One More Step Toward a Real Drivetrain

Virtual shifting in BikeControl already gives you a full cassette out back — as many gears as you like, with ratios you can tune to your ride feel. BikeControl 6.2 adds the piece that was still missing up front: a virtual front derailleur.

It turns your single virtual cassette into a proper 2× drivetrain. A small ring for the climbs, a big ring for the flats and descents — and the exact resistance jump a real chainring swap would give you.

Shift the front with the press of a button

BikeControl 6.2 adds a new, fully assignable action — Switch front gear — that jumps the front "derailleur" between the small and large ring. Map it to any spare button on your controller, just like every other control, and change chainrings whenever the terrain calls for it.

Prefer not to give up a button? There's also a SRAM-style shortcut: click shift up and shift down at the same time and the front chainring switches — exactly like pressing both paddles on a SRAM AXS groupset.

Because it's a real chainring change, the resistance shifts by the exact ratio between your two rings — a 34 → 50 swap is about a 1.47× jump — while you stay on the same rear cog. No gimmick, no flat "step up": the same physics your legs already know.

Set your own chainrings

Every drivetrain is different, so the rings are yours to define. In a trainer's Gear Settings, flip on the virtual front derailleur and dial in your small and large chainring tooth counts. BikeControl shows the resulting ratio factor so you know exactly how big the jump will feel.

Your gear, the way a head unit shows it

With the front derailleur active, the gear readout switches from the rear-only 14/25 to the 2×N position notation you already know from Garmin and Wahoo head units — 1× on the small ring, 2× on the big ring. So a quick glance tells you both where you are on the cassette and which chainring you're on.

It's consistent everywhere your gear appears: the trainer page, the floating gear overlay / Picture-in-Picture, the second-screen window, and the iOS Live Activity.

Also new in 6.2

The front derailleur is the headline, but it's not alone:

• Floating gear overlay on iOS & iPadOS (Picture-in-Picture) — your current gear can now ride along in a small floating window on top of your trainer app, the same way it already does on macOS, Windows, and Android.

• Screen recording — a new assignable Record Screen action starts and stops a screen recording straight from a controller button, so you can capture a sprint or a glitch without reaching for the screen.

Try it

The virtual front derailleur is part of BikeControl 6.2, on top of the virtual shifting that works with any trainer app — Zwift, MyWhoosh, Rouvy, TrainingPeaks, and more. Update the app, open your trainer's gear settings, set your rings, and go find a climb.

Happy riding! 🚴