Warm Up RoboPacer

Suggestion: For the RoboPacer Group Rides (W/Kg), have an option for a timed Warm Up RoboPacer that will bring a rider up to speed for the selected Group.
In other words, rather than having to ride something else to Warm Up, then stop to then join a Group ride, if there was an option for me to pick a (let’s say) 10 min Warm Up, and a WarmUp RoboPacer appeared and began pacing me, starting off nice & easy, building towards my target W/Kg, so that at the end of 10 mins, the peloton catches me & then I can
go with them, I think that would be very helpful!

I warm up by starting with Bernie and then teleport to Miguel and then teleport to Maria, dropping Ride On bombs all the while.

Would that not suffice?

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Hi David! Not saying that’s not a perfectly viable way of doing things, but what you describe is exactly what I’m hoping to avoid. I run Zwift on my iPad, but broadcast it to a TV. I don’t use the desk setup like many, because (A) I sweat like a human lawn sprinkler, and (B) my near-sight vision is shot, so I’m somewhat displaced from the TV. I can’t play with my phone or iPad without reading glasses, and they’re mostly worthless after a few mins of sweat accumulation. Thus, my suggestion of a preset Warm Up to lead into a RoboPacer ride.

Can’t you make a custom workout routine to use as a warm up?
And then teleport to a Robopacer of choice.

Hi Ole! Yes, I probably could. But see my response to David to understand my request better.

If I read what you are suggesting correctly, then with folk joining the robopacer at all different times the chances are it will never get to its advertised pace as it will be slowing for people to get on

The only way I can think of that it would work is you get a personal pacer bot that ramps up power and then automatically teleports you to the pacer you chose. Which would be about the same as doing a workout and then teleporting to a pacer.

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Well I suppose there are a few things that might work…

They can start you with a personal pace bot a certain amount of distance ahead of the bot you want to join, the personal bot would be programmed to go easy for a while, and later ramp up to the pace of the pacer when you join them (you could get a bit of pedal assist at the exact moment the bot group passes so you don’t have to spike too much to join the group).

They can just start you on your own at some distance ahead of the bot and you yourself can just do whatever you want to warm up, when the bot comes to pass the game can give you a bit of pedal assist for a few seconds to make sure the group doesn’t blow by you.

Not sure if either of those make sense, but they are the only ways I can think to do it without teleporting.

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It would have to be pretty smart to gauge how much to ramp before you converge with the group since your speed and the group speed are dependent upon the available draft, and both are variable based on how many people you are riding around, how many people join the pacer group while you’re warming up, how they behave in the group, etc.

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Well this is why I was saying there could be some pedal assist at the moment of joining the robopacer (just like there is today when you start), basically when you get to the robopacer’s spot it just behaves like it does today when it drops you on the robopacer with a few seconds of pedal assist.

Respectfully, you are not reading it correctly. The idea has nothing to do with adjusting the main Robo Paced group in any way. The suggestion is to be able to integrate a warmup period out in front of the group, timed to have the group catch me as I’m finishing the warmup so I’m then primed & ready to put in the work to stay with the group.

Being able to be placed well out in front of the group, based on either time or distance, would work as well. Obviously, I’m talking about Robo Paced groups that are threshold effort or higher, where a good warm up is important, but since everybody’s different, having something like this across the spectrum would be useful, IMHO.

I find the easiest way of doing this is just to use the teleport feature and you can let them ride off if you need to warm up to keep the pace, and just teleport up to the group.

You’d want to be well, well, very far in front of them otherwise the front will go like mad to increase the pace.

I happened to end up doing a workout in front of the Coco group and they suddenly seemed capable of pushing 4.0w/kg or more to try and chase my draft.

So much for the 2.5w/kg pace or whatever it normally is.

The best thing you can do is just ride somewhere quiet in Watopia and then use the teleport feature. That way your warm up won’t encourage people in a slower robopacer group to go faster and you can just do your warmup as you want.