Zwift Chat

[Del C]

You've all missed my point about time keeping and that is we join an official organised hare & hounds event and the timing is already organised for you in your allocated category pens.
As previously mentioned if you want to fine tune the timings individually then it can be worked out easily by the times recorded on Zwift powe or Zwift companion activities.
They are organised most days but there are a lot of riders and it may be difficult to see each other with such a large field.

I'm happy to give this a go if we can find a ride that suits everyone, but it will come down to finding times on Tuesday and Thursday that each of us can make and having equivalent rides in terms of the course and distance on both days.

Of course, we could set this up as a one-off instead?

I don't see that it needs to be either one or the other. The current format worked pretty well. It would be nice to have a common race timer and our results on Zwift Power, but that's the same problem we have with all meet-up rides at the moment.

 

[Brendan Parker]

Just a thought, could discord help?

 

[Whorty]

Firstly, the clock doesn't start until you begin riding, so the timing is personal to you and not for the meet-up as a whole. We saw this on the first run on Tuesday. So, that rules out the option of not using a stopwatch.

On your other suggestion, I can see the attraction and if everything runs correctly it would work. The problems I can see are what happens if somebody doesn't make the start line.

This could happen because a rider is just running late and misses the ride or because some idiot (like me last night) forgets to accept @bridgy's invite and only realises at the last minute, and in doing so gets his start time a little screwed up. Of course, some other idiot might get his timings completely wrong and hang around in the pairing screen for too long, but let's not dwell on that either!

So, for those 2 reasons I think we've got to fail safe and each run our own stopwatch from the time the first rider goes. Maybe not perfect, but I think its the system least likely to fail with Zwift as it currently is.

Come on ... I can't see anyone staying in the pairing screen too long .... who would be that dumb?

Good spot on the 'run time' - I hadn't noticed this myself so wasn't sure what that showed.

 

[Whorty]

You've all missed my point about time keeping and that is we join an official organised hare & hounds event and the timing is already organised for you in your allocated category pens.
As previously mentioned if you want to fine tune the timings individually then it can be worked out easily by the times recorded on Zwift powe or Zwift companion activities.
They are organised most days but there are a lot of riders and it may be difficult to see each other with such a large field.

I do like this format, but it is different to what we're trying to do in the handicap race. With the H&H, all same cat riders (e.g. C) start together, so a stronger C cat will start the same as a borderline C/D cat. The weaker riders in a cat will most likely get dropped from the main peloton quite quickly so they will lose the draft benefit of 20/30 riders too.

Unfortunately these race formats are not run that frequently either, which is a shame as they always seem to be well attended. It's a shame we can't set up our own 'formal' races rather than having to rely on the meetup function. Zwift did hint this was the way they were planning to go at one point, but this just hasn't transpired.

 

[peterob]

Only change I'd suggest, is instead of each of us keeping our own start times we instead take our start from the rider in front of us .... let me explain ....

Last night I was due to go at 18:33 Del was 18:30. Brendan 18:48, Bob 19:51

What actually happened though I didn't see Del go as I was still in the pairing screen as my stop-watch was still before 18:00 minutes. When I came out the pairing screen just before 18:00, Brendan had already started. By the time I got off, Bob was on my tail and over taking me within the first 1/2 km.

I'm pretty sure I started my clock late as I missed the count down to Joffey going off so unless we're all spot on with our stop-watches we're going to get this wrong.

What I was thinking then, is we note the person before us, and go x seconds after that person goes. So, for me last night, I would have just been watching Del and gone 3 seconds after he went. The Brendan goes 15 seconds after me. Then Bob 63 seconds after Brenda etc etc. Then we all at least leave in the right order.

What I didn't notice last night, as I was in a bit of a rush when I came out the pairing screen, was what the on-screen ride time was. When we go into the pairing screen does the full time continue to run through from when the meetup started, or does the clock paused when in the pairing screen? If the clock does continue to count through then actually we all shouldn't need a stopwatch as the 'leave' time will be visible once we leave the pairing screen. Did anyone notice this last night?

Not that this made that much difference last night as we all, mostly, finished about the same time but the tighter/more controlled we can get these starts the better the handicaps will become.

Any thoughts?

I found a similar thing last night. I expected to be setting off 5 secs after Bob but he was already a minute or two up the road when I set off (at what I thought was the right time).

would it be possible for the person starting last to run the stopwatch and post in the chat when people need to set off (similar to Bridgy last night and me on Tuesday)....e.g ‘Whorty go go go!’ at Whorty’s handicap time. It would only get tricky if there’s a couple of riders at very close handicaps, but it’d probably make sense to give them the same start time anyway (I’d suggest having a minimum of 15 secs between riders). I think this should be easy to do.

 

[Del C]

I found a similar thing last night. I expected to be setting off 5 secs after Bob but he was already a minute or two up the road when I set off (at what I thought was the right time).

would it be possible for the person starting last to run the stopwatch and post in the chat when people need to set off (similar to Bridgy last night and me on Tuesday)....e.g ‘Whorty go go go!’ at Whorty’s handicap time. It would only get tricky if there’s a couple of riders at very close handicaps, but it’d probably make sense to give them the same start time anyway (I’d suggest having a minimum of 15 secs between riders). I think this should be easy to do.

That may work, but as you say we'd have to group riders together so the start times are manageable.

We'd also need to make sure the person telling people to go is still able to message from the pairing screen.

 

[mjd1988]

Just a thought, could discord help?

Not a bad shout

 

[<Tommy>]

I think there’s a danger that we’re making things more complicated than they need to be.

•Check to see what your handicap time is and set a countdown timer in your phone. eg 7
minutes

•when the first rider heads off press start on your timer

•when the alarm goes set off like a bat out of hell?

I think it just takes a bit of practice.

The thing about using discord is that it’s a good idea but it can go wrong. Headsets fail etc. Loss of signal. And then we’re asking someone to take responsibility for everyone else.

Same with the last rider calling out all the times. I think it’s a good idea, and It’s fine if they don’t mind. but personally I’d rather just chill out and listen to music. Don’t see why one person should take responsibility for everyone else when you can do it yourself with a bit of practice.

like I say I just think it’ll take a bit of bedding in. Once we’ve done a few races it’ll click.

 

[<Tommy>]

Also the more I think about it the more I think we should either take a screen shot, a phone photo, or take note on paper of our total times for the meet-up when they pop up at the end. This will tell us who has come where on the road.

then we can also either use this, or the most relevant segment time to decide handicap adjustments.

 

[Del C]

Also the more I think about it the more I think we should either take a screen shot, a phone photo, or take note on paper of our total times for the meet-up when they pop up at the end. This will tell us who has come where on the road.

then we can also either use this, or the most relevant segment time to decide handicap adjustments.

I agree with your previous post on keeping it simple. It's the surest way of minimising potential for errors.

On that basis, I don't agree with this suggestion. Stay with segments. We'll get used to them over time. Even me, because I totally forgot about the long lead-in on this weeks ride, and I rode it twice! I think remembering to take a screen shot is just taking another unnecessary risk.

 

[<Tommy>]

I agree with your previous post on keeping it simple. It's the surest way of minimising potential for errors.

On that basis, I don't agree with this suggestion. Stay with segments. We'll get used to them over time. Even me, because I totally forgot about the long lead-in on this weeks ride, and I rode it twice! I think remembering to take a screen shot is just taking another unnecessary risk.

I’m terrible at remembering when segments start and finish too to be honest. It’s a real shame we can’t get the countdown distance timer on meet ups as a very basic improvement.
What I meant is we start racing from the start of the meet up. And don’t stop racing until the end of the meet up. But just use either the most relevant segment time, or the entire meet up time, to adjust the handicap for the next race. This is what we did the last race. But to use the whole meet up time I think the only way to do it is to use the info on screen at the end of the meet up.

I have a feeling it will take some practice remembering to take a note of your on screen meet up finish time. But if we’re going to race the entire meet up rather than a segment inside the meet up (which I also think will be very complicated). I just can’t see a way around it.

unless we add the handicap time to the most relevant segment time like bridgy did last race. It’s not terrible that way it’s just not completely accurate.

It’s definitely caused some debate anyway 😁

 

[IrishAl]

Okay here’s an idea that hopefully I can explain...
We join/gate crash an organised race at a time roughly around the usual meet up time.
Probably all have to sign up to the same category so we are in the same start pen.
instead of us all setting off with the race we sit tight in the pen (on pairing screen if you want to warm up)
As the race starts We all start our timers counting down to our go go go time.
To ensure no unfair draft advantage the first rider has to wait a set amount of time before he can set off - all riders times are adjusted in advance to account for this.

I see this has a few big advantages...
The start and finish points are well defined in the game. Balls to the wall to the line and not worrying about segments etc.
We would only see riders in the race, so we should actually see time gaps between just us and not the mass of other riders in the game world.
Importantly Race results in Zwift Power.

Disadvantage is if we select say cat D then some of us will get slated for being sandbaggers for entering a lower cat race than we are...Unless we all join A.
We would need to select a race on a course that has a long enough lap distance so no rider gets swallowed up by a peloton and unfair race draft.
Handicaps would have to be estimated based on some sort of formula as it’s unlikely to get a race course that we know peoples previous times. I’m sure this wouldn’t be too complicated and after all it’s a bit of “fun”.

I do a team time trial most weeks and the way it is run is very similar. In this case teams go at one minute intervals. Teams manually note their start time and go. The team I’m in use discord but as Tommy says it doesn’t work for everyone.
The TTT organiser - WTRL - works out the final results presumably from the Zwiftpower data and puts them up on a website. Not to dissimilar to what @bridgy did above.

sorry for the long post but I think this method would be really good especially as we should all see each other in game rather than a cluttered map.

Thoughts?

 

[IrishAl]

FYI...Tour du Zwift events are up...here is Tuesday evenings choices around our usual 7pm meet up time...


Tour du Zwift

looks like there is only one category to select if we want to use one of the group rides.
And the races are different courses and difference.

are we still planning on using the usual meet up times to try and get as many in the one event?

 

[Joffey]

I'm good for Tuesday at 7pm

 

[berty bassett]

if riding the same course for a few times and if we always spawn in the same place , cant we just go back in strava history , make a a segment of the whole ride or where the blue gate is roughly because most do a couple of miles slow after - that would give everyone a time , then it doesnt matter as much getting the start time bang on ?