For me, the coolest aspect of the Tacx Fortius is cruising the countryside of foreign locales in the Real Life Videos. It has transformed my cycling to the point where I’d rather zip through the Dutch lowlands or spin down the French Alps than put my life on the line out on the real roads. Coupled with the fact that I live in a stupefyingly humid, tropical city, I now venture outside for a ride only very very early on Sunday mornings. Even then I frequently skip this in favour of a shorter but more consistent virtual outing.
Setup: I run Fortius on a Dell PC which is a couple of years old. I have a reasonably high end graphics card and a SoundBlaster setup. I’ve never had any problems with Fortius working on this machine, though there are reports of problems with lower spec PC’s. I also run iTunes at the same time and other than a little slow down in the frame rate of the video when loading the next song, iTunes and Fortius live happily with each other.
As an aside, I’m trying to get Fortius running on a Macbook Pro using Windows XP and Parallels. As far as I can tell, the reason it doesn’t work is because the Fortius software cannot detect the Fortius hardware via the USB port. I’ve seen similar problems in the earlier days of Parallels with Garmin GPS devices (Edge, Forerunner, etc). These problems were solved with new drivers from Garmin. I wonder whether Tacx are looking at their USB drivers’ ability to run under Parallels.
Once you have Fortius running on your PC, the most important choice you’ll make is what to watch it on. Should you use a TV monitor, computer screen or something else?
From the very beginning I felt that the only way to do justice to the immersive potential of the Fortius was to use a projector rather than a large screen TV or monitor, though did I try both of those first. My wife objected to the loss of her Amazing Races from the living room wall and the computer screen was simply too small.
Projectors are the way to go. But beware, unless you have one of the new style ultra short-throw projectors, you’ll need one of two things: a very long or wide room so that the projected image is sufficiently large, along with a high projector site so that you (assuming you sit closer to the image than the projector for a greater immersive effect) don’t get in the way of the projection; or alternatively, the ability to correct the projected image so you can site the projector to the left or right of your bike. This is known as 2D keystone correction.
Here’s where it gets a little tricky (or in practice, more expensive). When you want to project an image that is not directly in front of the projector, you will need to adjust the image so that it remains square rather than distorted. The distortion arises when one edge (top, bottom, left or right) is further away from the projector than the opposite edge. Most projectors typically allow keystone correction only in the vertical plane. That is, they allow you the ability to correct the image so that it is an equal width from the top to the bottom of the image. This correction is usually needed when the projector is angled upwards or downwards and as a result projects a sort of triangular shaped image.
However, if the projector is also moved to the left or right of where you would like the image, you will need a projector that supports adjustment of the keystone in the horizontal plane as well as the vertical, that is, one that allows you to adjust the image so that it is an equal height from the left side to the right side. The problem, as you will have guessed, is that adding this adjustment usually requires a more expensive model of projector.
In order to get this 2D keystone correction feature, I needed to step up through several models of projector, to the base level of the (yep) most expensive series of projectors of the brand I was after - the Benq MP770 model. Still, it’s worth it. I now have the Fortius and bike facing straight towards the wall, and as far back from the wall as the room size allows. The projector is sitting a few feet to my right, projecting a nice square image directly in front of me. The projector is at an angle of roughly 20 degrees to the front wall and about three feet off the floor – in fact it sits on a corner of a desk parked against the side of the room. The throw distance from the projector to the wall is long enough to give me an effective screen size of around 80 inches/200cm. Nice.
Once you’ve achieved an immersive level of projection (in other words, once the projection is as large as you can get it – the Benq supports 300 inches diagonally if the room were large enough!!!), you can sit back and enjoy the beautiful scenery as you ride along.
The Real Life Videos from Tacx are of high quality. In the more recent videos, the Alpine Classic 2007 or Giant of the Provence for example, where the filming has clearly been done from a motorcycle, the ride quality is superb. A sense of leaning into the corners. Closer alignment with a real riding line, particularly in descents. And as always, very good picture cleanliness – no sun glare, no water on the camera lens and so on. And no shake. Of course there are bumps, mostly as the ride passes over speed humps and other typical real road obstacles, but these later videos appear to have solved the issue seen in some earlier videos of sporadic shaking due to less than smooth road surfaces. Beautiful.
My favourite rides…there are a few, but I most enjoy descending from the high Alps or Pyrenees in a high gear, cruising along around 70% of max heart rate. I know I haven’t first earned the right by cycling up the steep side, but the scenery is just too enjoyable to pass up the opportunity. In later posts I’ll review individual real life videos, including a few from non-Tacx sources. For now, try the Laurtaret descent from the Col du Galibier from the Alpine Classic 2007 RLV (42.4km down on a gorgeous sunny day with spectacular views); the Peyresourde and Col de Azet descents from the Pyrenees Stage (10km and 13km respectively); and perhaps the Ventoux descent from Giant of the Provence (24.4km starting amongst the clouds and ending in a lovely French village).
What would I change in the Real Life Videos and Fortius in general?
Expand the ability to create new courses so that sections of different real life videos can be strung together to make one long ride. I can imagine linking up the descents mentioned above, without having to stop to load the new courses. Linking up favorite sections from different real life videos would open up their pleasures even further.
Continue filming future videos from a motorcycle and ride the motorcycle in a manner even more becoming of a pedal powered athlete than the existing motorcycle footage. The existing motorcycle videos are a step above the earlier works. The next level is to consider the rider’s line of sight rather than the direction in which the motorcycle was pointing. This limitation in peripheral vision and line of sight is particularly prevalent when riding through the endless roundabouts in Holland or around the switchbacks in the high mountains – both situations exaggerate the need to look around or through the corner rather than in to it.
Allow cyclists the ability to adjust the “lazy mode” on the fly rather than needing to quit the current ride before adjusting the setting. Frankly, I can't get up those high cols without dialing down the gradient but it's not possible to adjust this without restarting the ride (in a separate post I'll show you a limited workaround for this). Generally allowing adjustments in real time for lazy mode, heart rate on/off, display settings, etc, would be a great step forward in user friendliness.
More triathlon courses in RLV – how about the 70.3 bike courses on race days or a few more Ironman courses. These could be very useful for those training for specific races.
Enjoy
FOMT
