Close the gap means you need to get closer to the rider in front of you or you will lose the draft benefit from that rider.
I’ve seen reports of spin bikes reporting lower power.
I suspect that some of those cases may in part, be due to low resistance, kind of like trying to hit power goals while riding down a hill.
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@Marita
Hi Marita,
Welcome. To answer your question, unfortunately there will be no magic message telling you when to increase resistance. You will need to increase resistance in response to the terrain you’re traveling and to the group you’re traveling with.
In the case of the former this means paying attention to the gradient inset map at the top right hand of the UI screen.You will need to increase resistance when you find the gradient is a positive plus percentage in order to avoid slowing down to a standstill. A good way to see how this plays out is to do a group ride with some hills and see how this affects you and other riders. You will quickly see that once folks start going uphill they increase their w/kg and unless you increase your resistance (and/or your cadence) you will quickly drop positions and fall to the back of the group. Once the group starts going downhill you will notice that everyone else’s watts per kilogram will go decrease as they’re cruising down the hill and you can decrease your resistance and still keep up with the group.
In the case of the latter, this means paying attention to those around you and deciding if you want to keep up with them. A good example of this is the close the gap message that you’ve seen already.That just means that you need to be closer to the person in front of you in order to benefit from their draft; a good part of Zwift dynamics is taking advantage of the draft in groups or working with others you happen to meet up with on a casual ride to take turns leading and following. If someone is going faster than you, you can either increase your resistance or your cadence to increase your overall power and stay with them. Sometimes you will need to increase both; and sometimes they will simply be stronger than you and no matter how much you try you won’t be able to keep up, lol.
In both cases, if you’re using what is essentially a dumb trainer, meaning that it does not control your resistance (and a spin bike does not control your resistance), you have to pay attention to the gradient and those around you (and your goals) in order to determine when you need to change your resistance.
Hope this helps and good luck to you.
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Thank you Tim, good to know!
Thank you for taking the time to reply, Lebasi. It makes sense, and I guess I will just have to get used to adjust cadence and resistance to be able to make the best out of my rides.
I believe it would be difficult for me to keep up with the rest, I’m just back after years of non-training, so I’m taking it easy 
Have a great day!
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if your lemonde has controlled resistance i can add compatibility with qdomyos-zwift app and you will have a 100% zwift experience with controlled resistance too! join the qdomyos-zwift app to discover more!
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Thank you Roberto, that’s sounds interesting, I’ll give it a try! Have a nice day!