An extra category would be ideal. You don’t want too many bots as that would limit the amount of riders in each group. I think the 4 rides now + a cat E like MRBaldi_T-ZHR suggested is the best way forward
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0.5w/kg increments from 1.0w/kg would be great.
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Another survey/crash exit fail here. Went to join a bot for a cruise but none suitable, so entered some group workout (Escalation) while free riding. Swapped over to France, did workout, completed survey, went to save/exit but it crashed out without saving. Corrupt entry on CA and fit file needed repairing and manual upload to Strava. WIN10 PC. Call out if you need log file team Zwift.
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if the bit isn’t at a speed within its range that you like, it’s a real pian having to logout to log back in for an alternative ride
Agree. There needs to be some in-ride modifications that allow you to jump over to a bot after warming up without having to back out of the app entirely. And how about having all bots up and running at once, or at least post a schedule when certain bots are running. And, the maintenance schedule is smack-dab in the middle of many people’s workout window, so I hope this will also be looked at.
Okay, end of rant.
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I spent some time riding with Diesel Dan and didn’t find anything compelling about this feature:
- As others have mentioned, I found the inane and incessant bot chatting to be pointless
- I didn’t find the routes the Pace Partners were riding all that interesting
- These bots seem to take a lot of breaks, I couldn’t reasonable predict when a Pace Partner would be available
Pace Partners are nothing like the experience of a good group ride and offer little to no training benefit I couldn’t get on my own. I’d rather see Zwift invest development bandwidth in other features- in my mind the best ‘pace partner’ would be my best previous effort - or faster.
rode with bowie brevet today. couple more observations:
- bowie was going 3.4 w/kg, which is a bit faster than i can reasonably hold on, but i wanted to give it a shot anyway
- i was the only one with him, so i had to stay pretty tight against him to get his draft
- bowie takes a pretty tight “racing” line around the turns, and my “auto-turn” line was not sticking with him very well – i lost distance to him on most turns and then had to surge to stay in his draft
it seems like having the bot take a tighter line is a little weird – unless i was on a sterzo, it was really hard to stay with him without a group to help with the draft.
also, i’ve had two “failed” attempts to join the pacer bot now: i click ride with, choose the bot, and then i end up on the course but not with the bot. so i have to quit out and try again. definitely want that “don’t have to restart the app to do a different ride” feature now!
You should keep the downtime as low as possible. I typically ride at a certain time of the day, and they are never available at that time. Don’t have downtime just for the sake of having downtime … unless you are messing around with their programming, or something similar, just keep them on 24/7 or as close to 24/7 as you can.
4 Likes
Had the same thing with a bot but I’ve seen this on most rides/races in most maps since the last update - it’s most prominent in any tighter turns/corners but I find I can fall out of a draft in the middle of 200 group quite easily just maintaining the group’s pace. I do wonder if this is more related to adjustments made for steering 
I agree I usually ride last afternoon in London.
I logged into to find dan only doing 1.4 W/kg, so as I didn’t have to log all the way out and back in again. ( relatively quick on an iPhone but takes ages n Mac OS laptop)I stayed with it to use as a warm up, after 10 minutes Dan went home at 16.30.
seems Dan is too shy to ride with people finishing work in Western Europe.
on a iPhone the survey comments are white on where ( also when saving rides) not too easy to see what you’ve (mis) typed.
Another failed attempt to join a bot. Selected Diesel Dan from the startup screen, clicked Next and found myself on Tempus Fugit start area with no bot around. I used Fan View on the companion app to see DD riding elsewhere on Watopia.
Hi,
I really like this feature, and would definitely use it if available outside of FutureWorks. I have a couple of comments/suggestions. Note: I am an enthusiastic cyclist, and love the options I get from adding Zwift to my riding and training, but I am still about a 2.0 w/kg rider.
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Diesel Dan’s pace is a touch slow. I have ridden when he is at 1.4 and 1.5, but I found that I, and many of the blob that surround him, shoot off the front on any kind of incline, or when the group starts to get going. I understand that there will be different ability riders, but it is not clear (in the UI and in your description here) when ‘he’ will be riding in the upper part of the range so the pacing is closer to my needs. I hope I am not missing something.
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While I understand the objective, the chat material is a little pointless, and after an hour perhaps a little irritating. Especially when he says ‘let’s go!’ and keeps plodding at 1.4 w/kg
. Perhaps some interaction with the Bot might be interesting. e.g If more than one person asks for an increase or decrease in pace, he slows down or speeds up for a set period?
Otherwise, I can really see this being a nice feature to use when you can’t find an activity/group ride you want to join, but don’t want to grind away alone.
Thanks and keep up the amazing work at Zwift and FutureWorks!
Simon
Gaborone, Botswana.
3 Likes
As a slowpoke, I’ve done three rides w/Diesel Dan and I do like this feature. At 1.5w/kg he is a little slow, but I was more easily able to find someone to ride along with at a slightly higher pace because of his presence.
I do think there needs to be one more bot between Diesel (assuming he rides around 1.5w/kg) and Coco. If Diesel averages between 1.5w/kg and 2.4w/kg, that’s around 60% difference between the low end and the high end. Lots of us slow folks will not be able to cover that entire range. Coco, in contrast, only has a 24% difference between the low and high.
I would keep Diesel at 1.5w/kg as a sort of social ride pacer, and stick an additional bot at 2.0w/kg to help newbies bridge the gap between Diesel and Coco.
Also, I would like maybe a full 10 seconds before the “pedal assist” stops; right now it’s a bit too short.
5 Likes
Hi
Enjoying the bots, good addition.
I think it would help if the bot you were riding with had a beacon like when in a group ride
2 hour ride with Coco and because there was a largish group, day 60, we managed to drop the bot. I handnt realised
I could see the comments from the bot on the right hand side, but not their position as it was off screen
Obvs someone might say “why don’t you just stick to the pace”… For me the big plus of not feature is that it is like a group ride but without whinging about flyers, always having to stick to beacons pace. Ie I can do mini intervals to stop getting bored
Thanks for listening
Andy
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Anyone worked out how the pace partner w/kg works for any given ride ? That is, short of logging in and using fanview, is there any way to know what pace a given pace partner will be doing before you join them ? I rode with CoCo a few days ago at a steady 2.5 w/kg (less than 2.3 w/kg avg for me) which is slower than I’d prefer on the flat Tempus Fugit course but I saw someone post that when they rode with CoCo, it was a 3.0 w/kg pace.
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Nope, its lucky dip. Would be great to have a wider range of Bots, on all the time, with the ride w/kg published as part of name.
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Couldn’t you just look them up on the Companion app? If they’re riding, it’ll show their current stats.
Would be great to have a wider range of Bots, on all the time, with the ride w/kg published as part of name.
If Zwift are looking for feedback about how to improve the Pace Partners (without going down the road of each user being able to individually program a bot to specification), how about the following:
- have about 10 bots running all the time on various Watopia routes
- all the same weight, height, etc., so that their speed is predictable based on their power output
- name them whatever, but as @_Dean suggests, embed their power output into their names (and here, I have to say that I’d prefer just seeing raw wattage rather than w/kg), so…
– for example, 75w Diesel Dan or maybe Diesel Dan [75w] - have bots at increments of 25w or so–for example:
– 75w, 100w, 125w, 150w, 175w, 200w, 225w, 250w, 275w, 300w - this way, the user who really wants to use the bots as Pace Partners can select one that is very close to the power output the user wants
Whatever happens with Pace Partners, it would still be great if Zwift built (perhaps into the workout/training pane) a personal, programmable bot. Currently I can choose a workout, select specific zones, wattages, cadence, etc. How great it would be if in the workout pane, I had a “workout bot,” whose power output I could custom select–and if I wanted, I could select “PR mode,” so that the bot rode at my PR pace for whatever course I’d selected. Just as in current workouts, where other users can see that I’m in a workout, but they can’t see my segment banners, etc… so, other users also wouldn’t be able to see the “workout bot” that I’m following on course; that way it wouldn’t clutter other users’ experience.
6 Likes