There definitely is. Note that I didn’t post to put Giant on blast (and didn’t name the ride until asked), just to point out ZHQ hypocrisy.
I was genuinely entertained by “steady on the climb” and the sweep pushing by at a full wkg over the advertised pace so maybe that’s something to look for. If only there were a review group where you could search by complaints
no you’re fine lol seriously I’m not upset; I would’ve said the same thing regardless of what you said, only because I’ve for sure been in the same place.
We’ve had others who will raise cain too and continue to stick around too for some reason… we just have to take what we get; we aren’t being paid… in fact, we pay just as much as anyone else lol
Oh today? I’m surprised Ryan even joined us! he’s been off the bike all week.
Rides like that sweeping is kinda a mess anyways. Of course made worse when we have over 100 people (today we had 200+), so not being able to see anything. If referring to the first lap, that was me trying to grab what I could… the Mayan climbs are rough.
Some folks want to stick at a steady pace and you just can’t get them back… we’ve adjusted how we do that climb now and so far so good.
For the record though, that’s going to be about accurate.
For our C rides (which is almost all of them), a sweeping effort requires at least 1w/kg above group pace and you might catch depending on route. If we have over 100 people, and on a ride like today where we have 200 and folks already pushing 3 at the front, the pack pace for our Saturday ride, a typical 2.7-2.8ish range for 75kg, is upwards of 5w/kg for me out the back (probably 4.5+ for 75kg), otherwise I won’t catch.
On the B ride that I do? We don’t even sweep… we can’t be bothered. Because it would require upwards of 6w/kg to bring anyone back… it’s just impossible. The requirements to sit on the draft are just so far beyond, most folks just can’t hang on.
You can’t really compare how we do sweeps to massive rides like HERD which has 500+ riders, and a sweep group of 50+ when the pack pace is as slow as it is… it’s massively different.
Plus… a lot more drag at higher speeds, thus… more effort required.
For a tiny bit of insight, I do usually check our pack pace vs draft pace on our rides, and yeah… some days I have to hold 5.5w/kg on a (for me, 3.0w/kg) ride, once out of the draft; this is typical.
What happens is otherwise, the “yellow” group has to slow down to so low for sweeps to catch on, it just ruins the whole ride for everyone expecting a specific pace.
Like today; we had one person who we tried to sweep back 3 times. On that final time I said cut it; they can’t hang on… just the way it is in C+ rides
very easy to do with code, RegEx comes to mind but there are a lot of quick and easy code solutions to this, it’s just a case of creating the list
It was the first climb and he was towards the very front, everyone was still together so no sweeping was needed and I was happy to have 5-10 minutes of a little higher effort in the middle of a long easy ride and just found it funny. I am also entertained by people ranting on Facebook about group rides going too hot.
I specifically actually turned down wanting to be red on our Saturday ride because I don’t think “it works,” which to be fair I think you can understand why lol.
There’s just a continued surprising amount of people who think that if the ride is 2.7w/kg on the box, you can hold 2.7w/kg and stay on for the whole ride… We used to climb the climbs a little bit harder, but we were dropping so many folks we’ve cut it back quite a lot, and more-so at the end of the climb, and now we only drop a handful that were struggling to begin with.
It’s a tough dynamic sometimes!
And being a red beacon… you just have to decide what you can and cannot do on the fly.
Personally I hate slowing down what our yellow beacon does, because yeah… I personally think I would be annoyed if I had the fence smash me in the face having to wait on folks way out the back unable to keep on. Just something we have to decide on in the background.
At least… I know I would be frustrated if I joined a 2.7 ride and had to drop 0.5w/kg for say like 10 minutes on a 60 minute ride just to wait.
The dynamics of choice-making on group rides are sometimes a fun aspect (alternatively, they’re also incredibly frustrating some days lol)
No fear in cooking off our front if they try to be group ride heroes though on climbs like those!
But yeah; lots of dynamics to deal with on group rides many folks don’t think too much about.
I expect the leader to ride steady if that’s advertised, but I don’t expect sweeps to do that. They are not leading. They should make a good effort to not drop people they are sweeping though, unless the person they are sweeping is not working hard enough to get back to the group with assistance. In that situation they have to decide whether to form a “party bus” off the back or return to the group without the parcel.
party bus??? why do they always call me the clown car 
Michael you should’ve joined our Sunday ride a few weeks ago when our leader David’s Companion App wouldn’t connect, so it was a near dead silent ride! 
That was actually a funny ride, made better by someone at the end: “it was actually nice not having a yellow beacon chatting all the time.”
Years ago now when I started being red beacon at least for a lot of the rides though that to me was the tough thing; deciding who we could bring back and … if I could even do it in the first place!
on a C or greater ride… definitely don’t want to hang around the red beacon some days unless you want a good workout! Especially if it’s one I’m on 
I avoid dropping anyone trying to help sweep, but yeah… if you find me on a ride with a red beacon over my head, I’ll be up to 5-6w/kg on a return pull on a C pace ride guaranteed!
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I like to call it the senior shuttle
Appreciate it. I don’t do many group rides like that, but I do find that sexual innuendo leads to a locker room bro sort of vibe that I’d just as soon avoid.
I actually like ‘off color’ jokes more than most, but group rides aren’t comedy clubs. No claim about censoring here, just what I prefer to avoid 
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has anyone pointed out that the group leader that Michael was upset about was a women ?
not trying to join any dots here, just saying
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Irrelevant but it’s interesting you’d think that matters
actually very relevent, given what you are complaining about, interesting that you think it’s Irrelevant …
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Please be very explicit about what you’re trying to imply.
I know you aren’t very good at reading or reasoning so I’ll once again point out that I didn’t initially mention the ride for a reason, that reason being absurd double standards at ZHQ.
You should be able to tell that for yourself, all the comments are there to be read.
Doesn’t matter much to me who creates the locker room bro vibe. Mildly (but not extremely) unusual that in this case it was a women. 
I personally know the ride leader being spoken of here. Yes, she can be a bit blunt but I have never found her ride commentary to be full of innuendo. I find it comical that a grown adult would subject themselves to this alleged sexual innuendo for more than a few minutes. This was your first group ride on Zwift? Did you think it was going to get better so you hung in there?
With your personal attack on Yousuf just two posts up, it’s evident you have some difficulty with hearing a differing point of view from your narrow opinion. I would suggest avoiding all group rides in the future and limit yourself to the few races that meet your narrowly defined metric for a suitable event. At least in most of the races, there’s very little to no chat or interaction with other participants and this would seem to be the best course of action for you.
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Actually, Rouvy or MyWoosh might be a better platform for you @calfzilla . There are certainly less riders in either app and you won’t have to bother with any of that pesky human interaction.
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No need to go for the nuclear option
I bet there are plenty of social rides that @calfzilla would enjoy. It’s just not guaranteed to happen in the first ride. Ride leaders are human. Some of them are annoying humans you don’t want to listen to for an hour or more, while other people would enjoy the same experience. That’s fine. I do loads of social rides and yet I’ve done some that I wouldn’t come back to. I choose to ride with the company I enjoy and that’s what everyone should do. Some social rides are cliquish or have other problems, but I have found a good set that I can reliably enjoy and finding those groups is the task.
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Sorry, just to point this out - turn this on its head and a male ride leader responded to a female rider in this manner and all hell would break out with condemnation.
There’s a fair bit of double standards in here already, let’s see just how this plays out.
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It’s me, I’m the “bro”. And I’ve had my fair share of actual sexual harrassment on Zwift to the point of getting their legal team involved and having the person removed. So please don’t talk to me about “locker room talk”. This person is just begging for attention with “I’m the victim becasue I couldn’t keep up on the ride” mentality. Trust me, I have no qualms going to the VP of membership services!
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