Strange Bug: rider from a TdZ starting pen out on the road

Saw the briefest strange thing today–just missed getting a screenshot of it. I was doing some easy Volcano laps while waiting for some friends to logon, and another rider came through the little bunch I was in. As she passed, she suddenly changed into Tour de Zwift kit–jersey, hat, everything–and she was suddenly dragging her ‘ghost trainer’ behind her, like she was in the starting pen. Except that she was passing by us there on the road at maybe a relative +2kph.

The kit changed back and the trainer disappeared right before I hit the screenshot button. I’m guessing that this is something people have seen before…? But it was a new one for me.

My best guess is that she was waiting for her TdZ stage to start, and that was right when Zwift was popping up the ‘Join Event’ window on her screen. And then she ignored it and kept riding. Maybe? Anyone seen this before?

Yep seen it and assumed the same as you though the kit was for the club that ran the group ride, not TdZ.

One person who was in the same PP ride I was in and then went to the same group ride I hit the Join button at about the 3 minute mark and didnt recall anything odd in the transition or experience.

I have seen it very infrequently (twice year maybe?!?!) in the past but more so recently but that’s only maybe 3 or 4 times at a stretch in past month’ish. I recall minor discussion in the forums a long time back but feel it was more of a comment in a thread about “people leaving pens with trainers still attached” and the discussion of course covered every iteration of “trainer attached to bike” like why does my HRM monitor not work.

I’ve always just assumed this is a visual bug that happens when someone joins an event and they are being transported to the pens or another world, I’ve been seeing it happen for years. You might also notice when you finish an event some avatars stay in the TdZ kit while you go back to whatever you had prior to the event, another visual bug.

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What’s interesting though is that she didn’t join the event. She approached from behind in normal kit, switched very briefly to TdZ kit+trainer, then changed back and stayed on the road ahead of me. Kinda nice to see just normal ‘bugs’ that aren’t affecting usability at all, was just funny :slight_smile:

Is it possible (which would be impossible to know without actually contacting the Zwifter in question) that their kit was changed, and the ‘dragging’ trainer added, by Zwift at the moment the ‘Join Now’ button popped up on their screen, but then got changed back when the user selected ‘Not Now’?

That’s my supposition, yep. I guess this could be done as an experiment, just need two riders. Might get my wife onboard to try recreating it this weekend.

More info: this evening I was free riding and received my 5min TdZ join prompt. I rejected and carried on. At about 3mins I hit the Join button in bottom left corner and the moment I hit it, I was in the TdZ kit with the usual msg that I was joining the event. Couldn’t see if I had my trainer with me due to camera choice (default).

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That would be my theory too.