Maybe I’m getting hold of the wrong end of the stick here. Isn’t being able to position yourself effectively within a group with minimum energy expenditure one of the skills of successful racing? This sounds like the minute you start to soft-pedal, the auto-brake will kick-in and you’ll start to drift back requiring another spike in power to stay in the group and/or move back up? That sounds a bit like the definition of yo-yoing?
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This sounds like the minute you start to soft-pedal, the auto-brake will kick-in and you’ll start to drift back requiring another spike in power to stay in the group and/or move back up?
No, you will only be slowed if the draft is very high and you are speeding up. Remember all these calculations are updated dozens of times per second.
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I’m a bit confused by this one, but will hold fire until I see it play out in an event
Would auto brake be applied to maintain pack speed? I could envision an issue where you’re in a coordinated attack with some teammates, everyone attacks together, and all but one ease off and stay in the new pack draft as the gap grows. In effect, you’d be accelerating, but lowering power from that initial attack. If brakes are just there to maintain pack speed, then this would still work.
Please just add more trial races and we will valuate it. As i said a big leap forward from 4.0. If you can adress the autobreaking issue that happens without reasons in pack sometimes and look over the downhill experience i think it will be great. People just sucking wheel in the back of peleton are in for a treat… 
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Like @gloscherrybomb, I’m a bit confused too.
Looking at the Category B Wkg numbers from todays event and now i know why the speed was so high. 3 Riders averaged 5wkg / 5min … average for 5mins was 4.5Wkg. Average for 20mins was 3.8Wkg.
The breakaway has no chance with this kind of racing…the breakaway will happen when everyone is relaxing but that is not happening in a 40min race.
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My experience was the following:
- more effort needed to stay in the pack
- very hard to resume if dropped
- stop paddling for 1-2 sec not possible after return to the pack from behind
- more attention needed not to get dropped
- pack less nervous
- unclear draft behind one rider
- min +130 watt needed to escape
- cannot confirm it’s more realistic yet
I think this is fairly salient point, and its how everything always links together - If riders are riding at the top end of category boundaries now, to force a breakaway will involve fairly heft efforts which could impact overall speed and make rides quicker as well as having a knock on effect of rider upgrades in CE. Fix one issue, create another.
My initial feeling is (and im prepared to be wrong), zwift riders dont want to ride at the effort to create a breakaway - If the front of a B pack is riding at 3.8-4wkg for 10mins - To breakaway from that as a solo rider or small group is going to need a huge effort - 4,5wkg? until the group lets them go, if they let them go at all.
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After watching my stream again i notice that a couple of times all draft disapears in the middle of pack.
Also it look strange to have such a low draft in the back of the group. This are my biggest concern so far. Font really know about the downhill issue. Is it because of autobreaking?
Hi James, I also streamed it, such I did in crit city : Zwift - Test du pack dynamic 4.2 de Zwift sur Watopia Waistband - YouTube
I loved it, felt very realistic, the issue with peloton going too fast compared to a solo rider in descent seemed to be solved.
I had to stay focus and in the front to stay in the pack (like IRL), I was dropped at km 6.8 because I was too at the back (I would have been dropped IRL also). But after being at 7 seconds of the peloton in a small group, we were able to catch the peloton quite easily (km 7.9 to 9.5), it felt very good!!
Lot’s of attacks in this race in A, a hard descent because we were force to push to follow the attackers (which is very great), and an attacker winning the race!
We will know see some guys pushing hard in the front or pelotons just to catch the attackers, in order for theirs leaders/sprinters to be able to win races.
I think this PD4.2 will bring a lot of new more strategies! And people that were used to stay in the back the entire race just waiting for the sprint will have to be focus and in front if they do not want to get dropped (such as IRL again!).
Ton summarize, it was like I war racing IRL, I loved it, well done, awesome job !
Now we have to see if this is suited to eCycling, in all type of races.
PS : Please keep double draft, it is very close to what I feel outside in a pack or behind someone.
I would love to see it implemented in tomorrow’s Tiny Races, and most of all in Zwift Racing League season 2!
Martial
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Have you checked if you were “loosing draft” because a/some rider(s) were pushing hard in the front of the pack?
It was the same for descent, ridersi n front were pushing hard, such as IRL you need to push to follow them, but once you are in the wheels, you can push less that the rider in front (not the rider in front of you, the one in front of the pack/line).
Martial
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Nice summary, thanks. Sounds promising!
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Do we know what kind of pack speeds we’re aiming for here, in terms of the various routes and cats?
This thinking may be a little left-field, but I’m wondering if there’s anything we can glean from the huge amount of data that’s readily available on the WTRL TTT site for the Thursday night league? Granted, we’re looking at small rider groups (but, not always pacelines; very often stretched-out blobs etc) but the top riders in each class seem quite representative of those that compete in points races (same ones in a lot of cases).
For example, just looking at a 2-lap race of Tempus Fugit (21/04/22), the top Latte team comprised of 3 Bs and 4 Cs completed the race in 50’36" at an average of 43.86 kph with their top 3 riders reporting average powers of ~3.9 W/kg. For comparison, the top Mocha team on the same night, comprised of 3 Cs and 4 Ds completed the race in 54’59" at 40.37 kph. The same data exists for a multitude of courses and rider categories.
Should these performance metrics not somehow approximate what can be expected from the front row(s) of a blob in a points race once PD4 is optimised?
It will depend a lot if there are a lot of attacks/chases or not. If the pack is just “cruising” the speed is reduced by 5% approximately I think.
If there are a lof of attacks/chases it can set a new Strava PB for you!
Thanks.
I guess my point (probably not very well made 
) was that this small group of TTT riders are riding at their limit and this should approximate the speed of the front row(s) of a larger competitive blob riding at steady-state on the same course during a points race (a sort of speed ceiling guesstimate). Obviously attacks will have to go much harder and maintain a higher average speed than this if they are to be successful.
Thanks for taking the time to get input from everyone. BTW I imagine coding while riding might be one way to dispel the idea that us programmers have sedentary jobs 
(ask the agile adherents how they would come with unit tests for this).
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I agree completely…i was thinking that the Group today was to fast but when i checked the numbers everyone was putting out. I was not suprised that AVG speed was 43km/h.
We can’t expect breakaway in this short races if the Group is doing 0.3Wkg under the Cat limit.
Longer more hilly races will be more suitable for some kind of breakaway…but again in one off races this will most likely not happen.
Multiple day Stage racing can be a different story.
Omg, please tell me you are not talking about sticky watts!? Sticky watts is absolutely a cheat and not an urban myth.
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If there’s any recapitulation of where I’d want PD4.0 to end up being, look no further than Le Tour de France 2022 @DavidP:
- WVA winning stage 4 via breakaway see here
- Christophe Laporte winning stage 19 via breakaway see here
In both scenarios, Zwift blob speed and/or dynamics would swallow up the IRL winning moves with the Zwift physics, whether current or past.
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