James Bailey and friends have continued with their weekly testing and tweaking of Pace Partners to dial in the best mix of bots, paces, routes, and events.
Beginning tomorrow, Pace Partners will be heading back to the Alpe to pace riders in honor of the Queen’s Stage of the Tour de France. We’ve also got a new mix of routes for the other pace partners, so let’s dig into the latest Pace Partner news!
This Week’s Ride Routes
Riding routes for each Pace Partner have been changed this week. James notes, “In terms of route selection in Watopia moving forwards, I’ve finalised a list of 8 routes for the Pace Partners to follow. You can see these in the schedule below (missing is Triple Flat Loops). Of these routes, 2 are hilly, the other 6 are flat and will form the ongoing rotation for the Watopia riders.”
Watopia:
- Anquetil (4.2) – Big Foot Hills
- Brevet (3.3) – Three Little Sisters
- Coco (2.5) – Tick Tock
- Daniela (2.15) – Watopia’s Waistband
- Diego (1.8 ) – Flat Route
- Diesel (1.5) – Volcano Flat
- Dorothy (1.15) – Volcano Circuit
Makuri Island Pace Partners will remain in France for another 3 weeks.
France:
- Bernadette (3.8 ) – Petit Boucle
- Charlie (3.0) – Tire-Bouchon
- Denise (2.0) – Douce France
- Eddy (1.0) – R.G.V.
Smarter Power Modulation Update
Last week, Zwift introduced smarter power modulation to Pace Partners. It sounds like that new scheme will stay in place, as James noted in the latest update, “We began using Dynamic pacing from 1-3%, rather than just 3%+ which I feel is working well and will remain in place.”
Celebrating the Queen’s Stage of TdF
From Tuesday to Thursday this week, Zwift is hosting a number of Alpe Pacer events to celebrate the Queen’s Stage in the Tour De Frace!
See upcoming events at zwift.com/events/tag/festivaldalpe
Pace Partners are set up to complete the climb in 49 minutes, 59 minutes, 69 minutes, 89 minutes, and 119 minutes. Choose your desired pace! The pacers will run at 2/3 of their climbing pace during the lead-in.
In terms of route selection in Watopia moving forwards, I’ve finalised a list of 8 routes for the Pace Partners to follow. You can see these in the schedule below (missing is Triple Flat Loops). Of these routes, 2 are hilly, the other 6 are flat and will form the ongoing rotation for the Watopia riders.
Running Bots on the Volcano Circuit
Run bots are warming up on laps of That’s Amore this week, with plans to change the featured route each week. There are 11 run bots at a wide range of paces, so if runners want a bit of company, there’s a bot available:
- Michael Midsole: 10:00/km
- David Doubles: 9:00/km
- Tracey Trot: 8:00/km
- Albert Amble: 7:30/km
- Sarah Stride: 7:00/km
- Benito Bounder: 6:30/km
- Hettie Hare: 6:00/km
- Brendan Bolter: 5:30/km
- Rebecca Rocket: 5:00/km
- Stuart Speedster: 4:30/km
- Patricia Pacemaker: 4:00/km
Share Feedback
James is looking for feedback on all things Pace Partner. He requests that you share feedback (and any questions) in one of these spots:
I’m sure I’m missing something, but whats the point of the bots being in France, when the France world maps aren’t on rotation?? I can’t see how you can actually join them, so whats the point? Is this something that’s available in the new GUI only and not yet accessible to people on the old GUI still? (I’m on iOS)
These ones are events so you will be able to join them- see link in the post
Read the post about 10 times, don’t see a link to the events. I seea link to the “Alpe” events, but I’m talking about the other flatter France routes mentioned – there’s no way of joining them that i can see
even if you click pace partners from main menu? normally shows all routes/worlds there with pace partners active. although agree it doesn’t make a lot of sense to run a pace partner on a world which is not currently active to free-ride riders.
Riding with Pace Partners (generally) isn’t an event… you just join the Pace Partners wherever they’re at in whatever world they’re in.
Zwift has been doing some special Pace Partner-led events (like this week’s on the Alpe) but other than that, they’re just bots free riding which you can join via the Pace Partners menu on the home screen.
would riding this route with the pace bots affect you ftp
In what way? If you ride over your FTP you have the chance of getting bumped up, like any other ride. You won’t ever get bumped down if you take it easy…
with it not being an organised race or group ride i wasnt sure
Do you means in ZwiftPower and/or race categories? No, it doesn’t affect.
I like the 1-3% increase in the climbs. It keeps your engaged and aren’t just phoning it in. On the rollers it’s amazing.
Superb!
Perhaps this is an uncommon viewpoint, but I’d rather see the effort being spent on Pace Partners directed towards the ever growing backlog of bug fixes and feature requests.
In my opinion, no improvement to Pace Partners will make riding with them anything near the experience of riding with a real person leading a group ride. I wish Zwift would dedicate the time currently spent on Pace Partners towards improving the tools and resources for human ride leaders. That’s why I joined Zwift- to ride with real people not some bot.
I used to join group rides a lot, because, let’s face it, riding alone in zwift is super boring. But these days, I use pace partner almost exclusively every time I want to ride with group, because a) they’re always on, b) there are more choices now between 1.5-2.5 wkg, and c) they’re more precise with watt/kg target. So I’d say the improvements in pace partners area have been great.
I enjoy the pace partners. It’s a fun way to socialize with a group of riders at a pace I am happy with. The increase in power on the hills makes it more challenging too. Would love to have a Alp bot to really push it.