There are descriptions above.
This will never end.
This past summer, I hosted a Sunday morning zone 2 ride IRL and it was EXACTLY the same issue.
And that’s the crux of the issue. Forgetting about RP rides, is there a view that ever riding in front the ‘leader’ of a regular group ride (even if only a meter or 2 distance) is in poor taste? Fences exist for these if they’re wanted, but the minimum distance I think is something like 2 seconds, which is more than needed to put the leader in your draft. As a reminder, RP rides are labelled as 24/7 group rides. And regular group rides are usually published with a .4 to .5 w/kg range. Maybe that’s the disconnect – RP w/kg guidance has no range but is listed as a single specific w/kg
You would probably think poorly of me then.
I would never get a request since I don’t have the chat turned on.
I tried a few times over the last 7 or 8 years, and quickly found it both annoying and boring at the same time.
Nah. When I was talking about people ignoring people, I’m mostly talking about the people who are expressing the position here that they would ignore the requests. In the moment, it’s entirely reasonable to think someone doesn’t have their chat on.
A real human being has the ability to respond to what’s happening to keep the pace what they want to keep it at. Different issue, I’d think.
I could get my Sunday riders to ride the pace but I got tired of always telling people to ride zone 2.
Zone 2 is hard enough to try to hold for 3 hours and people constantly tempting you to up the pace was a real PITA.
A few times I did suggest a pace line but we didn’t stay zone 2 and the next week, some people didn’t show
All in all not pleasant.
A device that lets IRL ride leaders decrease tire pressure of flyers would be interesting,
IRL in the clubs I know, the group rides have a briefing before the rollout, and people trying to push the pace were warned don’t do it and if they continue, they’d be told they weren’t welcome in the future. That’s tough but the whole point of an IRL bunch ride is usually to ride together (helps for navigation and safety for instance) and for some of the newer folks, getting used to riding close together in a pack.
I remember an old and very wise coach who had a theory that IRL, some folk push the pace off the front because they don’t have bunch riding skills.
Bots don’t get faster from drafting us. WHo thinks this???
I believe the study showed the Bot and the group do move faster but it was questioned whether a rider had to put out more effort to stay in the faster group.
A rider that fell off definitely had to work much harder to get back.
People who are correct think this.
I previously have expressed the opinion that this is something people should be adjusting their expectations to, when it happens because the groups are very large. If there’s a pace bot group of 40, 50+ people, there’s really no way to stop people from being in front of the bot, and the pace will go up. So people should know (maybe even be told) that when they join a very big group, the pace will be higher.
But when it’s a smaller group, and someone purposefully pulling the bot faster, and it’s a group of human beings (other than the bot), then we should treat each other like human beings. That’s a pretty simple notion.
(I also spent time elsewhere trying to figure out why it would be a problem mechanically–the same idea expressed above, that if the bot is being pulled, wouldn’t everyone be getting the same draft? The question then was whether there was something wrong with the draft, something that wasn’t working right–because people were finding they had to work harder when this happens. But the answer isn’t that there is something broken, not working right. The answer is because the draft is not uniform. A Zwift bunch pushes everyone around the bunch, including out to the edges, on a regular basis. And those higher speeds, when you’re not tucked into the middle of the draft, make for harder work. Even with a draft, there’s no free speed.
To me it sounds like the problem is the inconsistency of riding with the higher power bots. With the lower bots (which are the only ones I ride with for any lengthy period) there are always tens of, if not hundreds, of riders around them so they are always in the draft so if you want to stay with them you need to do roughly the advertised bot power.
However if you ride with the higher power bots it sounds like usually there are less riders and the bot is out front so you can ride with the bot, but doing less than the advertised power because you (and the other riders) are always being pulled by the bot. If though another rider comes along and starts doing a bit more power then you will need to up your power to the advertised bot power to stay with the group.
So when you join Constance you don’t know if you need to hold 4.2 or 4w/kg depending on if the bot is in the draft or not.
I can answer that using data from Zwift Insider tests into 4-rider team time trials. Eric from ZI found that for a 75kg rider at 300W (4/wkg) the draft savings for 2nd, 3rd and 4th were 22%, 28.7%, and 34% respectively.
So a four man TTT would look like this with regards to the watts each rider was doing:
1st: 300W (robot)
2nd: 234W
3rd: 214W
4th: 198W
If you had a longer team time trial I’d imagine there is some point where the draft savings stop accumulating. For example, perhaps from 10th position back you get a 40% saving and that is the limit.
Now, let’s say the 1st rider is our robot and we stick someone in front of the robot to pull the robot. The robot’s power will remain the same so the rider in front can be doing up to 384W before they start to drop the robot (300W is 22% less than 384W).
Here’s how the power will look with our new pacer in front pulling the robot in 2nd place
1st: 384W
2nd: 300W (robot)
3rd: 273W
4th: 253W
As you can see, for those people riding behind the robot the power required has increased significantly (around 40W).
So if you have a pace group where the robot is riding out in front and everyone else is drafting (most likely with Constance and almost never with any of the other bots) and then someone drops in and starts pulling the bot then everyone else (except the robot) is going to have to increase their power.
Every Zwift subscriber gets their own Pacebot ( Domestique ). They can set the exact wattage ( wpk ) they want. They can name their domestique choose their outfits and which TT bike they want it to ride.
Above the avatar of the domestique Zwift could display the set wattage so other riders can see what that domestique is riding at. This all sounds like a lot of work for someone at Zwift for a Pacebot ride in an open world with thousands of riders in play at any given time…Or create a workout and ride at 2.2wpk for as long as you want
Clubs do controlled group rides all the time at varied paces, some even have amazing sweep teams that help those who are struggling. something to consider
They could also just ride on a TT bike and ignore it all.
Now now, stop with the easy solutions!
I know I might be pi**ing in the wind here but one solution is for zwift to put the Robo pacer on a TT bike with a custom CDA to ensure their speed is maintained but they are then not impacted by the swarming group in front of them increasing it…