Old 11-19-21, 02:07 PM
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MinnMan
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Zwift - the advantages of riding with pace partners.

These days I find that a large fraction of my zwift rides are with the pace partners - mostly the "C" rider Coco (2.5 W/kg nominal)

[I can't stay with Amelia (4.5 W/kg) for extended periods of time, and I've never seen her with a significant group. Dan (1.5 W/kg) has a decent group, but unless I'm really forcing myself to take it super easy, I ride away from them without trying. I can ride with Bowie (3.5 W/kg), but only if I've decided in advance that it's going to be a stiff workout, particularly as those rides end up being more like 3.7-3.8 W/kg for me. So mostly it's Coco]

Apart from structured workouts, I find that riding with the pace partners is more nearly like a group ride than the official Zwift "group rides".

One obvious advantage of the pace partners is that they are always there - there's no hunting through the schedule to find a ride and a time that matches the level I'm seeking on that day. Also, when riding with Coco or Bowie (B, nominal 3.5 W/kg), there's generally a good-sized group - not too small and not the mob one finds in some of the larger organized groups.

Another advantage is that because I tend to ride at about the same time of the day, a bunch of the other riders become familiar. I am normally riding in the later evening (US central time) and many of the riders with Coco at that time are early-risers in Europe. They are chatty and I get to know them. In "organized" group rides, I usually know nobody or one other person, and in the mob, they may as well not be there. So it feels to me more like a real group experience. I suppose that if I joined the same official group ride on a regular basis, that might also develop. But most of those rides feel like riding with strangers, which is like riding alone in some ways.

Also, in the regular group rides, if you're in the mob, all of the group riding dynamics, such as drafting, get pretty ill defined. Yes, the numbers on the screen say I'm going faster for a given power output, but so what? I don't feel like I'm modulating anything. Only if I ride off the front will drafting have any "feel" to it. Not so with the smaller groups around the pace partners,

One thing that is especially true about riding with Coco is that grupettos nucleate off the front, especially on the more hilly routes or associated with sprints. So I can go ride with Coco and stick to about 2.5-2.7 W/kg or I can be more energetic and find (or help make) a group that's going to work at, say, 3 or 3.2 W/kg. Or I can do one for a while and then the other.

Similarly, one can chill with the group and then hammer for the sprint lines and then fall back into the group.

And nobody is yelling a us about "the fence".

Just my $0.02. YMMV
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