IndieVelo Racing

[emacdoug]

This morning around 5:30am I started up my Endurance 2 zone 2 workout on IndieVelo. I started a few minutes late so planned to knock it off at the hour and 45 minute mark.

I threw out a random chat to see if any other humans were on the roads and what workouts they were doing and a few replied. They were on for a race that started shortly after 6am and said I should spice up my zone 2 workout with a race.

So I did.

I ended up in pen 3 with 25 other riders. The race was a short 20km with a big climb after 5k, a few small bumps, and then half the initial climb as the finish line. I fully expected to end the race in the back.

And within a couple seconds of the gun that’s exactly where I was… Except suddenly I wasn’t. A few seconds later I was out front thinking what the heck? I made sure to take a screenshot to show later for proof. But at least I gave myself some sliding space for the major climb, right?

That worked out pretty well. I got passed by a few riders on the bottom half but then caught up to most of them by the top of the climb. And once over the top I stuck with a group of 4 others - and somehow I ended up shoved to the front again, of course. We then slowly reeled in the lone lead rider and then guess who was on the front again. So of course, I took another screenshot. How often does this happen, right?

Onto the final climb I was again distanced by 4 riders, but then reeled them back in towards the top. With the finish line in sight I found myself in third place overall. I knew I wasn’t catching the leader who was out of sight, but I had one rider in front of me who I was slowly catching and I figured why not see if I can pass them. And somehow I did!

Holy moly! I finished second in my pen!

Of course, once I looked at the results at the end I found there were only 2 humans in our entire pen. So… take it for what it’s worth. I know where my fitness really ranks. But I was still the first human and second rider overall in my pen.

Glad I had unintentionally warmed up my legs for 35 minutes ahead of time!

[jcolp]

So you couldn’t tell that the bots were bots?

[Kayak]

I think IndieVelo is great, but there are a few issues with it and the fact that the bots are largely indistinguishable from real people is one of them. Some time ago I raised this with George Gilbert, one of the founders, who told me that when the numbers of humans on the platform reached an appropriate level, the bots would be made more identifiable.

[emacdoug]

Yep. He’s intentionally made them look like everyone else so the world doesn’t feel so empty. Usually can tell by how the names, avatars, and country doesn’t match. Or by how they are from all kinds of strange countries. They’re less obvious during races since you’re paying less attention. But I could tell a few by their odd tactics (worse than mine which were admittedly pretty bad).

[CPT_A]

Podium is podium!