Hi all, first time post from a newbie Zwifter of about one month now.
I’ve been riding in the Constance pacer group quite regularly and find that I need to average around 250 watts on flat and rolling courses to hang in on these rides. When I look at other riders stats, the vast majority also average in the 230 - 260 watt range on these group rides. However there were a couple of A grade riders in a recent ride that were averaging 330 - 350 watts on then same ride. I’m wondering why this is?
They’re probably heavier riders. Therefore they do higher watts for a similar w/kg to lighter riders.
Could you please school me on watts? I’m coming back to cycling after 12 years of not being on a bike but was formerly an A grade road cyclist and at the top of my age group in Triathlon. The running in Tri destroyed my knees and after multiple surgeries I never got back into it. Went and played golf instead and put on a ton of weight. I’m 55 now and 5 months ago at 115kg I decided I needed to get off the couch and avoid the heart attack that was coming my way.
After joining the local gym I’ve now lost most of the weight and getting close to my old racing weight of 72kg. My success so far is mostly from spin classes which I naturally fell into and also from doing a lot of weights. I was surprised at how quickly the old legs were coming back and started to entertain thoughts about getting back into cycling which I never dreamed would have happened. Then I discovered Zwift about a month ago after a friend gave me his Wahoo Kickr V6 that he wasn’t using and I’m loving it. Wish this had been around back when I was racing as I was a strong advocate of indoor sessions and used to do 2-3 hard indoor sessions a week on my Kurt Kinetic. Zwift currently has me graded in B grade and FTP is 263 which I hope to push up into the 300’s over the next 6 months.
Anyhow, power meters were around back when I was cycling but they were prohibitively expensive and so I’ve had no experience with power until now. Wouldn’t the actual watts required to ride at a certain pace be similar irrespective of body weight? I’m wondering if some people’s equipment reads way higher than what they are actually capable of? Sorry if this doesn’t make sense and I probably have no idea what I’m talking about.
In Zwift it also depends on some other factors such as terrain, the available draft, rider height and weight affecting aerodynamics and rolling resistance, bike/wheel choice (although for most reasonable choices on a given road surface the difference is small).
Certainly. There are some truly awful trainers out there that more or less make up a power number.
Thanks!
Are the Wahoo Kickr’s meant to be reasonably accurate?
Yes they are pretty good. There have been some reports of anomalies or poor auto-calibration under some circumstances when using virtual shifting, but overall I would say they are among the good trainers. The Kickr V6 is on a fairly short list of trainers approved for use in elite events.
In your example of Constance riders, one of the biggest factors will be whether the rider sat on the front of the group towing the pacer or if they sat in the draft the entire time.
Ah yes, good point. That hadn’t occurred to me.
There are also a couple of regulars on that ride who use ERG mode and maintain fixed power the entire time. That tends to make the pace less natural.
One other thing that influences the Constance group is if a certain “zpower” turned up and pushed the pace at the front - Constance with super-drafting abilities would chase and then everyone would have to go much faster. Yeah yeah, you can’t tow the robopacer faster, etc. So they all say. 
That’s a key thing. Get one of those trainers and you are well and truly set.
Good on you for getting the fitness back, you’d made a massive change, 5 months to go from 115kg to 72kg and FTP at 263w, nice!
Many thanks for your encouragement, I feel 1000% better.
Just on your point about ERG mode and I’m not sure if this is the same thing, but I find having the trainer difficulty set to maximum actually makes the flat and rolling courses easier. When the incline changes between 1-5 degrees, the resistance gets heavy but I just mash the peddles and shoot to the front of the pack. I then find that I get some recovery time on the downhills as the resistance gets very light. However, with trainer difficulty set to zero, I find that there is never any recovery time. Does this make sense or is it all in my head? And yes, I’ve tried Alpe Du Zwift in max difficulty and it is way more difficult. I’ve read all the posts that say the watts are the same, but in reality I find it way more challenging.
There’s definitely a few riders on The Alpe with weight scales reading very low… 
BòóX