I am not sure if this is a dumb question but I road with Maria today as a nice steady 2.2 would be what the doctor ordered and I pretty much stood with the pacer. Need to learn how to smooth out the power but it seemed I only did 1.8 for my best hour.
Is the robopacer w/kg pace based on your weight? Also must you stay really stead with the pacer to get the 2.2?
Sorry for all my confusion, just want to dial it in as I enjoyed it.
I think this is still up to date
Robo pacers weigh 75 kg and the advertised w/kg is based on their weight, not yours. So if you weigh less, w/kg will be higher for you; if you weigh more, w/kg will be lower for you.
Edit:
If you’re finding the pace too low for you to be at 2.2, then you can try the next Robo pacer up. If the next Pacer up is too high, then you can try Maria using a mountain bike and see if that helps.
Like the MTB idea. My confusion was mostly I thought if you kept with pacer you pretty much do the 2,2 but a bit more complicated.
I am 78kg.
John
78kg should be close enough for similar power compared to the pacer if you are positioned very close to the pacer
That is what I thought but seems like I was a 1.8. There were times I put out almost no watts waiting after a small roller and other times wpule come pass.
I think I need to better smooth out my power during these rides.
Try riding a TT instead so theres no slipstream for u.
That is an excellent idea as I found the draft making things too easy
The RoboPacer flexes their pace depending on the incline, but not as much as you or I would on, say, New York’s rollers.
So Maria will go from 165 to 180 watts, where you or I - if we were wanting to get from A to B as quickly as possible - would knock out 15 seconds at 400 watts and then soft pedal or coast down the other side. The net effect of that is that our average power could be quite a bit lower than hers to cover the same distance in the same time.
If you want to average the same power as the RoboPacers, you need to ride as inefficiently as they do - no more and no less. You also ideally need to be in/out of the draft as often as they are.
This makes lotta sense.
Or you can do what some folks do and control your trainer in ERG mode via a Garmin Edge bike computer.
Then you just dial up exactly the power needed to sit in front of the robopacer group everywhere.
I don’t do that because it’s pretty fussy to set it up.
That will not work due to dynamic pacing. This is one reason why people can’t really use ERG mode with pacers. What you are probably seeing is people in workouts that are temporarily stuck in with a pacer until the next uphill or downhill section where they will separate etc.
It works perfectly, they just dial up higher power on the Garmin screen - tap tap tap, done. Then they reduce it for flat.
I used to see two people do that all the time at the front of one robopacer group daily.
When I last joined that group on Saturday evening, same two were doing it again. I know they do that because they said so in the chat.
I’ve never seen this and I use pacers all the time. I do see people in workouts get stuck for a while, possibly pull the pacer for a bit then get separated, but it doesn’t typically last all that long.
What possible value would it be for someone to fiddle with their ERG mode enough to stay ahead of a pacer bot?
Would love to see a video of this that lasts over any extended period, but I don’t think it would make sense for people to try to use ERG mode with pacers the way they are currently setup with dynamic pacing.
Funny thing I felt the same thing when I thought of a pacer, why? Just do erg mode to get the w/kg you want but now having done pacer it is more fun and you have other riders and honestly not as punishing as I felt I was almost in a race. Falling back, surging ahead so I think there is a need for both.
Oh yeah for sure, what Chris is suggesting (if I understand correctly) is that someone would use ERG mode specifically to stay in front of a robo pacer. This is what I am saying is very difficult and probably not worth someone’s time to try to do - given how dynamic the pacer is you’d have to be fiddling with your ERG settings consistently and would be better off just doing a free-ride. So… Just free-riding with a pacer is great, just using ERG mode is also great, but trying to constantly fiddle with ERG mode to sit in front of a pacer is what does not make much sense to me.
Some folks just seem to like controlling their trainer in erg mode via a Garmin and sitting at 300w or whatever power for 2 hours or so and just varying it as needed.
Because it’s not erg mode in Zwift you don’t see it as a workout mode (no icon). When you are controlling the power through the Garmin it is very easy because you just tap the up and down arrows on the Garmin screen so you can easily just go from 300w to 330w and then back. But I know they do this because they said so. One of them is also a verified rider with the tick so he must have his reasons.
I don’t know why they do that rather than just riding normally, probably same reason some people do the same in races.
So you can do a race in erg mode via garmin? If I understand you.
in theory yes, and I think this might be a thing with those who do the TT races
There isn’t anything stopping you and I’ve seen power traces / graphs where someone’s power line goes extremely flat and steady at a particular power for 5 or 10 minutes.
Either that or they connected a power drill up to their trainer. 
Perhaps you could try blowing up a race that way?if you search there has been discussion about that before by a few people.
Maybe if someone was sufficiently annoyed by it they might call for that to be banned by detecting the steady flat power and disqualification of that rider. That would be easy enough to do.
But fast is fun and all those usual reasons.