I don’t think a “pause” function on a bot pacer ride is practical, for reasons mentioned in this threat. But, I feel you and deal with the same issue as a 50+ rider!
Here are my workarounds:
Ride a pacer route where U-turns are possible to rejoin a group: Tempus Fugit is best, right before either end of the course. Volcano Circuit also works, but you will have to ride longer in the reverse direction to rejoin.
Take a quick bio break on a descent. The best spot I’ve found is the descent right after short climb out of the desert (Tick Tock, Bigger Loop, etc). You’ll have to get a gap before, which is easiest with the slower D bots.
I can’t be the only one who has had to drop out of a pace partner group to take a nature break. I’d like to see a feature that allows you to pause the action temporarily in order to make a quick trip to the restroom. Upon returning, rejoining the group would be just like the initial join - pedal assist for a few seconds.
To prevent abuse, the maximum duration and frequency could be limited to something reasonable like 5 minutes and once per hour.
Already said this above.
I want to do just one long ride on a route.
I dont want to keep ending ride, save ride, log on, enter new ride, repeat for next nsture break.
Also at the end of the day i then would have 4/5 rides instead of 1 on my steava and Garmin records.
Not an issue you say.
Yes its an issue I say. I want to record a long ride with a pace partner n study the data .
When you get to our age, you will find out.
I don’t get this? If your ‘long ride’ doesn’t include the ‘resting and recovery’ you are getting while taking your nature break then your data isn’t correct. How will you ‘study it’?
unless there is technical reason why this is hard to do then allowing a time out for a pee break or sh+t i dropped my water bottle shouldn’t be a big deal. It’s just a pp ride not a race, it’s your data (breaks or not it’s your business) and who cares what the map looks like. Really? what’s the problem?
Uhh, someone just posted this about an hour ago and then that post and all replies about it were deleted. Pretty sure as part of the Advisory Panel you’re not supposed to be sharing this.
I don’t personally care if someone else’s data is borked. As of the time of this reply only 10 people ‘care’ (have voted) to support this, out of the 1000’s on Zwift and the ?hundreds? that frequent the forums. What I can imagine though is Zwift thinking about the influx of confused users and support requests asking things like; “why does my [training app of choice] have straight lines in the map?”; “why does Zwift show x distance and y time riding and [training app of choice] show n distance and m time riding?”; "why does Zwift show x average power for my ride and [training app of choice] show y average power for my ride? etc. etc…
I’m certainly imagining the number of new threads that could be potentially created in the Forum from confusion. That is why I am trying to ask for more detail around how you imagine it would be implemented and how the data would be presented. Someone above mentioned that it was ‘so that they can study the data’…
But stating the obvious, if you ride for 5 minutes at 200W, take a 5 minute nature break, then ride for 5 minutes at 200W.your ‘average wattage’ is not 200W for 10 minutes for example. So are you expecting Zwift to just record 0W for those 5 minutes and then magically transport you in space to wherever the Peloton is? Because if Zwift just ‘paused’ for those 5 minutes your data trace would be 10 minutes at 200W but after 5 minutes your heart rate trace would have a cliff edge in it as after 5 minutes you’ll have significantly recovered.
The high vote winners seem to be the things that users like but Zwift has no intention of doing, so the topics hang around collecting votes while being ignored by the company. If only votes translated into action, there would be a family plan and a velodrome.
I’ll forgive you for the comparison but in return I’ll scar you with the knowledge that you didn’t have which is that when you are female, the wearing of bibs normally means that you need to get a lot more undressed to take a nature break than males normally do…
And 5 minutes sounded like a nice number to make the math explanation look more pleasant!
To be honest - I don’t normally ever need to get off the bike for a nature break, even when I’ve done longer trainer rides… I’m normally sweating enough that my body is in water conservation mode…
Exactly. Time does not stop during the pause, and the 0 W period would for instance be included in the average for any power duration values which span across the pause. HR would either recover normally or exhibit gaps depending on how the Bluetooth/ANT+ reception is. As for distance, who cares, but I believe there is a distance metric recorded in the .fit file in addition to the coordinates, so just use that. The training apps of choice can be modified to accommodate this if there are real problems.
Also, never buy bibs without a drop-tail/nature call mechanism (magnetic closure, stretchy straps, zipper, whatever you prefer).
Why would anyone care if someone else takes a “natural break” during a pace partner ride?
It’s not uncommon for my group (IRL) to stop when nature calls, and we all wait.
Can’t expect the Pace Partner group to stop, so what is wrong with a “catch up” or “natural break” feature?
Pro’s who have to stop either have the entire peloton stop or get paced back by a team mate or by drafting off cars.
Funny, people don’t seem to mind “Power Ups”, which are not anything like riding IRL.
On robopacer ride, i am waiting at low speed for them to rejoin. Takes a while …
But thinking of a re-group powerup, riding behind a service car with additional acceleration would be nice. Not to use it to win sprints, but to put in some effort, which has a multiplier on top of it and not to count on personal records.
If you ever ride outdoors, with a Garmin or whatnot and record those rides – imagine having to stop, save, upload, and then start and record another activity recording every time you came to a red light. Garmins have an autopause feature you can enable based on whatever low speed you want as the trigger.
