I don’t do Zwift races for this very reason. They need to monitor races better and police their platform. People are cheating like crazy, even if the cheating is simply leaving their weight a few pounds lighter than reality. To people who are obviously sandbagging big time.
To be honest though, I never found zwift racing exciting. I’ve tried it a few times and I don’t really enjoy it and don’t think I would be the biggest fan if people weren’t sand bagging.
I do enjoy using zwift in the winter time to compliment TR workouts. I’ve periodically made my long SS TR workouts in zwift or I’ll sub a sunday ride for a Fondo in Zwift. Obviously there is cheating in there. But it isn’t such a big deal.
This has been the standard experience for me with Zwift racing. I did a TT race recently in the 3.0-4.0W/kg category. I averaged 3.9W/kg for the race and finished 6th in the group. Every rider that finished ahead of me was well over 4W/kg for the duration - 4.4-4.6W/kg - with some guys at super low heart rates. I find the same experience in other forms of racing, I simply can’t hang with the guys at the front of the category. I can’t bring myself to cheat in this way which makes the racing frustrating.
To get around this I’ve started to focus on TT’ing and just race against myself and my previous times to keep me motivated.
I signed up for Zwift over the holiday period (I’m a trainer road user) purely to do Alp Du Zwift and that new MTB course, but I’m not at the mythical level 12 status needed to proceed on such glamours pursuit.
Can someone please set up an event and send me an invite during Australian friendly time zone up Alp Du Zwift?
It would be awesome to have a standing TR group ride each week in the winter even. I’d love to do that on Saturday or Sunday to replace a tempo workout while spinning with you TR folks!
The easiest way to do this is a few folk that the lead in setting up a meet-up at the same time each week. It’s simple to do and way more likely to work than trying to get an event on the Zwift calendar.
Only done A races. Something about drafting seems off. I can easily get dropped on fast descents if I’m out of a draft for like 1 second. Or drafting in groups in general seems unrealistically strong in large groups that attacks can never go up the road without instantly being caught
I was thinking about adding some zwift time in during the cold winter months so I could get some virtual racing in. But the reality is, its a video game, and people cheat at video games, because online glory is forever. (Sarcasm). I think I’ll stick to my TR plans and improve in my real life races when the weather warms up.
I agree. They do some weird stuff with “stickiness” in drafting situations. They do this to help groups form and stay together like a blob. I wish they would turn it down or get rid of it all together . On flats it requires too much of a power increase to pass in a group, or pull away from group. Then on descents it seems it uses a different stickiness setting.
Ignoring the massive floors in Zwift racing (never tired it myself due to them)…
Although there obviously are people that cheat on Zwift, as in every aspect of life, there is nothing in your post that indicates so, or strongly suggests it.
Anyone over ~70kgs (3 w/kg) is going to to be able to put out over 25% more power than your 180 watts for 25 minutes. I therefore would suggest your result really should not be a surprise.
TR speed is irrelevant, I use a dumb trainer running constantly at 4% incline so my ave speed is lower than reality. Within TR it’s all about power the incline or speed is irrelevant.
Agree if there were a leader board people would find ways to enhance their performance.
Don’t give a toss about Zwift speed, if you’re competing you do it in the real world.
You are missing the point completely. There were a bunch of people in the C cat race that were too strong and should have been in B. The lower categories (especially C) is an absolute shit-show with people entering the wrong category and ruining the races for genuine C cat racers. This is a problem with people, not Zwift.
I rarely do a Zwift race (group rides for me) but but when I did a race I used them as threshold workouts and looked a zwift power website to check my stats over time. I do know the virtual equipment in Zwift can make a difference in speed/climbing, etc.
If you are just starting out and have the slowest bike and someone has the Tron lets say with the zipp 808 they will be faster than you if w/kg are the same.
Yeah, fair. I did my first zwift race yesterday. I raced B and finished middle of the pack in the Bs at 3.6wkg over 45 minutes. Everyone else in B seemed in the right range. Then looking at C, the first 10 are all over 3wkg despite the race being long enough to not really be over threshold. A few were at 3.9 for 40 plus minutes. Seems silly not to sort them out.
3.3 to 3.5 for a 25 minutes race is perfectly reasonable if entering a race based on ftp w/kg (C) 2.5 to 3.1.
Anyway, My main point is even if everyone was in the correct cat I would NOT expect anyone to be in the top half of the results give the power number quoted above.
Is that what the categories are, w/kg for FTP? I wasn’t sure if it was that or the power you expect to hold for the race which would vary on time/distance. I’ve not done a race, might do one of the Tri Academy time trials which I think are shorter than an hour.
No idea, I assumed as I bet most do it is based on FTP w/kg, how could anything else even start to make sense. How do you know how long a given race is? You don’t!
I can’t see people guessing how long the race will be and working out what they think they can hold w/kg for assumed race duration… it just gets more random the more you think about it.
As I said the whole principle is flawed, for example different hardware, power meters, no power meters Zwift power etc.
IMO Race for fun if you wish but no need to get disappointed with anything or anyone, it is what it is.