RoboPacers to reflect female weights

RoboPacers
22

Why not just a “soft rubber band” to opt into?

Something that allows you to be banded to a bot assuming you’re within say 0.1-0.3w/kg of its pace at any given moment. (Assuming it knows what is required for you to stay with that bot… as some of you here already know, for some of us it takes closer to 3.0w/kg to stay with Coco at 2.7w/kg, but let’s ignore this for now.)

This would allow folks to push out, or fall out, once they fall outside of that spec; so it can’t be abused (ala how Teleport and Ride with a Friend works, where it locks you in for 10 seconds… but if you don’t pedal, you get dropped).

I think enough folks on Strava probably get upset by Zwifters and their unrealistic ground speeds, so they can be ignored already; but is this really any different than using Coffee Break, covering ground at an unrealistic speed for your power?

Anyways, just an idea…

As the link shared earlier I think everyone knows how I feel about anyone adjusting their height and weight outside of their real world measurements, as it’s only “cheating” to yourself. (you can forget to alter it if you do change it, and it can confuse anyone with their behavior of going up or down hills after being corrected)

So why not a system that is:

  1. opt-in
  2. not rigid

So not as ridiculous as rubber-band rides where you have folks across the board in power; but something that is more like a “non-drop” ride with friends… You get helped back to stay with the group, but if you don’t or can’t do the work, then it just won’t happen and you do get dropped.

But if you don’t want to get tied to the bot… you don’t have to accept it.
I once again imagine this as a pop-up “you’re riding with this pace partner; tie on?”

Another thing this could help with is if you’ve ever run across an RP, and want to ride with them after doing whatever, but you don’t know what route they’re on, it should be able to correct your pathing to theirs so you don’t have to be concerned with choosing the correct turns at every intersection. (As the only other solution here still would be to end your ride, return to the main menu, and join the RP from there after you… spend 3 minutes trying to find whichever RP that was on the poorly organized main menu)

23

Why not just one additional pacer at 60kg, and at the lowest W/Kg for the D pacers. This would at least mean smaller less powerful women are not excluded from having an endurance pacer bot ride. Instead of the current race pace or nothing.

2 Likes
24

A lighter version of all the robopacers would be desirable- but it’s never going to happen.

Coco group yesterday was ridiculously fast and needed a massive effort to avoid getting dropped or stuck at the back as a light rider.

Whenever the groups get 100+ the experience is poor. Yumi had 234 today, similar experience.

25

I rode with Coco a bit again (little short on time, only 16 minutes instead of 20 for a warmup).

But same story; I think she was quite heavy this time, well over 200 folks (super easy to tell when you’re closer to 100, and then way beyond 100, when avatars start popping in and out all over the place and the road 15ft ahead is empty and behind is empty and nobody on other side… eugh… gross)

Regardless; same thing, 171w average. Same speeds as mentioned earlier.
Oh wait… this is a different thread :sweat_smile:

All of these recent tests have been on Tempus since that’s where Coco has been recently;
Okay so long story short; for me it appears I can average ~155-160w when Coco is <100 riders or a bunch not pulling too hard.
But if Coco is being pulled hard, or has a massive group, it requires ~168-174w averaged.

Oddly so far, I haven’t found a scenario where I’m between those two measurements which is rather unusual, it always seems to be one or the other. And yes, for the record I’m only one one bike setup when free roaming with the RPs, so that is unrelated.

(Ignore the 152 averaged one, that got biased by me stopping at some point, and scratch that 176, that was on Waistband, not Tempus)
image

But note the rather unusual lack of mid 160w range.

26

One more post talking about weight differences:

Larger rider can easily just sit at back with less watts/kg but gets bored with that and rockets to front with 400w.

Light rider cannot just go forward in group that easily. It never used to be that difficult for lighter riders before all these pace dynamics changes happened.

27

I was thinking about this the other day, and it may or may not be relevant, but here goes…

Assuming you’re riding right next to the RP, and they’re in the draft, you should get the same draft as them, right? Obviously there will be minor variations, but they should be small beer. As a result, if you’re the same weight as them, you should need to hold the same power as them in order to hold station relative to them. That certainly seems to be my experience, insofar as I’m able to ride steadily at any one time.

Looking at completed rides, my actual power over the course of, say, an hour, tends to be every so slightly (a handful of watts) lower than the RP, and I suspect that’s because they sometimes ride through the peloton and stick their noses in the wind, at which point I’ll already have backed off the power and tried to find a 100kg rider to hide behind. :smile:

So, at any one time there should be only two different wattages I’m riding at if I’m doing it perfectly:

  1. The same as the RP (if they’re drafting); or

  2. Whatever lower power I need in order to go at the same speed as the RP (if they’re not drafting or getting significantly lower draft)

Anyhow. That’s out of my brain now. Phew.

1 Like
28

I was wondering those same thoughts the other day. Not sure why it seems like it’s not working that way for people.

29

I suspect at least some of the time it’s due to weight differentials btwn Zwifters and the RP and how that plays into how Zwift uses raw watts and wkg to decide how fast everyone goes. I guess rider height might play into it somewhere as well.

30

I noticed people in the Yumi group yesterday (the alternative Coco group when on Tempus Fugit - all the same people) asking why it was so fast.

You had folks at the front doing 4.0w+ and that was pulling along the robopacer and then everyone else was chasing.

Again for light riders they had to put out much more watts/kg - I would be doing 4.5w+ and getting stuck in the middle of the pack. Another rider who is 49kg - she was doing consistently higher watts/kg and still getting dropped.

Maybe the RP could start riding Cadex TT bike with disc wheels? Or make the RP (coco and yumi) 65kg which should slow them down a bit.

They don’t really ride on many steep hills (except Col du Tempus Fugit) so the weight reduction shouldn’t cause too much pain uphill but maybe it will slow them down overall and reduce the group speed.

31

I would think on a pan flat route like tempus the wattages should be pretty consistent.

I did ride with Yumi on tempus yesterday, and did see a ton of complaints about how Yumi is going too hard. That said, my average power was pretty spot on with every other time I ride with Yumi at 216W for 90 mins. Remember Yumi is pushing 217.5W, and on flats the raw wattage comes into play more than w/kg, so what I’m seeing seems to be about right.

Here was my 90 mins with Yumi yesterday:

image
image1318×515 68.2 KB

32

My average was 190w - 3.2w/kg.

What also hurts is the pace dynamics adjustments that seem to affect lighter riders more than heavier ones, so it’s harder to roll in the group without getting pushed backwards or braked.

33

Do you have intervals.icu? Can you share your chart for the ride? Would be interesting to see what the heck is going on there.

Oh wait, I thought you said 290 W. Yeah 190W sounds about right for Yumi no?

34

The average doesn’t show that I’m constantly having to do much higher w/kg other was I end up dropped off the back. It’s not steady at all.

Maybe it’s steady for bigger riders, but not for us light folk.

Thats what needs addressing, why that behaviour happens?

Mind you it never happened before the pace dynamics adjustments came along - with the old steady robopacers things were far more stable.

35

I find it’s easy to drop backwards, and harder to move up (you can see my 30s power go into the yellow a few times in that graph as I try to move up the pack), so my tact has been to try to keep right around the pacer as much as possible. For me I am a bit heavier than Yumi, but I do find my average power over longer rides tends to be pretty consistent.

36

That’s the difference. I’m near 15kg lighter, and one of my friends nearly 25kg lighter. We don’t put out the same amount of power.

Your 216w average would be near what I used to do on a 70km ride with Anquetil in the old days, and similar for Constance.

37

But on a flat route Anquetil was also pushing less power given their weight compared to what they would have done at 75kg at the same w/kg.

On flat if you’re following someone doing 218W at 41km/h you can’t really just look at w/kg as a comparison. I guess the question is: How many raw watts are you expecting to average to keep up with someone doing 218W (in the draft, not leading the pack) at 41km/h?

38

Epic KOM wasn’t what I’d call a flat route. We had routes with real mountains then. Same amount of people joined then as now.

We were pushing pretty high power uphill but also maintaining it downhill as she went 4.2w/kg downhill too.

Some guys would change their weight downhill using the companion app to be 150kg or something silly then change it back just before end of descent. Fortunately that cheat is stopped.

39

We were talking about Yumi on tempus which is flat. So the question was: How many raw watts are you expecting to average to keep up with someone doing 218W (in the draft, not leading the pack) at 41km/h?

I’ve tried a few online calculators and it seems like the raw power you would need at 41km/h is pretty close to Yumi’s power (even if you are 10kg+ lighter than Yumi). If you’re only doing 190W that is 15% less raw power than Yumi.

Remember both Yumi and yourself are in the draft, and at high speed raw watts and aero are more important than w/kg.

40

Ultimately its not worth continuing- it is doubtful that there will be lighter robopacers.

Those groups are just not for light folk.

41

Not into all of the technical stuff, but I used to ride comfortably with Maria. The last update they did seems to make me work much harder for a pacethat is slower than before.

1 Like