TrainingPeaks Virtual deliberately does not display to you the power-to-weight ratio (w/kg) of other riders. This is for two key reasons:
- Primarily, we believe that the focus on, and public sharing of, rider weights is fundamentally unhealthy to both individuals and the growth of the sport as a whole. Whilst a rider’s weight is of course a vital part of determining how fast a rider’s avatar should go in the game, there is no good reason for this data to be shared publicly with everyone else.
- Additionally, we believe that sharing too much performance data is detrimental to the nature of sport. In short, racing by analyzing numbers on a spreadsheet is (for most people) not as fun or interesting as racing by look and feel.
Instead, TrainingPeaks Virtual shares data that replicates more closely what you can determine in real-world racing – how fast another rider is going compared to you, and the relative physical effort they are putting in (i.e. are they cruising, working, sprinting, etc).
Relative Speed
The relative speed of riders is of course immediately obvious for any riders you can see on screen just by looking at their movement compared to you.
This however does not fully replicate the additional benefit you get in real life cycling through peripheral vision, sound, or the ability to very quickly look around you to sense and check on others. To mitigate this, TrainingPeaks Virtual prominently displays the speed of everyone in the list of nearest riders. This has the additional benefit of being able to quickly judge whether you are gaining or losing time on groups of riders far ahead / behind you – information you would also receive in real-life cycling events.
Relative Effort
The relative effort riders are making is hard to judge in online racing, especially compared to outdoor racing when subtle shifts in breathing and body position that are hard to replicate indoors act as “tells”.
Whilst TrainingPeaks Virtual tries to replicate many of the changes in body position, through experimentation we have discovered that racing becomes more tactically interesting if we also show an indication of the percentage effort a rider is making compared to their Critical Power (CP). This relative effort is therefore shown both in the list of nearest riders and on a small light attached to each rider's seat post.
- While a rider is going easy, the light will be a dark red.
- As effort increases, it will turn on and move through various shades of amber.
- As effort increases still further, it will move through various shades to glow bright green.
Note that for accessibility for those with any of the various forms of color-blindness, the colors actually displayed to you are fully configurable.
Note that this light is also used to indicate corner braking.