Dan333SP

Anyone here use Zwift? I think the founder has been on these forums for a long time, maybe he'll see this post.

They released a Zwift version of my city (Richmond) for the UCI world championships that are taking place this week. Cool, right? I watched some youtube videos of it, it's decently accurate as far as surroundings and elevation ect.

My question is- why do these Zwift rides show up on strava as taking place in real life?

I rode around bits of the worlds course this morning before work, and started looking at the segments to see how much destruction the pros have laid down on our city. I was surprised that the KOM on Govenor St (the short steep climb right before the final straight) didn't look like a familiar name. Turns out he did it on his computer playing Zwift-

https://www.strava.com/activities/396811407#9512115927

Not that strava is serious business, but it's a little silly to assume that someone putting out such and such power on a trainer could actually climb a given bit of road at a certain pace. Anyone know why Strava is allowing these rides to be represented as "real"?

PepeM

I knew you could upload Zwift rides to Strava which I thought was cool, but putting them together with real rides? Yes, that is nonsense.

Dan333SP

Especially when the guy that posted that ride "averaged" 24 mph and never had his heart rate get above 139. Seems legit.

PepeM

I've only used Zwift once (might use it more this winter). For some reason the power displayed on the screen was at least 100 watts higher than what my head unit was displaying. I was leaving everyone behind while barely trying.

In Strava, there is an option to record a ride as a 'virtual ride' or something similar. I hope that gets enforced for Zwift rides soon.

Mumonkan

i havent used zwift yet but im signed up on the beta. i know that when you upload from the swift "islands" it shows on a map but its not an actual place.

i think its amazing that theyre creating courses that the pros race. i see us being able to ride the giro or TDF etc virtually with the pros as we watch it on tv (and proceed to get dropped like a bad habit) which will be incredible. club/team rides with 5 feet of snow on the ground, zwift-specific clubs/teams/clans of riders all around the world riding together, lots of great possibilities.

at the same time i think that statistics should be separated between simulation and IRL, since they arent really the same exact course or segment. and being almost entirely digital people will find ways to cheat, which is even dumber than cheating on regular videogames.

DonBjr

First, I completely agree that virtual rides shouldn't show up on real world segments. While a virtual ride is a 'real' effort, there are setup issues that can end up cheating the results (calibration mostly, and you can cheat by lying about your weight). Also, there are practical aspects such as not needing to slow down for corners in a virtual ride, or worry about traffic, weather, etc. On the other hand, even real world rides can be cheated by tail winds, or group rides, so segments are never perfectly fair. Zwift has drafting also, so high average speeds for seemingly low effort can come from that too.

Strava added a category for virtual rides, and by default zwift submits Richmond course rides with this category. Virtual rides have their own set of segments and don't mix with the real segments. This is the right solution, but this category isn't enforced as you can change the zwift rides to real if you want. People might be changing them to real rides to mess with real segments, but they might also be doing it so their mileage/climbing on virtual rides get counted towards strava challenges (virtual rides don't), or to make sure their trainer rides and real rides are all counted together for stats.

Personally, I've been using the virtual ride category now as it seems to include the miles and elevation in my summary data and training data as I'd want. In the past before they created a virtual category that was treated by strava similarly to real rides, I would flag my own rides if I somehow showed up competitively on a segment, which removed me from the leader boards, but kept the ride activity looking like a real ride would (i.e. maps, and analysis of stats correlated with grades, etc)

I'm ok with vitual rides not counting towards strava challenges, though I've used my trainer rides in the past for climbing challenges as I don't have convenient real hills to do those easily in real life. For instance, I rode a virtual alpe d'huez ride, which included video of what I'd see if I were really there doing it and the elevation profile from it, to do the recent alpe d'huez challenge. I thought if anything it was closer to the intention than people riding any old hill to complete that challenge. -Fwiw, I have a smart trainer, so hills feel like hills and the computed speed and gears I need to use seem to match real life fairly well.

K.Katso

It is supposed to be classified as "stationary trainer" or the new category called a "virtual ride." If it isn't, you can flag it as "wrong activity type." That's what I would do.

Dan333SP

There are over 1,000 Zwift riders showing up on all segments around the course, as far as I can tell. I hope Strava finds a way to automatically flag these. I guess I'll at least try to clean up the top 10 or so.

ColaJacket

Flag it. When the Strava team sees that it was done on Zwift, they should remove it. Once they remove enough of those, they'll tell the software team to make sure to keep IRL separate from simulators.

GH

Dan333SP

Flagged a bunch and left a comment for Strava that they should be cleaned up automatically. We'll see.

Trolling in a game isn't as much fun as my "real" strava trolling, where I created a segment in the middle of nowhere north of Richmond called "2015 UCI Men's Elite TT Course" where I think maybe only 5 or 6 other people have ridden that loop other than me. Boom, KOM.

softreset

Zwift island is absolutely real. In order for you to upload it to Strava they had to create the course based off a real place with elevation. It's Jarvis Island in the South Pacific.

Professional cyclists' winter training programmes on Strava
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarvis_Island

Dan333SP

^^ That is truly bizarre. Racing bikes around 100 year old guano mounds on a deserted atoll! Love it.

Mumonkan

did not know that, thats neat!

chaadster

All this hand wringing is amusing to me.

I doubt that Strava is going to do anything, particularly given that Zwift worked with Strava on the course, and this is hardly an unforeseen scenario.

They'll make changes when they're ready. Zwift isn't even out of beta yet.

Also, with all the unknowns and uncertainty inherent in Strava leaderboards (e.g. solo vs. group, motorpaced, electric, etc.), I'm not at all sure a virtual ride is any worse (or better) than a closed circuit race result for a segment that is otherwise on public roads, and busy ones at that.

tedder

Rides that are put on Strava via Zwift are marked as "VIRTUAL RIDE". Strava and Zwift worked together to make that whole thing work.

Here's a sample of me riding Richmond on Zwift that shows the 'virtual ride'.
https://www.strava.com/activities/398955532

You can see that DCR talked about it here:
Zwift rolls out first real world course: UCI 2015 Road World Championships in Richmond | DC Rainmaker

Dan333SP

Right, that's how they get uploaded, but if you look at the one I posted in the OP you'll see it shows as a "real" ride and was changed from virtual. I've flagged it so we will see if it's changed, but obviously strava lets you change the type from virtual to real, they should fix that. Yea, who cares about segments, but I was looking forward to seeing the pro times for those that use strava without having to wade through the virtual stuff.

tedder

Sure- anything can be changed ("digital EPO"). Flagging is the best way to deal with it. I monitor the segments on my local freeways and flag 'em occasionally.

chaadster

It's not as though the virtual rides are automatically the fastest or something. Aren't "pro times" the race results?

SpeshulEd 

Ordered my smart trainer this week. Here's hoping virtual hill climbing taxes the legs just like real hill climbing.

spdntrxi

correct... what is happening is some ppl are going around it and manually uploading the fit file.... at that point they are forgetting to check "vitual ride"

K.Katso

No, but with Zwift you can manipulate some things that you can't in real life, or so I hear. I haven't tried this myself, but I hear that you can enter a lower weight, giving you a higher W/Kg, and Zwift will let you go faster. Not to mention that it has an option to use only a speed/cadence sensor(no power meter) and a classic(non-smart) trainer, even though it is capped at 400W. To their credit they definitely try to make it as fair as they can, but some people just have to be jerks and try to game the system.

Some of the pros pre-rode the course on Zwift. Others who were not selected for the Worlds rode it from home.

chaadster

The point is, because there are so many question marks about the Strava leaderboard already, that I don't see the inclusion of virtual rides as a critical failure. The opportunity to cheat in Zwift is no greater than in real life, and even more likely to be detected and removed. But, Zwift was quite clear that virtual rides do not appear on real world leaderboards, so aside from a few cheats or mistakes, this is a non-issue.

In any case, as I pointed out earlier, this needs to be kept in perspective. We're talking just one, single road course in the whole world, from a single virtual program that is not even done beta testing yet and that is openly working with Strava on pertinent issues.

All the frittering here is pointless, as the question of virtual vs. real is at the very core of Zwift's concept, and will be addressed in Strava in time, as the initial steps attest they're already doing. There may be programming issues that need overcomed, or maybe Strava wonder if they need to change their architecture for just one company, or perhaps both companies see the interaction of virtual and real as being the future and evolving more deeply; the possibilities for how this fall out are myriad.

macca33

It does - you can trust me on that!!!

himespau 

Eh, people who want to cheat will. I like the idea of zwift having real courses. One of these days, I'm finally going to get a powermeter (or a trainer other than my rollers) and try it out.

chaadster

Yes, I think the real course potential is fascinating, and it would be very interesting to have the opportunity to ride and compare both actual and the same virtual course. Those Zwifters in Richmond are fortunate!