Am I the only one who would like an option to make yourself unavailable for other users to use coffee breaks on your effort? In the past, if someone coffee breaked (?) on you, you could come to a complete stop, then slowly restart and the coffee breaker would stay put. This has apparently been corrected and the coffee breaker will move the second you pedal. Dont get me wrong, I like the idea of the coffee breaks for group rides or riding with friends and you drop your towel. need a refill of water or forgot to turn on your fan. However, I find people abusing this and using coffee breaks just so they can get 3 minutes of climbing without effort. How do I know they are not really using the coffee break for a legitimate purpose? Because now I announce that I’m stopping the moment I see a coffee breaker and miraculously, they start pedaling again. And since this only tends to happen at the tough sections. What would be great is a Coffee Break on-off option so when its off no one can coffee break on you (and I am ok with that also taking away your ability to coffee break on someone else). Thoughts?
I’ve seen this suggested many times, but I don’t think Zwift shares the same view as they’ve done nothing about it.
I wonder what happens if you disconnected from wifi while they are attached to you… you would disapear from their screen so I suspect that would make them stop… or just grab the next closest person? Meanwhile, you can continue riding (no need to stop) for a few minutes, then turn back on wifi and keep going.
Hi Mike,
Great suggestion. The only problem with that this wont work on portal climbs or route badges as Zwift will not give you credit for it if you get disconnected. I know this first hand because I had to redo the Tourmalet at 100% in order to unlock the 125% elevation. After I completed the climb at 100%, the 125% was still locked. When I reached out to support, they said that there was an internet drop and that it didn’t count as completed. Good suggestion though.
Are you sure the stop/go strategy no longer works? I’m pretty sure I did this just a couple of days ago.
Unless you’re trying to complete a route badge or need the route directions, I like to pull a quick double-u turn which makes them come to a stop… assuming nobody else is around (otherwise they just attach to the next nearest user).
If it REALLY breaks, then it’s equally fun to see them shoot up the road at 100kph to some poor random user up the road that now has to deal with them 
Actually if Zwift make them “invisible” when doing the coffee stop it would have been a heck of a lot easier. I don’t really care when somebody is using me, if they want to get 3 minutes of that slow of a ride so be it. I have used it on a group ride when I had to attend to something. Its a nice feature for sure and has saved me a couple times to be honest. But they could have just simply had it ghost the person using it and nobody would have been any the wiser.
Yeah I tried it 2 days ago and the moment I started again the coffee breaker started moving. However, I did not stay stopped for that long. Maybe I have to stay stopped a little longer.
Group rides are different and I don’t mind if someone coffee breaks on me since, as a group ride, the goal is to ride together. I don’t think making them invisible is a good alternative. In my opinion, coffee breaks should only be available in group rides or meet-ups (or if Zwift allows an ON-OFF function). To me its about the principle. If Im pushing watts on a 125% elevation and someone doing it at 50% elevation coffee breaks on me, they get the equivalent watts. When I did the La Croix at 125%, a rider doing it at 50% jumped on and flew up way ahead of me, faster than they were going before they coffee break. On a side note, I personally feel that Zwift has made Zwift significantly easier for people to complete badges/challenges/levels than in the past. (Banded rides to get the difficult badges (Uber, PRL Masochist) and Everest challenge, etc), teleporting past climbs ot to the top of climbs, etc. I just dont think my effort should be used to help weaker riders (or riders that want a break) to climb a difficult climb. They never seem to coffee break on flat sections or downhills. Its ALWAYS on the harder climbing sections. Another alternative solution would be for Zwift to change the coffee break for solo rides by using the users average watts over the last 30 minutes. That way the coffee break would be more like a cruise control.
When you come to a stop, hit your coffee button and stay behind them.
They just zoom off ahead at up to 60km/h for the length of the coffee stop, even on a 10% gradient. That bug is reported.
Stopping and staying behind them doesn’t work either.
One solution is to turn off WIFI before you catch the coffee stop usual suspects - then turn it back on after you’ve gone past them, that works perfectly.
It isn’t too hard to do either, most people on the big climbs use ERG mode because they hate the hills and they don’t get coffee stop mode. So it’s only a few remaining people.
It didn’t used to be this way, but Zwift had to change things that were not broken and introduced bugs into it.
I don’t see the big issue to someone using a coffee stop on me, in fact it is a badge of honor that they like the pace and would like to continue riding with me.
Or is it just jealousy that they are getting something for free and you are not?
To me it’s not a badge of honor or that they are getting anything for free and I’m not. Its the principle. It’s for the same reasons that Zwift does not allow coffee breaks on races. If you want to race, race under your own power…earn it. If you want to climb a challenging climb, climb it yourself. Coffee breaking on someone for 3 minutes every 30 minutes of riding can add up. For every hour of climbing that equals 6 minutes of coffee breaks. It’s crazy. 6 minutes of climbing that was not climbed. How can that be considered a completed.climb?
Did they get to the summit?
That’s how.
You can’t impose your rules on other people. Even if you (and maybe I) think other people’s rules are “wrong”.
Think about banded rides. Or actually no you probably should not 
My wife got the sub 60 min Alpe badge doing less than 1.5W/kg in a banded ride
That’s my point, they did NOT get to the summit. They only climbed 90% of the climb. And its not “my rules”, its life. In the real world, if you stop to refill a water bottle or go to the bathroom, you have to stop, do your thing, and then get back on your bike to ride. You are not magically transported to where you would be if you kept riding. If your with a group of friends you can ask them to stop as you do what you need to (which is why I dont mind coffee breaks in group rides). But if you are in a race, a charity ride, or on your own and you have to stop, you continue where you left off. Also your “did they get to the summit?” argument is not valid. If I rode up 90% of Mt Ventoux IRL, for example, can I climbed Mt Ventoux? If I uber past the first turn of Alpe Du Huez (the 15% incline) and ride up the rest of the way, did I really climb it? No. My point in this whole discussion is that coffee breaks are the only artificial element that zwift has that uses another’s effort to the advantage of the rider using it. That is why I am not saying to do away with them, just allow individuals the choice. That’s why I suggested an “OFF-ON” setting. Or perhaps, when someone coffee breaks on you, the one riding gets double XP paid out of the individual coffee breaking on them.
and lots of drops, we need to buy new bikes and wheels and upgrade them! #dropflation
As I understand it, the basis for Coffee Breaks was that if people were wanting to ride together and one had to stop for some reason, activating the coffee break meant the other person didn’t need to stop and wait for them.
From that logic, if I’m not wanting to ride with someone then they shouldn’t be able to anchor themselves to me. I feel like it should have similar rules to teleporting, that you can only attach yourself to someone you follow and who follows you back, to a robo pacer, or in events to a rider with a beacon.
That said, the most annoying part of coffee break users is the icon floating above their heads. If that was moved to a less obvious place I think the complaints would reduce. Maybe put it in the same spot that the climb portal scaling icon goes.
Depends, where u see the advantage. I only see disadvantages, since they train less and therefore dont get as strong as others, climbing on their own.
I posted my suggestion for coffee breaks in Pacer Cheats - #11 by GlennVL this topic.
This is reasonable enough, but I doubt it would ever happen and if it did, expect a huge storm of protest.
Actually for all the power-up icons for that matter.