Avg 221watts, for an average speed of 22.6 km/h. your position in the pack seems to have nothing to do with what you actually do in the ride. increase watts, go backward. increase watts, go forward. stay where you are… nothing makes sense…
I assume you are referring to group structured workouts. Speed is irrelevant since everyone is working on a percentage of their individual FTP with all participants rubber banded together. Average speed is based upon the individual putting out the lowest watts. If you care about your position in a Zwift ride than do a Zwift race.
I think they’re great. I like how your power relative to the group doesn’t make a difference, since it’s the whole point
I assume you are referring to group structured workouts. Speed is irrelevant since everyone is working on a percentage of their individual FTP with all participants rubber banded together. Average speed is based upon the individual putting out the lowest watts. If you care about your position in a Zwift ride than do a Zwift race.
This is the answer.
Option also if you have buddies of more similar abilities you can schedule a meetup with them and do the same workout within a meetup instead:
I assume you are referring to group structured workouts. Speed is irrelevant since everyone is working on a percentage of their individual FTP with all participants rubber banded together. Average speed is based upon the individual putting out the lowest watts. If you care about your position in a Zwift ride than do a Zwift race.
except that Zwift also lets you set weekly / monthly distance targets, and when you’re doing a bunch of these group workouts, then it’s harder to hit those distance targets.
I don’t mind that it’s rubber banded. Its just weird, and somewhat demotivating, that changes in your effort have no effect onscreen. It should have more of a group ride pack dynamic than pulling everyone down to the slowest common denominator. Zwift is essentially a gamified indoor training tool, but the way that the group workouts operate takes all of the gamification out of it. There’s no point to the graphical interface if your input (power) has no effect.
I assume you are referring to group structured workouts. Speed is irrelevant since everyone is working on a percentage of their individual FTP with all participants rubber banded together. Average speed is based upon the individual putting out the lowest watts. If you care about your position in a Zwift ride than do a Zwift race.
This is the answer.
Option also if you have buddies of more similar abilities you can schedule a meetup with them and do the same workout within a meetup instead:
https://zwiftinsider.com/zwift-meetup-group-workouts/
I’m doing the Zwift Academy, and I like to ride on my own time rather than go through the hassle of scheduling meetups. Not many others like to hop on Zwift at 10pm…
I know how to work around the issue I’m describing. That’s not the point.
I assume you are referring to group structured workouts. Speed is irrelevant since everyone is working on a percentage of their individual FTP with all participants rubber banded together. Average speed is based upon the individual putting out the lowest watts. If you care about your position in a Zwift ride than do a Zwift race.
except that Zwift also lets you set **weekly / monthly distance targets, and when you’re doing a bunch of these group workouts, then it’s harder to hit those distance targets. **
I don’t mind that it’s rubber banded. Its just weird, and somewhat demotivating, that changes in your effort have no effect onscreen. It should have more of a group ride pack dynamic than pulling everyone down to the slowest common denominator. Zwift is essentially a gamified indoor training tool, but the way that the group workouts operate takes all of the gamification out of it. There’s no point to the graphical interface if your input (power) has no effect.
Time targets are better - then you can do the climbs without worrying about “distance”. If you want good distances just find group rides on Tempus Fugit and rack em up!
I assume you are referring to group structured workouts. Speed is irrelevant since everyone is working on a percentage of their individual FTP with all participants rubber banded together. Average speed is based upon the individual putting out the lowest watts. If you care about your position in a Zwift ride than do a Zwift race.
This is the answer.
Option also if you have buddies of more similar abilities you can schedule a meetup with them and do the same workout within a meetup instead:
https://zwiftinsider.com/zwift-meetup-group-workouts/
I’m doing the Zwift Academy, and I like to ride on my own time rather than go through the hassle of scheduling meetups. Not many others like to hop on Zwift at 10pm…
I know how to work around the issue I’m describing. That’s not the point.
You are looking for a bespoke solution to a specific combination of needs (more: wants) that you have. It is not what the majority of Zwift users needs as you can even see from the responses here.
I’m not “looking” for anything. I’m grumbling that the way group workouts currently operate is silly. I know, I don’t have to do them (which is why I usually don’t), but that’s just paying for features that I won’t use.
I want to like the feature. I like the idea of doing a structured workout with a group of like-minded individuals at any time that’s reasonably convenient. But the current implementation turns me away from it, and I doubt that I’m the only one.
I want the platform, that I will end up spending nearly $200 this year on, to be better.
I agree “stay together” mode in Zwift, whether it’s a group workout or just a meet-up with that option selected, is rubbish. I understand why it exists, but I never, use it. It completely undermines the objective of Zwift as far as I’m concerned.
I’ve been using Zwift for years, and last year with lockdowns in place a lot of others in my tri club tried it for the first time. Several of them were only using it for weekly club group rides which were being set up as Meet-ups using stay together mode. So I wasn’t surprised that most of them didn’t seem to get into the spirit of Zwift at all. They just saw it as an alternative to a zoom call, for receiving instructions while training. I blame stay together mode for that. It does allow riders of different abilities to “ride together”, but IMO it ruins the ride in the process. It breaks the illusion that your efforts are directly propelling the bike on the screen. Once that illusion is broken, you may as well just stare at a bike computer or a TR display.
I’m not “looking” for anything. I’m grumbling that the way group workouts currently operate is silly. I know, I don’t have to do them (which is why I usually don’t), but that’s just paying for features that I won’t use.
I want to like the feature. I like the idea of doing a structured workout with a group of like-minded individuals at any time that’s reasonably convenient. But the current implementation turns me away from it, and I doubt that I’m the only one.
I want the platform, that I will end up spending nearly $200 this year on, to be better.
I think you’re asking a lot if you want group workouts with riders closely enough matched to stay together when targeting specific %FTP without a stay together type function. As it’s currently structured, even if folks all enter the correct category, there’s not nearly enough resolution to do as you wish, and if there were, you wouldn’t have enough riders in each subdivision.
The normal, non-workout specific, group rides are probably the closest you’re going to get. I often quite enjoy those.
Target should be monthly TSS. Not sure if Zwift allows this, but if not, it should.
I’m not “looking” for anything. I’m grumbling that the way group workouts currently operate is silly. I know, I don’t have to do them (which is why I usually don’t), but that’s just paying for features that I won’t use.
I want to like the feature. I like the idea of doing a structured workout with a group of like-minded individuals at any time that’s reasonably convenient. But the current implementation turns me away from it, and I doubt that I’m the only one.
I want the platform, that I will end up spending nearly $200 this year on, to be better.
I think you’re asking a lot if you want group workouts with riders closely enough matched to stay together when targeting specific %FTP without a stay together type function. As it’s currently structured, even if folks all enter the correct category, there’s not nearly enough resolution to do as you wish, and if there were, you wouldn’t have enough riders in each subdivision.
The normal, non-workout specific, group rides are probably the closest you’re going to get. I often quite enjoy those.
I think there can be a stay together function, but allow it to just function closer to a group ride. e.g. make the rubber band work to pull the back along with the front so that as long as you’re working within the target, you won’t get dropped, but your speed is still responsive to effort.
I did 2 ZA rides yesterday, the group workout followed by a group recovery ride. the recovery ride works the way it “should”. the group workout, well, I did get the workout in, but I just had to try and ignore the avatars and look at the power numbers and archways.
Target should be monthly TSS. Not sure if Zwift allows this, but if not, it should.
it doesn’t.
Zwift allows for hours and distance. it’s not really a big deal, since it doesn’t consider non-zwift rides, but it’s just another small motivator to encourage consistency.
I have Zwift automatically upload rides to Training Peaks which tracks my TSS. Works like a charm.
I have Zwift automatically upload rides to Training Peaks which tracks my TSS. Works like a charm.
yeah, so do I (actually Stages Link / Todays Plan, but same idea). That’s not really relevant to this discussion. those weekly/monthly targets aren’t a training plan, they’re simply a motivational tool / fun thing to look at. the group workout rubberbanding, as implemented in Zwift currently, makes that less motivating and fun to look at.
I’m not “looking” for anything. I’m grumbling that the way group workouts currently operate is silly. I know, I don’t have to do them (which is why I usually don’t), **but that’s just paying for features that I won’t use. **
I want to like the feature. I like the idea of doing a structured workout with a group of like-minded individuals at any time that’s reasonably convenient. But the current implementation turns me away from it, and I doubt that I’m the only one.
Isn’t paying for things for which we don’t derive immediate utility (which is to say, compromise) a fact of life?
I’m sure you understand, as you say you are a national-level master swimmer. Some natatoria have diving pools, which are probably useless for swimmers, but the fee swimmers pay still include maintenance fees for the diving pools. Hell, some natatoria (e.g. those on university campuses) are funded by people who’ll never set foot on them.
Amateur competition cyclists and triathletes are all part of sporting bodies (e.g. USAC and USAT). These sporting bodies are fee-funded and often host/ sponsor events that are useless for at least a subset of their members (youth events in the case of master athletes and vice versa; elite level events in the case of “schlubs”).
Or closer to home, to date, I’ve neither ridden in Crit City nor finished climbing any of the long climbs (Alpes and Ventoux). I have never done a single Zwift Academy ride, and I’ve never done a single Zwift workout. By your definition, I’m seriously missing out and should be griping. But au contraire, I think the $14.99/ month fee is well spent. For one thing, it’s really hard to find a local spot where I can just do a 20-min interval uninterrupted.
It’s actually quite simple to have software that caters exactly to your whims. Just fork out a tens (if not hundreds) of grand, and you’ll have it, and it’ll probably be much nicer than Zwift, too. But if money is an issue, then I’m afraid you are just indulging in cakeism.
I want the platform, that I will end up spending nearly $200 this year on, to be better.
No you don’t. You want it to be tailored exactly to your preferences and whims. The “better” part would be applicable only to you, but not to Zwifters at large.
Fwiw, the stay-together feature is great for clubs whose members are assigned similar work outs. In real life, a group of ten would get split apart, and either the stronger riders will need to waste time waiting and/or the weaker riders will need to reduce their resting interval just to catch up.
As for suggestion for actual improvements that would benefit more than just a few, that queue stretches around the block (as in, those of us who have been paying members for nearly half a decade have still-to-be-resolved gripes). Get in line.
I’ve never done a Zwift Academy ride, but really enjoy riding with the pacers (Brevit and Cara Cadence). I usually put out good watts and it’s challenging.
Some complain about features they don’t use on Zwift. There’s so many things you CAN do, go do one of those that fits better with you desires than complaining about one that doesn’t.
Those group workouts aren’t for me either, I’d never try to do structured training outdoors in a group either other than Z2 or a race-sim ride. But it’s OK other people have a feature they choose to use in large numbers that I choose not to use.
To me this is almost like complaining after showing up for a rotation ride about the rotation not being fast enough for YOUR workout. OK, go workout alone then. Who cares.
The amazing thing about software development is that the people who do the development can take the feedback from users and change things. Sometimes making it better, sometimes worse. It’s a virtual world, not a physical one.
It seems like there’s a long history of users complaining about functionality that’s missing from Zwift. Some are perfectly happy with it the way it is, but many would like more.
So far, going off memory, there’s only one person who has actually come on and said that they like the way that the rubberbanding works in group workouts, and one other person who agrees with me. All the other responses are some version of “suck it up, princess”. That’s not actually saying anything helpful.