I hear you. I was shocked when I rode the Climb of the Week Col du Platzerwasel yesterday and had 2 250XP bonus at the arches, 2 feathers, and the rest were 10XP.
This changed around Zwift 1.67 if I remember right - that was the point where it was no longer common to get the “Big XP” bonus 3-4 times per climb portal lap.
No change was announced if I remember right, but these things don’t just change by themselves.
Google AI overview reckons:
Of course do your own checks on that. I suppose folks running bots at 5.5w/kg up the climb portals would be able to see if that large bonus is more common. Not that they will admit to using bots.
Other than an ant simulator there’s no “cheating” for elevation gain. Unless you want to restart the “TD<100 is cheating” argument which I am absolutely down for.
A climbing halo bike is just what we need. Just have to try to guess at the brand to start upgrading frames.
35kg riders? Or others using certain apps to boost their power and going 20 minutes faster? Or the various types of bots you see commonly (some more realistic than others).
We already have a fast enough climbing bike - Aethos.
Same as using a fake short height for extra speed on the flats.
“Why have anything to upgrade because someone will cheat, why have any equipment that’s better than what exists because it’s all good enough”
My guess would be a Canyon. They have good partnership with the Canyon SRAM ladies team, and MvdP is a good ambassador of Zwift and rides a Canyon.
Might even be a mtb or gravel.
Reasonable and well-reasoned guess. I was thinking Canyon as a likely option myself. Might be time to see which of their frames are low-end (or at least medium) to waste as little time on them as possible ahead of a likely halo frame.
Edit: Inflite is the only low-end, and there’s a handful of mid-end. Sigh.
If there are some low-mid ones in the Drop Shop, better buy them before they are retired if/when Zwift decides to add another Halo bike.
I ran into that with the Specialized Ruby, hoping to upgrade a low level one. I went to buy it and it was one of the bikes removed when the bike upgrades were first introduced. If I had owned it prior to the mass retirement, I could have upgraded it. But since it was retired, it was no longer available for purchase in the Drop Shop.
I’ve been working on my Canyon bikes, because I have special paints (from Academy) that I love. I still have a way to go on my second one. If I have to do three, I would need to work on my TT bike, but it is a high end…how many hours is that? I should have nabbed that first.
40 hours, 1,900,000 drops.
Thanks. That isn’t impossible, but if there’s a halo, I would want it right away, lol. Maybe by September.
Forget having to upgrade a bunch of high-end Canyon frames…grab the Lux and Inflite and get through at least two of them quickly.
I’m generally quite happy with how robopacers work, but it would be nice to generally have them on longer routes with less repetition rather than 15min loops.
I also wonder how feasible/fun/worthwhile it would be to have, in effect, robo-racers (I believe TrainingPeaks Virtual does something like this, for example)–still anchor on an average w/kg but make the variation more aggressive, perhaps have multiple such bots in a single ride to guarantee some pack dynamics/drafting. Just as a way to have racing or at least training races of any length on tap, so to speak.
A quick Innsbruck expansion with Höttinger Gasse, Schneeburggasse, Dorfgasse, Gramartstraße then Höhenstraße would be good. 7.5km with 305m+.
People could choose between the “leg snapper” that is now, or the real leg snapper at over 21% for 300m.
I would really like it if the rotating RoboPacer schedule kept all of them in the same world. Speaking for myself, I always start my ride with Miguel or Bernie to warm up then escalate from there as get loosened up. Having the other world Pacers in different worlds means I have to end my ride and start another one to teleport from one level of pace to the next. The Watopia ones are always in Watopia (duh…) and I’m pretty sure that’s why the off Watopia pacers don’t get utilized as much. IMHO, of course…