Makes sense, these are set up as races. There’s a GC and everything.
I used coffee break for the first time yesterday hoping to be able to use it to get off the bike and go into the settings menu to disable chat but unfortunately not possible.
It would have been helpful to control some settings like that via companion app.
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Zwift has races and coffee break doesn’t work there. Great.
Zwift has group rides and coffee break works there. Great.
However, some group rides are races regardless of whether those taking them easy see them that way or not. You could also join a race and just ride zone 2. A good example of this are all of the specific Zwift events like Tour de Zwift or Tour of Watopia. Those are classified as group rides and coffee break works there, but they are always ridden as races. Now again, you can choose to ride easy, but you can always chose to not participate. That isn’t an argument.
So, when people effectively cheat by using coffee break in sections of the map where selections happen, it is obviously frustrating for those suffering to get the best result they can.
Regardless of how much each individual person cares, Zwift should maintain the integrity of their races and events. It shouldn’t be left to the riders.
There should be a technical solution of coffee break not keeping you with riders who go above 4.5-4.8 W/kg (for category A) and a certain percentage of the ride target category W/kg (for the lower categories). That way people can attack out of the group with coffee breaks or coffee break riders get dropped on climbs that are ridden hard.
On casual group rides, average W/kg tend to be lower to not drop people on their coffee break bathroom break and personal decency / group etiquette would stop people attacking during coffee breaks.
I like coffee break on casual group rides and tend to need 1-2 bathroom breaks on 100 km rides, but I do think it’s cheating when used during events like Tour de Zwift to not get dropped on selective hills.
Disagree. You can “race” any event you want but that changes nothing for anyone else. If someone hits the coffee stop button you can just decide you’re not racing them.
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If that were actually the way the world works, why does doping control exist in real life and why do weight controls exist even for Zwift World Championships? The entire point is for it not to be left to the riders to maintain the integrity of the race or ride.
If a technical solution were implemented, what do those who don’t care, lose?
If you want a real race, enter a race. If you want to go hard in a group ride, go for it but don’t complain if others are doing a group ride. Maybe you are just disappointed in the lack of opportunities for good races. That’s reasonable and I share that view, but I don’t expect anyone to treat a group ride as a race if they didn’t enter a race. They’re using the game as intended, not cheating.
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It’s a nonsensical argument since in the case of Tour de Zwift and Tour of Watopia for example, every single ride is ridden as a race. It’s classified as a group ride, but could just as well be called a race. Just because you don’t race or don’t participate or don’t care doesn’t mean the integrity of the event does not matter. It isn’t about you or me. It’s about the principle of trying to reduce cheating on Zwift wherever one finds it.
“They” in your example wouldn’t be using the coffee break tactically if the intention wasn’t too cheat. It would be used randomly.
Also, I’ve won those events in cat A regardless. This isn’t about me. It’s genuinely about the principle of reducing cheating on Zwift. I have no solution for other types of cheating on Zwift like using an e-bike at home or “weight doping”.
No those events are ridden as group rides by the majority, and some people like to go at it. That’s fine but if there weren’t people doing TdZ as a group ride they would be empty like all the hard races are.
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i have no idea
That doesn’t answer what speaks against finding a technical solution of not being able to use coffee break to cheat, like in the examples of possible solutions I gave. That would still allow people to use coffee break. You would simply just not be able to abuse it.
Doping control exists IRL for races. Nobody from WADA shows up to my local group rides. Even when we decide to race each other for town sign sprints.
I belong to one club that has a weekly club TT. They post times on their website, and someone wins each week. WADA does not show up.
Some events have rules. Official races on Zwift have rules. Group rides on Zwift do not have the same rules. When someone signs up for an officially designated race, IRL or Zwift, they are signing on to ride in an event where they acknowledge certain rules, rules that everyone who signs up is obligated to follow.
When I sign up for a group ride on Zwift, I am signing on to ride an event where I acknowledge that some people have certain goals and others do not. That some people have certain goals (to race each other) in no way obligates me to ride according to the preferences of someone else.
There are races for you if you want to race and ensure that everyone else is there following racing rules as well. But if you’re in a group ride, it’s not your place to enforce your preferred unwritten rules on anyone else.
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Well I don’t agree that those people are cheating because it’s not a race. In TdZ this year they gave us actual races, and that was cool. To me that seems like the answer. Let races be races, let group rides be group rides.
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So Zwift would not be better if coffee break could be used, but not abused?
I don’t understand the viability of the argument of “cheating happens - just don’t care about it”. Especially if a solution could be coded into the game.
I can see your point, but I disagree because of the tactical use. That always makes it cheating in my mind, but I can definitely see your side of the issue.
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if you are not personally tactically bending loopholes and rules to your will then you are losing to someone who is. by attempting to tactically maneoveure your way into avoiding getting dumpstered in an actual race by racing in group rides instead, you have, as they say, made your own bed
By the way, in case you hadn’t noticed, the L’Etape du Tour group rides have no coffee stop so keep an eye out for those. They’re done for February and there aren’t many dates, but there are more coming up.
Personally I think of the coffee break as a powerup that lasts longer.
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I’m saying that using it during a group ride is not an ‘abuse’. It’s ‘something some people don’t like’. Those are different concepts.
That you want to ride group rides a certain way in no way obligates anyone else to ride them the same way.
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Again, the tactical use makes it abuse. If it were not being abused it would be used randomly, not specifically on rises when selections happen.
No, it does not.
This is what’s happening:
Person X: I want to ride a group ride and use Coffee Stops, which are allowed.
You: I want to ride a group ride without using Coffee Stops (even though they are allowed), and I want everyone else to ride the same way, and if they don’t do what I want then they are abusing the function.
It just doesn’t work like that.
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You can keep referring to group rides as “races” much like I am free to call a table a “bathtub” but it doesn’t make either of us right. Group rides are just that, group rides. They are set up for people to ride with the yellow beacon. Just because someone (or a group) decides they really wished it was a race and ride it like a race doesn’t change the fact it’s a group ride and not a race.
(For clarity I am talking about public Zwift events. Until Zwift creates more options within clubs for their own events there isn’t much that can be done. If ‘Club A’ creates an event [group ride, since IIRC the only options are workout and group ride] to act like a race it will still have coffee break because it’s technically a group ride in Zwift’s eyes)
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