Beacon for riding with friends

The Archives Archived: Feature Requests
1

I like to ride with one or two friends on Zwift but the increasing number of riders on the courses and the similar jerseys make it difficult to maintain visual contact. I have to ride with one eye on the leaderboard and one on the course. Could we have a feature to assign a beacon to friends just like ride leaders on group rides but only visible between friends? i.e. it shouldn’t become a distraction to other riders. Also could my friends names be highlighted in the leaderboard so they are easier to spot when it is busy?

2

Additionally could the beacon be toggled on/off in the mobile app so it can just be used when riders get separated.

3

Come on Zwift. This is a basic function for a social MMO riding app that should already be part of something that I pay a monthly fee for. I just started using this app to ride with teammates and the first try for us to ride together yesterday was a complete cluster. No easy way to find other people on the list of 2500+ riders on the login screen. Oh wait, you have to open a PHONE app to friend people so they show up on your COMPUTER app? Well that’s just stupid.

There were 6 of us trying to ride together. We all were able to join, select the same course, and drop in at the same location. It quickly went downhill from there. Some people took off in the opposite direction (me). Some people took different turns from other people even though we selected the same course. Once you get away from the group you have no idea how far ahead or behind your friends are. It was very frustrating. 3 of us were able to stick together after we figured out the totally non-intuitive mobile app friend process. They others either rode by themselves or gave up and left in frustration. Riding with other people on Zwift should NOT be so hard. Here are some things that would improve the experience immensely.

  1. Search for and find people you know right from the login screen. You know like a search bar. Like every other social app in the history of the internet has.

  2. “Group Ride” creation feature. A button that says “Start a Group Ride”. You name the ride. Then your friends join that ride. Ride leader can boot random people that try to join. Then everyone on the group ride has a special flag above their head (beacon) so you can pick them out from the 100 other riders on your screen. They are also flagged on the little course map so you know who’s ahead and who’s behind if they fall off the group.

  3. Riders list on the right side of the screen should have an options to show only your friends or group. That way you can catch up/slow down as needed to group back up if you get separated. That list is pretty worthless for group riding when there are 100’s of other random dudes around you. 

  4. “Rejoin Group” button that immediately drops you back in with the group leader if you get separated or have to take a natural break or something. Oh, or if the group goes right and you somehow go left. Because that never happens.

4

Excellent Idea. Clarity is perfection

5

I feel like this will be like the Strava recommendations area. See everyone in 2052 when this finally gets implemented.

 

This reminds me of instances in video games like World of Warcraft. You might be in a world with millions of others but you and your 5 friends can still mash baddies in your own little dungeon.

 

Can we get a suffer-dungeon for our friends? 

How about handicaps so we have similar power outputs too?