Did my first zwift race...disappointed at people!

Never done a Zwift race I haven’t enjoyed (afterwards!)… I’m not shooting for a podium, not bothered if people want to inflate their performance, but would guess most aren’t. I might have only done a dozen or so, but they really push you, hanging on to the ‘A’ blob for as long as possible before I get spat out then after a while trying to get onto another blob approaching fast.

As I’m on a MTB my gearing isn’t good for sprints, most enjoyable time was dropping my small blob with under a mile to go and giving it an all out effort to the line and holding out :slight_smile: think it was for a top 30 place!! Didn’t matter 1st or 30th, I was emptied and “won” my race!

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I like the idea. People who care about making themselves and others better, so you know it’ll be a fair fight.

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Just as a general response, I wasn’t going in with an explanation to win or anything. I am just kind of messing around this week, and it’s to icy to ride my normal trail in New England, so I thought why not a zwift race.

I posted this because I’m just generally disappointed with people for sandbagging. I think if you have a lower FTP it would be a huge confidence boost to do well in a race. And I’m disappointed with zwift for not adhering to the rules they created.

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Possible - how about using whatever existing races there are but having our own leaderboard? Might be a simple way to achieve the goal.

I’m not particularly interested in racing, but I’ll give the tri club TT a go for my own sake. I assume it’s always the same course.

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There are typically two TT courses. One is the 17.6km out and back on Tempus Fugit. The other is Bologna. Unusually do the Friday night 1945 (GMT) TT on Tempus Fugit. The only person I’m really racing is myself.

Organisers can set TT events on other courses if they want to but those are less common.

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I thought about getting sucked into another long reply defending racing on Zwift. I reflected on the title of this thread. I agree 100% - it’s people that we should be upset with, not Zwift!!

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I’m thinking of the Tri Academy TT, tomorrow is at “sand and sequoias” or something I don’t know if it’s always that course, but same principle?

I’m only doing it as I’m not in a plan at the moment so it’s a bit like free riding.

That’s a flat and then rolling hills ride - quite nice, I’ve used it when I’m just zwifting as a distraction during my TR workouts, and did a group ride there as well. The hills are not very long and they spice up what would otherwise be a very flat route.

The main issue I find with Zwift races (apart from cheating) is the categories. The OP gives a perfect corner case: short flat race, light rider. W/kg is meaningless then, pure Watts is the only thing that counts, this is almost a TT. They need to put a points system in place, moving people up as they place higher in races.

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Would love an unofficial Trainer road Bologna TT board. Maybe supported by a monthly event that would show our improvements or losses on, something other than FTP.

Do have a love and hate relationship with that final climb :wink:

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I don’t understand why people are disappointed with Zwift racing. It gives you an opportunity to test your physical limits on a bike indoors when you would rarely have the motivation to push yourself that hard otherwise. How often do you push yourself to your limits looking at the wall or a blue line. If you want competition, you should be happy that they provide you with the opportunity. If anyone cares about Zwift results, then it’s their ego that needs to be stroked.

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You could make a private Bologna TR TT group on Strava? That should do it.

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Fake races on fake terrain. fake FTPs, fake weights, fake results.

Where’s the confusion??

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I disagree, while I don’t race on zwift much anymore and never cared too much about the results, it’s not unreasonable for folks to want a fair level playing field. I think people are too quick to discount all of this and that’s what makes the system continue to suck for people who enjoy the races. I think it’s fine for people to want to seek their competitive outlet through zwift and not real life, so the system should strive to be more fair for them. Especially for C group people who in cat 4 and 5 always have to deal with strong guys passing through, zwift racing in theory provides a way to race with ones physical peers. If it was just about getting a good workout in people could do interval stuff in a non race scenario. As long as someone is trying to beat someone else we should strive for better

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I think this is asking for utopia IRL or otherwise.

Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive. We’re never going to be perfect but we can be better

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So what you’re saying is…you’re going to set up a real world TT for TR forum members? :grinning:

Actually, maybe we should!

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I’m wondering how they looked like a super rider when you looked at their rides. Yes, it’s gamified but the power being represented by the trainer/pm would be exactly same whether you were on TR or Zwift. Are you looking at Zwift speed and thinking it’s a little high? Well, TR speed is even more offensive.

The only form of cheating that exists on Zwift that doesn’t exist on TR that I can think of is weight doping.

Think people are getting caugt up on comparing themselves to others, which is a world that Zwift creates. As does real life racing. TR workouts don’t give the capabilities to compare so people don’t get caught up in it.

Guarantee if TR created a workout course profile and then had a leader board of who did it fastest, people would start accusing others of cheating here as well.

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Then sandbaggers would just create a new account when they want to go back down to “cat 5” and dominate.

Maybe start everyone together in 1 group. Then after the finish break everyone into the w/kg groups based on that rides effort.

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Controlling account changes on a subscription app is pretty simple.