for those of you who rode the ride today, thanks! and i have this question. assuming that was a fairly stiff ride for you - or, for those for whom that was a fairly stiff ride, how does your average power (for 70 minutes) for that ride compare to your FTP? i assume it's a bit lower than your FTP. is it 95 percent? 90 percent? 85 percent? or what? thanks in advance.

I had to bail early, but I averaged 218W for 50 minutes. FTP is in the 225-230 range, on 68 kg. It didn't help that I had to physically adjust the trainer a couple of times and that kicked me out of the C peloton... the group draft effect is pretty strong.

All in all a good ride and pretty much on par with my expectations for a ride advertised at 2.5 to 3.2W/kg.

I couldn't make last night's ride so I don't know if the pace was faster than previously, but a coherent group will go considerably faster than a solo rider for a given power level, both on the road and on Zwift. So the fact you needed 4W/kg to make up for having been dropped by 3mins doesn't necessarily mean the group was beyond the advertised 2.5-3.2W/kg range.

I had a similar but briefer experience last week. I was a few minutes late to start, and although Zwift allowed me join the group on the road, I hadn't warmed up and was a little distracted initially and let myself get dropped almost immediately. Within a couple of minutes, having drifted a little off the back (I think I was about 25s behind Rapp's group) I decided I couldn't afford to drop any further and started to chase back on. I believe it took me about 6 minutes to catch up. I found I needed around 280W (just over 3.4W/kg) to avoid being dropped further but I had to get above 300W (~3.7W/kg) to start closing the gap. I spent a few minutes around 320-345W (~3.9-4.2W/kg) that's VO2max territory for me. My FTP is around 290W (just over 3.5W/kg).

Once I'd caught up and had a draft I was able to drop power dramatically and recover. Rapp appeared to be riding at about 2.8W/kg during that early period of the ride. Once I'd recovered mid pack for a few minutes I was able to take turns up front without a problem. All that to say - it's quite possible it took 4W/kg without a draft to gradually catch a group riding at the advertised pace, especially on the flats. And on the hills Rapp had been raising the pace to about 3.5W/kg for a few minutes so you might not make much ground there either if the group followed that plan last night.

The draft is crucial if you want to survive at advertised W/kg. And of course some group rides really do massively exceed advertised pace.

I do agree that the paces for the Hilly Vanilli are quite high for D and C as compared with other non-race Zwift events but the pace is given so you can decide for yourself if it's suitable for you. A good C rider should need to ride very hard to stay near the front. With just over 3.5W/kg my FTP puts me below mid range in B category and I've ridden near the front in two of these rides. It was a hard ride but I could be confident of keeping up. A good C rider might be at their limit near the front.
I averaged 239W for the ride on March 15th. That's 2.91W/kg and about 82.5%FTP

i'm surprised to hear the D ride is high. this hilly vanilli is a 70min ride, and my D group is together for the first 40 or 45min. then it's off the leash. i rode the entire ride at an average of 173 watts, and this is within 3 watts of my average each of the last 3 weeks. my last 25min were reasonably similar to my first 45min, maybe a little lower.

I agree you are in the sweet spot but there are a number of D riders who are always well up the road from your main group.

Band D is FTP of <2.5 w/kg. Last night Zwift power only lists 1 band D rider with an average normalized power less than you (at 2.1 w/kg). The majority of the Band D riders recorded average normalised power >2.5 w/kg meaning they went over 100% FTP. Because not everyone is on Zwift power I'm sure this a skewed assessment of the ride but it points out that a lot of group D riders are pushing well beyond the group D limits.

My instinct is that these are riders who are listing themselves as D because they can't keep with the pace of the C group. Jordan had an average normalized power of 3.1 w/kg last week which is a bit hot for riders at the low end of the C range. Especially because if you let a small gap open it requires a big effort to close and we were hitting the hills at 3.5+ w/kg.

To be clear I think the ride is great and it is not a criticism of how the ride is being led. I just think Jordan is very strong and along with a few other strong riders the ride naturally drifts to the high end of what the average C rider is expecting. At the same time you are leading at a solid group D pace which is a bit slow for the average rider. The end results is riders who get trapped in no mans land