Honest question:
Do you think that the Makuri 40 route is the best option for this race test?
That climb right at the start will destroy the pack.
Don´t you think that a flattish route (at least in the first part) would be better?
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A quick request, next time you do it, could you not use the Tron bike? Just to see the rider sit up or go down on the hoods etc
Thanks for the videos…
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That’s a fair point - if it ‘felt’ ok that is much more important that how it looks on the video. Maybe you would only have needed to pick the power up slightly to be able to move forward. I will reserve judgement!
Will do. Pretty sure i was in the draft most of the time from running sauce i could see figures.
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do you trust Sause in giving you the correct data, it is a hacked 3party app. 
it’s displaying the numbers directly from the data stream…
Thinking about it more and following Gordon’s comments, it doesn’t matter if there is autobraking in these scenarios - as long as the rider can add a little power to overcome it if they want.
Lol. The Sauce figures are more accurate than what you see on the GUI.
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I did enter the 19H00 one, but I;m also beginning to wonder if its worth it given the problems mentioned above and it seems to have attracted a really strong field putting my 3.7 at 4th from the bottom so with the start on Makuri 40 I’ll probably end up testing PD in a 40K ITT.
Just me who thinks the flickering red numbers looks daft and annoying? It needs some tolerance or smoothing. Appreciate it’s the first attempt of course.
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I’d agree with you although i would suggest holding judgement until you try it. I don’t think many riders stare at their power during a ride I barely noticed it without consciously trying to look for it.
It’s much more obvious to me now on reviewing the stream post ride than what I noticed during the ride.
Maybe what we need is a customisable hud to turn off/on such things;)
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Good luck 
I can see both sides to this one.
As someone who is probably going to be one of the first people dropped on Makuri 40 my first thought was it was a good choice. There are 3 obvious places in Makuri 40 that the pack will split (including immediately), but if it splits on the first hill then riders will likely get swept up in the next cat a minute later since all cats are visible. Then a couple of riders of the upper cat later can see if they can work together to make a successful getaway from that group later on with the new pack dynamics.
If it was a mostly flat race you would be more likely to have one blob for most of the race and not as much splitting and recomposing the group… So there would be less opportunities to see if breakaways feel different in PD4.
On the other hand it would also be good to see how PD4 behaves in a mostly flat race - how many people does it take to really break free from the main blob on a flat race with PD4? Could a few really coordinated players put a ton of effort in and truly break free from the pack?
Anyhow, either way I’m fully expecting to be dropped at least once if not multiple times on Makuri 40 
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I think I can make it out of that first climb okay, if I want to burn half a book of matches early on. But the ‘Foo Dog Climb’? Or the climb back to the countryside? I’ll be using the ‘Wave’ button a couple times there 
Bet I’ll be dropped before you 
. Any way I didn’t know all cats were visible so at least I can ride with some C’s when I’m dropped from B.
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I don’t like the red numbers, it’s like psychological warfare, I see the red and it gives me an excuse as to why I’m struggling. 
I have enough excuses already.
But seriously, it felt very hard to get back into the group if you fall to the back. I would get within 2 m and get autobraked and couldnt get back into the draft. It seemed harder for sure.
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First impressions from the test event: Downgrade me to C now, plz. (I’m mid-B atm)
I did 38 minutes @ 100% FTP, just trying to hang on to the pack… Did set new 30min, 40min and 50min power records, though.
Seriously, the drafting is definitely different. Seems to me that the draft is capped, i.e. you get the same draft regardless of whether you have 1 rider in front of you or 20. You can’t rest at the back of the pack anymore. I understand this has been done to make it easier for a small group to pull away from the pack (by making it harder for riders 4,5,6 etc to hang on), but I think it’s gone too far.
The drafting system would wreak havoc on TTTs, when the 8th rider has to pedal just as hard as the 2nd…
Seriously, the drafting is definitely different.
It’s not. Drafting was not touched.
I reviewed the events this morning and definitely there are a few things to re-think and consider.
The speed is still too high. That is mainly for two reasons:
-
double draft - that’s my fault. I was the one who pushed to keep using double draft, because in theory that’s what creates easier draft, but because of the higher speed it appears to cause the inverse effect. For a subsequent round of tests we will be turning double draft off.
-
riders mindset - because with the previous system (PDv3) moving to the front of the group is much easier, with the current system that makes positioning harder, there is a constant “panic” to move to the front and push. This causes a sort of feedback loop, making the speeds higher and any relevant breakaway attempts harder. That’s not the intended behaviour so something to re-think and try to tweak in a new round of test events.
The average power of the races was higher than usual for the type of course and duration so that’s clearly a sign.
just some observations, no value judgement.
The drafting might not have been touched but the way you need to modulate your power to use the draft is most definitely different. Dropping power below the pack average is definitely penalised more and staying with a group seems to require a much more constant power output.
The ‘auto brake’ seems a bit random and kept catapulting me to the back without me really understanding why it happened, which is kinda frustrating. Some explanation would be welcomed.
Resulting wkg/power distribution within a pack is much more condensed, very little outliers. Very low variability factors also.
Somehow, it also appears that (due to whatever factor that changed) the impact of wkg on speed is lower? I’ve noticed a much tighter (negative) correlation between weight and wkg in the final results.
‘Draft skills’ (at least the way I was able to benefit from them before) are definitely much less beneficial now… I’d easily be able to go below 0.3-0.5 wkg below the pack average (at 75kg)… but now I didn’t manage to get much less than the average.
Based on a one man - one time experiment, it appeared to me that it was easier to stay ahead of a pack when consistently pushing a higher wkg. That is… i was able to get and grow a gap while pushing 4.5 wkg, given nobody in the pack was pushing higher than 4wkg. Definitely felt different from the existing dynamics, where you’d easily get caught even when nobody in the pack pushed above 3.5wkg, because of the ‘overshooting effect’.
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Negative gradient, back of a small pack, telling me to chase the group yet auto braking me. 