Zwift Chat

[bobinski]

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.

Pete, I think I must have set my phone alarm wrong. User error. Just shows how easy it is for some of us to screw things up 😊

 

[<Tommy>]

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?

I think this is worth a go.

Another con is finding a race at the right time that length and gradient suits us. But I guess we might have to keep an open mind about it.

I don’t mind being called a sandbagger. Where would we take the results from, the end of race screen on zwift?

 

[<Tommy>]

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 ?

I think bridgy tried this in chain gang races and it didn’t work very well. Maybe try again? I’ll have a errr fiddle, later if I have time.

If you read zwiftinsider course write ups I think he is never sure where he is going to spawn so I think it varies. But if we could get the finish line close that would be a start.

 

[JuhaL]

I need to do my TdZ stages according my work schedule, so i will probably do my first stage tomorrow because i have day off tomorrow. I will do group A ride if you do that too.

 

[Whorty]

Not a bad shout

No shouting on Discord

 

[IrishAl]

I think this is worth a go.

Another con is finding a race at the right time that length and gradient suits us. But I guess we might have to keep an open mind about it.

I don’t mind being called a sandbagger. Where would we take the results from, the end of race screen on zwift?

the end of race results in Zwift / Zwift companion app would be fine, as would the results in Zwiftpower assuming we’ve all signed up.

I’d agree that we would need to be open about the lumpiness of the courses. I guess with TdZ on for the next few weeks we won’t be having a handicapped race for a while unless we schedule one for the last week of every month regardless.

 

[Whorty]

Pete, I think I must have set my phone alarm wrong. User error. Just shows how easy it is for some of us to screw things up 😊

Makes me feel like less of an idiot now .... I thought I'd started way too late, but seems I wasn't as bad as first thought

 

[JuhaL]

No shouting on Discord

Noise-cancelling headphones would be perfect for that

 

[Whorty]

I think bridgy tried this in chain gang races and it didn’t work very well. Maybe try again? I’ll have a errr fiddle, later if I have time.

If you read zwiftinsider course write ups I think he is never sure where he is going to spawn so I think it varies. But if we could get the finish line close that would be a start.

I've created a new segment for the ride we did on Thursday. I started the segment just after the Memorial bend - this is about 300 yards from the spawning point to allow for the randomness of the spawn. I've finished the segment at the Finish banner (well, I can't see the banner on the map, so it may be off very slightly but it's going to be pretty close.

If you all go into your Strava ride for Thursday, and re-run the segment refresh then you should get this showing up in your lists. Depending who caught who on Thursday, and whether this was after or before the sprint Finish banner, may change the race results (I'm thinking Tommy and Del)

It's fairly easy to set up these segments, but not always easy to get them 100% spot on!

https://www.strava.com/activities/2996588771/segments/74404731120

 

[Whorty]

More anal(ysis) time .... As I accidentally started on Thursday as I wasn't watching the countdown to the meetup (see second red circle with a small speed blip), Strava started the ride duration count. The first red circle shows that I was then stationary for 18:53 (I should have left at 18:33 so I left 20 seconds late!)

this second screen shot from Strava includes my full ride to the blue gate. Again you can see the stationary period where I sat in the pairing screen, then the ride itself. Seems from the meetup start (when Joffy went off) to when I crossed the blue gate finish was 58:17 minutes.

Not sure if any of this really makes any sense or adds any value, but it's out there anyway

 

[bridgy]

I think your idea is a really good one @IrishAl and we should probably try this next time. Joining "A" cat would probably be best - far less likely to catch up with them! (And no one will get told off/eliminated in ZP).

@Whorty creating new segments to exactly cover a meetup is trickier than it sounds. Firstly it's very hard/impossible to get the end of the segment exactly where the blue banner was. Put it too early and you still miss the close sprint finishes anyway, and too late and you favour those who rode on through the line rather than stop straight away. Also I found it took ages for all the strava data to update to the new segment - several days later, it was still not including several people's ride from the race we were trying to get results for - far from ideal.

 

[bridgy]

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.

Yes it would be fine to use a H & H race for a league stage - I think we have before? Only issues are that not everyone will be able to make the same event, and also it will be nicer if we can more easily see each other in the leaderboard, which I think would work better with Al's idea. Also H&H races obviously have just the A to D categories rather than individual handicaps. This is obviously simpler (and times can be adjusted after the race) but it is good when we all catch up with each other and have a close finish in the actual race

 

[<Tommy>]

I think your idea is a really good one @IrishAl and we should probably try this next time. Joining "A" cat would probably be best - far less likely to catch up with them! (And no one will get told off/eliminated in ZP).

@Whorty creating new segments to exactly cover a meetup is trickier than it sounds. Firstly it's very hard/impossible to get the end of the segment exactly where the blue banner was. Put it too early and you still miss the close sprint finishes anyway, and too late and you favour those who rode on through the line rather than stop straight away. Also I found it took ages for all the strava data to update to the new segment - several days later, it was still not including several people's ride from the race we were trying to get results for - far from ideal.

I agree. I think Alan’s idea is the winner. Not that I’m calling IrishAl the winner. Bloody wins too much as it is!...😁

I think a combination of this and everyone getting used to using the countdown timer could be the best solution in an imperfect system. Hopefully we can find events that roughly coincide with our time slots.

 

[Whorty]

I think this is worth a go.

Another con is finding a race at the right time that length and gradient suits us. But I guess we might have to keep an open mind about it.

I don’t mind being called a sandbagger. Where would we take the results from, the end of race screen on zwift?

If we race ours as a handicap, and the slowest rider goes off first, then if we go in Cat A we won't be seen as sandbaggers and the first off won't be getting much draft benefit for long

 

[Whorty]

I think your idea is a really good one @IrishAl and we should probably try this next time. Joining "A" cat would probably be best - far less likely to catch up with them! (And no one will get told off/eliminated in ZP).

@Whorty creating new segments to exactly cover a meetup is trickier than it sounds. Firstly it's very hard/impossible to get the end of the segment exactly where the blue banner was. Put it too early and you still miss the close sprint finishes anyway, and too late and you favour those who rode on through the line rather than stop straight away. Also I found it took ages for all the strava data to update to the new segment - several days later, it was still not including several people's ride from the race we were trying to get results for - far from ideal.

I created this segment to end at the official Zwift Finish banner, not the blue gate, so as long as we all race to the Zwift finish banner we'd be fine. But .... we'd all need to know the course and how far away each banner is so we know when to start the sprint

We'll get there .... and we should be looking for a 'KISS' solution.