What is it about descents that makes you nervous? I was able to coast down titans without losing any position - 36 seconds of zero watts.
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I was in the C race, I had steering and it felt like cheating. I could gap the field by pushing a little bit and diving into the corner. The decent down titans grove seemed like I could get a gap at will. I backed off a bit with the steering because it just didnāt seem fair. As it was of the 7 that crested the hill together there were only three of us together at the bottom of the hill. I am not a heavy guy so it was the steering or the PD 4.1.
The pack dynamics seemed much better. No churn at the front of the pack. The whole pack seemed more stable.
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hard to put my finger on it really. i donāt think itās āoffā or anything, just different. skill issue maybe
edit: i donāt use steering, and i usually like to just kick over little gradients (which means iām usually first up them, i guess the irl equivalent would be sag climbing) and then slot back in to the rear of the groupā¦ but i had to make a couple extra efforts to do that here. i could probably have ridden them a bit less aggressively and had an easier time. maybe thatās it
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Yes!
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I think 25kg also makes some difference on how the descents fellā¦i also never had any issues at 80kg.
I could coast with 0W or really soft pedal under 100W to stay with the group.
I hope to catch the Test Race today.
I was in the breakaway for the cat B race. We did get a small 15s gap but got caught (didnāt notice how hard the peloton was working or not). The rest of the time if within a group all seem normal although the group may have been a little slower (compared with May 23rd it took 3 minutes longer and the speed was almost 2 km/h down). So I guess this was a success because it felt normal and the PD 4.1 are doing is thing as supposed.
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Yes we are aware of the issues with steering and working on improvements at the moment. Iām not directly working on it but Iām trying to follow the process and relaying this kind of feedback.
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with steering become quite widespread now but with no ability for many to steer (literally many people cannot even purchase Play controllers), auto-steer needs an improvement where if you are auto-steer and a rider in front of you (steering or not) is moving such that draft is diminishing and there is space available in a lane next to you where the draft would be better then you shift into the lane to follow them and stay in the draft.
Itās objectively silly to be in autosteer in a small group, and the steering person just slams it to the side while your avatar eats wind. Of course itās a game but it is currently the least realistic thing in the game I can think of. No rider would eat wind when they could just move over to draft.
(the current situation is served with the analogy that a steering rider effectively has a burrito powerup at all times when racing autosteer riders - you wouldnāt just hand out burrito powerup full time though, would you?)
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With no collision detection and general smoothing of steering for position, this is horrible. In fact itās worse than that, I canāt unhurt my eyes.
Iām all for steering as a concept but this is justā¦ well. Itās not good.
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Iāve definitely bumped into people and been prevented from steering through other riders so there is some sort of collision detection happening. Itās just not very big and probably needs to be expanded a bit.
From that video with 4 riders all occupying exactly the same space and riders swerving directly through eachother, Iād say it needs to be expanded a lot.
This topic should be about Pack Dynamics 4.1. I know steering is somewhat related but itās a separate problem in this case, so I suggest opening up a new topic instead.
(Also, just out of curiosity, I was given a version to test a few hours ago that should solve or at least improve the problem we see in that video)
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Just completed the Titans Grove B test race. The field was about 22 riders to start. The race was far more dynamic than most races. There were a number of attacks and eventually a break away of one with two riders bridging up before the finish. The rest of the field broke up as well. I donāt know that the breakaway would have succeeded without the new pack dynamics. It had a more realistic race feel to it overall.
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I rode the same race but only lasted the one lap (the field broke apart on the flats after the end of Titanās Grove on the first lap. I donāt know if they formed up again during the second lap).
The two things that stood out for me were:
- Hanging out at the back of the pack isnāt as easy as it used to be. I felt the best place to draft was just behind the leaders.
- There seemed to be no penalty for being on the front of the pack. The riders at the front and those behind them seemed to be riding very similar w/kg. I usually avoid the front at all costs but a couple of times I found myself rolling out the front doing less than 3w/kg and not getting passed immediately which was a very different experience previous PD versions. If someone told me that PD 4.1 was just PD 3 but with the draft reduced by half Iād believe them.
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@DavidP i did the Test Race yesterday at 17:30UTC and it was so much funā¦very dynamic racing with breakaway going all the way. I havenāt had any trouble moving up the Groupā¦i had to put in the effort to move up but it was similar to outside when you want to pass riders. On the front i was breaked just in time not to pass the Leading rider in Groupā¦i think this version is ready to be used in races for community organizers.
Here are a few of the things i really likedā¦in Lap 1 we had a break straight from the Start and we brought it back in the middle of the desert (we had to pull hard)ā¦just before the exit from the Desert we had a second break that made it to the finish.
I could bridge (15s) to the brake just after the Titans KOM ā¦please check the decent from the KOM and how i pulled away from the Group this wouldnāt be possible in any of previous versions.
Lap 2 i pulled really hard on the Flats and helped the break to get 25s gap and 1 rider made it to the finish before the Peleton.
Very excited to do more races with this version.
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Good to read that feedback!
Well from our part, any event organizer that wishes to start using it, is free to do so, just needs to request the specific event configuration.
We just want it to be clear for the riders participating (either in event title or well highlighted in the description) that this new version is being used, so they can expect something different and also potentially provide feedback on things that need adjustment.
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Raised in a separate thread.
I was thinking earlier today, has there been any testing of 4.1 in group rides?
Racing is on thing but if 4.1 leads to group rides being more prone to shelling riders out the back (which is the main takeaway I had from my one race) then it might be less than ideal.
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No, so far it hasnāt been tested in group rides. But it will be.
I donāt see why is that the case, unless someone is attacking in group rides and making the speeds higher than they should. Which in theory shouldnāt happen if the goal is to keep a steady pace.
If group rides turned on the option to keep riders together, as used for group workouts, it will solve any PD issue and also have the positive effect of stopping people turning group rides into races. 