Hi, I was group leader on the PRL A ride yesterday. Here is some feedback that will hopefully help you develop this new potentially terrific feature: -
1). Warming up is great - it seems weird turbo training on screen and at the same time fab to see riders turning up and being able to chat with them.
2). Whilst in waiting mode, the text button on the app does not work with the on-screen chat - you need to type on a non-mobile keyboard.
3). After 5minutes of riding the beacon disappeared and then it was like herding cats. I had to wrestle the beacon back by pressing P and entering the code (twice)
4). Once on the move, the app messaging button works
5.). Towards the end of the ride, messages completely stopped working - both from the app and keyboard
6). After the 40km of the ride, Zwift crashed.
7). Three files were saved in the Activities folder. The time was corrupt and I had to use the Strava fix tool to merge all activities and re-upload.
8). The B ride was supposed to be released 3 minutes after the A ride and it was released at the same time as the A.
I looking forward to seeing this develop over the next few week.
Dave thanks for this. i have been looking for notices of group rides on screen as advertised by Zwift in the 5/4 release but have seen nothing on screen. Granted I normally ride early morning GMT time or 6pm GMT time so maybe it’s just a case of the rides are on screen but I’m not. Is there anywhere to go to see when the Zwift sponsored rides will show up on screen? i know the rider sponsored rides are aplenty but i’m referring the the ride functionality advertised by Zwift with 5/4 release. thanks Jeff
Hi Jerry, There have been a few rides to have tested it out so far. Zwift are advertising them via their FB page and many of the group leaders have done so via FB pages (e.g. Zwift Riders). For info - when you log-in to Zwift, the Ride screen pops up (you know the one - asking you if you want a flat, mountain, pretzel etc route, or if you want to join another rider?) and the group rides featuring the new beta testing group rides will be in the top right hand corner. Click on the ride and the A or B ride option and all should be pretty straight forward… Fingers crossed and good luck.
Thanks Dave. It may be simply that I havent been logged on when there are group rides popping up beside the Ride screen. Will keep an eye out. Do the group rides also pop up when in main riding screen with riders showing … might be a useful add on as once you are out of Ride screen there’s no going back unless you log off I think. This is an excellent feature and one I’d use. Thx. Jeff
I was in the PRL B ride on Wednesday evening and it was my first group ride using the new system. My thoughts are :-
When at the group selection I chose the PRL event and it offered me A and B options. However I don’t remember those options having any mouseover description, so if I hadn’t read Facebook I wouldn’t know for example if B was 2w/kg or 4 w/kg
6 minutes before the ride time I was given the options to Ride On or Join the group. Default was (luckily) “Join”. Although the options were on screen there were no matching options in the iOS App. So (as I’m a long way from the PC riding a bike) there was nothing I could do other than hope.
Any effort on the “trainers” before the start doesn’t seem to be recorded anywhere.
At the start A & B set off together. Merged instantly. Chaos ensued.
As A was merging with B the Ride Leader lost their status. Further Chaos… Many rider were lost in this confusion, group was split across hundreds of yards.
There was a Zwift rider in the group at the start so I’m sure the above 2 points were observed and logged.
Overall I was very impressed. Once riding the RL messages came through very clearly in the center of the screen. The RL was easy to spot in both the main view and the leaderboard at the right. It was also great that the board at the right appeared to just show people in the group.
I hope that this will be enhanced so that anyone can start a ride at any time and that people will be able to join existing rides, not just wait for ones that are yet to begin.
A good option too would be if the RL can set an attire and then anyone in the group uses that automatically. Whenever I’m on a group ride saying “X gear” there are many that don’t bother.
I was not the ride leader, but I did see two things going on in yesterday’s SUB2. The warming up worked fine for me. Very nice to be on a turbo while waiting since I have seen my cadence sensor time out on other rides while standing around. When this occurs, I can ride but my legs aren’t moving.
The ride leader beacon never appeared for me. I don’t know if it appeared briefly and then went away or if it just never appeared for anyone.
I noticed that the ride leader’s legs were not moving. I suspect that his cadence sensor timed out. There may be some kind of time out effect for the beacon as well.