Group Workouts Speed?

It has been a while for me, but last year or so when riding in a group workout, the group moved at an incredibly slow speed. Is that still how it is or has Zwift fixed that issue? Thanks
UPDATE* I am asking about the Structured Group Workouts controlled by ERG where everyone is using the same workout file, but doing it as a group.

It depends on what group it is. If it was D Cat then it wouldn’t be rapid.

It’s all relative to your own personal level.

There’s never been an actual issue with group speeds not working.

Thanks for the response. I was speaking about the group workouts, riding a structured ERG group workout…not a D Cat or C Cat ride or race type event. I think you may have thought I was asking about simple group rides. When I did these group workouts, I was a B Cat racer, but it is irrelevant since the structured workouts are Erg based off a persons FTP. I could be doping a 2 x 20 at FTP workout and the group crawled along at 10 mph or so…even turning 3-4 w/kg. It is almost like Zwift had/has some speed restrictor running.

I think Group Workouts are rubberbanded by default, yes. And that does produce the slow overall speed that Group rubberbanding creates. The rubberbanding is also very strict–everyone is literally shoulder-to-shoulder in my experience. I’ve found that to be irritating in Group Rides, but less of a bother in Group Workouts. But that’s just my preferences.

I think this is correct. I think what are being referred to are typically all E category workouts which are rubberbanded. I thought I heard that they move at an average speed of the participants, but not sure this is correct. In which case it could appear to be a slow or high speed depending on the individual?

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This would certainly be interesting to know. I thought the group moved at the speed of the person/people with the lowest FTP, which is why I do not do any group workouts. They are always incredibly slow.

The Group Rides and Group Workouts I organize through my Club definitely do not move at a speed that is consistent with the wattage the participants put out. A two-member (test ride) rubberbanded Group Ride a few weeks ago saw us limited to about 23kph, regardless of how many watts we were putting out on the upper end. And we were both stuck right next to each other almost the entire time, except for the occasional brief moment where one person would shoot a meter or so ahead before being reigned back in. I had activated both Keep Together and the Fence (via the web interface work-around for Club events), and the other rider couldn’t even get far enough ahead of me to come close to the fence, much less go through it, thanks to the super tight Keep Together distances.

The Group Workout we tried next saw similar results–extremely tight rubberbanding, and speed not correlated (at least on the high end) with wattage, and again limited to about 23kph.

These were small groups, but I’ve seen others reporting the same thing.

A Meetup otoh has a much more flexible Keep Together function, and the speeds within the rubberband zone are realistic.

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Thank you for those details :slightly_smiling_face:

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