If I wanted to win I just drop my weight to 65kgs 350w/65kgs is a lot better than 350w/85kgs, of course 350w/65kg is better than 350w/85kg, its a massive increase in w/kg. Hardly true Say you train and commit yourself to being honest to achieve better fitness,and also better results, albeit virtually..then someone finishes better than you solely because of the BS numbers they entered. Why you can trust Cyclingnews I started started zwift four months ago as a retirement present to myself. We like this move from Zwift. Hahahahaha. Its more fun and engaging that way, for me at least. It all has to do with the way Zwift's racing categories work. Some people are clearly living in a fantasy on zwift. I dont think any of my shorter (under 5ft10) running or cycling friends weights more than that. 0.5kg discrepancy either side is actually quite small. There could be Zwift level weight bonuses instead of another pair of socks. Weight doping is a key challenge for cycling esports to overcome, and its one reason why many big races (e.g., those with prize money) require riders to show up and weigh in on-location in a supervised environment. It is obviously a stupid thing ( weight doping) and why a rider would do this is beyond me but pride and quasi Strava bragging or Zwift Power bragging is a thing. I mean youve both got a point. Maybe also add weight change limit 2kg per week? I started zwifting about 2 1/2 months ago.I did the ftp test and put in the correct weight.Ive no idea how precise my trainer is tho.what i do know is,Ive managed to go from cat c to a. My power to weight ratio would be the same, but Id get the benefits you get from being a heavier rider. Share your thoughts below! The Tour de Zwift events this year were much moreRead more , Wait. A great challenge for those looking for those training gains. It this fair? If someone on zwift holds an avg power at a given heart rate, then goes out on the road and holds that same heart rate but cannot sustain even close to that power, I am sorry, but that isnt physiology; that is hardware. Food for thought. I think it would be best if there was a separate cat system for flat routes (based on watts) and for hilly routes (based on w/kg), My understanding is that Zwift still applies real world physics to this situation, and maybe the article doesnt allude to it, in that on the flat Zwift wont use w/kg to drive speed but your pure watts. I now know of over 20 category D zwift users that have said theyre not going to bother with the Zwift races anymore. Please refresh the page and try again. The guy who got first weighs 106kg on strava but 45kg and only 411 on zwift. There is no reason I should be gettingRead more , Sounds like its time to start racing the Bs, @guest_35522! Updating Your Privacy Settings in Zwift Companion To update your default privacy settings, sign in to the Zwift Companion (ZC) app on your iOS or Andro.
ZwiftPower: Your ultimate guide | Cyclingnews Everyone races at the same weight/height. However, insecure Freds jumpingRead more , I am new to Zwift, but I do wonder how it is youll see a bunch of people finish at the front of a D race at 4-5 W/kg. They do however have a disadvantage on any flat or downhill. I don't think you can do it from the game itself. To move up to the next rank, ZwiftPower will take 95 per cent of your 20-minute average w/kg figure from your previous three races. I just we had a better system than category limits, racing license anybody? You weigh 80kg and have an FTP of 248 watts, which works out to 3.1 w/kg. Skinny guys get DQd if they match heavies on the flat for power so they can NEVER win, even in the mountains. Is a very strong rider for his age and trains hard. A good rule we follow is to take our FTP divide it by 3 and then put that in as our weight (in Kilograms). The license would be needed to participate in ranked races, however if you dont have a license, other races would be available to participate in. First up, you'll have to head to Zwift.com and log in, then click on Settings > Profile > Connections and choose 'opt-in' under the ZwiftPower logo. Tough to recover after attacks in a race when youre always near maxing out. Zwift Insider makes a small commission on purchases made from these links, so please shop through them to support our efforts. BA1 1UA. Although does WTRL encourage reverse weight doping? Yes, there are plenty of variabies, but power is power. I just got upgraded to CAT A according to zwiftpower. If so, that makes sense to me and I can absolutely see the point of that. That gives me more hope for the future of the platform than any announcement from Zwift ever could. The 33-pound Hub is 14 pounds lighter than the 47-pound Wahoo Kickr, even though the two trainers are almost exactly the same size. I have been light and I have been heavy. I may of course be wrong, and these are all true weights, but Id be very surprised if that were the case, in the races where this matters, riders have to submit a private youtube weigh-in video <2 hrs before the race. The winners are almost always people with recorded weights sub 70kgs, more typically 65kgs, even 59!
Connecting to ZwiftPower - Zwift Support would that be cheating then ?
Not too many people actually want to see other peoples height or weight except to be able to verify race results are reasonable. It certainly didnt feel like I had taken it easy when IRead more . Current system means that heavy weight top of cat riders climb at the same speed as skinny guys with same wpk but can have 60% more power on the flats. Everyone else in the race is riding flat out (your own HR was 174bpm) but these guys are just cruising along watching their watts and are then able toRead more , Not sure its that simple I am a heavy category C racer, and (funnily enough) finished 5th in both my recent Crit City races with average HR of 153 and 150. I have tended to notice that a significant number of powerful zwifters real world Strava performances pale in comparison to their online achievements. It doesnt appear that people are abiding by the categories. As long as youre being honest with yourself I wouldnt worry about it too much. Would love your thoughts, please comment. ZwiftPower use 95% of your best 20 minutes during the whole race, so it does not matter if the race is 21 min or 3 hours, you will still be categorized the same way. yes, but you are missing my point. But theres one problem: this puts you into the B category, and you dont want to race the Bs. Heres how it works. My W/Kg has gone from 3.76 to 3.97 without me really improving my FTP. Im surprised that (off wheel) smart trainers dont have the ability to weigh the rider when they get on the bike. I dont think it can all be attributed to weight; it appears that some hardware tweaks can scale up the reported power output. Ive seen many A Riders with 300 FTP on Zwift who I beat by a HUGE MARGIN at triathlon events, including the cycling portion. You make a good pointthere isnt a published race ruleset that clearly states that riders are 1) required to use accurate weight and 2) enter the correct race category. As long as people are using reasonable weight/height and arent cheating or changing it drastically all the time (my scales autoupdate my weight, so mine changes once a day, but by small increments), Im much more interested in being able to see the weight of my teammates so I can properly plan my TTT lineup than I am the weight of my competitors. Too heavy watts are up but watts per kilo goes down. Login Required The Zwift Engineering team is focused on improving security for ZwiftPower users. The only trouble is the downhill doesnt take as long of course, so the light advantage is obviously better. Next up is the most finicky part of the process finding your Zwift ID in order to connect your accounts. I have wondered about this subject on a few occasions. Problem solved! Sandbagging is pointless if winning means youre going to move up (unless you want to take 3 months off after your win. If Zwift can be seen to be doing that then very little need toRead more . https://zwiftpower.com/profile.php?z=697996. 5 year age categories and incredibly competitive a in most age groups, Thanks so much for your helpful comment. SoggyAlbatross2. 2022 Primr RWB League - Cycling Ireland eRacing Winter League. Frankly I struggle to believe these are real. Had assumed I just rode inefficiently. I lost some weight during these few months and gained on FTP Now facing going to C and not getting any good results within the category, Eric, thanks for bringing this to light. But I get beaten by lots of other zwifters, even on flat courses. ), So what is reverse weight doping? Two months ago he had a magic weight loss on zwift. You can record your weight n height n have it verified by experts etc up to five minutes before an event. To change your profile to have to log in on the Zwift website and then edit the profile there. That's it! One question I have struggled to answer though which maybe is not a consideration is that on the flat watts is what is required and I also have to push high wkg to stay with groups. Im older heavier and relativily fit. On one occasion I entered a flat race (Laguardia Loop) following my ZP category (class C), finished almost three minutes down (though since it was a small field I still got third place), and then was disqualified for averaging 3.6 w/kg and 206 watts. If thats the norm, then I really dont see theRead more . If I feel happy in my body thats the most important thing for me, and why I rarely weigh myself. Thats the reason why a results category would be more interesting like Erics suggested in his topic. Incrasing virtual weight would probaly downgrade me to B again. I have long ago earned all of the challenges and levels. If you're on Zwift and planning to get racing, then signing up to the third-party app ZwiftPower (opens in new tab) is an essential step. What you see a lot are riders who are (claiming) to be really light with decent but not exceptional watts. Future Publishing Limited Quay House, The Ambury, I have just accepted that at my height I will always be heavier than the average cyclist. this is how it is in real life , big ian stannard putting in hard fast miles on the front for (was) team sky , while all the small guys tuck in the peloton getting drafted along saving energy for later on in the race , because they can`t compete on the flat with the big boys . Other planned changes communicated last week, including plans to improve the reporting features in Zwift will be rolled out as planned. Even some of the regulated weight rides will give 2kg leeway. Its funny, I was talking to one of my work colleagues who also Zwifts about AdZ and how because Im heavier (125kg / 276lbs) I would never be a sub 60m AdZ rider (I reckon Im looking at sub 2 hours, if lucky), Ive never once considered weight doping, sure I know I could but why would I? Eric runs Zwift Insider in his spare time when he isn't on the bike or managing various business interests. Im in the same boat. I think a once-weekly weigh-in is acceptable. In theory (at least) weight dopers could game the results based categories as well. It must be very hard to do with many, many lines of code to implement otherwise it wouldve been done by now, In reality these changes would not (will not) impact cheating. Though our intent is to protect potentially vulnerable users by removing labels that can trigger unhealthy behaviour What are they trying to protect? Maybe they should display and categorise HR as a %age? ur allowed +/- 5% weight for pro zwift races so +/- 0.5 kg is not going to make a difference :p. add weight if u want to stay in D. lower weight if u wanna move to C. up 2 u. Someone with my FTP should be CAT B, regardless of weight. Then weigh yourself, and open Zwift, and see if it reflects the change. Exactly. ZwiftPower FAQ We're sure you have several questions about ZwiftPower and what it is. But your point is correct, if someone has a good string of results, upg them regardless of cat limits, and zwift needs to lock them out of cat in-game for it to be effective. Taking that info away further depersonalizes the platform, and and may be fine in group rides, but it is a step closer to racing against bots. That is pretty low compared to most people on zwiftpower. The COVID-19 lockdown period, now in its third month around the world, has seen an unprecedented boom in virtual cycling. The categories are the cycling equivalent to weight classes in boxing. Zwift Insider makes a small commission on purchases made from these links, so please shop through them to support our efforts. However, I do understand Kens point. Some races (many, in fact) on Zwift work exactly like that.
Zwift How-To: Adjusting Your Trainer Difficulty | Zwift Maybe with a KICKR Climb it might be possible. what does help identify and stop cheats is formalizing race series and having them use an organization like Zada (whether effective now or not, this is the correct path). I currently use the Garmin Smart Scale so I may invest in the Withings scale. 2022 SNOW Sprint Series Tour de Zwift events were races? Finally, just head back to ZwiftPower and click 'Connect to my Account'. Or weight bonuses for completing events that last for a set amount of days or even hours. Now in A i get dropped all the time. The only way for complete cheat free racing is in the zwift Pro race which is all done in a single room with all riders together. Put simply, ZwiftPower is a community-driven website that complements the Zwift app. Using your Mac or PC, you can do it online on the Zwift website. This raised concerns within the Zwift Racing Community regarding fairness in racing. You'll receive a four-digit code, which you'll then have to add to your last name back in your Zwift settings (you can change it back after the process is completed). Last week I jumped into my first race and it was at the last minute on a whim because I was getting tired of my training ride. I am a long time racer in NorCal and cheating is cheating. Race specific phase: 3x10min 50-60rpm intervals with . Im new to Zwift and its racing and what I like notice is how well I do compared to theRead more , This is not just about cheating. I guess I could play the same game and pretend to be 65kgs (350/65 = an impressive 5.38w/kg), This is where Zwifts scaling of CdA on height and weight gets out of whack with reality. I am always passed by everyone on the way up but can usually catch up on the way down (190cm/93kg). My best race results as a Zwift B are on flatter routes, and I find my watts per kilo are consistently lower than most of the riders around me. Hes not looking for a trophy every race. The key phrase is assuming both riding at the same W/kg, so for the same watts, if I claim to be 10kgs lighter than I really am my W/kg will increase considerably. I recently won a C race, but it didnt feel like winning as I knew there were 2 categories faster. Find some hilly races As a result your suggestion of the watts vs w/kg different systems is already baked into the game physics in a way. It just makes a mockery of the whole system.
ZwiftPower - Login If I am racing I want to be able to look across at the guy/girl next to me (ie on the Companion app) and get an idea if they are going to kill me on the next hill, or not are they a 185cm/90kg guy versus my 172cm/74kg. But It doesnt mean that that person is going to be the person riding the bike on the trainer during the race does it. Have you ever compared numbers for calories burned, power output and even elevation ridden for a Zwift ride uploaded to Strava? It all has to do with the way Zwifts racing categories work. Daniel Ostanek is production editor at Cyclingnews, having joined in 2017 as a freelance contributor and later being hired as staff writer. There is no cat C rider at 58kg who has a hope in hell of beating me in any race.