Going wide while cornering and dropping places

I am a heavy and tall lump so this may answer my own question, but everytime I go around a corner in a race, especially a hairpin, I drop several places and go very wide. The other riders seem to hug the corner and this results in me having to up my effort by 50w or more to get back in. I am 95kg and 195cm so this could be the reason, it would be good to know as I can’t find anything on Zwift or in the forum.

I am over 6 feet tall and notice the same type of reaction when cornering. My avatar seems to go significantly to the outside of a turn as compared to other riders, and I lose places more so than IRL.

Maybe it is a height penalty, Zwift punishes us taller chaps by 2 seconds for every cm in height on a flat course over an hour apparently. Are you over 90kg too?

I figured it was a height penalty as I have seen some YouTube videos documenting the general penalty that taller riders have in Zwift.

My weight is approx 81.5 kg, so I am not too big but definitely not a tiny rider either.

Getting gapped in corners for no apparent reason is not a height penalty. It happens plenty to less high people.

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Thanks Steve. So it happens to people of all heights? Could it be that I am peddling to hard as I approach the corner and this makes me swing out, it’s very annoying and I wish I could find out what is the cause. Nobody seems to know!

I too am tall (but heavier than the OP :frowning_face:) and had the same issue. I finally figured out that accelerating into the corner helped a lot. I still go wide, but generally stay in the same relative position. I think I may have been subconsciously dropping my power output when heading into a corner (who goes flat out into a hairpin right?). This meant I not only went wide, but dropped back.

Thought it was just me. Very annoying and I have learned to start a mid corner sprint just to keep up. Is there a jersey for that :slight_smile:

Not sure about the rest but this happens to me every time and I cannot believe that I am always the tallest or heaviest rider. I’m 1.8m 80kg. I cannot phantom a use case where this is suppose to happen.

No I doubt it. Accelerating into the corner is actually the only way to maintain position for me. If I maintain the same power I lose positions and if I at the back I’m gapped immediately.

The same thing happens to me and I am short and 67 kg. On every race I have to stand up and push for about 5-10 seconds during the corner to stay in the pack. Maybe everybody else is doing that too.

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I thought it goes by weight as lighter riders seem to corner faster. It is especially noticeable in 180 turns like twice on the Classique course and on the Righmond flat I fall off and must sprint to keep up. At least i have learned to expect it and accelerate accordingly.

Remember that what you see on screen is not nessarily what others see on screen. It could be that everyone sees their avatar going wide.

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but for the same power/kg output on a flat road, don’t heavier riders go faster?
though I read that somewhere?

No, apparently on the flat the penalty is 12 seconds per hour per kilo and 2 seconds per hour per cm of height, so a small light rider will always have an advantage as in reality. The penalties are even more severe on hills.

no I am 52 kg and it happens to me all the time esp when on trg races

We should all have a meet-up and ride the Classique course together. It has two sharp turns.

an interesting article here:

what you see on your screen isn’t what everyone else sees on theirs

you may look like you went wide, but to other users your avatar may keep tight

it’s also hard for some folks to keep the hammer down when the course is a tight hairpin because obviously you couldn’t do that in real life, so you have to really make a conscious effort to keep the power down. Some racers know that people tend to ease off on a hairpin so they will throw down a little more power to help make folks pay for slaking off.

bottom line is though, you’re not being cheated and it’s not because of your height and or weight

What I’ve seen more than once is that I’m riding at the same w/kg as the group, in the draft, and we maintain pace through the turn, but for no apparent reason Zwift places my avatar way on the outside of the turn, and I’ve been gapped off the riders I was with – “Close the gap.” It doesn’t seem like it’s just a matter of what I see on my screen when what I see on my screen is I’m suddenly 2+ meters off the group through we’ve all done the same pace.

That happens only infrequently, but it does happen.

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That’s what happens to me, but every single time. I just want to know whether it is technique or do I need to lay of the IPA! I get it that it maybe that everyone sees it but that doesn’t explain getting dropped from it. The hairpins in London and Richmond are the worst, I lose about 5 metres!