I really need to get out of the saddle for a fair part of any ride, given back issues, and dead flat courses really don’t help with this.
More realistic coasting would be really helpful for this too. As it is now, if I miss a pedal stroke to adjust my shoes I get dropped or lose a bunch of speed if riding solo. Being able to stand up and coast for 10-20 seconds like you can irl would make long rides on flat routes much more tolerable.
I’m very disappointed to read that dynamic pacing is here to stay. I rotate around the A, B and C bots and the higher paced bots have never been so surgy. It is like riding on a group ride with a very poor ride lead. I could be wrong but I suspect that many people ride with the bots in order to experience a fairly consistent ride. As cyclists train by power and not speed, riding at a consistent wattage is what I am looking for. There are plenty of badly run group rides on Zwift I can join if I want something else.
The best option would have been to make ALL the pace bots 75kg, 175 cm tall riding at a constant power.
Just don’t see the harm in also having a Clare Constant, Abe Allthetime and other [more] clever puns signifying static power PPs.
They don’t have to take the place of dynamic PPs, but complement them.
I’m still not sure why there is 5 pace partners at 2.5 and below and then limited amount above that…
Just put them at even increments up to 4 or 4.5wkg… it’s not like it wastes resource if only 2 people ride with super powered bot…
You found the issue, James can’t think of any more clever names 
… Evelyn Even, Candice Consistent;-)
Without a shadow of doubt Dynamic Pace Partners have been the single greatest edition to Zwift. Full stop.
Like you said James they’re like a group ride whenever suits you… pick a w/kg that suits your objective - recovery, endurance, tempo, full gas. (Provided you log a legitimate weight in your profile of course haha).
I love the fact that they’re as social as you want them to be, also no one gets butt hurt if you want to “fly” off the front for an effort or two, or simply like to smash it up KOMs and then sit back into the bunch. Wahoo Kickr Bike and PP go hand in hand. The perfect combo.
It really is just like a real bunch ride. I find the “static” nature of the group rides annoying - to me they’re better suited for organised group workouts/organised efforts. Team 3R do this VERY well in my humble opinion with their Spark, Octane, and Volt rides.
My only real request which appears to have been hinted as being addressed to is option of ‘flat’ or ‘hilly’ rides for each PP. Also when Makuri Island is not on rotation as a world the missing PP - Bernadette etc… are missed. I like options.
Thanks James and the Zwift team. I LOVE how much focus Pace Partners are getting… so good. Keep it up!
Thanks from me, Troy, a Sydney Australia Zwifter
… it’s because there a limited number of bots and the power distribution matches the bell curve for Pace Partner users.
Had you said Bell curve of zwift users I think you might have been onto something.
Bell curve of PP users is flawed as there has never been a consistent number of bots between 2.5 & 4 - It has always been limited the further up the scale. Also the bell curve would suggest it should be limited the further down the scale you go but the density of bots to users seems to increase as you get lower.
Going back to the original thought, TrainerRoad did a load of work with their data to look at the bell curve of cyclists and I think from memory most riders fell between 2.5 & 3wkg. Now if you take the thought that PP are there to support both Z2 rides and hard efforts (and everything in between) then there should be additional bots above that range to meet the demand.
But that’s just my simple logic.
Can the zone in which you join and stay in the pace partner group be time based rather than a fixed distance? at the moment its quite easy to drop out of the larger groups when cresting a climb if you’re at the limit of the range and start to accelerate down the climb while the PP is still crawling up the slope. e.g instead of 50m it could be 10 seconds.
Some graphic to indicate the PP fence/zone would be useful as well, specifically in the big groups, currently the bottom of the screen is a mess with all the rider markers and power overlay.
Also another vote for having a choice of hilly or flat pace partner at the different power levels.
I’m going to do this anyway.
It’s not a fixed distance, it varies depending on the size of the group.
I rode with Brevet, Charlie and Bernadette today. Great fun. The only downside is Charlie and Bernie were unpopular so there was no taking advantage of drafts with just three of us. Bernadette had more until the Castle climb when several were dropped.
The virtual fence is also a bit aggressive, kicking in around 10m for some. When I want to push harder (like Zwift KOM) I was reined in by the fear of losing multipliers.
But all in all I really like those three pacers.
I guess they are less chatty than live group leaders and also people don’t tend to respond to them when they do chat. And without a clear live leader and camaraderie pace groups tend to be less friendly overall. Doesn’t really bother me but e.g. on joining or leaving I say some pleasantries and just get silence back.
One nice thing is the 5 thumbs from the companion’s circle. I wish we had that in regular group events. I make quite an effort to throw out thumbs like Oprah in events and it’s painful.
Hi James, I just want to plead for the third or fourth time to keep dynamic pacing for the lower pace bots, but remove it for those 3.0 and above.
The reason, which seems obvious to me, is that the even without dynamic pacing, the delta between effective power required to follow on flats and in the draft versus going up hills gets larger as the pace increases as a result of the very realistic draft algorithm (seriously, I love it!).
Adding dynamic pacing to the 3.0, 3.2, 3.8, or 4.2 bots basically supercharges this already large delta and turns all of those pace partner rides into interval workouts unless they are on a flat route.
I really hope you will consider this feedback from someone who uses the faster bots and I hope others who do so will chime in as well.
Thanks!
There just needs to be an even spread of bots - so the jumps are not so big..
Mike posted up the wattages in another thread, and there is jump from 160 to 260 watts in Watopia at present. That’s a huge discrepancy.
Steady incremental steps is required, but it appears they don’t want to provide that.
I totally agree with Bryce. It is the A and B pace partners where dynamic pacing is causing a problem. I am also seeing riders peeling off at hills as the 3.8 w/kg B ride they were expecting turns into a 4.2 w/kg group A ride with Bernadette for example.
Zwift has made a total mess of all pace partners since start of testing yes some changes are good they are not willing to listen to criticism and this is a polite post as same as I posted before this week horrendous partners either to fast to slow and not enough mix of flat routes last few weeks zwift and we are paying for this it’s a mess and setting pace partners on routes to suit peoples challenges or badge hunts Is a joke enough said lol there’s also not enough good routes for steady endurance rides like tick tock sas tempus fugit rgv douce france on a c at 2.6 to 3.0 cadence is basically non existent nowadays it’s either a b or ddddd this week
Thank you
I do feel a little bit sorry for James. For years we had 4 true pace partners. They weren’t perfect, but they ground their way around Watopia at a constant wattage and we all got used to them. These have been taken away from us and replaced with dynamically paced always on group rides. People never react well when they had something they used and appreciated and it is taken away from them. If we had never had pace partners in the first place we would probably not feel so strongly about their loss and poor old James would not but on the wrong end of some strong emotions.
To be fair, James made all the changes (except Coco when she first started using dynamic pacing).
My end goal of these tests is to come up with a list of 8 of the most popular routes. Ill likely have 6 flat, 2 hilly and rotate 8 pace partners through those.
I think dynamic pacing is a solid improvement but know that this does not work for those who just want to hold the same pace forever and a day. Im afraid for those, we wont be removing dynamic pacing but there are other alternatives (free rides, workouts, group rides, etc).
