Probably the worst case of cheating ever reported on Zwift? The reality of the situation though is that Eddy got greedy. He chose to push his numbers in to the realm of universally impossible. What about all of those riders that are doing similar but keeping the numbers plausible?
This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are many, much easier, ways to get an unfair advantage. Kickr bike? put it on a downhill slope and make your pedals match. Microburst? - Zwift say it’s a myth, evidence says otherwise. Dual reporting itself is a meaningless mirage with the ease at which the secondary source can be made to match the primary.
There are many members of the community that know about a number of exploits and they want to improve Zwift Racing, they want it legitimised because that makes it a more enjoyable platform for all of us. The bounty program was supposed to offer an avenue for this after the Luciano fiasco.
Eric Min, February 2022
It is important for us to uphold our terms of service as they exist to protect the enjoyment of the majority of Zwifters. Rather than share information on how to exploit a performance bug, we would always encourage members of the community to come forward to Zwift with performance exploits they find. The process on how to bring such issues to the attention of Zwift hasn’t always been clear, so in order to improve this, we plan to introduce a bug bounty program that will not only make it easier for Zwifters to highlight issues but will also reward them for doing so. We will need time to develop this program but will share information in due course.
This race itself also got blown apart when Eddy made his break (I was watching it live), and majorly affected the outcome of the race as others scrambled to act.
The video has since been made private. If I recall correctly the rider’s team leader said they had a word with the rider about his use of sticky watts and that he wouldn’t do it again but I guess cheaters gonna cheat.
i could dump so much ■■■■ in eric’s intray that i could retire tomorrow assuming i could write the email fast enough to beat the other 5 billion people to the punch
One thing I was wondering about when reading the sticky watts threads is what would a lab test for this bugfeature look like? Could it be simulated and performance-tested?
lab tests are usually done on a velotron which i am going to assume is not wirelessly connected because then it wouldn’t be lab grade
there is also micro sprinting, which is absolutely a real thing and not a myth which is what i’m assuming the staff member in the screenshot is referring to, and is not equipment dependant but uses a quirk in the zwift physics model. it wouldn’t look any different in a lab, because you are actually producing the watts.
I guess it is a similar thing to wbal or stamina feature in garmin. There are many approximations of this depending on your ftp etc… not sure it is the best proxy
Utilization of this cheat isn’t any surprise, it’s basic for anyone with SW experience and undetectable if the cheater takes enough care. For sure being used at all levels of Zwift racing. Everybody here likely has a list of riders they know are cheating. So yeah, one person disciplined/banned only because they couldn’t care less about hiding is a pretty minimal addressing of the whole thing…
“Undetectable” as far as Zwift is concerned doesn’t at all mean it isn’t obvious. Geez, the number of pack finish category 4s IRL with consistent pro level numbers on Zwift…
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(sarcasm)