The reason why we are interested in knowing the finishing order is quite complex. The ride is designed for wounded, injured or sick military veterans. Many are adaptive riders - could be pedalling an upright with one leg, or a prosthetic, many of us ride trikes or hand cycles. Many of us are recovering and riding is part of that recovery and others, sadly, are degenerating. Many are highly competitive by nature. Because of the disparity in abilities, it’s pretty much impossible to have a social ride that suits everyone. Now the ride is advertised at 1.5 - 2.0 w/kg and the ride leader aims to average 2.0 over the hour. Some participants find this too slow, others struggle to keep in the main blob and will be pushing hard all the way to keep up. I can’t and know from the off that I will be in the final third. Others will struggle to keep up 0.5w/kg for the hour - even if they red line for the whole hour. Now whilst we are not racing, we are competing - against the deficiencies in our own bodies that change fro day to day and with our mates we train with virtually and in the real world. Those little competitions help us benchmark our recovery, so the order of finishing is very very important to us. Zwift companion shows that order during the ride, but then does something stupid when the ride ends.
The second reason to want to know is to better understand where sweepers are needed and where could they be placed in future rides to encourage everyone to have more fun and push a bit harder.
But Steve is correct about those who go off the front at 3.5 w/kg and stay well above 2.0w/kg for the whole hour determined to “win” - it isn’t a race.
The only winning that matters is when competing with yourself.
So, although I have never yet come close to keeping up an average of 2.0 w/kg for an hour. I have improved my FTP twice during these social rides - “winning” for me would be riding for an hour in the blob. That’s true for many of us.
The final reason for wanting to know should be self-evident, but clearly isn’t. Ignoring those who shoot off the front from the get-go (at best, they are an irrelevance), it would be useful to be able to understand rider distribution (distance travelled and average power output over the hour) for each type of ride (hilly/flat).
It would be helpful to be able to work out the mean distance/power and the median for the group as a whole and for the different types of bike (upright, trike or hand cycle). Why? Again, it should be self evident as it would allow the ride leader to better tailor the target power output to benefit the greatest number of riders and allow the greatest number to be able to socialise on the ride, rather than partially disenfranchising those at the back of the ride. Disenfranchising that particular group is a sure fire way to guarantee that some of them, those who might benefit most from such rides, will simply stop engaging - the opposite of what the rides are intended to achieve. Come along and see for yourselves next Sunday.
Gerrie, my apologies if I have upset you, but I’m frustrated by your seeming fixation with racing. My question has nothing to do with a desire to race - when I and others want to race, we enter races. This has everything to do with improving a social ride experience for the greatest number of people by understanding and analysing data after a ride. The data is collected by Zwift, as it is exported to Strava. If I had access to every riders Strava account, I could extract the detail manually. I don’t so I can’t. It would be much simpler if Zwift recorded it all in one place at the end of a ride as they do during the ride.
Let’s call it quits and thanks for your forbearance. But do come along on one of the Invictus rides to see what I mean first hand.
Other rides I am involved in use the “rubber band” to keep everyone together. That’s fine if that is your only goal, but the Invictus rides push us to try a bit harder. I’m just trying to help as many folk as I can to stay in the blob under their own steam.
I’ve had this very thing happen on several “Social Rides” that have “Race Results”. I remember coming across the line in a distance ride in about 4th place. When the results were posted I ended up something like 32nd with the Beacon rider in 12th or something. At the banner he was WAAYYY back. It didn’t bother me much but I did think it was interesting how the results were so far from the reality of the event.
It might, if everyone used ZwiftPower, but they don’t. Again, if the data is being exported to ZwiftPower (as it is to Strava), then Zwift already have it in the right form. All I’m asking is why doesn’t it get shown in that form in Companion.
I checked on ZwiftPower. I was wrong. Zwift exported the same nonsense it showed on the Companion app, so in the last ride, people who finished well behind me, are shown as being ahead, even though the w/kg expended show the order to be a nonsense. Back to the drawing board, but it was a good suggestion
The result ranking is due to latency and randominess. Randomness to discourage racing/flyers in a group ride, and latency because some people just live further away from Zwift than others and the way networks confirm receipt of packets sent etc, mean that will always mean someone rode slightly longer than another (albeit m/seconds).
I thought you may be able to add a distance column in results (ZP) to get what you want, but no field offered up.
Dean, thanksI think you are on to something, but perhaps not in the way you thought. Your idea about randomness as a deliberate ploy to discourage racing intrigued me, so I reviewed the details of the last 10 rides and looking at 4 riders who I know well and who rode in most of the events.
I think I can say for certain now that the effect is not random. In fact, it appears to be highly systematic and predictable. As you say though, it does appear to be an intentional ploy to discourage racing, even though it doesn’t seem to work - racers still race.
The same people consistently get “promoted” or “demoted”. The question was why? A big clue came from one individual’s performance - he normal finishes in the middle of the rankings. Two weeks ago, having done a big ride earlier in the day, he rode with the rear sweeper in a field of 100, yet finished joint first. The rear sweeper, putting in a bit more effort sweeping up the strays finished 17th on the road. I finished well ahead of them on the road, yet came in next to last. The difference between us is that the chap who came in first has a neurological condition that means he can’t pedal at high cadence and rarely gets out of the green power zone even in a sprint. In this case he spent most of the ride recovering. The sweeper was again working well outside his FTP, but had to put in a few sprints when moving up and down the rear of the field. As for me, well I was pushing into the red and spent most of the ride in the Orange - improving my FTP in the process, but still falling short of the 2.0w/kg. desirable by pace for the ride.
It appears that Zwift is penalising everyone who rides at a high percentage of their FTP, or regularly rides above it in sprints etc on such social rides It does this regardless of your place on the road. So not only does it affect those who race off the front, it also hammers those at the back of the field who are just trying to catch and ride with the blob. If this is true, it’s both cynical and sad. Fortunately, it can be tested. Over the next few rides, I’m going to play around with my power output. So next Sunday, I’m going to ride at the back of the field, in the gray or blue power zones, taking it easy, and if I am correct, I shall finish well off the bottom in the rankings. Time will tell!
I get what you’re trying to achieve. But not why you’re trying to do it in an event that is very clearly advertised as “not a race”, and then complaining about a lack of meaningful race results.
Along the lines of what Gerrie also suggested, why don’t you ask the organiser to run an extra, separate, race event? By trying to race in the social ride you’re spoiling the fun of those who do want to take part in the social ride that was advertised. Take the racing to its own event and everyone can be happy. You don’t even need a formal event - you could just create a Meetup and turn on Race Results (though you will have that annoying different finishing lines issue that I referred to earlier).
Whilst you can probably get the result you intend by analysing the data (and yes, I di note a trend in the results when I looked), you cant move past the fact that these are group rides intended to be relaxed and non-competitive and therefore no-one is trying to beat anyone else, timewise or length.
Only a properly organised race will achieve this and this is why Gerrie was on the money in that if that is what you are trying achieve (comparisons against competitors), then use the tools that Zwift already provided.
What you have added would be correct IF the issue was about racing. It isn’t - it’s about self improvement, calibration and improving the social nature of the ride for the majority of participants, regardless of their ability or equipment. The best way to do this is to analyse the data and to do this, on a ride of fixed duration, you need average power (w/Kg) and distance travelled - that’s all. Zwift collect both at the end of the ride, because these are two of the measures exported to Strava, but don’t use distance on Companion, or, as you realised, export it to ZwiftPower.
