Support¶
Virtual Gears is a free app written by one person. Support runs in the open on GitHub, so answers stay visible to the next rider with the same question.
| I want to… | Go here |
|---|---|
| Ask a question | Q&A discussions |
| Report something broken | Open an issue |
| Suggest a feature | Ideas discussions |
| Say it works on my trainer | Show and tell |
Both need a free GitHub account. There is no email address to write to and no support desk — everything happens on those pages.
Before you write¶
Most problems have a known answer already:
- The trainer is not found. Turn the pedals to wake it, and close any other app that may already be connected to it. A trainer can only talk to one thing at a time.
- The riding app shows your Apple device's name instead of "Virtual Gears". That is normal and it is the right device to pick. See What name to look for.
- Your trainer is not a KICKR V5. Check which trainers work first. Several models cannot work at all, and the page says which.
- Every gear feels too hard, or too easy, by about the same amount. Check the Gear the bike is in setting matches the gear the chain is actually parked in. Every virtual gear is scaled from that ratio, so if it is wrong the steps still feel right but the whole ladder is shifted. Tapping the recommended gear and parking the chain there fixes it.
- The Start button says "Set the gear you are in". Virtual Gears needs to know which gear the bike is parked in before it can build the gears. Open Settings, park the chain in the gear it recommends and confirm.
- Gears feel wrong after using the app. Set Wheel circumference in Virtual Gears Settings to the value you use in the Wahoo app. Virtual Gears uses 2105 mm (700×25 road) by default. See If you set a custom wheel circumference.
- A Windows riding app disconnected mid-ride and won't come back. A weak Bluetooth link can time out, and some riding apps on Windows do not scan for your Apple device again on their own afterwards. Restart the riding app to make it look again. This has been confirmed to be the riding app's own reconnect behaviour, not a Virtual Gears fault — the trainer stayed connected and working the whole time.
What to include in a bug report¶
The more of this you can give, the better the odds of a fix:
- Your trainer model, Apple device model, and iOS or iPadOS version
- The riding app you were using, and on what computer
- What you did, what you expected, and what happened instead
- Whether the app showed an error, and its exact wording
- Whether a Zwift Click or Headwind was connected
What to expect¶
This is a spare-time project, so there is no guaranteed response time. Bugs that affect safety or make the app unusable come first. Questions in the open often get answered by other riders before I get there.
Trying the app without a trainer¶
If you are asking whether the app suits you, tap Try Demo on the trainer search screen. It shows the real shifting behaviour with a simulated trainer, without any Bluetooth or hardware. See See it working.
Privacy and safety¶
Virtual Gears collects no data at all — see Privacy. For what the app does and does not do to your trainer, see Safety.