First, let me say thanks to Zwift for organizing rides for International Women’s Day. It was great to see so many woman of all ages and abilities come out in one place on Zwift!
The ride I was on had a couple issues that I’d like to note for future planning.
The advertised pace for the ride was average 1.5 w/kg. When I late joined a couple minutes in (from another ride), the main group including the yellow beacon were humming along at 2.3 and 2.5 w/kg. Riders were falling off the back quickly. I inquired politely about what the pace for the day was and beacon responded that it was 1.5 w/kg and that it was supposed to be a rubber-banded ride. There was definitely no banding (as confirmed by others). After about five minutes of dropping more people (some conceding that couldn’t hang on and would do their own thing), the yellow announced that she was easing to 1.5. Many riders elected to fly off ahead (fair enough), but by then many had been permanently lost off the back.
After that the main beacon group hovered around 1.7 - 1.9 on flats and 2.5 to 3.0 on little risers. About 25 minutes in, the yellow beacon started to push the pace again (2.3 on flats) and didn’t notice she was dropping the group until she was reminded twice by participants. I think she meant well but was both distracted in sharing her story and women’s history facts and maybe wasn’t very experienced in leading slower paced rides.
The experience led me to wonder two things for the future. One, can there be more than one cat next time? There are many women who welcome an opportunity to ride together but for whom the 1.5 w/kg pace is too slow and others for whom it is the ceiling (due to a multitude of factors). The second thing can their be orientation or support to ensure that ride leaders understand the remit of given pacing and have experience appropriate to the task?
Thanks!
Edit: On multiple cats, if the event can only use E pen, then perhaps a yellow beacon a higher pace and a red beacon at a slower pace?
I had a similar experience. Ride started at 1.5w/kg, but main blob with yellow beacon was quickly disappearing in the distance, leaving a large group behind.
Seconding this request. I think it’s awesome that there are so many cat D rides to support women who are new to cycling, but it’s a bit lacking in events for more experienced and stronger riders. One can only do so many recovery rides in a week! (And honestly I’d think about the message that having only cat D rides sends… we’re not all delicate noobs, here. )
Err… are all of the women’s celebration rides supposed to unlock the kit? I just completed the Rocacorba Collective group workout and didn’t get the usual end-of-ride kit unlock pop-up, nor is there a shiny new kit in my garage.
Hi @James_Zwift , thanks for looking into it. Just looking at the next upcoming event in the Companion app (Castelli Donne w/ Lena Meissner at 18:45 CET) I see that this one has a Castelli kit unlock, but nothing about the women’s celebration kit.
The " Celebrate Women on Zwift" email that was sent yesterday said "Join any of the rides or runs to unlock a sweet Women’s Celebration kit. " but this may have been a bit misleading if individual rides in the series have other kits instead…
Ah, that’s a bummer. The email refers multiple times to Women’s History Month and says nothing about the kit being specific to a particular day. Oh, well, maybe I’ll get lucky with another ride.
I wonder how many of the regular event organizers are women. I mean the people with privileges to create events. If it’s not many, that might be an avenue for improvement.
I think (and happy to be corrected) that the proportion of female event leaders/organisers is higher than the female proportion of female Zwifters. Either way, theres a good number of them.
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