HalfSpeed wrote:
Just relating a very cool Zwift session I had. First of all, I don’t know how people Zwift and text. Even using speech to text. I cannot input on my phone while riding except a word of two and my environment is too noisy (Saris H2) plus Spotify blasting.
So anyway, I was doing a Dutch Diesel C ride where the group was sustaining 2.4 to 2.7 wkg & 25-27 mph on Fuego flats. That’s about my sustainable limit and I was hanging in there, well entrenched into the blob sometimes edging to the front & sometimes being sucked along at the back. All was good until I had a wi-fi dropout. This happens to me now and then lasting several seconds, during which everyone disappears & I’m riding solo. I also get trainer dropouts now and then that last but a few seconds, but not the case this time. Either case is devastating during group rides. Although I know to pedal harder during a Wi-Fi drop when they all disappear, I lose the draft. The trainer drops have me stop pedaling for a bit and watts go to zero and I’m spit out the back.
In this case, when I reconnected, I was 20 seconds behind. Efforts up to 4wkg were futile. I can’t hold that for long and any less simply opened the gap further. Adam, whom I’ve never met, saw me struggling and told me he’d hold up to help sweep me back into the blob, which was now a good 45 seconds up. He did, and I drafted him at 3.5-3.9 to his 4+ effort. We had 10 minutes to the end of the 1.5 hour ride. I didn’t think we could catch them. During this massive effort, Adam kept texting me words of encouragement. My HR was well into the danger zone, going over 200, but I hung on. I did manage to give him a Ride On, though. We caught them with less than a minute remaining. It was phenomenal! I can’t thank Adam enough. It was certainly the best Zwift ride I’ve had and really shows some great camaraderie from a fellow Zwift rider.
Pretty much what @trail said.
Your experience is also a very good primer to the Zwift group ride experience.
-1) other than a few rides (JETT and a few 3R base rides, both of which have organizers who rein in the unruly), the actual average w/kg needed to stay within a pack is at least 0.5 w/kg higher than advertised.
-2) even on those rides (say the Wednesday noontime 3R rides), an average-sized rider (say 175 cm and 72 kg) should expect to average no less than 95% of the advertised pace on flat terrain. Unless one approaches Zwift group riding the way a hypermiler approaches gas-saving, there is very little drafting to be found on Zwift. The corollary to that is the front of the group (speed is dictated by the first 7-10 riders) isn't actually going substantially harder (say only 3.3 w/kg on average). It makes for a very weird dynamic where a slight increase in power (from 2.8 to 3.1) makes one's group ride a lot more enjoyable. The only thing comparable IRL is a technical criterium race, where the group is stretched thin and where the rear is going about as hard as the front.
-3) the reason why it required 4+ w/kg to catch a group that's effectively going at 3.5 w/kg is that Zwift greatly reduces the effective CdA of a group of 5+ riders. The guy towing you experiences a CdA of ~0.25, but the group (that is, even the ones at the front) experiences an effective CdA of ~0.18. Simply insane.
-4) any time you are gapped by 1 second, you need to go at least 1.25 w/kg (and preferably 1.5 w/kg) over advertised to close that gap (you are still receiving some draft, even with a 1-second gap). Any time you are gapped by 2 seconds or more, you have to go at ~2 w/kg over advertised. Always be on alert when riding toward the back.
-5) if your group has sweepers, the time to call for help is when you are still within 5-seconds. A 10-second gap is doable, but would require more time to close. A 20-second gap is essentially impossible to close, unless you have someone really strong.
-6) if you think getting gapped on the flats is bad, just wait until you get gapped on a descent of 3% or more. The group will almost always pull away. Until you are proficient at supertucking, keep pedaling on the descents. The real maddening stuff happens when you drop a group of 5 on a climb and establish a 10-second gap, and both you and the group of 5 enter into a supertuck. That gap will invariably get closed on a long-enough descent, solely because of the lower effective CdA mentioned in point 3) above. Furthermore, when they pass you, they'll pass you by at a high enough speed differential that you'll actually need to do a mini-sprint to latch on. Makes no sense, but that's the state of Zwift aerodynamic simulation.
It's actually a lot of fun once you get the hang of it, but even then, it can still be quite maddening.