Pack Dynamics 3.0 Update [October 2021]

Yes same here… often the avatar didn’t move into the draft… you were somewhere to the side and on 3rd or 4th position you still stay completly in the wind

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There’s testing above that shows steering affects it whether active or not. :+1:

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It was super grim. I got dropped while riding higher w/kg than my teammates. We were all on similar bikes and within 2 w/kg of each other. Pulls at 400 watts and I had to ride at least 330w to stay in the wheels. According to what ZI is saying, I should have been able to “recover” at about 290w but I was dropped like a rock before I got close to watts that low. Regardless, this PD 3.0 reduces the draft way too much. After reviewing our various videos, we suspect there was a bug that was affecting my avatar so I uninstalled, reinstalled and will give it another crack. I’ve never done an IRL or online TTT that was so hard that I cracked 13 minutes in.

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Earlier tonight I was riding with the C. Cadence crew. Around the Fuego Flats sprint, I got into a tight bunch and almost seemed to be getting squished against the right side of the road, and had to hold ~200w just to maintain my position. This went on for about 5 minutes. When the group thinned out a bit, I went off the front with just 150w, then back to ~2.5 w/kg for the rest of the ride… A few others in the group mentioned the same thing happened to them. Anyone else experiencing this?

I don’t have any steering devices, just a Wahoo Kickr Core and Climb connected with ANT+. No such problems when I rode with B. Brevet yesterday (smaller group).

@CouchTo1200K
FWIW, I saw the squishing at the start of last week’s Ride with Reggie Miller event with close to 3000 people in it. 90 seconds after the start and everyone was stretched out - no visual issues.

The squishing is an overspill of many avatars funneling onto a road of fixed width. We’re aware that it’s not a great visual experience in large events, and will work on it.

As for the power requirement to hold position? IRL racers fight to move forward before bottlenecks in the road. Not speaking for the game devs (i.e. my personal opinion) but having to put out more power to hold your position when many others are passing you (even if you’re in someone’s draft) seems reasonable, no?

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Was thinking about this yesterday while doing Seaside Sprint with about 50 A/B’s, in other words, a very large and very fast blob!

IRL if you are in a race of that size and at the back, you simply cannot move up through the middle. And (assuming there is road room) you need to move up along the sides. And while you do get a draft as you move along the sides it is less than what is available if you are in the middle.

It wasn’t so much that other riders were passing me - I had to hold higher w/kg than them just to maintain position/speed when the group was moving at a steady pace. Check out the sidebar on the right… I know it’s just a snapshot, but I and a few other riders are around 3 w/kg and most others are at or below 2.5 (and I’d been holding ~3.0 w/kg for over a minute at that point). In the same segment on the previous lap, I was able to maintain the same ~40 km/h with ~160w (2.1 w/kg) and my average power was 16w lower.

I’ll try to get a recording next time I ride.

That is a good point that you can’t simply plow through the middle of a peloton IRL, but since most of us aren’t doing our own steering on Zwift, I liked how the game used to let you move through the pack if you were putting out more watts. Riding through other riders wasn’t realistic, but neither is working harder than the rest of the group and not getting anywhere.

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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