World series where you are going to need a little more than just raw power, it’s the compelling and engaging navigation and more that is going to make this such a great series to compete in, it is about VR racing skillz, not just power.

We are using our two preferred platforms, each with different approaches to cycling skillz, but the final play-off will be on CADEsport, so we recommend practising on that platform even if you are challenging on WahooRGT, our other preferred platform.

SCROLL DOWN FOR TIPS ON VR RACING STEERING SET UPS

CLICK HERE FOR FULL DETAILS OF THE SERIES

IF YOU WANT A FEEL FOR HOW IT LOOKS, WATCH THIS RACE 7.2 PREVIEW:

RACES ARE EVERY WEDNESDAY AT 7.30pm UK TIME ON ONE OF THE TWO PLATFORMS, ALTERNATING BETWEEN THEM. Races are around 16km long. Wahoo RGT races have steering, whilst CADEsport has steering, braking and crashing if you take corners too fast. On both platforms you can switch off he steering but it is advantageous to use it on corners of course.

NEXT UP WEDNESDAY 19th APRIL 2023 on CADEsport ENTER HERE

TO ENTER, GO TO CADEsport (link above), log in / sign up and choose Activities. If the race is featured then select it and enter (or schedule if looking before the day). If it isn’t showing then use the search faciltiy (try: West London) or look again nearer the start date.

HOW TO SET YOURSELF UP FOR 2023 RACING WITH STEERING SKILLZ:

West London Cycling run e-Racing online on the Wahoo RGT and CADEsport platforms. Both have steering facilities and we look at the set up options. We’ll start with CADEsport as they introduced steering (and braking) earlier. We do not cover Zwift steering as this is restricted to Elite trainers and is little used.

WEST LONDON CYCLING HAVE BEEN RUNNING STEERING RACES ONLINE SINCE 18th OCTOBER 2022 on CADESport and FEBRUARY 2023 0n Wahoo RGT

STARTING WITH CADEsport SOLUTIONS:

Our first experience was the CADEsport phone app or the PC keyboard. To go left or right you use the left/right arrow keys and to brake, spacebar on your PC keyboard or the phone app. These keys are good choices as they are nearset to you when riding and are easily identifaiable and more reachable than RGT’s choice of keys A and D which are not particularly convenient.

You could just have your phone on a flat shelf and swivel it left and right to steer, without any extra kit at all. Whilst this is not a natural intuitive way to steer, it is far more accessible that the Wahoo gyroscopic movement wich requires the ends of the phone to tilt up and down, hence requiring some sort of holding mount or being hand held.

We should also stress, at the outset, that sweat on phone screens can mean that they cease to function, so if you live somewhere hot and don’t have a fan …. steering could cease during a race if the screen gets sweaty (applies to CADEsport and Wahoo RGT phone apps).

So, let’s look at the solutions:

SOLUTION 1: THE ROTATING HANDLEBAR MOUNT

This mount is actually quite a good bit of kit and can work on both CADEsport and WahooRGT but is more suited to CADEsport because it allows a rider to steer using their bike’s handlebars. Of course, if you are riding a fixed set up like a Wattbike this advantage will not exist for you (Wattbikes etc may also suffer from not being suitable for the Wahoo Kickr STEER see below).

We got this gem of a bike mountb through Amazon, it’s the Wraptor Rotating Smartphone Bar Mount and can be twisted whilst riding to steer the bike if your wheel doesn’t move (see below). Also, the rubber holding straps mean almost any smartphone should fit and, when mounted to the stem, we also found that we could mount it sideways on the stem and there was enough tilt movement to make it work on Wahoo RGt too … not brilliant on Wahoo RGt but it worked!

Overall we are very impressed by it. It holds the phone tightly in the rubber straps, whilst the phone stays steady due to the solid centre section, which because it rotates, means you could actually steer on CADEsport by twisting it from side to side on fixed handlebars. But the main advantage here is, of course, that you can steer by twisting your handlebars, the most natural steering of all. To do this your front wheel will need to be capable of moving, but two sheets of paper under the wheel should do the trick and allow your wheel to move. Alternatevely, the Elite Sterzo Riser will facilitate this.

SOLUTION 2: THE THREE BUTTON MINI KEYPAD

This is, without doubt, the best current solution for CADEsport. However, rumour has it that CADEsport are developing hardware solutions that may supercede this notion … so watch this space.

You can buy mini keypads with various numbers of keys, but we chose three to cover left, right and braking on CADESport. You could have more keys, or you’d only need two for Wahoo RGT as it does not have braking.

Cadesport makes it really easy to set up keys because it is designed to let youn allocate keys of your choice to various functions, unlike Wahoo RGT (see below).

In CADEsport just click ShiftQ and choose INPUT then allocate the keyboard keys you want to the custom column, leaving the main keyboard column with arrow keys and shift. This means that the keyboard and the mini-pad have different commands independently it’s fantastic!

One word of caution though, mini keypads tend to come with pre-assigned keys. Ours was pre-assigned to 1, 2 and 3 and so when we, initially, assigned 1,2 and 3 to left, right and brakes, we had to change the CADEsport power ups from 1,2 and 3 to other keys. So, we then searched out some software that allowed us to change the settings in the keypad to A,S and D instead of 1, 2 and 3 (see below). This meant we could keep CADEsport power ups allocations as numeric and also this meant that the keypad now coincided with Wahoo RGT’s fixed settings of A and D.

There are numerous suppliers of these keypads on eBay and Amazon with various brand names, but we suspect they mostly operate on the Sayo software, especially if they come from the east. We have a link to the software below. It seems that this software works on various differently branded but identical looking keypads, so if the one above is sold out, it should work on similar looking ones we believe.

Unfortunately our mini keypad came with no instructions, nor any link to the software that allows reallocation of keys. Consequently, we have set out below how this key reallocation can be done using the Sayo software. Firstly, use the link below to dowload the software:

PC https://dl.sayobot.cn/setting.zip

Mac https://sayodevice.com/help/unix

WE RECOMMEND THE THREE BUTTON OPTION AS OUR FAVOURITE SOLUTION FOR CADEsport

MOVING ON TO Wahoo RGT SOLUTIONS:

SOLUTION 1: THE Wahoo Kickr STEER

There is no doubt that this is a great solution and our favourite. The paddles on the side can be pressed from the handlebars to make the phone tilt and steer the bike. But is is expensive. A great design, but if it is a bit too pricy for you, we suggest that you choose the three key mini keypad option below:

SOLUTION 2: THE MINI KEYPAD

We actually found that the rubber bands on the Wraptor phone mount held the three key min keyboard on the handlebars but some cable ties, rubber bands, string and blue tack would probably suffice…. there’s no need to spend a lot of money on a fixing.

Read above in the CADEsport section to see how to set this up. There are numerous suppliers of these on eBay and Amazon and we have a link to the software above, again, in the CADEsport section.

SOLUTION 3: THE ROTATING HANDLEBAR MOUNT

Similarly, see above in the CADEsport section for the details. This is a great bit of kit but is really a third choice for Wahoo RGT because whilst we found that you can tilt it if mounted on the stem, it is not purposely designed to do so. If, for any reason that you don’t want either of the two solutions above, then it is worth a try on Wahoo RGT, whilst it is a good choice for CADEsport.