I had a good time despite some technical difficulties. Everything was working fine, but when the ride started, zwift stopped listening to my trainer. By the time I got reconnected, I had to hustle a bit to catch anyone. Thankfully I was in the D group. Unthankfully (is that a word?) The D group was so spread out it was just hopping from one rider to another every few minutes.

Anyway, for my first "group ride", it was still a good time. It was fun to try to latch on to wheels take turns leading, even though my group was small.

Would do again.

Also, is there some way to identify the leader for the different groups? Is there a leader for the different groups?

The leader of a group will have a giant gold beacon above him. I know B and C had leaders, and I'm pretty sure that A did not, I'm not sure about D.

every leader has a beacon. i think sweeps also have a beacon. it'll stay at 5:35am. the As didn't have a leader. most of the leaders were newbie leaders. so, everyone's growing together in this. i woke up at 2:33am, my time, 2min before you all took off. a mother's worry.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Thanks Dan. 5:30 works perfect for me. I can't speak to the other groups, but I thought things went really well in the B group.

That was a fun ride. I was the c sweep. We will do better next week at controlling starting pace.

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Can you guys talk to each other as you ride in zwift? I don't have a trainer that would work, but I am really wanting one so I can do some of these.

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Some groups will set up a discord (separate app) channel so that they can talk during rides. Slowtwitch doesn't have one that I'm aware of. You can message each other inside of Zwift, and there was some of that going on today.

what trainer do you have?

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Can you please explain what “sweep” means?

jw67 - Thanks for sweeping! I was the C group leader and things took out really quickly this week. My preference will be to control that next week. The lesson I took away from this morning was to focus on the planned w/kg for the group rather than trying to wrangle the whole group from the front. This way, people that go out hot off the front can come back to the prescribed pace if they would like.

Overall, I had a blast!

I am ashamed to say. . .

Its a very old magnetic trainer that I bought for 10 dollars at a garage sale. Its probably from the early 2000s era. . .

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Use this link to save $5 off your USAT membership renewal:
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you have 3 options: 1. get a new trainer. 2. get a $55 speed and cadence sensor and you're ready to zwift on your current trainer. we have a series right now on how to zwift using a speed and cadence sensor. it's on the front page. 3. do the second option now, and the 3rd option later, when i rustle you up some sort of deal.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

My thanks also to A. Fuller for a good job as ride leader of group B. I think the double draft also helped keep things together. I'm assuming slowman means that the time will remain at 5:30 EST, compensating for the time change.


Quinny98 -- sweep is the rider who tries to keep other riders from falling of the back of the pack or might fall back to pull dropped riders back to the pack

eta -- sorry 5:35 am est. great time and great ride! -- inspired me to join the forum and make a comment!

we will keep this at 5:35 EST. we had 88 people on that ride. i'll debrief the leaders and we'll see how we can shore up any deficiencies. there are going to be some surprises on that ride in the coming weeks.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

a sweep is a ride leader whose job is to cater to those at the back of the pack, or in the second pack if there are 2 packs.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I was bringing up the rear, and kind of wrangling the people behind, just another beacon for people to follow

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I was the D sweep. First time ever sweeping so I’m not sure if I did it right. I pretty much soft-pedaled until people at the back could get on my wheel and I tried to pull them up a little. Unfortunately I think the couple of people that kept slipping back were having technical issues as they often showed 0 watts.

Any direction from experienced sweepers?

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i think you did it right.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

No B leader today, the perils of only having 1 leader I suppose, so most of us B-riders rode with the A group. Matt (TriIowaCPA) tried to kill us, but it was a good ride. Thanks Matt!

Though, maybe next time, less of the 6w/kg intervals off the front ;)

No c leader as well. I was sweep but when I fell back to help someone bridge I couldn’t get back to the group!
I love this ride, even if I don’t get enough sleep

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I was just about to point out that C group stayed together pretty well, but I did notice that you dropped back and stayed back at one point.

Sorry about that!

Were there many off the main group? It looked like most everyone stayed in the pack.

Sorry. I should have been a C leader today but I lost power in this ice storm. It was like Gilligan's Island. No power, no internet, not a single luxury. Promise I'll be there next week.

Sorry sorry sorry.

It was like one, should have stayed in the pack. I know how it works. More Red Bull next time ;)

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i'm going to have backups for all these groups. we're in a strange place now. our usual 80ish tuesday structured training ride had 150 this week. all our events are increasing every week, with more new events planned. i've brought on a few people to help with the management of these events. and, we have a big new Zwift offer going out today, to those on our mailing list.

so, getting there. slow but sure.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

You guys rode strong today! I couldn't break you all if I tried! Fun group and a great workout. I like the "no plan" group ride. Next week I'm going to need to burn some serious calories ahead of Thanksgiving festivities, so maybe I'll adjust my Zwift weight to not damage the pack dynamic haha.

Sorry all - I've been the C group ride leader. I worked really late last night and felt like death this AM. I got up at 5 to try to make a go, but I felt awful. My sincerest apologies, I felt awful to not be there. I'll be 100% and ready to go next Thursday for those of you looking to get in a solid ride before the US Thanksgiving day festivities begin! We will earn the turkey!

Winter is here

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use code SLOWTWITCH for %15 off

D group went off a little hot but it was kind of fun when 4 of us joined up and tried to close the gap. So far things have seemed to go smoother each week.

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I'll be on next week with either the A or B groups. We lost power overnight last night and the generator was low on fuel...

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

Is there any interest on setting this ride so that you can only see group riders? I had some chain issues this morning, so I had to bail early, but it was somewhat difficult to keep track where everyone was with all the 'normal' universe riders visible on the course. Most group rides limit visibility, and I feel it really makes it easier to keep track of where everyone is. Just my 2 cents.

I jumped into the ride for the first 30 minutes to finish of my morning ride. I wish it started at 5 am or earlier, as I generally need to be done by 6 am to get the kids ready and off to work. Anyone else wish this ride could start earlier?

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I do. I also need to be done by 6ish. Starts too late for me.

if you can get 50 or 100 so people who want a 5am ride, we'll stick one on the schedule. we have 4 more weekdays to choose from. we have plenty of available ride leaders. i'm happy to help you aggregate the people, either via polling or direct email or both.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

questions and comments:

1. what you're talking about is "culling". it's generally frowned upon. there's got to be a compelling reason.
2. is everyone wearing the ST jersey in this ride on this ride? i don't know. what i'm asking is, does the ride convert your jersey to an ST jersey, automatically, for the duration of the ride?
3. what are you using to run The Game? iOS, windows, etc.?

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

1. I've never set up an event, but pretty much every group ride I do only let's you see other group riders. (to be clear I'm not talking about B riders only seeing B riders, but you can only see members of that ride regardless of group). In fact I'm so used to this that it struct me immediately after leaving the start pens that I could see the whole universe.

2. It does put us all in slowtwitch jerseys, which helps, but there is still so many people on course that it's still difficult.

3. Windows and iOS, though Windows primarily for cycling.

I would be all for a 5am start as well.

In other news, I don’t think the D leaders have shown up the last two weeks. Been fun sweeping but if we had some leaders to control the pace at first it might minimize the need to sweep as many.

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we've had our tuesday structured training set up both ways. the sense i get from zwift is they prefer not to have either "culling", which is what we're talking about, or "invisibility", which is that other riders (not in the ride) don't see you. right now we've been given a lot of leeway by zwift.

2. It does put us all in slowtwitch jerseys, which helps, but there is still so many people on course that it's still difficult.

i ride these rides every week. i have no problem knowing where the other riders are. they're in ST jerseys. i see them in front or behind, from the sidebar on the right showing riders in the vicinity. however, i hear you. this isn't the first time i've gotten this request. i'll continue to visit this up the chain.

we're in the eye of something right now; things can either be hard or easy with what we want to do on zwift and right now they're easy. i want it to remain that way. so, i'll try to balance everybody's imperatives as well i can.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I wonder if I'm mixing things up, because what I'm talking about is very common. Like, I can't remember the last group ride/race/fondo I've done were this hasn't been the case. (with the exception of this ride of course)

That being said, it's definitely not a deal breaker, just more of a nice to have.

Also, to the 5am people, I'm good with anytime between 4:45 and 5:45 am.

i'm going to query folks on this, but, let's say the majority want to go at 5:30am. would you be more inclined to take part if we just put up another ride on another day? say, wednesday, 5am EST?

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

If your are asking me, Thursday at the current time is perfect for me. I'm just saying that I'm ok with earlier if that's what the majority want. In terms of other days, my window to start an event is 4:45-5:45am Mon-Fri. Currently I have a race series I do on Wednesdays (it has 2months left) and a reoccurring group ride on Fridays. Then the Rise&Grind on Thursdays. Alot of this is subject to change as events change and if I'm building for a tri or not. But for the next couple months, I'm planning on the above schedule.

If you added a Mon or Tues ride, depending on the structure, I'd probably consider doing it as well.

Possible to move to D group leader? Our assigned leaders have been MIA for the last month.

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are you asking for you to be the D group leader? that's fine with me if there's no leaders. let me know.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Yes, that’s what I’m asking. We get a pretty good sized group (24) but it ends up spread out. I’ll see if I can’t find a volunteer for sweeper.

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Sorry to hear in re - leaders. I've been missing this ride now for a month due to a string of technical difficulties that is now, finally, getting escalated over at Zwift. Hoping to get a resolution this week that doesn't involve "please buy a new trainer because we've rendered your CompuTrainer useless."

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

First time doing this ride this morning (or any group ride that's not a race on zwift). It was fun and a great workout! Thanks to Matt Gardiner for leading.

Yeah I was surprised by how much I enjoy Group rides, until about 3-4 months ago, I was either racing or doing an individual workout. But now I do more group rides than races. Though I got to say, this ride is an awful early start for you Central Timers.

I have been in and out as a Group D leader. I've had computer and subscription issues and finally got that solved. I love the morning ride and looking forward to making it more steady. Sorry if this has caused a problem.

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Yeah, it was a great time & workout and much less stressful than a race because you're not worried about missing the move. How did you enjoy leading?

And the early start time wasn't that bad. I get up at 4 everyday, but usually sit around drinking coffee for 30-45 min. This made me feel like a slacker for doing that! Got in an extra 30 min of training by getting with it right away.

Leading was actually kind of fun. I was a little nervous, as Fuller, the normal ride leader, does about 3.5ish w/kg for that ride, and that's at about my threshold. As a participant I can just sit in the draft at about 3.0 and keep up no problem, but as the leader I'm somewhat responsible for setting the pace so I was a little worried about blowing up. Ended up not being a problem and we had some fun, so I'm up for doing it again whenever Fuller is out.

Tough one this morning with the long hill!! Who's Masa Sai on here?? I avg 300w (4.1w/kg) up the climb and he crested 4 min ahead of me!!! Damn!!

Very good ride for the B-group today. We hit Leith hill hard, but stuck together. Usually groups break up on climbs like that, but we crested it pretty much together, no re-group really necessary. Plus I took over a minute off my PR on the climb, so there's that...

Nice! Yeah we were all broken up. I let the group go from the beginning and settled into my pace. Rode with a couple guys for awhile before they popped. Ended up passing everyone except top 2 or 3 I think by the end. That was a longer climb than I was expecting!

lol, so you solo up the hill at 300w, while I also go up at 300w but have a group to draft. And you still beat me by over a minute. Man, I need to lose some weight.

What's really crazy is that I feel like I'm pretty darn skinny, but there's a lot of guys on there that weigh 20kg less than me! Damn!

Edit: also finally figured out how to get registered at zwiftpower, that's a pretty cool site!

thanks to MRid and AFuller for leading B group rides in prior weeks; unfortunately there seemed not to be a B leader this AM? I was slow off the line so I may have missed something. I ended up in a small pack, but without a leader to regroup around after hills etc, riders slowly fell off the back and the pack size dwindled 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 (at which point I missed a surge up a hill and fell off the back myself...). Is there any way to know if there is going to be a leader ahead of time? For this ride I prefer the more constant effort rides when a leader is present to those requiring frequent surges to rejoin the pack. Thanks!

Yeah, Fuller was traveling this week and I had another event scheduled. I'll definitely be back next week, and I think Fuller will be as well.

Really like this ride. I rode C group the first time a month ago and decided to ride B this morning. I was slow at the start and couldn’t figure out why I never saw B group come together. I ended up riding at front of C group and that was a strong group of riders. It appeared that we picked up some B riders later in the work out. Great ride, I got all I could handle.

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kudos to mrid and afuller for working hard to keep the B group together this morning; made for a much more cohesive ride this morning.

Thanks, we had a good group this morning!

I rode B group sweep this morning -- there were a couple of Bs mixed in with the very lead Cs so we hung out together.

Averaging 250w for 55 minutes without that much coffee was not how I was anticipating the start of my day. I need to drop some kilos, stat. Oof.

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

I'm getting over a cold, or I would have been there this morning. I assume Alex was able to lead?

And sweeping for this ride, the B-cat anyway, can be a bit challenging :)

Yep.

I hung out around 3.5w/KG till a few dropped back (at which point I thanked the stars because I was blowing snot) and then got to have a more manageable break.

I also couldn't get the Companion App to work. Alas! Next time, do my troubleshooting with less than 3 minutes to spare...

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

Managed to line up my training to be able to do this ride again today. Man what a fun way to get a hard workout in!

Anybody that hasn’t tried it yet is missing out. Definitely worth the rushed morning to get on the bike before 4:30.

It's a great ride. Alas, I had to drop out last minute -- still recovering from last week's battle with norovirus (I came down with it about five hours after last week's ride, so I blame the ride) and sinus silliness. I may find myself on the Hilly Vanilli this evening instead.

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

ugh, that doesn't sound fun!

I need to try the hilly vanilli sometime, but I generally don't do any training in the evenings

Exact same thing here and I'm finally on the rebound and done with meds. Is Hilly Vanilli the easy ride? I might do that. Going to be a solid week of SLOW work as I get back in the swing of things.

No, it's just as hot and spicy as the Rise & Grind, but at night.

I think a boatload of caffeine and a dip in the pool should make things better.

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

I might still give it a go. I'm ready to start going again, but I think I'll give the outdoors a break and ride indoor only until I'm 100%. I did have a cruisey trainer ride last night for 2 hours and didn't lose any chunks of my lungs so that was great.

Appreciate the B group working through some of our technical difficulties today. That really could have scattered the group, but I thought we held it together quite nicely.

Sean's right, this really is a good ride, especially for triathletes as it ends up being a pretty steady ride, as opposed to racing which has spikes and recoveries. There are 4 cats to choose from depending on your fitness level and how hard you want to go. I will say that A is pretty lightly attended, but that's mostly because most people can't hold the advertised wattage (4.0+ w/kg) for an hour, and those that can generally just do it in a race, but the B group gets a pretty good turnout, and C and D get a much larger turnout. I do the B every week and depending on your weight, it generally averages in the 3.2-3.6 w/kg range, so that could be a good 1 hour at Oly pace for some (like me) or even 1 hour at HIM pace for some of you stronger riders.

Yeah I’m a borderline A for the group rides and today there were only 2 A at the front for the most part. So I tried to keep the pace up as I could as opposed to trying to hold onto the guys that are actually doing over 4 w/kg like I had done on prior rides; and ended up avg my highest w/kg for this ride yet at 3.9.

Good point about doing the B group at HIM watts. I think I will do that in the future then just keep riding at pace for 30-60 min to get race sims in.

So I rode with the B group today hoping to hold steady tempo watts then continue afterwards for 90 minutes total. But man that course today was so hard to keep steady power!

Yeah, New York is such a punchy course, there really is no flat section. On the flatter courses for that ride, I'll almost always have a VI of 1.02-1.03, but that just doesn't doesn't happen on any of the New York courses.

That's no joke, I kept getting gapped off the front group and having to surge to catch back up. Then during the solo portion afterwards, I ended up just disconnecting the smart trainer from zwift so I could just hold steady watts as all the surging killed my legs (zwift was reading my quarq for power).

Awesome ride today - we had a leader for B, C, and D group! It's been a long time since we've had other leaders. Maybe Sean will come lead A and we'll be fully staffed :)