Hi there,
As this applies (so i think) to my performance, here is some background on me:
I am a 17 year old who has been on Zwift for 3 years. I use a Wahoo Kickr Core. I am ~61kg. My FTP is currently at 326w. This is very high for my weight but I do not think this is an anomaly - I have ridden, ran and raced with my peers and am way fitter than them.
In the last 3 weeks, I raced the TdZ in “Advanced Cat” 3 times. 2 of them, I got disqualified by the Cone of Shame both on uphill drags whilst following an attack. The first time was 450w for 90s, well below my PR of 490w. Second was 10s at 500w which is hardly anything. This feels super unfair as I was just following the bunch, none of whom were DQ’d like me. In both instances, the trainer had been calibrated less than 7 days prior. I should say it’s not like these efforts were easy, my HR was around 200 in both cases (my max is supposed to be 203 but has reached 213 according to my Polar H10). If anyone has any clue about what I can do except just “buy a power meter” (I’m a student) that would be much appreciated, as it seems completely unfair and rather demotivating.
You do need and deserve a power meter. Used crank arm based power meter from eBay is often findable for around US$200. I got a 4iiii left crank power meter new on eBay for $130 on closeout, though deals like that don’t come up every day. Borrowing a set of power meter pedals from a friend or someone in a local bike club would be another way to authenticate the numbers.
Seems your numbers aren’t completely out of the realm of possibility. Not sure how the FTP screens are supposed to work. Your numbers against the Cyclinganalytics database suggest about 1.5% of athletes would have equal or greater than your FTP w/kg number, and up to ~10% have absolute wattage above your number
Another possible way to get access to a power meter or a second trainer to test on would be to join a Zwift racing club with a lot of UK members and use that to find someone who can help you. The fact that you are young and strong is an asset when it comes to finding people who might want to help you establish the reality of your numbers. Local outdoor racing teams may be interested in you as well and would be in a position to help.
Not at all unheard of numbers your age with a high fitness lvl.
You could of course get a 2nd powersource to remove the doubt, but I mean..You already sports zwift verified equipment albeit the core has some history with overreporting……numbers seems fine.
Are cone of shame auto generated, or a result of report by other riders?
Does being flagged like this remove data and results from Zwift power? Immediately or eventually? Same race different day for me listed as the original poster here. I came in second and the first place in my race lost 29 kg in one month (impossible). Their weight went from 85kg to 56kg for the race. I know its a game, but if racing is going to be in any way serious this should be obvious.
A weight change doesn’t necessarily indicate cheating. For all you know, they may have set their weight abnormally high during training so that they could participate in a low w/kg group ride and stay in their tempo or even sweet spot for the ride, and when they changed it back for the race, 56 could be a mis-entered 65.
Yes thanks guys! I should say by disqualification I mean that the cone of shame prevents you from exceeding a certain low speed, or just only applies 20% of the power your trainer reads, meaning you get dropped and essentially disqualified - it isn’t related to Zwift Power’s disqualification which works on a specific set of conditionals from what I am aware (e.g 20mins exceeds 5wkg and no dual power, or no heart rate, or zPower trainer, which are eventually specific). I will have a look into seeing if I can get hold of a power meter but however this pans out, unless someone, myself (getting a new trainer) or Zwift (changing their algorithm, perhaps based on training fitness or how long the account has existed), makes a change I will just continue to be disqualified.
Email that address I mentioned in my first comment and wait for them to get back to you. Maybe they can tell you more about what happened, such as an anomaly in the data that resulted in the cone of shame, or some way you can verify your numbers for them.
61kg and 326w isn’t unusual. With more appropriate training, some more IRL racing and a few more years of age you can probably expect to go a bit higher too.
I’ve seen this happen before with a young rider who was lighter than you and with a little more FTP. Your heart rate also reflects his. He used to get a lot of angry comments as well by folks who thought he was cheating. His racing competitors from IRL would chime in and vouch for his abilities at least.
Unfortunately some folks can’t handle being beaten and reach for the flag button too quickly. In his case he was very real and has lots of IRL racing wins in A grade criterium races through that fitness and superior bike handling.
just get your evidence in order that you really are that fit and keep pressing on. I’d suggest some power meter pedals for your bike that are known to be accurate, do heart rate monitoring as you do all the time and do some weigh in videos just to absolutely put everything beyond doubt. Look into getting verified as well as some other riders are.
I wish you well.
This kind of thing has to be stopped across Zwift in general - don’t allow more than certain amounts of gain / loss per day. Even with my huge volume of riding IRL and Zwift (29 hours last week) it’s pretty difficult when you are already light to drop more weight, Up to a kilogram per day is pretty hard work unless you go to some extreme methods.
Mistyped weight numbers could be caught by a simple validation “this is a change of X amount of KG, are you sure”, confirm/cancel.
The point of my post is that the 85kg may be the false weight, not necessarily the 65kg. I gave a perfectly reasonable scenario where that might be the case. How do I know? Because I’ve done it myself, upping my weight so that I get to do more power (aka higher zone) and stay in a group.
Thanks @Chris_D9 that’s very good to know. I have a lead on getting hold of a PM now so if it is accurate I’ll try get it verified. In the meantime I’ll contact that email address @Paul_Southworth and see what they have to say.
