This triathlon bike is marked as TT. I tried it in TTT race but it was unexpectedly hard to stay in the group. Originally I thought it was due to my low experience with TTT but later my more experienced friend has experienced the same thing with this bike.
Is this a known feature or known issue? Is this frame designed for TTT or not?
Thanks in advance for any info or hint.
Are you sure that’s not the issue with steering/non-steering users being shunted all over the road?
Or is it definitely that you cannot stay in the draft, or you think there is no draft?
It was not about shunted in left-right direction. Hard to say, I am not sure wheter there was no draft, it seems rather that there is no stick or how to describe. If I catch the group from the behind and I stopped pedaling I continue to ride forward before them. When they catch me they go over me like a train although I started pedaling strong. Also when I was on the leading postition and the I slowed pedaling when rotation moment has come, I felt behind the group, it was too hard to fall only to the last position and stay with the group. So I flew back and forth and waste a lot of eneergy to keep in the group.
My friend that has no issue experience with other TT bike had the same problems when riding this Felt in TTT,
The last group TTT I was able to do with my teammates a few weeks back was insanely brutal.
It felt like we were on road bikes to be honest.
I have a feeling it’s because neutralized equipment might have been actually enabled on the WTRL TTT’s, which… means we ARE on road bikes.
I haven’t had a teammate test this theory yet though (if anyone has anyone willing to spot a try, I’m curious).
Granted, I am out of form, but I could’ve sworn I’ve never had such difficulty at certain times, specifically on inclines since I’m among the lightest on our team.
The average speeds etc. seemed normal according to all the data, but, it really felt “off.”
The last message I sent to Martin about the TTT’s being neutralized came back a little cryptic, so I’m not entirely positive if they are or not. Because if they are neutralized, you could ride whatever you want, including an MTB for example, and keep up just as normal.
Martin’s response to me on facebook, April 10th:
So I don’t know if that means bike upgrades CAN be neutralized?? Which so far I haven’t heard of this being a possibility.
Or, we are indeed on “neutral” enabled, meaning… we can ride whatever we want, and are therefore on some generic “road bike,” numbers wise.
@Paul_Southworth you’ve setting up races recently; did you see or ask if upgrades (only upgrades) on races can be disabled? (as opposed to full field neutralized)
Yes, it means that whatever bike you ride, its characteristics are as a non-upgraded (level 0) version of that same bike.
I’ve heard that’s possible but I haven’t asked for it. I note that when looking at WTRL TTT events on ZwiftHacks it does not show neutral bikes like we saw in Zwift Games. Neutralizing all bikes should be visible when looking at events in ZwiftHacks.
Yes, only upgrades were neutralized, it was written somewhere in WTRL, if I remember well.
But the issue I described in my previous posts does not rely to upgrades, it was in game version before bike upgrades and also in version after bike upgrades. And other team members did not have problems, they have other bikes then my Felt.
Your original OP sounds just more like the frustrations with pack dynamics over anything else, which yes, if you haven’t done many WTRL TTT’s this could be.
It takes a lot of concentrative effort to be “good” at pace lining, and is the real difference between good and great teams.
I just wasn’t sure if it’s relating to my experience on the TTT two weeks ago after the neutralized feature was supposedly enabled… (supposedly being the key word here)
I originally also thought that it is my lack of experience with TTT.
I wrote here only after my friend had the same issue but he had no such issue earlier with his another TT bike.