PeteHski

Does Zwift cheating really matter unless you are racing at at a very high level? All I care about is close competition, whether others are cheating or not. I don’t actually think many people do bother to cheat. They might drop a few kg of virtual weight or inadvertently have a power meter reading a few percent higher, but who cares if you don’t even know them? They are just providing some virtual competition. I don’t even care if they are bots as long as they are providing some close racing.

unterhausen

I was mostly thinking about organized e-racing, where there are real prizes and combatting cheaters is important. I think this may have been a factor in the UCI dropping zwift, although I'm sure it was mostly a matter of getting paid more. A lot of cyclists are influenced by racing at the top level, even though the cheating may not affect them directly. I was just watching videos on things I want to know about zwift, and as a result my youtube feed has a significant number of videos about cheaters.

I would be interested to know if anyone here is bothered by cheaters. From what I see on youtube, there are an awful lot of 6w/kg riders on zwift, which is world class. I don't bother to go on group rides on zwift because so many people are putting out high power levels. I guess it's a good simulation of a group ride, where everybody in the D group rides off at 400w. The robo pacers at least keep that from mattering, you aren't going to get dropped from the group when someone rides away. But it also doesn't have a lot of the advantages of a group ride.

PeteHski

I ride a lot of cat B and C group rides and they are usually fine. In races and competitive group rides it is pretty much expected the first minute will be at full gas, but it usually settles down into a manageable pace for the category. Organised group rides with leaders usually implement the fence to get rid of any flyers.

I’ve been riding the Tour de Zwift events recently, which naturally split into groups of similar pace.

My general observation over the past few years is that there are less and less really obvious cheaters with unbelievable sustained power. It’s a while since I saw anyone riding at a sustained 8 W/kg.

I don’t care about organised e-racing, but I can imagine it’s very hard to control unless everyone is in the same room on calibrated trainers. UCI switching to MyWhoosh was probably because someone threw some cash at them. Certainly not because it’s better. I tried it myself last weekend.

Jughed

Is 6w/kg limited to world class athletes? I would imagine what separates world class athletes from regular athletes is their ability to make 6w/kg at the end of a 150 mile stage or 2 weeks into a grand tour. And bike handling skills, and the fact they were discovered at a young age - right place right time type of thing.

You are pulling riders from around the world, CAT I/II crit riders, tri athletes, track athletes - that is a huge pool of people. I'm sure there are plenty from those groups that can crack high power levels for short races.

PeteHski

I took it that he meant guys riding at a sustained 6 W/kg for more than just a minute or two. For example some random guy riding at 6 W/kg all the way up AdZ is hard to take seriously. I still see this sort of thing occasionally, but not too often. Most riders on Zwift these days seem fairly credible in terms of W/kg numbers. Obviously impossible to know if they are being honest about their true weight. A 100 kg guy with average power could easily emulate an elite 65 kg rider on Zwift without raising any red flags in ordinary Zwift races. Does anyone care though? I doubt it given the anonymity at that level.

zacster

I still have the same weight for myself in Zwift as when I started, but I've gained weight since then. From my standpoint though I want it to be the same so I can compare against myself. When I go outside and ride I definitely feel it up the hills. I don't want that in Zwift.

I'm doing the TdZ, one more makeup ride to go, and I'm in the rear groups anyway. You always find a group at your pace. I try to keep up with the front group but can never hold it anymore although I used to be in the top 25% on rides like that, now I'm in the bottom 25%. Whatever.

himespau 

In racing at any level (except As), there are sandbaggers and people who have learned how to game the system to stay in a category while able to put out power above that category's limits. Those people annoy the crap out of me. Was sort of gratifying to see one of them caught out in last night's ZRL race, but I was telling my teammates all along to ignore him because he wasn't on a team we were worried about and he was so likely to catch the DQ that he eventually caught.

unterhausen

Me too, I'm weight doping totally by virtue of not being able to stay away from the refrigerator. I suppose if it ever mattered to someone else, like in a race, I would fix it.

There aren't that many people that have an ftp much over 5w/kg in the real world. In zwift, there are a dozen in every race. Okay, I have only seen that in youtube videos. My max power on my trainer is about 10w/kg. I can do that for about 20 seconds before it's too hard for me to keep up with my pedal speed.

GPLama has a video about smart trainer calibration for racing

zacster

My weight doping wasn't just a little when I started up again a few months ago. I've since dropped 25 pounds and I'm STILL over the weight I have in Zwift. It doesn't matter unless you are going for leaderboards. I'm not, even though I did take two leader jerseys the other day when I was on an empty course doing a structured workout but I was so far ahead of the next person it didn't matter.

PeteHski

I’m the opposite. If I gain weight I put it straight into Zwift for motivation to lose it again! It only really affects my times significantly on the big climbs. At the moment I’m about 5 kg off my lowest weight and I’m about 4-5 mins slower on AdZ.

PeteHski

How do the sandbaggers manage to avoid race category enforcement while actually winning anything?! I’m not exactly setting the World on fire and yet I’m locked out of C and D cat enforced races. I was fairly competitive in cat C, but locked out fairly quickly. In cat B I’m just a mid pack no-hoper 😂

himespau 

IF you can have your 1-3 minute power a LOT higher than your 12 minute power (they use a variation of the traditional CP calculation for zFTP) you can end up in your pen with a lot higher 20 minute power and a LOT higher 1 minute power than your opponents. Just never doing long climbs or races that require a huge 12 minute effort will accomplish much the same goal. I guess it's not sandbagging in the traditional sense, but it is manipulating your power so I have seen people with 3.7-3.8 W/kg 20 minute power riding in the Cs because their 1-3 minute power is so high even in Cat enforcement races.

choddo

In B3 I watched a livestreamed video of a team that smash us, and you can hear the guy warning his teammates to keep an eye on their average power. Sandbagging clowns. I still love those races though.

PeteHski

Thanks for explaining. It’s amazing what some people will do. I just ride as hard as I can and don’t worry about it.

I like this quote from Thomas de Gendt: “It’s easier to drop worldclass riders in a TdF stage than to win a Zwift race” 😂

unterhausen

Does weight matter for sprints on the flat? Zwift's physics is so bad it wouldn't surprise me if it did. The only thing I've ever won on zwift is the green jersey, did it a few times. I didn't manage to take a picture of myself in the green jersey though. When I looked at the segment times on strava, people are hitting 60mph on those very flat segments, which makes me think there is a bit of height doping going on.

My 20 second power is almost respectable, my ftp isn't.