Oh man, you pretend to be the director sportiff and yell at me from a virtual car and speed off in disgust when I can't push out enough watts.

Never underestimate the motivating power of fear

Mark my words, when the weather turns to crap, you'll be joining me...

(do I sound like Yacks yet?)

Was there this morning. First time in the London course -- it was raining both on the virtual course and in the real world.

Will be on around 830p tonight.  I'll have the Join.me/hellodaveguy running.

Dan Reiners said:

David, is it ok to dial in even if there isn't a virtual me on Zwift island riding a bicycle made of pixels? I like the idea of team trash talk.

I'm a put my fixie on the computrainer and crank up the load generator....yes they named the resistance unit a "load generator"

Facepalm classic says it all.

little phallic....juuust sayin

Working on setting up a Kissena group ride going on Zwift.  They really don't make it easy...

if only a Kissena Cycling Club board member, ahem,  race director, was in charge of group rides and races for Zwift.

Seriously, reach out to Charlie Issendorf, there are two things we want from Zwift:

1. Setting up Kissena group rides
2. Getting the Kissena jersey in there (maybe we could use Roz design?)

If you want, I am happy to reach out to Charlie for help with these.

Sure if you want to hit up Charlie go for it, but afaik the group rides are set up in a convoluted way where it relies on 3rd party calendar feeds and private FB groups etc. because it's not fully baked into the platform.

As far as kit goes it would be cool to get the current one in, not a proof of concept.

I ran into Charlie a couple of weeks ago and he was talking up the races (of which he says he does 3-4 per week). I mentioned the 3rd party calendar convolution and he hipped me to this:

http://zwift.com/events/

It appears to be pretty comprehensive - over 20 rides/races scheduled for tomorrow for instance.

But you are right, they could be better integrated into the platform. On the other hand, I'm not sure I would want them to be.

maybe they just sell spots on the event calendar? i notice local coach David Lipscomb aka CIS is on the site jim linked to, http://zwift.com/events/

curious to learn how it works because a group ride would be great, beautiful, very very big league etc.

Hey guys, so working out the details with Charlie! The main things Zwift needs are:

1. What day of the week?
2. What time?
3. How long (time or distance or how many laps which i guess depends on the course)
4. "group ride" or "race" option

I think the only hiccup is if there are too many events happening at the same time as the one we request, but let's pick a day of the week and time and go from there.

Traditionally we've done early weekend mornings for computrainer, but we also have done ones during weekdays after office hours.  I'm good for either, but lean towards weekend mornings.

I prefer early weekday mornings (cause I ride then anyhow) but I know that is a hard sell for a lot of folks. When the weather is brutal I would be happy with a weekend morning. Maybe a regular Saturday thing to not interfere with the traditional Sunday ride (if the weather is good enough).

Weekday evenings are usually a no go for me cause I'm so tired from getting up so damn early to ride in the morning (oh, and the whole cooking dinner and spending time with kid thing). 

agree with Jim, I am much more likely to ride outside on a weekend and wait around the weather. Much more likely to use Zwift in a weekday morning before work.

-- also should be clear, this is for a scheduled event -- which is awesome! -- if the weather at any point is atrocious we can always post here and still ride as a group.

b
boy is this great....

I think the benefits of a scheduled event is that there is a ride leader and participating riders get a final results board (if it's a race). There may also be automated start line coordinating and stuff so people aren't looking for everyone else at the start.

Anyway I'm partial to one of the two weekend mornings, particularly starting in January. Weekday mornings can work, but it has to be like pretty early, let's say 530 or 6.

Or we can ask for both weekday and weekend events?

I think Saturday mornings probably most likely time I'd  attend in the winter months. Warm weather different though. 

Brainstorming... Maybe the ride could explicitly be a Kissena NYC Bad Weather Ride? So that weekday riders could use it too? Would be nice to always know that hey  its 6 am  if I'm not doing my park laps I can ride with others on zwift 

Why does this forum hate it when I type from my phone 

The forum is sentient and is conspiring with your new power meter and Garmin to underreport your watts.  All ur base belongs to us.

Okay I'm going to request recurring Weds morning group rides at 5:45a for 1 hour and a recurring weekend race ride for Saturday 9am for 1.5 hours, how about that?

Alrighty, submitted, let's see if we can make this happen!

Remember, for those of you not on Zwift yet but interested, to "play" you just need a basic trainer and a power meter.  Heart Rate Monitor and cadence RPM sensor are also pretty useful IMO, but not 100% necessary.  I think Strava premium members get 3 months free!

If we can get both days, I don't mind not having a communication tool for weekday mornings, but it would be cool to have a group chat thing for weekend "races".

hotness! thanks, David!

David Yang said:

Alrighty, submitted, let's see if we can make this happen!

Remember, for those of you not on Zwift yet but interested, to "play" you just need a basic trainer and a power meter.  Heart Rate Monitor and cadence RPM sensor are also pretty useful IMO, but not 100% necessary.  I think Strava premium members get 3 months free!

And of course a computer capable of rendering the graphics and receiving whatever signal your power meter delivers.

this would be fun on mornings when i'm not riding in because it's shiesty

i still haven't quite figured out zwift pack-riding mechanics yet, it seems a little harder to stay together than out on the road.  could always do the ol' computrainer weight adjusting trick though

once you hit a group you can keep up, riding is quite fun, as you move significantly faster thru the space.

I agree that compared to riding in the parks, it feels that people are way faster than me on Zwift, which doesn't really make sense -- there are tons and tons of peeps faster than me irl, but when riding casually, or even on a park race 1/2/3, I won't win, but I can basically keep up with any group.

Using Zwift would suggest than enthusiasts cyclists can easily achieve 3 to 4w/kg (good cat 3 level) and hold it for a while to an hour plus --  I know that's not true. Whatevs. 

My perception is this has to do with using a "dumb" trainer, not loving trainers, and mostly, people so obviously under reporting their weight, or simply running some incorrect configuration.

I am ok with it. I focus on the fun part.

Also bikes and kit and stuff actually make a difference, e.g. the TT bike with zipp 808s will net you a few watts compared to a regular road bike with box section rims.

Just so everyone is aware, the rides are open to all Zwift users - there is no invite only ride or race.  I've set the group ride to be "20mph on the flats" which I think translates to something like 2.5 or 3 w/kg and is pretty easy.

The last thing I have to do is write up a snazzy little description of the rides and I think we'll be set.

is there any chance these rides won't devolve into throw down smash mouth slug fests?  cuz they will if I'm ensconced 

BRING IT

also yacks, -10 trolling/flame points for reference to 90s band "smash mouth"

didn't realize that zwift has some competition...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-jFxLtvAjE

Two words: Voice. Chat.