So many of the programs use bots for riders it all depends on what you want. If Inwanf to ride with actual people I know I ride Rouvy group rides.

i'd like to try a group ride in rouvy. the stars never seem to align though. either start too early or too late.

found this tidbit looking to see what routes they may have but i like the part about virtual crashing. RGT forced your virtual self to slow down during turns which certainly made that more realistic. a 50 mi/hr hair pin turn seems hard to pull off in real life unlike in zwift.

https://road.cc/content/tech-news/vi...release-295083

might give this a try since it has a free trial.

CADEsport is far from a new entry. It has been around since at least 2017 as Cycligent Virtual Racing.(CVR). It first used the Zwift platform but Owner Frank Garcia split from Zwift as he was not happy with the focus of Zwift. He has heavily promoted a more gamified version and claimed better graphics were on the way. CADEsport has struggled ever since but to its credit is still trying. Now it is trying to stay alive with a kick starter funding while Zwift is a billion dollar company.

I am retired so 10 am and 11 am times are what I use.
they have group rides all the time now.

i know, they are quite frequent. i usually miss them by long enough that i'd never catch up. maybe i should try a late join anyway to see where they start me out but i suspect it will be at the beginning. what the heck, tonight after work i'll just join late adn see what happen.s

If it's anything like zwift, they start you in the group and you have to start pedaling in a few seconds or you get dropped.

Zwift allows you to ride any world you wish at any time, except for the event only worlds (Bologna, Crit city, and Scotland for a few weeks more). The off schedule worlds are sparsely populated, mostly people doing workouts.

To ride off calendar worlds you can: Ride with a robo pacer, find an event using that world and quit the event after it has started, use Zwifthacks to choose the world directly, arrange a meetup or club event in that world, or edit the Zwift Preferences file in the Documents folder of your computer (which is what I do). Editing the preference file will make the world appear in the starting menu and you can then choose which route to ride. Since Zwift has allowed all of the these methods to persist since the start, they are not likely to take them away. Their stated concern is that having three worlds on the calendar are to keep the worlds active so you are not riding alone.

I find riding in a group to be much more engaging, so most of my rides that are not workouts are in a race or group event. Today I was in the Bambino Fondo for 53 km with 300 other riders and quickly joined with a group that was riding at a comfortable pace.

I'm not sure what you want in more routes, there are over a hundred to choose from. I have done them all, as well as a few that I manually turn at intersections for just riding around with the size of hills I want on a given day.

Same here. Just not enough events and this is where Zwift really shines. I like Rouvy but eventually got bored riding as Billy Nomates. I still use Rouvy for specific event route recons, but Zwift is more fun for group rides and races.

Zwift has around 150 unique animated miles whereas with ROUVY I've been on about 1500 unique miles of real video in 2 years with 100's of miles still sitting in my favorites waiting to be explored. I keep hoping for an option to turn off the info bubbles. While racing they are nice but out on a ride to enjoy the scenery it would be nice to have the option to shut them off. Rouvy is what I'm sticking to and the changes keep making it better.

I use both. Rouvy for exploring real life routes (it was great for a L'Etape du Tour recon last summer. All the major Alpine climbs were available) and Zwift for racing and group rides. I wish Rouvy would make a better effort with their rider avatar. I think my 10 year old could model a more realistic looking rider. At least the Zwift avatar rides like someone on a bike!

I've been toying w Rouvy as well, and it seems to keep me engaged better because the scenery is real (and I've seen all the Zwift scenery enough). Since group rides are low on my priority, scenery and interesting locales make it fun. I do wish Rouvy had better keyboard navigation, that's one aspect that Zwift has an advantage.

And I always (on both Zwift and Rouvy) always, always change the perspective to get rid of the avatar. In Zwift, hit the 3 on your keyboard, in Rouvy it's in the Settings/Camera View (set to "Me")

Rouvy has an experimental companion app for Android/iOS that lets you toggle off all the on screen display bits. Worth a try although fair warning that the app is still flakey and will sometimes disconnect, which I've read could be a problem for finishing rides if you can't reconnect before the end.

so finally tried starting a group ride in rouvy after the ride had started and it is a no go. too bad. think i'll never be able to do a group ride unless it is on a day where time stands still and i have enough time to do all the things i need to do just to catch up.

ok, so now i have to back track. today i tried joining again and i was let in about 24 minutes late. it put me just behind the other riders (only 4 others, boo hoo). i think yesterday when i tried joining the controls were set for races and not group rides. makes total sense.

Seriously? I beg to differ. At least the Rouvy Avatar holds onto the handlebars.

Zwift :roflmao2:
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...08b866a171.png

It's the way the Rouvy Avatar animates itself that I find most irritating. They have improved it slightly over the last year (it looks more human now!), but it still does some really odd things when going from seated to standing. Like this thing were it does "press-ups" on the bars. What where they thinking with that animation? It still pedals a bit like a robot too. IMHO Zwift does the rider animation better and more importantly it doesn't irritate me anywhere near as much!

Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of Rouvy and it is in no way a show-stopper. I just think they could have done it much better. Considering all the effort they put into the augmented reality (and I think this is really important for group rides/races to see other rider avatars), why did they have to make the avatar animation look so crap? Like I said, they have been working on it lately, so they must realise it too.

BTW congrats on finding the least flattering Zwift screenshot! I only ever look at the avatars from the back while riding and they look good to me from that view. They pedal quite naturally and I can't see their faces anyway. But the Rouvy riders look like a bunch of robots (slightly less so now I admit) doing weight training routines while JRA

the avatars in either aren't all that great but they don't bother me. i made the comment about the rouvy guy doing pushups while riding in the past. i never do that in real life.

I am not sure how they get the avatar in zwift to drink water, but I can be riding along at ftp and my avatar will take repeated drinks. Maybe if I actually told them what my ftp is they would be less likely to do that.

I’ve seen Peter Sagan casually munching an energy bar while churning out 450W so it is possible.

I quite like the Zwift Avatar taking a drink as it reminds me to keep hydrated myself. It’s easy to forget when you are hammering along in a Zwift race or fast group ride.

Since most of my races are doing on aero bikes, the Tron, or TT bikes (none of which have water bottle animation), I'm often drinking less than I should as I use that as a reminder to drink as well.

I'm flattered to be compared to Sagan. Of course, it happens quite often

:notamused:

What is this supposed to mean.

I was just tryina get my 10 posts (made more difficult with 5 posts/24hr limit) in so I can post images and links! happy riding