Today I tested how hard you really need to go to keep up with one of zwifts pace partners. I tested with the C bot, A bot, B bot, and D bot. Depending on your weight you may be able to be able to do less wpk than others to keep up with the bots. The test was run with a 30 kilogram rider. Here are the results.
A bot
- 4.1 wpk, could draft without getting dropped and was consistently in range of the pace partner
- 3.9 wpk, could keep up with the pace partner but occasionally fell back slightly out of range
- 3.7 wpk, was dropped in less than a minute
B bot
- 3.3 wpk, was able to keep up the entire time on climbs and flats
- 3.1 wpk, was able to keep up most of time except on KOM
- 2.9 wpk, was dropped within a minute
C bot
- 3 wpk, was able to keep up and was ahead of pace partner for most of the time
- 2.7 wpk, was next to pace partner most of time and occasionally fell back slightly but caught back up
- 2.5 wpk, was with pace partner for a minute but then slowly fell back and got sticky draft
D bot
- 2 wpk, passed pace partner and was ahead the entire time
- 1.7 wpk, was next to pace partner entire time and did not get dropped or get ahead
- 1.5 wpk, was dropped after a few minutes on the downhill
Thoughts: Overall this test showed that you typically have to work slightly harder than the advertised pace because of how many people are with the pace partner causing the group to pull the pace partner which increases the speed by quite a bit. I did notice that with the A bot there are the least people so you have to work closest to the advertised pace. I also noticed that with the C bot you have the work harder because of how many people are with the bot, usually over 100 riders. Let me know what your thoughts are on this topic in the comments. Thanks for reading!