Virtual gears
In resistance and grade modes CrankPilot gives you twelve virtual gears, and the Zwift Ride's shift buttons move you through them. Each gear steps the resistance the trainer applies, so changing gear feels like changing gear — click down for a climb, click up to spin out a descent — without a real cassette. The gear range is built from your FTP, so the spread suits your fitness rather than an arbitrary ladder.
Paddles nudge the workout
During a structured ERG workout the paddles do something more useful than shifting: they push the target power up or down on the fly. Feeling strong, squeeze to add a few watts; a block biting harder than it should, ease it back — all mid-interval, all from the bars. It is the quickest way to fit the session to the day without stopping to tap the screen.
The buttons
CrankPilot reads the Ride's full input set — the shift buttons, the paddles, and the directional and action buttons — and maps them to in-app actions, firing once per press so a held button does not repeat. The controller pairs over Bluetooth as one of your sensors, alongside the trainer and a heart-rate strap.
Why it is worth having
Almost nobody outside Zwift itself does anything with the Ride controller. If you own one and want to ride structured workouts with it — gears under your fingers, intensity a squeeze away — CrankPilot is one of the few apps that actually reads it.