I’ve got a buddy who is crazy about Zwift racing. He races a ton.
I use Zwift to supplement my TR workouts. I have only done one zwift race a few weeks ago and was too sore from TR workouts and threw in the towel.
It didn’t seem that the race was any different than a real life criterium. I’m a Cat 4 and I was in a D race on Zwift.
I thought it was an interesting thing to do. I can definitely see myself throwing some Zwift races into my repertoire to give myself some indoor, unstructured training.
One thing I wonder about with these Zwift races. Is that we are going to have a lot of people racing on Zwift only for their training. People who intend to race IRL. I think they’re going to get stuck in Cat 4 and maybe Cat 3. They are basically just doing intensity and not doing enough base work to build up the aerobic engine.
The Pros who are racing a lot on Zwift already have the aerobic engine. But like everything else I don’t think it’s good to emulate the Pros too much.
So, that all said. I think the point of it all is to have some fun, unstructured, indoor work to break up the monotony.
But, I think it’s prudent to avoid the trap of only doing one thing. Uni-tasking is not a great way to work on your weaknesses.
Yeah it’s there but, fudging a little weight or power virtually is way different, way easier and cheaper than doping for real. Therefore, knowing how humans are, I think zwift racing is probably replete with virtual doping. Not saying Zwift is not fun or shouldn’t be done. Just a realistic comment from what I’m reading how easy it is to not be exactly forthcoming with correct information.
I run Zwift and TR at the same time on two monitors with the podcast or music playing in my earbuds.
From the people I’ve talked to that’s pretty odd but I love having the stimulus from the 3 separate sources, watching the miles rack up in zwift is nice since I like having high Strava numbers and my workplace pays me 10¢ per mile I ride.
I’ve never done a zwift race with the intention of winning since I never know whats going on in other people’s houses and what meters they are using but its a great workout trying to keep up with people.
As a business owner and avid cyclist, I can safely say thats an extremely generous policy. I guess it assumes your activity level lowers the company-wide risk level in terms of health insurance, but I can’t imagine paying employees an extra $750-$1000 /year to ride unless the company was also discounted via the insurer.
Can you share with us your employer name? (Or maybe just company size? Are they self-insured?)
One thing I wonder about with these Zwift races. Is that we are going to have a lot of people racing on Zwift only for their training. People who intend to race IRL. I think they’re going to get stuck in Cat 4 and maybe Cat 3. They are basically just doing intensity and not doing enough base work to build up the aerobic engine.
I’ve done a bit of this. Noticed 2 things. I could last longer and finish stronger, but my power decreased. I could sit closer to my ftp for longer, but anything over was not sustainable, which means I could not do anything interesting in the race other than TT. I tied this to lack of body exposure to adapt to high power outputs that workouts provide. There is balance between the two somewhere.
There definately is a balance to be struck. You can’t do well racing on Zwift or in real life if you don’t have the repeatable 1 to 5 minute power.
There’s a certain skill involved in Zwift racing to conserve energy and understanding how to do it is crucial. But the guys that are at the top level have huge power. Overall, generally in Zwift overall W win over W/kg.
I believe that there’s not much cheating going on in A class. A lot of organisers require a HRM to compete and will require HRM for podium winners in other categories. Most of the allegations of cheating seem to come from people in the lower categories.
There are recognised variations in trainer accuracy. Some are notorious for extra watts, some don’t respond quickly enough, some don’t read high enough in sprints. A lot of the top guys will use powermeter as there’s an instant response, and it’s easy to verify outdoor performance. I don’t think that there is such a huge variation in readings between powermeter. The 50W difference we hear quoted on here is rubbish in my view. If a powermeter was brought to market that over-read by 50W compared to the industry standard it would fail as a product.
Most, if not all organisers exclude ZPower riders from podiums, and some exclude ZPower at all from A category racing.
ZwifTransparency is encouraging people to be honest with their weight and validate their power. It’s been really positively received in the community. CEVA Z are no more.
This is all interesting to me. I’m asking stuff out of pure ignorance so don’t take this as me calling you out or anything…
How does wearing a HRM keep performances honest? I can do 170bpm at 165lbs up a climb and I can do 170bpm if I enter weight at 125lbs. Same HR way different VAM do to w/Kg dif…Extreme but, unless they can verify weight all this is pure magic.
Just spoke with Josh Berry at a local race and he looks like a twig. Said he was 20lbs over his “old” race weight! Just saying 10lbs would be easy to fudge and makes a huge difference climbing. 20? Can’t imagine what that would feel like…
There’s obviously no way to absolutely verify weights, but as @AndyGajda stated, the A class races seem pretty honest.
I’m saying that because as a 160lb rider with an FTP in the 325-330 range, I can hang in the first or second group but I’m not winning any thing. I think my Zwift weight is actually overstated, but who cares.
I’ve only done a few races on Zwift and have to say it’s very much like racing a crit in terms of the efforts and dynamics. However there’s a learning curve to the program and I’m still learning.
I can’t see many racers not enjoying it on some level if they gave it a shot.
Just my 2 cents, but the skill involved in Zwift racing is just not staying at the front of the group to take advantage of aerodynamic benefits.
There are no winds to take into account, you can’t gutter people, you don’t have to really worry about your positioning since you just magically pass through people when responding to attacks. Listening to people who take Zwift racing seriously is like listening to someone who plays 2K talking about how to play basketball.
Excellent post and sort of what I was thinking too (having not done z).
If USAC was on the ball they’d be in tight with Zwift, TR, etc…get users who are quick to do these platforms a chance to come out and try the real thing just to compare…it will never happen but, I’d be looking into ways to tap into it if I were at USAC…
No one is claiming that Zwift Racing = Real Racing.
But there are genuine elements of outside racing that can be learned, applied and developed by using Zwift racing inside. The pure inclusion of the need to hang with a group, for an undetermined amount of time, is something essential that is lacking in the pure use of workouts in TrainerRoad.
It isn’t equal, and it doesn’t have to be, for there to be benefit to Zwift racing. The use of tactics and other real racing aspects are present and worthwhile. Like it or now, there are tangible reason to race on Zwift, not to mention that it is just plain fun and a great break from the constant monotony of simple and predictable workouts.
The point of racing on Zwift is the life-like race simulation on your own schedule. I must say that racing/riding on Zwift is as stimulating as outdoors but typically harder as there are few if any lulls in the action and you don’t have to worry about someone taking you down in a crash.
I can’t say I have had too many adrenaline rushes, if any, using TR, but I get it virtually every time I am on Zwift. On Zwift rides/races, I compete against the group I merge with during each ride. Just pick rides with lots of participants so that you find a competitive group at the intensity you want on that ride. I ride on E-motion rollers indoors and when I go outside to the road in the spring it is like I never left. I don’t think I could survive a winter of strictly TR.
PS. I only race indoors to provide the thrill of competition and don’t care for the skills required to compete outdoors. For me, outdoor racing is too dangerous.
As someone with plenty of USAC racing experience and a couple zwift races under my belt, I have to disagree.
The pack movement and the power required to stay positioned well is surprisingly similar to the road. If anything, zwift requires you to stay on the gas MORE than on the road because there’s no slowing for corners, road surface changes, etc.
Most all of the top finishers on Zwift are serious racers on the road. They obviously see value in it, as do the 1000s of cyclists that ride indoors using the platform everyday in a competitive and recreational nature. If you don’t like the format, that’s fine, but why waste your time diminishing it.
FWIW I’m only bothering to post this because I was looking down my nose at zwift myself until just recently. I tried it so I could write it off. Now I use it for the bulk of my workouts. It makes 12+ hr weeks much more tolerable in upstate NY this time of year.
I work at Mikes Bikes in the Bay Area of California. We have 12 locations and have been doing pretty well for ourselves. We work with a lot of corporate companies as well like Apple and Western Digital.
We get health through Kaiser, dental, vision, etc and medical leave if we did actually get into an accident we’ll still get a paycheck.
The miles add up for a lot of people in the company. We have some Cat 1 racers and even a tour of California rider who works part time. I’m full time and last year made around $850 from 10¢ miles and I have coworkers who do 300 mile weeks but work 1 day a week.
It’s a really nice bonus to working in the industry.
and my workplace pays me 10¢ per mile I ride.