Hi everyone, as you know by now from our workouts, Tempo training is the foundation that lets you sustain higher speeds for longer without tipping into threshold, building the aerobic power and efficiency you need for strong long efforts, group rides, and Zwift races.
Pace bots in Zwift are one of the smartest ways to train your tempo zone effectively.
Instead of locking into a perfectly flat steady-state interval (say, 10, 20, 30 minutes at a fixed wattage), you jump on a bot ride and let the group do what real packs do: small surges, micro-coastings, slight accelerations over rises, and natural ebb and flow at a brisk cruising speed.
That constant low-level variation is gold for tempo work. It keeps you right in the right spot, one that is just hard enough to drive aerobic development and fat oxidation, but without creeping into threshold and producing too much lactate.
You get longer, more race-like/group ride efforts at the power/speed you actually use on long fast group rides or gran fondos, while the tiny changes in demand train your body to handle real-world fluctuations without blowing up. Over time, this builds a much more durable and useful tempo engine than staring at a single wattage target on the screen.
To find the right bot, head to https://zwiftwatts.com/ and pick one near your target tempo w/kg. If you weigh less than 75 kg, plan on riding about 0.3–0.5 w/kg higher than the posted pace number to stay in the proper effort, as lighter riders often need that extra push to match the group dynamics.
Practical tip: if your workout starts with a Tempo block, you could do your warm-up and Tempo block before loading the workout and then loading the WO and jumping right into the main set.
I have been doing all my Tempo training with the bots for the past 8-10 months and the benefits are real.
