Having no draft in the lead-in of a race

hey,

i have encouraged a strange habit of my avatar in last races (Uci Richmond). He actually drives on the left side of the road after the first corner and loses draft. He stays on this side until crossing the finish line for the first time (500m-700m or something). I have enough experience to know what kind of power is needed to stay in a B group at the start (if there is draft). This is actually very frustrating to start a race. Does this have to do something with the addition of the steering function?

To prove the fact that my avatar loses draft, I have compared my power to a top ten rider in last race. My average power is more than 100W higher for the first 1,5km but I still got dropped.

regards

Hi @Gill_Bogaerts_BZR welcome to Zwift forums.

Some clarification, please:

  • Are you paired to the Elite Sterzo Smart?
  • Can you my.zwift.com and link us to the event where you experienced it? Was this a steering-enabled Zwift HQ race?
  • Any chance you have screenshots saved that show this thing you’re describing on my.zwift.com?
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I experienced the same thing last week in two races in a row, the first one was in Richmond The at Home Cycling & Running Virtual Training App (I left the event after getting dropped) and the second one in NYC The at Home Cycling & Running Virtual Training App (joined just to see if the bug would repeat and didn’t save the ride, tried to take a screenshot but I guess my keyboard was sleeping or something).

No Sterzo here, and in both cases my avatar did join the paceline when there was a big enough gap after the last rider in the blob so it would seem plausible that this was caused by the same logic that prevents sideways movement into other riders when using steering.

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hey shuji,

  • I am not paired with the Elite Sterzo Smart (sadly enough :wink:)

  • The event were this happened was: The Glasgow Green Cycle Club race series on the Richmond UCI course (14/09/2020 at 21:10) [can’t upload a link :thinking:]
    But this actually happened to me before at the Zwift NL race day last week (Richmond UCI aswell)

  • I don’t have screenshots or recordings of this, but may record my next race/ride. The only thing i have is some strava data to compare myself with a rider who stayed in the pack. On this data you can see that i put out way more power unless being dropped.

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Hi I also have had this problem. Did report it to Zwift but they never came back, I reported it in here & someone said to update my IOS on my MacBook Pro. I’m now on latest which is Catalina. It still does it & also mid race my avatar is slow to move with the group when the group go around a corner & there position shifts on the road, it has put me off doing big races where multiple categories come together as my avatar is right at the back & is hard to get on. I do have a video of it

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Just had this same issue in the invitational race. First corner I was booted out the draft shoved to the left of the road - 150 5-6 w/kg riders riding away and it was over. It’s happened in a few races now on the downtown dolphin and NYC - it’s serious and you can’t really run official race series until it’s fixed IMO - no sterzo paired but it’s happened since the update was released to support this device.

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This seems to be somewhat random, after the two incidences in a row I have managed half a dozen starts without problems. When this happens, it is indeed quite clear as the line taken by the avatar is on the wrong side of the road (until joining the blob at the back).

Bug still there, just encountered it again in The at Home Cycling & Running Virtual Training App (but not the next one, rebooted in between for good measure).

I have encountered this a few times too. I also find that my Avatar takes some strange wide lines around some corners making me lose draft and a lot of ground on the people in front of me. I lost 4 seconds on one race and I couldn’t regain the draft after that. Instead of conserving energy in the pack I had to destroy myself just to try and keep up.

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I’m having the same problem since roughly a month. Last week during the ZRL league my avatar stayed on the left not only at the start for the usual 200m (loosing a lot of positions) but also at the first 3-4 runs: he always went on the other side of the road, alone… loosing more and more positions. This is really annoying.

I’ve been doing training sessions rather than races so not been able to see if it is still an issue.

Still an issue. Help!

I used to get this on a regular basis as well but haven’t had any cases in the last two months or so. That would be around the same time I got a Sterzo (tried it a couple of times, not using it on a regular basis for now but I still have the steering icon on the pairing screen). No idea if that has anything to do with it but considering that this bug appeared in the same release as the Sterzo support, it wouldn’t exactly surprise me…

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have you got sterzio steering ? That used to happen to me when I joined events having warmed up with it enabled . I think it was fixed way back … I dont experience it since last year any way but then I probably make a point of NOT enabling steering in those cases.

Never had a sterzo but I would like to enter a non-steering event and see if I fair better.

Hi Zee,
are you using Zwift Preferences to force a not available world?
When I had the problem, I uninstalled and reinstalled Zwift and the problem was gone.
Then I started to used again Zwift Preferences and a couple of time I had again this issue during races but it was when I forgot to disable the “force world” option.
If I enter in Zwift with normal settings, I have no problem.

I often ride France that way. I definitely will give that a go. Thanks for that. :smiley:

Yep, and now I warm up in Watopia instead and it seems to be normal now.
When I hack, I revert to 'far left side and no draft.

Thanks for the advice.