We aren’t forcing PD4 on anyone, so if the organizer didn’t request it, it means it’s not using.
You can check using the tag link: The at Home Cycling & Running Virtual Training App
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We also don’t have a goal that every race needs to end with a breakaway selection.
The main goal is really to end the “super efficient packs” that prevent any will of trying to attack.
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Thanks. You perfectly said everything.
I like the longer races in Zwift as they do this. For exemple sundays, the cyclosportive by foudre is made to do this job : selective courses with small ascents doing this and long enough to have the time for breakaways to stick, then the bunch might get working, and sometimes the breakaway succeeds and sometimes not… Also it is all categories together, which helps to have these race dynamics with some people really above and others like me really needing the pack cooperation or cooperation in a breakaway to have any chance.
Exactly, and this is true in PD3 as well in these kinds of races. While the autobraking of PD4 undoubtedly helps breakaways in many instances, it makes little difference in others, and in these cases, the doubledraft of PD4 then makes it easier to latch on to efforts off the front.
This makes it harder to soften the opposition and break the elastic in the first place, which again incentivises less efforts off the front, as breakaway attempts require more energy relative to staying put and quickly shutting attempts down.
While it is indeed difficult to predict how this will play out over the long run in different race types/situations and at different levels of racing, it seems to me that there are indications already that the ease/difficulty of actually purposefully breaking away off the front in high level team races is one aspect that should at least be kept an eye on, when PD4 goes live for everyone.
Looking forward to it!
We also don’t have a goal that every race needs to end with a breakaway selection.
The main goal is really to end the “super efficient packs” that prevent any will of trying to attack.
I think this is it in a nutshell. PD4 consists of two primary changes: autobraking and doubledraft.
Autobraking has been designed to primarily help breakaways in larger and previously “super efficient packs” churning mindlessly, but as the effect of autobraking is much less in smaller groups and/or with more organized riding, the doubledraft of PD4 has a much larger relative effect in these instances, which tends towards actually hurting the establishment of breakaways.
In short, PD4 appears to help breakaways under some specific circumstances, while it could hurt breakaways under other specific circumstances. This might turn out to work well in practice across the entire circumstance spectrum, but it’s at least something to be aware of.
Please join us as we are using Pack Dynamics 4 now in our VirtuSlo 4Endurance Race at 17:00UTC / 18:00CET. This week London Pretzel Route (56.2km)…looking forward to Box and Fox Hill ascent/descent 
Steering is allowed
PD4 was turned on for that event.
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The goal should never be to mimic real life as closely as possible, because in real life sub 1 hour races are always complete smash fests. The goal should almost be to mimic the dynamics of a 5 hour classics race - where there is great balance between the possibility of a solo attack, a small group breakaway, or a sprint finish, influenced by the parcours and the will of the riders.
Key elements for this are that the pack doesn’t travel at ridiculous speeds without any concerted effort, but also that you go easy enough in a pack to have a decision to make. Chasing reality is the wrong approach, chasing balance is key.
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The Boxing Day Blast … I can see it now 
are Tour of Watopia events using PD4?
if not - what are they using?
if i take the front for 1 second, i get launched to the back and need to put in a dig to not get booted straight out the back (which is kinda like IRL i guess?)
feels kinda weird to have to burn a match tho when my only mistake was to casually drift to the front 
They are not. Just the regular pack dynamics v3 that is the standard for more than 1 year.
Yes. I agree that chasing reality will not give the best racing in Zwift. What I would like to see close to reality, is the experience of riding in a pack. Front, middle and back. That means the forces applied to the riders must feel natural. They don’t have to be the same as IRL. E.g. the draft effect could be lower than IRL, but it must be lower by a factor both in the front, middle, back and also 10m behind the back of the pack. That will make sure it feels natural.
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Imo sub 1 hour should be the slower grades. The higher grades should race for longer, especially A grade.
I too like the idea of very big races over a couple of hours to mimic the real world events, even the bigger club races or in my country the state events.
These races give a bit more of that balance and it might well be that the bigger rider can’t always just wait till the end and use their sprint.
@DavidP today we had VirtuSlo 4Endurance Steady Ride using PD4 and i got report from 2.0Wkg Group that they did 1.5km less than in previous rides. I was leading 2.5Wkg ride and i also noticed that we did 61km and 14days ago we had 61.7km…0.7km. The Group numbers were pretty similar.
I can say you are making progress of slowing the Pack.
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Totally agree.
I was just off on a tangent 
I rode on Zwift this morning. I took careful notice of a large pack vs myself solo ratio.
Me 3.4w/kg ish
Large pack, pace partner 2.4w/kg ish
Nobody doing the same sustained w/kg as myself.
Result. Basically the same velocity.
This inflated pack speed is absolutely the no.1 issue. I’m very glad you’re focusing on it. From what I’ve seen so far, it seems PD4 should help addressing this issue. I imagine it’s still going to need further iteration as the speed reductions others are posting don’t seem quite aggressive enough.
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Did the Rhino Safari race this morning (Div 4 - mid/upper C) on Tire Bouchon (40km). Was in the lead pack of about 10 riders and we needed to make consistent efforts to ensure the 2 chasing riders didn’t catch us. Added a great dimension that PD3 doesn’t have.
After reading most of this forum, watching numerous posted videos and doing 3 races, I think PD4 is ready to go out with the next update.
Most importantly, thanks to the Zwift team for all the hard work to improve PD so much!
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i did a 100km PDv4 race today with 4 ascents of Volcano Climb…it felt really good without any issues.
Descending felt natural…i was able to rest with 0W many times in the draft.
I agree it fells ready to go out with the next update.
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Zwift Hacks does show you when you open the event.
You can search via the Rules tab in Search. Click on
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Did the zone 2 Tiny Races yesterday, still trying to acclimatise to C and I felt a bit under the weather, despite the previous two days being very easy.
Very briefly saw a flicker of red within my numbers in race 1, trying to hold position around middle of lead ~50+ pack was ok (roughly ~4th row), but trying to hold or improve position when at back of big pack perhaps felt harder than I’m used to with PD3.
Not quite sure what happened race 1, maybe it was just my lack of energy, but I was suddenly spat out the back of the lead group just before the longest descent on lap2 even with the anvil… Went from being very near the lead pack front to having to fight hard to finish in the top 50.
But as a very low C, even “relaxing” to hold position towards the group front is a threshold effort in these mad races.
Did you use the 2nd and 3rd anvils in succession? In order to not get dropped you hit the anvil just before the banner on the Clyde kicker and then again for the steeper descent with the one you were awarded through the banner 