All the once-relevant threads have been locked so time for a new one. Last night in the ZRL TTT I once again got braked at an inappropriate time. I was 2nd in our group, off to the side of the person in the lead, getting clean air, moving backwards relative to the leader, when someone passed two people-widths away on my left. I must’ve caught the corner of his draft cone which was somehow enough to trip the brake. No video screenshot because that function is so poorly optimized it seriously degrades game performance.
The auto brake wasn’t a great idea, as discussed over a year ago. And it has never worked properly, I’d say 90%+ of the time I’ve gotten braked it was not meeting the intent of the algorithm. And even if it were a good idea and worked right, it’s no longer necessary due to PD4.1.
Please put the auto brake out of its misery @DavidP
from what i’ve seen autobrake comes on exactly when i would expect it and appears to work pretty well. If possilbe i would recommend streaming/recording your ride as there might still be glitches out there but it’s rare from what i’ve seen.
The alternative to autobrake would be the washing machine effect in pelotons like we had in pd4.0
I have shared repeated glitches with the auto brake, recorded, with @DavidP who has acknowledged problems not just with a bad algorithm but with it firing off completely inappropriately (for example when increasing power sharply).
The last part of your comment is completely wrong. Are you aware of the existence of PD4.1? edit: Additionally, PD4 and the auto brake did approximately nothing to reduce the churn.
I’m only going on what you posted here and from my previous experience of autobrake complaints 90% of the time it’s doing exactly as expected.
Maybe you have found a glitch and that’s great all i was suggesting stream your ride so we can all review it would be massively helpful for David to the see the issue.
As for thinking PD4.1 no longer needs autobrake what would your alternative solution to the problem if there is no autobrake?
You either get pushed to the side into the wind (i’d say that is more annoying visually) or you get a washing machine effect of pushing past riders.
Things were quite fine before all these pace dynamics fiddling about. Once the initial sticky draft was gone I didn’t feel any problems with the way things were back in the old days.
My solution is no group rides, no robopacers, no racing, just riding alone on Ventop or ADZ - that avoids things messing with my pace/efforts. It’s better than getting into heated arguments on forums about pace dynamics.
4.1 deals with the churn issue in a different manner from the PD4.0 autobrake. The 4.1 algorithm blocks advancement if you aren’t making enough power to go faster than the person ahead of you when you discount their draft benefit. And it actually works, as opposed to packs speeding up after PD4.0 was released.
DavidP has stated that the autobrake is hardly firing anymore after the PD4.1 algorithm was put into place. My experience backs that up (though I’ve been racing a lot less since the 4.1 rollout than I was before), the brake firing last night was the first time in a long time that I’ve seen it.
There’s a ceiling over which the brake won’t trigger, I forget the number but 600w is over it. But it goes back to “reduced power compared to your last 10s” back to being a bad metric. If I drop from 130% of my FTP to 105% of my FTP I’m pretty clearly not intending to back off and stop advancing but the algorithm doesn’t understand that.
I’ve personally only seen autobrake enabling when I’m under 100w since 4.1 dropped, basically when I’m on the way back into a group, and “free-wheeling.”
But certainly not while actually putting down more load.
Curious to see what the PD4.1 ‘fix’ patch does in terms of movement within the blob, but… autobraking, I really don’t experience anymore at all.
FOR THE RECORD: I’m only referring to the ACTUAL auto-braking, where watts will flash in red.
I am NOT referring to the passing check “brake.”