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. 
6 Likes
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…
1 Like
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.
1 Like
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?
2 Likes
I think part of the issue is that the slower pacer is sometimes harder.
Yesterday for example I was riding with D Maria and ended up getting into the coco group for a bit. When I let myself fall back to Maria I had to put out more power to keep up with the pack (after re matching the pace) 
Marias group was substantially larger so I suspect there is something up with the new pack dynamics. Riding with the sub group in front of Maria was averaging pretty close to the target. If i dropped back to or behind the pacer I had to put out a lot more power (more than the pacer). At one point I was doing 3W/kg on a flat and still falling back in the pack. In general I noticed lower power variability with coco or the group in front of the pacer and higher variability with/behind the pacer. I see the same around me with a pretty broad range of powers in the pack.
Pretty sure that is from the pack dynamics five point whatever changes they are silently pushing out without telling people.
By getting away from the bigger group (and into the smaller one ahead) you get less of the blocking and being shoved out of draft by overtaking riders (shouldn’t happen).
At the same time putting the RP on the fastest upgraded TT bike would also keep the speed of the group more steady and prevent the surges many people have seen and proven occur.
2 Likes
Had a similar scenario yesterday. I was riding with a large Yumi group, we easily caught the Jacques group and then it just turned into utter chaos with the robopacers constantly overtaking each other.
I had to increase power by about 25% for about 15-20 minutes until the Jacques group took a different route.
1 Like
I don’t know for sure, but I’m going to throw something out. Fighting for position in the pack takes power now. If you went all the way to the back of the group you should be able to ride well under the pace partner. If you’re trying hard to maintain a position, you’re going to be wasting watts into the “sticky draft” - even though it isn’t really the old sticky draft, it works pretty similarly in that situation. Play around with it some more, and get in the efficient spots if you want to be at lower power.
I don’t want to comment on how realistic it is for more power to be expended to stay near the front of a group when people are fighting for positions, I’m not a road racer IRL.
Did something get fixed?
Spent 3 hours with Constance yesterday on Sugar cookie with a decent sized bunch and the PD seemed waaaaaay better than it has been. Didnt get pushed out to the side once and everyone seemed to move around much more naturally.
Maybe nothing but something felt different
There is no comparison to real life. You have braking, corners, you can crash - you cannot just zoom up behind people and a force field magically pushes them out of your way.
You roll much more easily as well (which Zwift tries to avoid).
It’s just different.