Hi
If the goal of a group ride is to ride together, why are they based on a metric (w/kg) that produces a different speed depending on other factors like weight/height?
Wouldn’t it make more sense to base rides on a metric that groups riders on the “speed” produced?
Thanks
Zwift’s physics aren’t true to life, they’re more biased to combine people of all shapes and sizes; and focused more on workout focused, power on pedals at all times.
w/kg is the system they’ve tried to balance out, to produce more similar returns.
Since Zwift doesn’t produce anything that shows your average speed for a ride etc, nobody would really know what kind of speeds they’d fit in anyways. Not to mention, I’d personally argue the difference in speeds from what I’ve seen between the rides I do is… not that significant; but the power output is extremely different.
To prove this, here’s a list of average speeds from the group rides in the past week I participate in as lead/sweep:
They were all on different routes; however, it’s worth noting that most of the past week’s routes were still about as flat as Zwift offers.
39kph
38.1kph
40kph
43.2kph
43.2kph
43.2kph
Out of that list of rides; want to take a guess as to which pace any of these are?
I’ll give you a hint; there’s a mixture of B, C, and even D rides in there.
The answer: Nobody would get any of these correct without purely guessing or looking it up themselves.
I’ve said on another related thread that I find signing up for group rides a bit of a lottery. They should at least have to advertise the leaders weight.
So how do we tell “the public” that our leaders range from 60-90kg… what good would that be?
It’s not a huge deal; join a ride, if it’s not for you, leave, find another.
Ride leaders get changed all the time, including in the last minute before start time, so I suggest asking in the starting pen what power level they expect to ride at (in Watts and W/kg).
Zwift could show the weight next to each of the leaders listed to attend the event. Then at least I know worst case. If it changes last minute then fair enough.
I shouldn’t need to join at start time to find out if it’s suitable for what I want to achieve. There may not be another event available.
BTW I’m criticizing Zwift here, not those organizing the events.
I’ve found that those group rides run by Cryo-Gen are pretty much what they say on the tin, and they normally keep a tight bunch
I just fail to see how anyone can figure out how hard or fast they need to go by trying to calculate power on their end, versus just watching how the group ebbs and flows over a route.
There’s three main areas you can sit in a group ride and it greatly alters the output.
Personally, I aim for a pace that exceeds the advertised w/kg to match the kind of pace the group expects from our normal leaders; purely because I’m not the every-day-leader.
Also worth noting, leaders aren’t being paid or getting anything for any of this, just doing it because hopefully they enjoy it (sadly not all do or so I’ve heard…). And also therefore are going through daily life as well and may want to change things up, dealing with an injury, etc.
Point being; at the end of the day, it’s far easier to try multiple group rides, see how they operate, see their pace, and if it’s not for you, move onto the next… or use a robo partner (which also varies greatly in terms of power required hour by hour, day by day).
Also consider joining the sweep team for a more variable effort if the group pace is well within your abilities. It makes group rides much more interesting IMO and you get to practice towing people which is great for people who do team races where that can be useful. Plus you can improve the experience for people who struggle to stay with the group or are dropped due to momentary inattention.