We should really consider adding some kind of “magnetism” or soft rubber-banding to the robopacers.
Right now, moving between pacers (e.g. Sofia to Maria) can mean a 20–35% jump in watts, which makes it feel more like climbing stairs than a smooth progression.
A rubber-banding effect—where falling behind slightly lowers the required watts, but riding alongside or ahead keeps them normal—would make it easier to stay in the right zone and help account for rider weight differences on climbs and descents.
The compensation could be distance-based, scaling with how far behind the pacer you are, with full effect kicking in at around 40m+. The max amount of compensation could be about 15% for the easiest pacer and taper down to roughly 5% for the hardest one.
I would not want to ride with this feature because I want there to be consequences for not paying attention. The risk of drifting out of range of the pacer is something I consider a beneficial hazard and correctly modulating power is a skill I want to develop and practice. That’s something I want for myself - I don’t care if other people want to do banded rides or this kind of semi-banded ride, I just don’t prefer it and would actively avoid it.
You can be paying attention and still get trouble either by being pushed out to the side by another rider overtaking (they stay in the draft, while pushing you out), or the sticky draft making it difficult to overtake someone.
There are group rides around that could have normal pace behaviour.
It’s similar in nature to the request to provide a new RP doing a perpetual Zone 2 group workout, since workout rides are banded by default. If somehow this could be done it would be great. You basically then wouldn’t need to add banding to every RP, just provide 1-2 workout RP bots.
