Are you choosing based on w/kg?

If so, my guess is that you weigh less than they do. To make this ridiculously obvious, let's assume you weigh 100 pounds and the pacer weighs 1000 pounds. If you ride at 200 watts, you will have 2w/lb (don't make me do kg!)

Your pacer can ride 2000 watts and also be at 2w/lb.

On flats and downhills, the speed generated by the pacer crushes you because more watts = more speed. You should, however, do better on climbs since you weigh less.

I could be all wet, but no one has responded to you in a month so I took my shot.

What I shared is what others told me about Zwift when I complained similarly about not being able to keep up in rides rated from 2.5 to 3.2 w/kg.

I weigh 140 pounds (about 65 kg) and would routinely push 3.5+ w/kg in those rides and get dropped by people riding well below 3 w/kg.

If that person riding 3 w/kg weighs 200 lbs (about 90kg), they are pushing 270 watts (90x3) to my 228 watts (65x3.5). Therefore, I got dropped.

My FTP is 221 so I was killing myself in these supposedly easy rides trying to keep up with people who likely both weigh more and have a higher FTP. For example, the 200lb person (90kg) riding my same wattage above (228 watts) would show 2.5w/kg. By this stat, I think I'm crushing him because I'm at 3.5 and he's at 2.5, but we're really riding the same speed on the flats because the watts are the same.

I always thought it better to show absolute power than w/kg, but I'm apparently the only person in the virtual world who thinks that's a worthwhile stat. It was frustrating enough for me to drop Zwift as my virtual platform and switch to Rouvy because I couldn't do a decent group ride or race on Zwift. And, if you can't do that, what's the point of riding in pretend worlds as opposed to actual courses in Rouvy?

It is somewhat less simple than that. Identical power does not give identical speed, but you are right with there is neither identical w/kg gives identical speed. The truth is closer to your original point, but not fully.

Someone weighing more will generally (with the same general position, clothes, bike etc) also have a larger frontal area than a lighter rider, and hence have a higher aerodynamical loss. Not fully proportional to weight, but some. Enough to force the bigger rider to need to push higher absolute power to keep the same speed as the lighter rider. (Still less w/kg than lighter rider though.)

Zwift etc. takes this into account.

That makes sense and, frankly, is pretty cool. I wasn't aware these platforms were that detailed.

Now, whichever platform creates the app that allows me to replicate my virtual power/speed relationship when I ride outside, will get all my money!