Pack Dynamics 3.0 Update [October 2021]

Looking at w/kg on a flat road doesn’t tell you anything if you don’t know the riders weight.

I think this is the best thing Zwift has ever done. No more sticky draft. If someone starts dropping off the back of a group it’s a simple thing to go around them instead of needing to sprint to break the sticky draft. Moving up through a pack is easier and keeping pace with another rider in a pack is easier too. I’ve also found that if I do drop off the back a simple increase in power is all that is needed to get back on and a full sprint is usually not necessary. Hills are better too without sticky drafting.

There’s still weirdness about Zwift drafting but this is miles better than it was before.

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Yes, but, IRL you can put out as many watts as you like, but if you are at the back of a large peloton all that will accomplish is you getting yelled at assuming you don’t cause a crash.

I would suggest that allowing people that put out more watts to move up is OK, but move them to the side of the group and reduce their draft. Then allow them to move up.

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Ended up in a very small group in yesterday’s race. Definitely harder to stay on a wheel when the group size is 4 or less. Especially hard following 1 other person.

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Agreed, much better.

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Update after Thursdays WTRL

Night and Day difference to London. Similar team members and within a few kms 6 riders (one rider had a dropout)

Everything went well, gaps were not really a problem aside from the usual places to be careful. After 20mins we were down to 5riders then finished with 4 (one planned the other not planned tech issues) so 15 mins with 4 riders and it was okish- as bad as just having less recovery from pulls.

12secs short of Doppio CR which was done on Draft 1.0 Jan 21. (and 23 wins overall with the same bunch of guys in Cryo then NZBro)

So potential theories for bad London experience

1- London has alot of micro elevation changes within the gradient number (up and down less than a whole number) and that makes it harder to stay in a paceline/group

2- Point 1 meant that it punished lack of adaption of riding style, pedalling input, paceline formation.

Overall I am 100000% stoked on the new draft. @shooj if you add a iTT start for TTT I will love you long time :hugs::hugs::hugs:

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Maybe the graphs will do a better job of explaining than I am. Same ride (C. Cadence group, steady pace). Lap 1 is on the left, lap 2 is on the right. Same section of road, same distance, same average speed, but average power was 16w higher on lap 2. Unless they’ve added wind to Zwift, that seems odd to me. The only difference I can recall is that the bunch wasn’t packed as tightly on lap 1.

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It is VERY difficult to jump on to the pack of a passing group.

I haven’t decided if this is good or bad, just a note that it is very difficult.

Another thing I noticed yesterday - riding side by side with one other rider, both of us sat up as if we were in the draft. Of course this is impossible. I assume this is due to me being behind on my screen, them being behind on their screen, and us both getting a draft boost. This is probably why large packs continue to accelerate even if no-one is working.

Yeah that tallies with our experience. Perhaps a little harder at 2nd/3rd wheel but my women smashed the V-frappe record with a near-perfect ride (and fully legit team, no “almost-A” hiding in the Bs). The lighter riders especially appreciate the lack of stickiness.

My own team was crippled by tech issues but the ride was smooth. Just a bit tough with only 5. I think I find it easier sitting at the back now with the lack of bumping. It was actually this course back in Jan when a team-mate barged me off the back entirely by accident. He was drifting back slowly, I was just closing the gap and lost 5kph in an instant when we met. He might as well have put a stick in my wheel.

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If you’re at the back of the bunch, you don’t see this, it’s when you’re in the middle of a dense bunch with a good amount of churn, causing frequent changes in the nearest 100. I’ve experienced this on several rides since the PD3 update, not before. It’s not uncommon to see it in the Coco bunch, to varying degrees, nowadays.

Is it time to up the displayed riders past 100? At least on platforms that can support it. Perhaps based on the display setting. The higher the resolution the more other riders your system will display.

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It’s super annoying on Atv and almost seizure inducing …. More so if everyone is in the same kit. Have to ride further to the front to stop it.

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@Daren
Just coming back to your steering being activated despite you not enabling it. I’m curious: what happens when you do the following?

  • Start riding with the Sterzo Smart (SS) paired and with the steering icon showing in RH column.
  • Select Menu => Pairing => Unselect SS unit in steering => Return to game.
    Does the steering icon disappear from the RH column and is your avatar now behaving like other non-steerers in PD 3.0?

This worked for me when wanting to stop steering mid-ride but I’m running Zwift on an iPad and all connections via Bluetooth only.

I’ll try and remember to check next time I’m riding. But if I’ve started with Coco I can’t bring up the pairing screen without losing the group. :rofl:

Last time, I waited on the pairing start screen, noticed the steering wheel icon go blue and then unpaired it before starting to ride.

Doesn’t work on kickr-bike. Still have the wheel and weird behaviour, just without the possibility of steering. This is only via BT (but that’s my setup).

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In BT on the Kickr Bike there is no way to work around the glitch. I had to go to ANT+ which doesn’t have steering capability at all to get consistent PD3.0 behavior.

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I do the same, I have a Garmin ant+ USB adapter connected to my Mac. I have kickr bike and find steering implementation in Zwift to be useless. Using Ant+ means I don’t have to keep disabling it.

Also don’t trust the resistance using Bluetooth.

It is the 100-rider thing, yes, but has only been presenting like that since the PD3.0 release. It is nauseating if you’re not toward the front of the bunch.

Sorry - this is obviously not a 9yo! It’s logged in as my son and when I log out it comes back on as him. Need to clear the cookies…

Keep seeing quite noticeable drifting on my rides, both in and out of events. It’s as though my bike is pointing to the peak at the front of the draft, if that makes sense. So if I was off to the side, behind 10 others, my bike would be pointing every so slightly to the lead rider of those 10. It’s a bit distracting.

I don’t have steering in way, shape or form btw.

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