I think it isn’t the gap or jump between AA and Bowie, but rather people don’t like riding in the jungle. When AA started doing different routes with no jungle sections, more people joined, even with Epic KOM on the route.
Some of the AA routes involve riding in the jungle, it’s slow and not enjoyable. I prefer riding alone up Alpe or Ventop to that. (2x Alpe for instance).
I know with my own IRL Cervelo S5 2020 that riding on gravel and dirt with it isn’t that slow…
If you had AA riding on Tick-Tock or Tempus Fugit or at least a second A bot riding flat loops you can bet it would be extremely popular with people wanting to try and smash themselves on the flat, or, as it has been suggested get easy/fast kilometres. I think there is a resentment by some that Pace Partners make it too easy to go fast or get easy kilometres.
Please see my reply just above. Alternative options to have fast bots (A and B) that also ride on Tempus or Tick Tock.
This might also break up the massive C.Cadence group to a more sensible size.
This happened before and it was a disaster and was abandoned. The C bunch being so large and fast rode away from the C pace partner and had to slow to 1.5w/kg.
Maybe C.Cadence could ride through the jungle a lot more to keep the speeds of that group down?