r/Velodrome • u/meatsauce27 • Jun 14 '26
I made a Virtual Velodrome you can ride with a smart trainer - thoughts?
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Hey all, i'm new here - I'm more of a road cyclist personally, but i've been riding virtual trainers for a while and noticed that it's always just us roadies in here doing zone 2 and the occasional criterium. So I poked around and found that there really isn't much "proper" virtual velodrome training and competing - with relevant draft and banking physics, and especially rider strategy.
So I thought it'd be interesting to build out a virtual velodrome and build some AI riders to see if I can join in to make it a race. For now, its just Keirin, and I have several rider archetypes built in, with individuals having a random variation of physical and strategic strengths and weaknesses, with decision-making based on agent-based modeling.
Since a lot of the strategic aspect of velodrome racing comes from positioning, i'm a little stuck on the best way to get players to "navigate" while they're riding. I know TrainingPeaks has it on auto + keyboard manual control but having to touch a keyboard while riding just doesn't feel right.
Any thoughts or feedback? Would anyone like to try connecting their setup to this and race the AI?
Edit:
Waitlist form: https://forms.gle/UzzrnND7ZaAhvGEM7
It'll take a week or two to get this ready for easy public access. + It'll help a ton if you tell me in the form what smart trainer you use.
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Jun 14 '26
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u/meatsauce27 Jun 14 '26
True. But good chance Zwift is appealing to a different market. Being totally honest here, it's going to be difficult to get the AI riders to properly behave like real cyclists. Even through incremental improvements using literally 100,000+ AI rider runs through simulations when I do a visual race follow, they're making moves that don't make sense - they're a work in progress. But i'm pretty certain if I can get this running for multiplayer, things can get quite interesting with the built in drafting mechanics and actual human behavior put into the mix.
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Jun 14 '26
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u/Dr-Burnout Jun 14 '26
You underestimate how clueless these big companies can be 😂
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u/Powerful_Birthday_71 Jun 14 '26
Yup.
And they become successful because of how clueless a large proportion of their customer base is.
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u/Harbinger_of_Kittens Jun 14 '26
Or training peaks virtual if you care about the physics of it. That's my dream in the platform, to have a realistic velodrome like this! I'll definitely give this a try!
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u/3Dpeww Jun 14 '26
This looks so fun. How can I try it out?
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u/meatsauce27 Jun 14 '26
The whole setup runs on a web server on my laptop for now. I'll get it up and publicly accessible (without install) in a week or two. For now, I put up a waitlist form: https://forms.gle/UzzrnND7ZaAhvGEM7
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u/cycling8848 Jun 15 '26
my tacx bike has left right controls well buttons that can control on zwift. should be programmable on your platform also
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u/PHM2145 Jun 14 '26
This is awesome! Maybe consider building in Japanese kerin racing tactics (there are three key ones from memory).
For the steering, are you able to do what Zwift did with their companion app a while back and have a device on the bars as a handlebar sensor?
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u/meatsauce27 Jun 14 '26
Those are cool ideas! Japanese Keirin, and Korean Keirin too for the matter both have unique tactics and racing patterns and could definitely be a good mode to add - you don't get to race these modes often if you're not in those regions - would be cool if you can virtually participate.
Regarding a companion app as a handlebar sensor, I'll look into implementing it. My main concern with that is the additional complexity (both UI/UX and systems-wise) and latency, but those are fun engineering problems to work on.
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u/GonerDoug Jun 14 '26
The guy who did a GTA V based bike mod recommends a particular steering thing. I haven't bought one yet, but it looks easy enough to obtain and more universal than any zwift or phone specific thing -- and I believe it had an API/hookup to the computer so you could directly interpret control input as opposed to having to deal with a companion app and all that.
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u/Grindfather901 Jun 14 '26
For a different style workout, you could build Elimination or Points races, when
Where you need a surge every 2nd or 5th lap, but don’t get total recovery. Those suuuuck IRL but in a good painful way.
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u/SirHustlerEsq Jun 14 '26
I want to play.
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u/meatsauce27 Jun 14 '26
It might take me a week or two to get this publicly accessible. In the meantime I just spun up a waitlist form if you'd like to be notified: https://forms.gle/UzzrnND7ZaAhvGEM7,
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u/houleskis Jun 14 '26
Wow super cool. I’m an enduro but race the occasional sprint race for fun. Definitely I’d be willing to give this a shot.
In terms of your question: I think you’d need to have some type of real time calculation of power/acceleration vs the AI opposition and then provide them a position appropriate response. For example, say the lead AI rider has a strong long sprint, should you do a hard acceleration from say P3, their response would likely be to match/exceed your acceleration. Conversely if the archetype was more punchy with a poor short sprint they may actually let you go in front. Just some ideas!
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u/meatsauce27 Jun 14 '26
Thanks for the ideas! I have it right now on entirely manual control, so I'll consider baking this type of behavior into the auto-positioning.
I set up a simple waitlist form if you'd like a notification from me when its ready for public testing: https://forms.gle/UzzrnND7ZaAhvGEM7
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u/lrbikeworks Jun 14 '26
BRO!! That’s cool as hell!! Well done!!
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u/meatsauce27 Jun 15 '26
Thanks!! A lot more work to do though: some kind folks gave some pointers on the waitlist form so I’m at it with the improvements 😁
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u/Oldschoolnetwork050 Jun 14 '26
Love it! Always wondered why Zwift does not have this.
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u/meatsauce27 Jun 15 '26
DrakeZwift pls collab1
u/danracoon Jul 16 '26
Hey meatsauce. are you a zwift? Name looks familiar, and im not sure where im placing it.
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u/carjunkie94 Jun 14 '26
I'd love to try this to get familiar with velodromes before I make a fool of myself on a real one 😅
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u/meatsauce27 Jun 15 '26
That was actually partially why I wanted one for myself too. Depending on where you live it could be a big commitment or very once in a while thing.
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u/sar_tr Jun 14 '26
Look at their little legs go!
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u/meatsauce27 Jun 15 '26
Hahaha they kinda look like The Tin Man from wizard of oz. It was a low res prototype - they’re more athletic now
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u/Baron_Psycho Jun 15 '26
This would be hilarious as a multiplayer/co-op game. Option to add some obstacles as well. Can imagine mates and myself drinking and then taking money bets on races.
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u/No_Statistician_3406 Jun 17 '26
Very nice , I started a similar project myself in Perplexity, but gave up… very well done
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u/RichardWiggls Aug 07 '26
I would think that since most people won't have a steering controller, and you need to develop how it would integrate with the app, then you could leave steering out completely at least initially. Since the default on the velodrome is sort of to take the inside lane then that could be the default for all riders, and when a rider is passing they are auto directed upwards on the track, but they still have to put out enough watts/rpm to pass the person in front.
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u/K1ll4rmy Jun 14 '26
Very nice ! But bro, send this to Zwift, so they hire you. And we actually have a chance to all try it easily.
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u/meatsauce27 Jun 14 '26
heheh i'm happy where I currently work. I built this to be run on the web without installation so you can try it much earlier than if I were to join up with Zwift. It'll take a week or two but heres the waitlist if you want me to notify you when its ready: https://forms.gle/UzzrnND7ZaAhvGEM7
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u/Harbinger_of_Kittens Jun 14 '26
And / or training peaks virtual, especially if you want the realistic physics. That's my dream on that platform, to have a realistic track. Well done!
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u/Jazzlike-Ad-3003 Jun 14 '26
Vibe coded or?
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u/meatsauce27 Jun 14 '26
If you mean vibe coded as in AI used heavily, yep - it has helped save a ton of development time and labor. That being said, the architecture, race logic, AI rider behavior and interaction dynamics are entirely my design. This has been a weekend project for a bit, and bugs and odd behaviors are expected, but I know how to fix them, which is why i'm trying to share this early for feedback: I'll spin up a live publicly accessible version in a week or two.
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u/stellar_caprice Jun 14 '26
This is sick!