Event mode power setting suggestion

After taking part in a group ride the other day with Pro4mance, the initial lap was supposed to be 2.5 then the next 3, the third 3.5 and then all out for the last. The event lead had issues with his/her connection and basically it went to hell in a hand bag, initial lap had people hitting 4+ w/kg and those that tried to stick to the plan basically had no chance of keeping it together.

My thoughts after this were would it be possible for a race lead to set a max power allowed per lap for an event other than in a race, so for example:

Lap 1 max allowed 2.7 w/kg for a 2.5 w/kg lap to allow a margin of error so that people can see they are slightly over and adjust down.

Lap 2 max allowed 3.2 w/kg for a 3 w/kg lap

Lap 3 max allowed 3.7 w/kg for a 3.5 w/kg lap

Lap 4 max allowed unrestricted

The idea being that while in the event and on the lap specified Zwift will only recognise the max allowed for the lap no matter what you input.

I know this needs some more thought as it doesn’t allow for sprints however maybe zwift could be set to break those limits between the sprint markers.

 

It would have to be a speed based limits - watts per kilogram are meaningless on nearly the entire course aside from the climbs.  A lap at 4w/kg could be a lap at 400w or 170w depending on if you’re a big dude or tiny lady.  

We are adding a way to have multiple fallback ride leaders, however - in case of nobody being designated the ride leader it’s possible the person with the highest XP (with a phone connected for chat) could be auto-nominated.   

Another possible solution could be that some rides are designated as casual rides, and if you get too far ahead (but not behind) of the “mass” of the group you get auto-unjoined from the ride and are back into free ride mode.  Then people would feel better about just letting the fast people go on the non-competitive rides.  IMO they should be free to ride off the front if they want, it just means they’ll be leaving the event.

Jon