One of the issues with coffee breaks is that many of the people pedaling do not like their effort going to someone else who may or may not be really using it for the intended purpose (bathroom breaks or bottle refill, etc) and using them to avoid climbing or lessen the climbing.
Below are my suggested changes to the coffee break option.
An ON-OFF setting. If the rider turns OFF the coffee break setting, no one can coffee break on them and they cant coffee break on anyone else.
Coffee breaks using the breaker’s own watts. Here the rider’s watts for the last 30 minutes are averaged and for their 3 minute break, they ride at that pace (so they are not using the watts of another rider). Also they do not accumulate kms, XP or drops during that time.
Coffee breaks limited to group rides/meetups. An alternative is to allow coffee breaking in non-group setting but only if there is a rider (who follows the rider using the coffee break) nearby. Note the distinction - since anyone can follow riders with public profiles, the rider would have to follow you for you to use the coffee break on them.
The one who is pedaling earns double XP and drops during the coffee break. Those double XP and drops are “paid” to the one pedaling from the XP and drops of the individual using the coffee break.
Coffee breaking in a route with a route badge or Portal climb (or other badge attempts (AdZ in under 1 hr, speed badges, etc) are not marked as “complete”. To complete the portal climb or badge, you must complete it entirely with your own effort.
Anyway, these are changes that I think would be beneficial.
No not really because after the 3 minutes, the rider that you caught up to and flew past would reappear right next to you. It would be easy to figure it out
It could be a request system which someone else said previously. The other person can choose to accept the request or not. Is the unwritten worry about that to do with many people saying no?
But also now that teleporting is a thing coffee stops aren’t so important for robopacer groups. Just keep the multiplier active provided you teleport back to the same group.
Then coffee stops can be for events which someone else also suggested before.
If you can remember who you caught up to several minutes ago (after them disappearing) and it isn’t someone you know, I’d say you need other things to think about while zwifting.
It’s different when it’s right there in your face the whole time, plus the coffee break avatar’s movements are just so awkward and jerky that it makes things a lot worse.
Just a question for the folks that object to coffee breakers attaching to you -
How do you deal with or feel about other riders drafting you on outdoor rides?
How do you feel about drafters behind you that you don’t know on outdoor rides?
??? The portal climbs (at least the ones people will use coffee breaks on) are not very popular. So it would be more of a ‘how did they get there?’ and not so much remembering the names. Also as a cyclist that rides outside, I always have a keen sense of who or waht os around me.
I couldn’t care less about someone leaching off my efforts but this is why I dislike coffee stops so much and the steeper the climb, the worse it gets.
The ones I don’t know who are not riding very smoothly or predictably, I slow right down and/or stop if needed, or take a very hilly short diversion.
A lot of the local pro riders do the same, when someone starts chasing them they go really slow.
Flame away at us all, but we prefer not to be crashed out when someone we do not know suddenly starts riding inches off the back wheel without much experience.
It is good practice to check with the other rider first.
Exactly (the leeching part doesn’t bother me either, and neither does regular drafting since safety isn’t an issue), and the ginormous coffee cup icon makes it abundantly clear that this is why it is happening. It’s almost as annoying when it simply happens because someone has a bad internet connection (hello Roskomnadzor and the Great Firewall of China) but at least in that case you don’t get the extra visual clutter.