Cooldown timer for receiving "ride on's"?

General Discussion
1

What do people know about the cooldown timer for receiving “ride on’s”? Otherwise known as the “why the hell is everyone around me getting ride on’s and I’m not??”

I know that you can receive multiple “ride on’s” in quick succession, but there seems to be a cooldown timer that prevents you from getting a new ride on after your current one expires.

You can see this happening if you look at the Drops counter area of your HUD. Normally there is a raindrop style icon on the righthand side that flashes in and out as you earn drops (if you aren’t pedaling, the area goes blank indicating you aren’t earning drops). When you get a ride on, it will alternate between a thumbs up icon indicating you are getting the bonus earn rate and the tear drop icon showing you are earning drops. After about 10-15 secs (however long the bonus is applied) it switches to alternating between a stopwatch icon and the teardrop icon. Once the stopwatch icon goes away, you can receive another ride on boost.

You can see this happening from a practical standpoint when you are in a group ride, a ride on bomb goes off and you don’t get one. If you look at your drops indicator, you’ll see the stopwatch icon flashing.

So what do people know about this? How long does the cooldown last and why is it there? When you get multiple ride on’s in quick succession, does it reset the timer on your personal ride on bonus or not?

And as a side note, do you earn bonus drops when other icons are flashing? ala the mountain icon that flashes when going up hills over 3% grade?

Thanks

2

I at least know the answer to this but. Yes you do, and the multipliers stack. So if you’ve got a 2.5x bonus from a Robopacer, riding up a steep enough hill, and get a ride on, the drops rocket up.

3

I don’t think there’s a Ride-On cooldown timer. I’ve given an individual Ride-On many times to someone who had just received one.

But Ride-On bombs don’t go to everyone within range, just a certain number of riders (perhaps five or six?). I think that this is what you’re seeing.

4

Pretty sure there’s a cooldown timer, as I mentioned, the icon’s flashing in the drops counter change.

I’m pretty sure the game mechanics go something like this:

  1. Initial ride on received, start 15 bonus timer
  2. Still able to receive additional ride on’s for the initial 5 secs (don’t know if these reset the 15 bonus timer or not and don’t know how long this window actually lasts, probably 5 - 10 secs)
  3. 15 sec bonus timer expires
  4. Apply 15 sec cooldown timer blocking you from receiving another ride on.

I get why a cooldown timer would exist, otherwise you and a friend could keep each other in a non-stop ride on bonus state pretty easily. More asking for confirmation of the mechanic and if people know additional details on how it works.

5

Except that one rider can only give another rider one Ride On per ride. So, once you give your friend a Ride On, you can’t give them another unless they start a new ride.

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6

Respectfully, I don’t believe that is correct.
While doing robopacer rides, I’ve gotten Ride On’s from the same person multiple times. There is a personal cooldown from giving out Ride On’s, but tracking what userID’s have given you a ride on and then blocking them would be very system intensive and inefficient, so doubt it’s like that.

7

I don’t think I have ever read or seen anything regarding a countdown on not being able to receive Ride Ons. [There is a short period of time where you can’t give Ride On bombs and this is often referred to as a countdown].

I have never seen the stopwatch you refer to in the drops area. Any chance you can capture and post a screenshot?

Within Comments section Eric confirms that if you receive multiple ride ons at the same time the 15 second multipliers are added together.

I don’t think many on this forum are going to agree with you about being able to give multiple ride ons to the same person. Facebook post below from Zwift employee. Have you ever tried giving a nearby rider a Ride On and then going back a short while later and attempting to give them another Ride On - the system won’t let you do it.

“[James Bailey]

I always have sound off. There’s no limit to the number of ride ons you can send, other than no more than one to any person.”

8

Consider the possibility you may be mistaken about this. See if you can prove it one way or the other.

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