I think draft effect on the bots is largely fine but i think its overpowered.
I rode with Genie on Richmond worlds the other day for 3 hours and it was a small group mostly of just 3/4 riders with a consistent pace…then for a lap, someone sat in front of the bot for the entire lap and the pace dramatically increased…i knew it had because i was holding the Orange jersey at the time and on this lap, i chopped 2 mins off my previous lap where the person wasnt in front creating draft.
One rider creating that much draft just isnt right.
And dont even get me started on the draft effect with any bots on Fuego flats - its absolutely ridiculous sometimes
Be nice to get a bot that does adz in 60 min. Be good to pace with it.
There are plenty of bots on the Alpe.
Unfortunately none are Zwift-sanctioned.
They did have that last year. Thats where I got my sub 60 minutes Alpe from. No idea why they stopped those.
Really. Hope they come back.
What is preventing you from doing the same without a bot?
You have to keep riding it consistently and not take any shortcuts. Embrace changing gears and learn to love the gradient changes and learn the way to pace properly.
Eventually you’ll be getting sub-60 minutes consistently.
What is the difference between a robopacer and riding up the Alpe in a group ?
It is not that I botted my way up there. I had to do all the cycling. Just needed to follow the robopacer who would do it in 60 minutes.
How often do groups go up?
Daily at least.
What I was getting at is with enough riding on there it should not matter if you are in a group or not to get the time.
More important is the pacing and not taking it easy on the flatter parts of the hairpins. With plenty of practice you should be able to nail those times consistently.
Try also pairing a bike computer to your trainer so you can measure your average power on the lap (start the lap timer at the start line of ADZ) - that’s another way you can get your times consistent. Failing that, you can also use the segment power tracking to track your average power.
Big miss that we still do not have average power/hr, distance left and eta (at current power or at least at current speed) for climbs. Simple bike computers all can do this on the fly without even needing to be on a preplanned route…
That’s true.
On ADZ you have an ETA but only about 400m from the finish line or something like that (just after you pass that big rock).
I remember reading in some places that you couldn’t have average power on Zwift because it would allow racers to do sandbagging. Obviously those people forgot that people just use a bike computer to do exactly the same thing.
I use my Garmin all the time to watch power. Zwift is paired to the Kickr Bike and my Garmin is paired with the power meter pedals so I can keep a watch on left/right power balance along with lap average power.
I stopped recording with my headunit because I got tired of deduplicating my rides on various sites but maybe I should get a cheap garmin and not have it upload, still wouldn’t get an eta like that though…
Strongly disagree on removing the draft from bots. It would also remove any sense of realism, and those legit (virtual) pack rides would become much more dull.
I do the vast majority of Zwifting with the bots because of the interesting pack dynamics at times, and for seeing familiar names in our favorite virtual environment.
I don’t see why people can’t switch to a slower bot if the pace is too high, or there are too many surges on a given ride?