RojoRacing
Donut Powered Wise-guy
What say we try for a group ride on watopia figure 8 Tuesday at 5pm PST?
Zwift - Cruzbike Activities (races and group rides)
- Thread starter RojoRacing
- Start date
RojoRacing
Donut Powered Wise-guy
Not sure yet since I can't access zwift till this afternoon, but probably something solid blue since that seem to be rarely used. I'd rather not race all out, I'd suggest a solid pace where talking doesn't become too labored. For me that would be about 150-180 watts or 0.5-0.6 FTP. Let me know what your FTP is and I'll do the rest.
anotherbrian
Active Member
I'm 300W at 84kg, so should be fine doing whatever.
In real life (IRL), our ~6 rider fast group rides tend to have the strong riders in front, and the less strong sitting in, and unless someone is super fatigued no one ever falls off the back. Since there is a variety of W/kg's, on climbs everyone does their own pace and we regroup at the top/obvious spots. With comms it should be easy enough for faster climbers to go at their own pace then backtrack and rejoin the group, rather than just sit and wait.
In real life (IRL), our ~6 rider fast group rides tend to have the strong riders in front, and the less strong sitting in, and unless someone is super fatigued no one ever falls off the back. Since there is a variety of W/kg's, on climbs everyone does their own pace and we regroup at the top/obvious spots. With comms it should be easy enough for faster climbers to go at their own pace then backtrack and rejoin the group, rather than just sit and wait.
anotherbrian
Active Member
Woo hoo, and my Zwift just updated to include the new volcano route.
RojoRacing
Donut Powered Wise-guy
Yeah your ether going to need to add a few pounds or just enjoy a very easy ride. Pacelining to help the slower riders at the back is easier in real life but I haven't gotten 3-4 riders together on zwift with voice chat to really try and perfect it. This will be a good test.
RojoRacing
Donut Powered Wise-guy
Ok so on tomorrow's zwift group ride at 5pm PST be sure to wear your basic 4 kit pictured below. Use any bike except the TT bike because of obvious drafting reasons. Be sure to get discord up and running beforehand and if your still unsure about how to set it up I can help you out today for at least the next few hours, just let me know and I'll log on.
A few things to know before clicking on that ride button tomorrow. Make sure you select the figure 8 route so we all stick together automatically. Make sure you know how to do a u-turn without getting off the bike to reach your keyboard. I have one of the extra buttons on my mouse programmed as the down arrow key for quick u-turns. If you see one of our names in Orange in the rider list select it and click the ride with button. If you arrive first pedal ahead and stop at the start finish banner. It'll be less crowded there and easier to find each other on the rider list.
Go pee before we start
A few things to know before clicking on that ride button tomorrow. Make sure you select the figure 8 route so we all stick together automatically. Make sure you know how to do a u-turn without getting off the bike to reach your keyboard. I have one of the extra buttons on my mouse programmed as the down arrow key for quick u-turns. If you see one of our names in Orange in the rider list select it and click the ride with button. If you arrive first pedal ahead and stop at the start finish banner. It'll be less crowded there and easier to find each other on the rider list.
Go pee before we start
ratz
Wielder of the Rubber Mallet
I'll be there I hope; and so will the new v20 rider down the street from me unless he has a really good excuse
I'll just modify my rider weight to keep it in the warmup range for me; after Sunday's brutal pedal fest I'm going to need a long warm up. 7pm CSt is a tad early from me so I have to go negotiate with pluckyblond now. I sense dishes, and laundry in my future.
I'll just modify my rider weight to keep it in the warmup range for me; after Sunday's brutal pedal fest I'm going to need a long warm up. 7pm CSt is a tad early from me so I have to go negotiate with pluckyblond now. I sense dishes, and laundry in my future.
anotherbrian
Active Member
I had no luck using that code to join the server, though the one ratz posted much earlier in the thread seems to have worked:
TWdVthg
Are we adding a suffix to our names like the races do for easier id'ing in the rider list?
TWdVthg
Are we adding a suffix to our names like the races do for easier id'ing in the rider list?
ratz
Wielder of the Rubber Mallet
Correct the permanent code is: https://discord.gg/TWdVthg
The rest are usually temporary or 1 time.
After the trial run; we'll put team moose in charge of creating a good racing team name to put in parenthesis and getting it register on the zwiftpower.com site.
RojoRacing
Donut Powered Wise-guy
So wait, you guys want me to conform to the masses and add a team name to the end of my evil laugh just like every other racer? I make no promises
#1 way to isolate your group of riders is to creat an official zwift event, with a ride leader and beacon. When you join an event the only riders on your rider list are the one in the event so there's no confusion.
#2 method would be to friend everyone via the zwift mobile app before the ride. This will add little person icon to the left of any rider your friends with so its easy to identity them just by looking for the friend icon.
RojoRacing
Donut Powered Wise-guy
Confusion of where your other group riders are at will only be an issue in the congested areas like the starting area, volcano route and if we come across a group ride. As long as we establish a good pace for everyone throughout the ride it won't be an issue to get consumed momentarily by other groups of riders because it only lasts a moment and then everyone usually spreads apart again.
RojoRacing
Donut Powered Wise-guy
On a positive note, due to the recent release of the volcano route we should have the rest of the island to ourselves.
anotherbrian
Active Member
I'm fine with simple names. I don't think I've been in proximity of other friended riders to see how their names show up in the list (tho I did click in to "ride with" Jason yesterday when I started the app w/o being near the bike).
We are riding the flat(tish) Figure 8 and not the Mountain 8, right?
We are riding the flat(tish) Figure 8 and not the Mountain 8, right?
RojoRacing
Donut Powered Wise-guy
Correct Figure 8 is the flatter hilly route but once in each direction automatically. We're not doing the big mountain climb.
RojoRacing
Donut Powered Wise-guy
I swear I'm getting fatter by the post on this thread.
RojoRacing
Donut Powered Wise-guy
I would have liked to have called it a no drop ride but......yeah I was dropping all over the place.
anotherbrian
Active Member
Sorry for my sudden disconnect on Discord. Rojo's voice faded into the distance, and I was thinking it was my very drenched headphones and started unplugging things and pressing random buttons trying to make it come out as a speakerphone.
I think it worked really well. Not sure matching jerseys helped find each other, as once I was close enough to see the jersey on my screen the riders name would also appear. I think Rojo's all uppercase BWAHAHAHA was easily picked out on the riders list more than trplayer or mine (I could also quickly pick out ratz's V20 tag). I think next time I'll just append a LOLOLOLOL to my name.
I think it worked really well. Not sure matching jerseys helped find each other, as once I was close enough to see the jersey on my screen the riders name would also appear. I think Rojo's all uppercase BWAHAHAHA was easily picked out on the riders list more than trplayer or mine (I could also quickly pick out ratz's V20 tag). I think next time I'll just append a LOLOLOLOL to my name.
RojoRacing
Donut Powered Wise-guy
[COLOR=rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.701961)]First I recommend those new to discord use the phone app(it's free) with some regular ear bud headphones or possibly set it to speakerphone if you trainer is super quite. Phones these days have awesome sound cancellation technology all you get is clear conversation when setup correctly. After you figure out the phone and how well I should work you can then start messing around with discord on your laptop or whatever which seems quite a bit harder to do when you have to deal with third party peripheral and such. Hardy has more than a few bugs to work out with his broadcasting half of discord.
I normally weigh 150 lbs these days but yesterday I started at 230. I guess I'm slow to warm up because 230 lbs felt harder than I wanted to push to stay with Brian and hardy so when we all logged off and back on due to a course routing issue I dropped it to 200(sorry Hardy). We got going again and finish most of a lap before my wifi dropped and I was riding alone but still able to talk to Brian over discord to monitor our current positions on course. Actually we did a damn good job of sticking together without being able to see each other. After we finished the whole 19 miles of the watopia figure 8 route we stopped to make some off the bike adjustments which included me bumping my weight to 250 lbs and logging back in so we could see each other again.
We decided to head over and ride a lap on the new volcano route but again my wifi dropped. So I rode the volcano all by myself chatting with Brian along the way calling out each of out turns. After a lap and a half of the volcano we opted to ride to the top of watopia mt. At the start of the climb I quickly logged out and back in again to reconnect and my connect held out for almost the whole climb. The extra 100 lbs of extra virtual weight I was carrying made for a honest effort to stay with the guys and still converse. After the climb we rolled down the mountain and at 8pm I called it quits and logged out.
You do feel the extra weight of your avatar since it doesn't effect your trainer resistance setting or anything. The only thing that happens is you go slower which can also be hard to feel if you just riding with slower people than you're used to. What I mean is riding at 250 watts at 150 lbs to stay with a group of A riders feels no different than 250 watts at 250 lbs to stay with a group of D riders. I will say that at one point I had to jump off the bike to plug my phone in to that charger so I dropped back about 20 seconds. When I tried to catch back up I was pulling a solid 350 watts and really feeling the burn, but when I noticed my W/Kg was only a mere 3.1 I could help but laugh. Normally I can pull solid 5.0 efforts when trying to close up gaps so yeah it's a little weird.
We really need Hardy on the discord chat next time since he was our slowest rider and it kind of felt like we unfairly beating him up. I'll start at 250 lbs next time and make adjustments as needed. I will say for the one KOM climb where Brian and I cut loose and ride hard, I was having a hell of a time stick with Brian who didn't even seem to be pushing that hard. [/COLOR]
I normally weigh 150 lbs these days but yesterday I started at 230. I guess I'm slow to warm up because 230 lbs felt harder than I wanted to push to stay with Brian and hardy so when we all logged off and back on due to a course routing issue I dropped it to 200(sorry Hardy). We got going again and finish most of a lap before my wifi dropped and I was riding alone but still able to talk to Brian over discord to monitor our current positions on course. Actually we did a damn good job of sticking together without being able to see each other. After we finished the whole 19 miles of the watopia figure 8 route we stopped to make some off the bike adjustments which included me bumping my weight to 250 lbs and logging back in so we could see each other again.
We decided to head over and ride a lap on the new volcano route but again my wifi dropped. So I rode the volcano all by myself chatting with Brian along the way calling out each of out turns. After a lap and a half of the volcano we opted to ride to the top of watopia mt. At the start of the climb I quickly logged out and back in again to reconnect and my connect held out for almost the whole climb. The extra 100 lbs of extra virtual weight I was carrying made for a honest effort to stay with the guys and still converse. After the climb we rolled down the mountain and at 8pm I called it quits and logged out.
You do feel the extra weight of your avatar since it doesn't effect your trainer resistance setting or anything. The only thing that happens is you go slower which can also be hard to feel if you just riding with slower people than you're used to. What I mean is riding at 250 watts at 150 lbs to stay with a group of A riders feels no different than 250 watts at 250 lbs to stay with a group of D riders. I will say that at one point I had to jump off the bike to plug my phone in to that charger so I dropped back about 20 seconds. When I tried to catch back up I was pulling a solid 350 watts and really feeling the burn, but when I noticed my W/Kg was only a mere 3.1 I could help but laugh. Normally I can pull solid 5.0 efforts when trying to close up gaps so yeah it's a little weird.
We really need Hardy on the discord chat next time since he was our slowest rider and it kind of felt like we unfairly beating him up. I'll start at 250 lbs next time and make adjustments as needed. I will say for the one KOM climb where Brian and I cut loose and ride hard, I was having a hell of a time stick with Brian who didn't even seem to be pushing that hard. [/COLOR]
