As a coach I am looking to create structured rides for my team such as the ones I sync from Training Peaks for myself, but to be used in a small group format. I’d like to be able to have riders of all abilities on the same ride and have them stay together, yet also see their own stats within the ride.
Since Computrainer no longer exists and Wahoo has discontinued their Kickr Studio program, I feel this is an area that Zwift can exploit and own! To be able to ride in a multi-rider format for the same workout would be a great tool, not only for coaches, but also for athletes. It will enable athletes to follow a similar plan together yet complete it at their own level.
Right now the Meet Up function is great if everyone that wants to ride is of the same ability. If not, there is no way to keep the group together. That is a limiter for a coach and a team. I could obviously create rides for different levels, but there’s no way I could lead all of them without dying!
As an athlete, it would be great to be able to ride with other athletes that are more advanced without being dropped. I feel it would be highly motivating to have that camaraderie within a group.
There’s a huge opportunity here! Please make it happen!
How is this different from the many group workouts already being used in Zwift, other than that these are YOUR workouts, instead of the ones that are already there, and perhaps you only want YOUR riders to be able to sign up, instead of just anyone? I see other coaching programs (like CIS) who have an active presence in Zwift, and also conduct structured group workouts, so I think the general functionality is already there, but it sounds like you might want this functionality to be available to specific coaches and/or specific groups of people; is this correct?
It’s different because I want to be able to have riders of different levels on the same ride. Currently, I can set up a ride, but only for riders of similar ability. Those rides you speak of have an A, B, C rides all led by a different person. I personally, can’t lead 3 rides at once, nor would I be able to lead 3 rides of a certain intensity back to back to back for each group.
I’m not trying to limit who can ride, I’m trying to expand who can ride at the same time with the same lead coach or lead rider. I’m not sure what others are doing, but after speaking with Zwift rider support they understand what I’m looking for and know that it’s not being done on Zwift currently.
If you’ve ever done a Computrainer multi-rider ride in the past, you will understand what I’d like to be able to do.
Yes, in a sense I’d like to be able to invite who I want on a specific ride. It would be a function for all coaches, not just specific ones, and they’d be able to invite whomever they want to do their rides. It could be specific to their coached athletes, or OPEN to the entire Zwift community at their choice.
As a coach, I could set up rides specially for my athletes, but also have rides where I invite the community to experience what my athletes do. It’d be a great way for coaches to better train their athletes and reach more athletes at the same time.
Do all of your friends ride at the same level? If not, this would be great for you as well. Right now on a Meet up ride, slower riders get dropped. There’s no way to keep everyone together unless faster riders intentionally slow down.
Have you done any of the group workouts in Zwift? These work differently than a Meetup. In a Zwift group workout all riders, regardless of ability, are kept together by a ‘rubber-band’ effect. This, effectively, makes the group’s speed that of the slowest rider, but each rider gets a workout based on their own ability. Granted, I think the intervals in group workouts are all based on a percentage of FTP (i.e. everyone is at 80% of their own FTP, which could be any number of watts values), but everyone is still held together by the ‘rubber-band’. If you have not participated in a Zwift workout you should sign up for one just to check it out. There are a number of them on the calendar each day.
I haven’t tried a ride in a while since it’s been outside riding season and when I’m inside I do specific workouts. That’s interesting. I’d still be interested in being able to do an interval based wko, but it seems like this is a definite possibility given what you are telling me.