The UK has a long history and tradition of time trialling.
It would be great if zwift could introduce 10 mile (16km) and 25 mile (40km) TT courses on zwift (both flat and rolling).
Would also be great to see TT races/events.
You sign up to a TT race, you get a start time. Riders go off at 1 minute intervals with a time keeper and starting marshal counting you down (you could even have start ramps at the beginning of TT courses)
What would be great to see also is that before your start time, everyone is in a warmup area warming up on a turbo trainer
What happens if there are lots of riders? There have been TT events. Like regular races on Zwift everyone starts together in the pens on trainers. Drafting is disabled which then allows everyone to start together. I think this is preferable to starting every 1 minute.
No doubt what you describe is doable but I’m sure Zwift would be flooded with complaints about people wanting to fit an event in with their schedule then their start time doesn’t suit. With things as they are now you know the exact start time a week or days in advance.
Bummer if I want race against my mate as I can now and he’s in a different group or 20 minutes ahead of me.
Its a time trial, you never race ‘with’ someone else in a TT, you’re only racing against the clock and yourself.
The ‘race’ event as a whole is still one race an the results board is still one set of results, you just instance the riders over multiple instances of the course to reduce server lag and client side frame rate drops as you have less rider avatars on the screen at any one time to render.
Sorry to say I can’t ever see Zwift going for this because too many people would complain about the event start times not fitting in with their schedule. Much easier to plan your life if you know for certain that an event starts at a specific time.
Secondly this is virtual. We can do things not possible in the real world. The main one is disabling drafting for TT bikes. This then allows everyone to start together.
Funny I specifically train for TT’s in RL and compete at a club, regional and national level (I’m club and regional champ for my age group). How Zwift does things suits me well.
Good luck trying to convince Zwift to change from what they have now. Much more pressing is the need to slow down going into corners especially going down hill.
You are already stuck to Zwift’s race schedule anyway. You can either turn up for any of the existing races or you cant based on your real life commitments.
Again there are multiple ways of doing it technically and as TT’s are 1 minute intevals starts, you ‘could’, when signing up for a TT event specify preferred start times around the start and end times of the TT event and get a preferred start time suited to your needs. Again this is all nitty gritty detail thats getting ahead of the actual idea.
Zwift is attempting to re-create real outdoor riding, indoors. I don’t see them trying to create mario-kart for bicycles??
Again, TT’s are not a mass-start type event. I guess, personally I’m looking for indoor races that mimic what I race in real life as a way to race when the weather is s**t and I want that feeling and competitive boost of pinning a number on my back and being alone on the road chasing down my minute man. (and not just firing up TR and doing 2x20)
Just going full gas around watopia for 20 minutes with 400 other people in a huge peleton is not my idea of a TT…
Don’t get me wrong it could not work in the virtual indoor environment, but that’s not for any technical reasons.
But your not going around Watopia in a big peleton. Because there’s no drafting the fields split up soon after the start and you pretty much end up riding on your own. Reality is, less people do TT events on Zwift so fields aren’t usually that big.
But hey good luck trying to convince Zwift to change from what works pretty well currently.
With the UCi officially recognising e-sports in the coming years something will need to be done regarding ITT and TTT formats in the virtual world.
It could be that a championship has many knockout rounds. The early rounds are mass start and as you get nearer the finals the format changes to timed & gapped start times.
Of course, if Zwift gave users the ability to create their own small events in a specific lobby then you could easily set up a virtual club championship and manage your own start times formats.
The only resion that IRL races use the 1min interval is because you can draft other riders when you are on a TT bike. In Zwift you cant draft on a TT bike so we can start together in a TT race and wont be able to draft.
If you are more interested in the simulation of a TT like the going down the ramp and chasing a person 1min ahead then yes Zwift is different. I think the amount of development to get all those things is more than what Zwift will do since there are not many people doing TT races.
Even though the TT bikes cannot draft in Zwift, with the mass start you still just end up racing the guys around you and keeping up with attacks and such, instead of putting in a true TT type effort where you ride to power or to feel. That’s what this guy is looking for and his idea of breaking up people into different instances sounds like a really good idea. In zwift mass start TT races you pretty much know how you did 10 minutes into it as the group splits up. In a real outdoor TT you keep drilling it to the finish line because you dont know the times the guys before or after you did.
Personally I like the current way TT’s all start at once. I pace myself using my outdoor TT experience and usually start passing the guys that went out too hard at the start if it’s a longer TT. I go hard all the way to the finish as there’s always someone quicker than you on Zwift.
I’d like to see this too. I ride TT’s at club level and Opens up and down the country but in the off season, I only get to do one a month (club) so I use Zwift for specific training over winter when I’m not on the road. Having a specific TT course for racing/practice would be a great idea as would a velodrome. It’s all feasible in a virtual world and with the UCI and British Cycling getting into eSports it’s surely a consideration for Zwift.
Cycling around NY recently in Zwift and I was thinking it could be quite easy to use the 4 perimeter roads to the park as a flat course. Would just need a small update to the map to add a couple of cut-throughs.
And what if there are 4000 riders that go off at 1 minute intervals?.. -------___ -----
I think that the idea of the time trial could be realized without a 1 minute intervals go off.
As for event it could be done as a simple route that could be chosen by any rider that would like to participate during the x-hours, or x-days at any convenient time for him. And the results of this route ride would be published together with other results. Actually, technically, I think that everything in place for this type of events.
But the problem, as I see it, is not in the tech. realization, but mostly in the vision of how Zwift works for the moment…
Presently, even for simple data, user will be referred to some third party sites. There is a need for vision decision and path - the question is this is how decision makers in Zwift are looking on the big picture, or they have some other ideas, views etc… - well the time will show.
