Comments on: Speed Tests: Rubberbanding (Keep Everyone Together) Mode in Zwift Meetups

By: Ben

Ben — Sun, 03 Mar 2024 18:58:22 +0000

My group organised a group ride with keep everyone together on Lutscher CCW circuit. One of our group carried on after lap 2 and found the banded climbs quicker?

Lap 1) banded with all 3 riders doing 3-3.5 w/kg 21:59 15.6km/h
2) banded except last 1.5km, one rider at 3-3.5w/kg, one around 2w/kg plus short sprints 20:05 17.1km/h
3) solo rider 3.5w/kg 24:33 14km/h

No idea why the solo effort of the strongest rider was the slowest?

By: Rick B

Rick B — Thu, 29 Feb 2024 00:09:20 +0000

I enjoy doing group workouts, I pay attention to cadence and if I am hitting the watts asked for, as well as time left till next change in power…. do not check speed at all. I do notice nearby riders and what their watts/kg is.

By: jseski

jseski — Wed, 28 Feb 2024 16:09:36 +0000

"Because of this, perhaps Zwift should consider tagging banded activities as “gamified” when posting to Strava, so the activities don’t show up on leaderboards or count for PRs." YES! 100% agree.

By: Joey

Joey — Wed, 28 Feb 2024 14:41:31 +0000

We stopped using “keep everyone together” for our meetups more than a year ago because of the silly 30 second window problem. Is that still a problem? Fyi the 30 second window problem is when someone stops pedaling, perhaps coasting down a long hill, connection issue or turning on fan — for any reason it seemed. Once they fall 30 seconds behind or thereabouts they won’t ever be brought back to the group. We all have to stop if we want them back. Our group is so good at riding together that we really only had problems keeping together when “keep everyone together” was turned on! We have a member or two that wants us to use it again, so I’d like to know if using it will mean we drop riders as before. We now do Club Events instead of meetups. Does the 30 second window problem still exist? Does this problem apply to club events?

By: CarlV

CarlV — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 18:53:55 +0000

For your consideration — I have climbed the AdZ many times and now also the climb portal many times. Very few banded club/meetups on AdZ, none on Portal. Normally climb the portal on 100% but occasionally elect for 75%. On Strava, if using the 75% (and suspect true of 50% and 25%), they say the efforts is excluded (Excluded Effort). Perhaps Zwift —> Strava for banded events could do the same. Personally, I’m agnostic to numbers — it’s a game. Only IRL is real. If people worry about how others play the IZL game, they lose (sanity, perspective, fun). C’est la vie!

By: Kevin

Kevin — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 09:49:09 +0000

In reply to Paul.

I regularly ride on the Banditz Tronathon. I think it’s great that weaker riders can benefit from the band – the Alpe is a ride that many people would not do if not banded. My goal with Zwift is fitness, so more time on bike is good – it’s that simple for me. However the band is odd – on flat sections ( not the Alpe) the band seems to slow us down. On the Alpe the times are ridiculously fast – the whole group in regularly under 1 hour – which makes no sense when only a few ( maybe 10%) are riding at that kind of power level.

for me it would be much better if I did NOT have my PR set on a vended ride. I think I have a PR of about 52 mins – when I suspect my best without the band would be about 65 mins.

By: Tom

Tom — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 08:44:40 +0000

so many issues with the banded feature. sometimes it gets stuck at 48kph. glad someone finally did some tests with it. hope zwift works on this low hanging fruit

By: Edmund

Edmund — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 03:49:51 +0000

Another suggestion: try testing how the number of riders influence speed, both for club and meetup events.

I say this because I did notice the slower speeds for club events seems mitigated when there is a bigger crowd. But it will be nice to see the tests done with an incrementally larger number (ie, start with 2, then keep adding riders until perhaps 20) to see where is the “sweet spot”.

Thank you!

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 26 Feb 2024 22:24:07 +0000

I regularly do meetup workouts with a friend who has a lower ftp than I do and therefore works out at lower wattages.
My average speed difference is noticable between the meetup ride and what I would do on my own. Not a problem in a workout as it is the wattage targets you’re working to not speed, but in a recent meetup workout, the rubber banding snapped due to a technicality. I ended up 20 mins ahead on the road, showing that zwift is significantly reducing my speed in a meetup workout. And of course very little if any drafting when there is just 2 of you!

By: Eric Schlange

Eric Schlange — Mon, 26 Feb 2024 20:01:10 +0000

In reply to CjP. Graph has always been truncated 600W. That's just a UI thing... doesn't affect your actual power.