Is it me or are the pacer bots going quicker than their advertised w/kg pace?
I’ve been riding Zwift since the beginning so know what I’m doing, female, 62kg.
Rode with Coco at 2.4 w/kg but was having to put out 2.8 w/kg to 3 w/kg to stay in the pack then later with Maria at 2.1 w/g advertised pace I was having to do 2.4 - 2.5/2.6 w/kg to stay in the pack. I was riding an appropriate bike for the courses with no drop-outs.
What’s going on with the pacer bits?
The pacer bots weigh 75kg, so they would be pushing more power than someone who is 62kg at the same w/kg. On hills w/kg tends to approximate the effort you would need to keep up with a pacer, but on flat you would need to get a bit closer to their raw wattage to keep up.
So, in short, if you’re much lighter or much heavier than the pacer (at 75kg) then your w/kg will not be the same as the pacer on flats.
For Coco, I believe they are 2.6w/kg, so at 75kg they are riding at 195W.
It’s because the Robopacers are all 75kg. As a lighter rider you’ll have to put out more watts to ride with them.
Nothing going on with them, they are just pacer bots “of size” compared to the old days.
So you (like me) have to put much more watts/kg than others to stay with them or even to try and get near the front of the group.
Larger riders on the other hand can just stand on the pedals, punch 400 watts and rocket through the front, while us light folk have the sticky draft effect unless you have steering then you can steer around the group and get to the front a bit easier.
Being light is not so much of a problem, but the pace dynamics changes in big groups (100 riders or more) make it much harder for light riders.
Another change I would think will help is putting the robopacers on TT bikes. That will slow things down. The folk pushing the pace will easily drop the robopacer, so they might actually end up going with a robopacer group more suitable to their speed.
Thanks everyone. I think I understand what you’re saying in that I have to put out more w/kg than the advertised pace to keep up . So I’ve got to build up the watts.
Or put on a few more lbs which shouldn’t be too difficult over Christmas.
Hope you all have a great Christmas.
Well just putting on pounds will slow you down unless you get a corresponding power increase. The type of weight I put on over Xmas doesn’t tend to help my speed at all
More pounds as in muscle yes, but not through indulgence in lovely Christmas food.