Rowing in Zwift - suggestion to make it happen

[PawsyBear]

Zwift will, if it’s implemented for rowing, allow people and trainers to train virtually online together. Building a training program is super easy with drag and drop scaling to your FTP. When your all on the workout no matter what power your working at you stay together virtually. A sort of virtual gym.

[Dino]

Tried out a mountain bike group ride on the rower this evening.
Over 150 on the hour long ride billed as a sub 2.0 W/Kg.





With the ZZRC group. A perfect UT2 hour for me on the rower keeping with the bikes. This was quite an even paced ride even on the small hills when the bikes normally up the watts. ZZRC are really good, lots of chat on the way - messages to the group to slow down if someone has fallen off the back and chat on Discord. Hopefully will get similar group rows when rowing properly comes along. It makes a real difference rather than plugging away on your own. You can just browse group events for the category you are interested in (D for me) then join up. The people that run the ZZRC group put a lot of effort into it on their own time - setting up the events in Zwift, posting on FB group before hand, organising the beacon riders and sweeps, then posting an after ride report with pictures and so on.
At the end they asked if anyone was up for a sprint so at 59:00 the people that wanted to put the foot to floor. I managed to keep around 1:35 for the last minute which was quite happy with - chasing others makes a difference too!

[Recess]

I think these group rides will be where the strength will lie for Zwift. As long as there’s a way to connect whatever model you’re using to Zwift, and it has some kind of power output to send - then everyone can row together and train much like how these group training sessions work. Or even the ones with the rubber band that never let anyone drop off.

Typing messages will be tough though...

Racing will be the big trick from. I don’t think the Concept2 rowers will be happy in a race vs a SkillRow / RP3 / Water Rower (with the Bluetooth add-on) etc.

But maybe I’m wrong?

John

[Carl Watts]

Racing will be the big trick from. I don’t think the Concept2 rowers will be happy in a race vs a SkillRow / RP3 / Water Rower (with the Bluetooth add-on) etc.

But maybe I’m wrong?

John

It's pointless having any other rowers other than concept 2 anyway as this is the key strength of theirs in providing a level playing field for racing or training in terms of power output. If any other types of rowers are added you simply add a filter to the results to enable you to separate out C2 only.

Would not be surprised if its C2 rowers only and you need a PM5 monitor only. Having personally pushed the verification system to the very limit this is the hardest setup to fake any results. If you easily want to gain an advantage you simply start using slides.

There will never be a perfect online system but the rowing will be far better than the cycling in terms of the level of cheating.

[Recess]

As much as I agree - what makes Zwift so good from a cycling point of view is that it doesn't matter whether you've got an aluminium bike, a carbon bike, Di2 gears, or Sora gears - it doesn't matter whether you're training on a top of the range Neo trainer, or a cheap Halfords smart trainer - everyone races each other equally, regardless of the kit they use. (Ok, there's the Dumb trainer filter).

The only way to make rowing racing work is to go against the parity that makes it so good for cycling. However, apart from the RP3 / SkillRow and the WaterRower with the bluetooth expansion - most of the cheap 'home' rowing machines won't be able to connect to Zwift anyway, so it may not be an worry worth having.

I'm certainly excited and intrigued by rowing in Zwift.
John

[Dino]

Racing will be the big trick from. I don’t think the Concept2 rowers will be happy in a race vs a SkillRow / RP3 / Water Rower (with the Bluetooth add-on) etc.

But maybe I’m wrong?

John

It's pointless having any other rowers other than concept 2 anyway as this is the key strength of theirs in providing a level playing field for racing or training in terms of power output. If any other types of rowers are added you simply add a filter to the results to enable you to separate out C2 only.

Would not be surprised if its C2 rowers only and you need a PM5 monitor only. Having personally pushed the verification system to the very limit this is the hardest setup to fake any results. If you easily want to gain an advantage you simply start using slides.

I'd tend to agree. For racing / logging times-distances, only C2 gives the consistency and hence why you can jump on any machine and compare world-wide. This is a major strength of this kit.
Zwift have enough problems with their trainers as it is, constantly having to look for out of the ordinary performances etc. Prize money races on Zwift have to be on the same trainer at a venue where they can do a weigh in, calibrate the kit etc. It just doesn't work otherwise. There are so many ways to cheat in Zwift for racing. For training and impromptu stuff you are only cheating yourself.
I could bump up my Watts from the erg via the bridging app and join higher groups, but what's the point? I always row 1:1 Watts and don't use any of the boost features - group D is good enough for me!
This is a just a waiting game now to see if the Zwift CEO makes good on his "..rowing in a few weeks..." comment!
In the meantime I am enjoying the group rides on my rower and have another hour planned this evening

[Carl Watts]

Ok yes the cycling is great from the point of view of a universal equipment connection but its hopeless from a racing results perspective as Zwift has the constant problem of cheating which is pretty clear if you follow the forum and they are working non stop to try and minimize it.

[PawsyBear]

Ok yes the cycling is great from the point of view of a universal equipment connection but its hopeless from a racing results perspective as Zwift has the constant problem of cheating which is pretty clear if you follow the forum and they are working non stop to try and minimize it.

This is true but people cheat in real life to. Even a pro rider who cheated on Zwift. Caught and suspended. What most don’t realise is that sites like Zwiftpower suck in all your riding data. It’s very easy to pick out inconsistent performance. I race and most races are pretty fair. My view is I have a good race. It’s the best workout I get. Podium would be nice but some of my most enjoyable have been just great races. Also going forward a lot has been done to DQ cheaters. Serious races are on Zwiftpower. No HRM no dumb trainers link your Strava profile. Racing cat automatically selected from results/training. Some people genuinely sign up for the wrong categories. But it’s getting better.

I think it’s important to see Zwift as work in progress. I’ve been there since the beta and it’s been a process of constant improvement. We shall see what happens.There are also some very good competitors which is great for us users as it spurs development and improvement.

[m06w41]

You can get it for free on deltarower.com. Drone shots, rowing under bridges. You can do that today. It doesn't have multiplayer. You already have the necessary hardware. All you need to do is download it and go. There is no hidden fees because there are no fees. Does Zwift offer that to you? How much have you spent on RowPro again?

Out of curiousity, is the deltarower app available anywhere? Can't seem to get to any downloadable windows program and this piqued my curiosity.

[Carl Watts]

What makes cycling in Zwift successful is the same formula that will make rowing in Zwift a success.

You end up with a large online community of like minded people that like to row and train together with great graphics.

I'm not online for the great graphics, but clearly if you analyse where RowPro has gone wrong its the graphics that simply are not up to it for 90% of the users that have trialed it and combine that with the complex user interface and technical issues related to their hardware not working and people simply quit using it. It should have been a direct online only rowing package YEARS ago that opened straight into the online screen so you could setup a quick row or join the scheduled row listed. The rest of the package can be dumped. ErgData has now cleaned up on everything you need for your Concept 2 LogBook.

[PawsyBear]

Agree 100% Carl. We are I think we are about to see the meteor that is Zwift wipe out the dinosaurs

[Carl Watts]

Agree 100% Carl. We are I think we are about to see the meteor that is Zwift wipe out the dinosaurs

Yes it's very sad in a way because RowPro is a New Zealand bit of software that I have used and loved for 10 years but it simply has not kept up with user expectations. Simply not enough rowers that like online rowing to support multiple platforms so Zwift will take everyone that is serious about indoor rowing.

[boomingaway]

An update:

https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2020/08/zwi ... atest.html

[Carl Watts]

Proposed pricing structures look like a nightmare, they need to simplify it.

Better off to have each different exercise as its own module and you can "Add" a second for a lower price than if you only had that one on its own otherwise you feel your paying for a second that your never going to use. After all the second should be cheaper because you can only do one at a time.

Sure if you want to pay extra for actual coaching then make that an option, otherwise keep it simple.

Its going to need to be NZD$20 to $30 a month (USD$13 to $18)for the rowing tops or the price alone will kill it.

[CJOttawa]

A Reddit thread of interest added context to what rowing in Zwift could look like. Source: https://old.reddit.com/r/Rowing/comment ... ?context=3

From that:

FWIW I'm currently the guy working on rowing at Zwift. It's a small project currently, and we do not have a specific release date planned yet, but things are moving along.

A few things worth mentioning: it's all about wattage, the default speed formulas are VERY close to concept 2 speed formulas, but your weight will have an effect as well as possible powerups. For the built in 2k test (for setting workout intensities) it defaults to *exactly* concept 2 speeds so they can still be compared with numbers people are used to.

...further down-thread:

We will support races (dozens or hundreds at a time could be in the starting paddocks) but we wont support a lane race at launch. We're trying to make something that is slightly different than traditional rowing for a more mainstream fitness audience (ie, a large % of people who buy ergs), but it should still appeal to collegiate and ex-collegiate rowers even though it is not a replication of outside. More specifically, it'll be singles only at launch, human facing forward instead of backwards, and you can draft other boats similar to cycling.

Meetups with friends, like in cycling, may possibly work at launch - just requires a little UI work on our companion app and a tweak to the server. The game client itself supports it. If it doesn't work at launch we'll make it work soon after.

The idea is to have something 75% feature parity of running and cycling, so we can see what people on indoor rowers end up doing, and we'll iterate from there.