To perhaps illustrate the utility, here’s a snapshot out of Zwifthack events for upcoming Rides (not races) coming up between 12-1pm today (EST). If you’re a A, B, or C rider looking to not race on Zwift, but looking for a group ride, and you want to ride at your own pace, there aren’t many options in those categories
Well I’m an A/B rider and if I was looking for a social ride I’d happily pick a 2w/kg ride and possibly bump my weight up 25% depending how energetic I was feeling.
I certainly don’t want to ride around at 4W/kg everywhere just because I can (sort of).
I might also help with sweeping for a bit of extra exercise. That’s a good way to make a ride a bit tougher.
I suspect my w/kg is very similar to yours (I think my average 3 in ZP are at 4.02) and there’s no way on earth I’m going to subject myself to that level of pain and suffering on a group ride
I’ll either use a pace partner or find something at 2-2.5 of which there’s normally a decent amount to choose from.
But if you want to make things harder then doing a bike change mid ride will do that. You have push yourself to get a gap, do the bike change then sprint again to not get dropped.
It’s perfect!
No form of rider weight changing should ever be done. That is wrong.
I think your making this more complex than it needs to be.
Today for example, I road with my wife outdoors IRL.
I just rode slower.
Sometimes I will shift to my highest gear and grind out real slow but I still stay with her and we just have a conversation.