Zwift launched FutureWorks Pace Partners back on August 25th, so by now the community has had the chance to ride with the bots.
The general consensus seems to be: we love the Pace Partners idea, and there’s a pile of improvements that could make them even more useful. This is all good news, because it means that as a minimum viable product (MVP) launch, Pace Partners are a success. Zwift now knows there’s interest in the feature, and this will justify further development.
Let’s talk a bit about how Pace Partners currently function, fun things you can do with them right now, and ideas for improvements.
Pace Partners: the Basics
There are currently four Pace Partners, but only two have been active at a time. Generally we’ve seen them rotate by gender, with Diesel and Brevet riding one day, then Cadence and Anquetil the next. Here’s more info on each bot:
D. Diesel
- Yellow avatar
- Weighs 82kg
- Rides between 82-197w (1-2.4 w/kg)
B. Brevet
- Green avatar
- Weighs 82kg
- Rides between 263-320w (3.29-3.9 w/kg)
C. Cadence
- Blue avatar
- Weighs 65kg
- Rides between 163-202w (2.5-3.1 w/kg)
A. Anquetil
- Red avatar
- Weighs 65kg
- Rides 260w+ (4+ w/kg)
Zwift has stated that Pace Partners will be turned off for “maintenance” from 8:30-10:30 and 20:30-22:30 Pacific time each day, but this hasn’t been the case every day. (For example: as I write this, it’s 9:00 and CoCo is still active.)
Pace Partners are only active in Watopia right now, so to ride with one, click “Watopia” in the world choice tab of the join screen, then click the Pace Partners block at the top of the rider list. This will bring up a list of active Pace Partners. Select which Partner you’d like, click “Next”, then click “Ride”. Start pedaling! You will be dropped in next to the Pace Partner with a bit of pedal assist to get you up to speed.
Hang around near the Pace Partner long enough and you should get a Ride On from them. They like spreading the Ride On love!
Current Uses/Games
Even though Zwift’s current Pace Partner functionality is very basic, it still adds useful and fun elements to the game. Here are some ways I’ve been using Pace Partners lately…
Always-On Group Ride
This is the most obvious use of Pace Partners, but it’s still worth mentioning. All the partners except Anquetil (she’s too fast!) have consistently been surrounded by a group of 10-60 riders, meaning Zwift Pace Partners have created a sort of always-on group ride. If you’re looking to just ride at a steady pace and want the company of others, hop in with a Pace Partner group.
[adinserter block=”7″]
Race Warmups and Cooldowns
It’s often tough to find a group ride that works for a race warmup or cooldown, and I always feel a little guilty jumping out of the group ride before it ends. But I can hop in and out of Pace Partner groups with zero guilt, and they’re (mostly) always active.
Diesel moves slower than I would typically ride for a race warmup, but if I have the time, riding with him is a great way to get my legs spun up. Cadence seems to ride in the best range for my warmups and cooldowns, where I can sit in with the group at an easy pace, or push it off the front as I ramp up my heart rate in warmup.
Brevet is often moving a bit faster than I’d prefer if I’m starting off cold, but once I’ve warmed up for 5-10 minutes his pace is a good warmup effort as well.
Efficiency Challenge (Drafting Practice)
If you’re just getting into racing on Zwift, learning how to draft is hugely important. The Pace Partners are the perfect way to work on these skills without the worry of getting dropped in a race or group ride. Try to maintain your position on the Partner’s wheel, or just stay in the draft of the group surrounding the bot.
On a recent ride I decided to attempt riding as efficiently as possible with Brevet’s group, which was riding on the Sand and Sequoias route. Brevet was riding at 270 watts (3.3 w/kg) steady, which made things interesting on the ups and downs of Titans Grove! I found that our group would surge ahead of Brevet on the climbs (because our smart trainers would apply more resistance, which naturally increases our wattage). But Brevet would hold steady wattage on the descents when our wattage would drop – so he would move ahead on the downhills.
I was able to do a full lap at 225 watts average (2.8 w/kg), staying in Brevet’s draft the entire time. Can you do better?
Playing Keep Away
Looking for a more demanding challenge? Join a Pace Partner riding at a solid pace, then see if you can stay away off the front:
If you really want to keep yourself honest, do it on a TT bike.
Looking Ahead
Now that we’ve had time to ride with the Pace Partners, there are lots of ideas for improvements. (The best place to post these, by the way, is on the FutureWorks/Pace Partners Forum.)
Messaging
The community seems to generally agree that the current automated messaging from the Pace Partners is a bit annoying. (One rider counted 73 messages from Coco in a 1-hour ride!)
To their credit, Zwift has begun to modify these messages – Cadence uses distinctly Australian phrases (although some of what she says doesn’t sound Aussie at all). And Anquetil, fittingly, has become quite French!
Having the bots speak more intelligently could be really fun. Perhaps they warn everyone when a timed segment is coming up, or occasionally welcome one of the new riders that just clicked to join the group.
Lots of possibilities here, but I don’t see Zwift putting significant resources into this any time soon. Until the bots can speak more intelligently, I think Zwifters generally agree that fewer messages would be better.
Change of Pace
Right now, each bot begins their “shift” at a set wattage within the windows stated above. The bots seem to remain at that wattage throughout their shift.
In talking with Wes Salmon at ZHQ, it’s clear he and his team are considering some sort of intelligent pace changing in future versions of Pace Partners. The most logical approach would be to bump up wattage on climbs, and drop it a bit on descents. This would make the group pace feel a bit more natural.
But there’s much more that could be done with pace changing! For example: what if some pace bots did interval efforts, either randomized or in set times? Randomized intervals would be excellent for race training. Bots could even use messaging to warn of pace changes: “Going to ramp it up to 250 watts for 5 minutes. Here we go!”
Other Routes/Maps
Surely the number of bots will be increased in the future. Hopefully they will make the journey from Watopia to other maps and routes.
[adinserter block=”1″]
No Downtime
Some Zwifters have complained that the bots are offline during their normal daily ride time. Since the “maintenance window” is just a temporary measure that is necessary due to Zwift’s bare-bones approach to this FutureWorks MVP, future versions should see Pace Partners online around the clock.
Pre-Ride
With only two Pace Partners online at a given time, and no screen displaying their current precise pace until you drop into the game, many Zwifters have found that they click to join a Partner but quickly get dropped. This is especially true when the rider hasn’t warmed up, or is on a TT bike!
The obvious “solution” here is to start a ride by yourself, get warmed up, and make sure you’re on the right bike before starting a new ride with the Pace Partner. But since Zwift still requires a reboot in order to start riding with a Pace Partner, this solution involves more hassle than it should.
The solution I’d like to see: a button while we’re in the game which takes us to the join screen, where we can choose an event, click to join another rider, or cancel out and continue with our current activity.
For Runners
Zwift has said that Pace Partners are coming soon for running, and that’s great news! With less runners around than riders, I’m sure runners will be happy to have a little company.
Roll Your Own
This is what Zwifters have been requesting for a long time (the Personal Best Bot feature request has 512 upvotes on the forum, and was one of the earliest feature requests made.) What if I could choose to ride with a bot that was simply “replaying” my effort from an earlier ride? Or perhaps I could start up a personal bot that rides at whichever route I choose, at the pace I select?
Your Ideas
Do you have other ideas for what Pace Partners could do next? Share below (and don’t forget to share them on the FutureWorks forum, too).
Agree with most of the comments. My biggest beefs are the current limited availability (let’s face it most of us will only ride with one to two of the bots), and changing the hill pacing to more realistically reflect IRL. Biggest plus for me is the (almost) always-on availability. Must admit since they were introduced I’ve joined bot rides instead of some scheduled group rides because I’m tired of the continual whining about the fence and flyers.
The major improvement I’d like to see is the same one that holds true for so many other things in Zwift:
Why can’t we join a pace bot with two or three clicks whenever we want to during a ride?
I’d like to free ride with Amelia more frequently but right now I have to do a 10min warmup, get off the bike to end the ride, restart Zwift and select the pace bot. How annoying is that?
That’s probably one of the reasons why there’s so little traffic around Amelia. Doing 4 w/kg right out of the gate isn’t fun.
Agreed. The one time I tried to join I was dumped at roadside with no indication of what was going on and then a few seconds later the pace bot went racing past and was away, up the road with no chance of me catching up. Perhaps at the start you could enter your own distance that you want as head start over the pacer and have a distance countdown as they catch you up?
I only rode one time with Coco and Diesel. But I would use it more if there was the ability to change rides without exit.
And I had 2 times where I choose a bit, then press ‘ride with coco’ and then I just start on my own somewhere.
@eric: do you have any insight information when the new UI will arrive? Because you don’t mention it it this article makes me wonder…?
Rob GZ: no insight into new UI, no. I’ll ping ZHQ and see what they have to say about it.
So following my earlier comment I got to ride with Bonnie purely by chance. I was doing my own ride, had done a few easy kilometres to loosen up when Bonnie and maybe 10 others came through. I picked up my pace and rode maybe 8km with them. It was great and definitely pushed me a bit… now if we can only have a bit more control about how planned pacer rides start that would be great!
Would be nice to have a calendar for the bots if they’re only going to run two at a time. I wanted to join a couple of days ago but only the cat A and Cat D were on. I wanted B or C.
It would be pretty slick if you initially joined using the keep together rubberband for a specified time then it shut off. This would allow you to warm up with the bot.
this is exactly what I think Darrnfool, you get the rubberband for, say, 30 seconds or so, that’ll help reduce the “HOLY CRAP” effect of trying to join a bot other than Diesel
For those folks where Coco is a bit of a stretch or you just don’t want to ride the pace the whole time, there’s a natural longer interval opportunity. Coco rides Tempus Fugit which dogbones at both ends. Ride the main section, u-turn when Coco goes into the dogbone looped end sections, get recovery, chill out, switch bikes, whatever, jump in when Coco comes by again. Also, while Eric mentions using “playing keep away’, it’s just as easy to do, “play catch-up”. I spotted coco a 25 second lead a couple days ago. Took me several minutes at close to 4w/kg to catch back on! Partly that seems to be because the group around coco always includes a healthy contingent of folks in FRONT of Coco allowing Coco to keep speed up at same wattage while in nice draft pocket!
Thanks for the rundown Eric. I did a steady ride with CoCo the other day and enjoyed it – there was a decent sized group and I played most of the games – leading the group for a while, taking turns like the TTT as well as drafting practice. Its a great MVP to use for now, and I’m looking forward to seeing the evolution.
I agree with most of the points already made. I’ve ridden with CoCo a few times (once with Eric Min) and she always rides at 2.5w/kg. Never seen her change pace. On 2 rides she has disappeared and reappeared 20 seconds behind. Aside from that glitch the experience was all positive and I tend to ride for longer than I first planned.
Eric, it would be handy for you to add the routes the bots ride to your table above (i.e CoCo Tempus Fuggit). This would help with a warm up if you wanted to ride a tougher “grade”. That way the rider could select the route, free ride to warm up and then wait for bot to come past and jump into bunch. This may be a work around while we slowly age waiting for UI upgrade
I think it’s one of the best features Zwift have introduced in recent times, and have enjoyed the rides I’ve dropped into (mostly the B group, but D once for a race warm up).
B is on Sand and Sequoias, so have generally gone full gas on the timed climb with a few others, waited for the group to catch up and similar with the sprints.
Is there any published schedule for when Amelia is online? How do we know when the 4w/kg bot is online or is not?
They should allow us to follow the bots via the companion app. That way we can see which one is riding.
What about a feature where you ride with Diesel Dan for 10 mins, then jump to Coco for 10, then Bowie then Amelia. A bit like a ramp test with 10 mins (or until you drop)
What’s happened to the pacers? I’ve haven’t seen them for some time
Offline due to a bug. Temporarily, but ZHQ isn’t saying when they’ll be back.
Have the pace partners disappeared or is it my setup?
Temporarily down due to a bug. Should return in the next day or two.
I Totally agree with returning to the join screen rather than having to quit and restart. I’ve thought this for quite some time now; the only time one can join another ride, at the moment, is when warming up and a group ride is starting in another route/world.
I happened to join with Coco a couple of days ago–in game rather than choosing from the ride menu–and think this is a great idea. Sure, I rode faster in a “peloton” but I still had to make the effort to remain (and when I got “dropped” because I hadn’t chosen the turn, I couldn’t get back on until many KMs later when I did a well-timed U-turn).
The pace partner is a great idea, but I’d like if the bots could go up a few watts randomly with a warning, can be annoying for less smarter riders like me on when to apply pressure on the pedals or it’s not going hard enough occasionally ,and you end up shooting ahead ,wait a little and they fly by (obviously group rides a skill I need to work on before I use a faster pace partner ) it be cool if the bots increased the watts occasionally with a warning message or maybe do a lap at a higher level of watts progressively for each lap .
being Able to use our best lap as a pace partner is a great idea as we know how hard or light we went so at least we be trying to beat ourselves .
pace partners definitely beats just free riding on ones own as it helps to focus of skills like drafting and stops us from getting a bit bored or wishing the time away (happens to me) Skill or keeping position is pretty good to learn (I normally ride solo on road and zwift)
Quote: The most logical approach would be to bump up wattage on climbs, and drop it a bit on descents. This would make the group pace feel a bit more natural.”
Actually, this is the least logical approach. The apparent need for the common cyclist to drastically increase power on climbs and drop same on descents is precisely why the experience of cycling with the Pacing Partners can feel so erratic, despite their traversing these courses at exactly the same power output all the time. The so-called “game physics” are at play. The ‘bots, even though pushing identical power through their virtual pedals, are affected by the game physics of the peloton riders (and even the size of said peloton) around them. Precisely because of the ILLOGICAL behavior of cyclists to increase/decrease power (rather than changing gears???), the ‘bot is affected likewise. That’s why you will often find yourself running through 100W power adjustments to keep within the 7m “drops” band. If the Pacer Bots were simply made exempt from the game physics, the ride experience would be FAR more consistent. This is both good and bad, depending on your objectives…
I’ve found hugely rewarding physiological adaptations arising from cycling with all the PP, armed with this understanding arising from many hours of study. The seemingly random power adjustments needed to keep on pace are akin to an “over/under” interval session of unlimited duration. Naturally, there are good outcomes for both eventualities, but riders should have far more ‘bot options to choose from. For the moment, if I want to ride at a consistent power output, I must use workout mode, and ride solo. It would be great if I could ride with a pace partner, dial in a specific power level, and elect to have the ‘bot behave with/without “game physics”.
Here’s a good illustration of the power variations need to keep pace with Coco recently. I was always within the 7m “drops” band. Obviously, Coco’s power chart would be a flat-line at 2.5 W/kg.
There’s always the one guy…………..
>With less runners around than riders
With fewer runners
I think this article may need an update because the pace partners no longer ride with a varying range of w/kg. Their pace is a fixed w/kg now.
Agree with all of this, and wanted to ask why if huge blob counts are a problem don’t they just have a handful of each pace partner? Diesel1, Diesel2, 3,4,5 etc the total riders won’t change but the congestion will be eased. I know it’s early days but that ought to be easy to do.
Hi. Does anyone know how long the route loop is for Dax Diesel (riding). I am planning a big ride on Wednesday 17th – 300km and want to plan how long my breaks can be before he’s back behind me again. Or is there a better way to do this without ending and restarting the ride ? Many thanks in advance for your help.
I’m trying to embrace a majority of zone 2 training. Would love a pacing partner who understands my narrow heart rate zone! It will be lonely for this older rider on Tempus Fugit or Tick Tock. I need a patient riding buddy, even if he or she is a bot. Oh hey, how about a female bot, too?
Question: I do the D category, what does the yellow bar that goes left to right at the centre top of the screen mean?