Only if you use it to “manage” your watts to stay in Cat, I use a Garmin when I’m leading a group ride so I can make sure my watts are ok. The problem is we saw a lot of riders suddenly lose all their power over the summer period and came back in a lower Cat… they needed to "manage " their watts to stay in Cat. Zwift could stop that with one easy fix, extend the 90 day period to 365 for rider Cat’s… that would make a huge difference with an easy fix…
nah. and i personally don’t think sandbagging in general is cheating either, given the hundreds of ways people can easily actually cheat on zwift like tightening the drive belt on their trainer, scaling power meters, reporting their weight as 10kg lighter than it is, blowing their rear tire up to 30000 psi if they use a wheel on etc. none of which zwift themselves can really do much about
all of these are far more common than the classical “sandbagger” too ie: the guy with the 6wkg 5 min and the 4wkg 20 min
some people apparently use a rolling a 20 min power avg display on a head unit to make sure they don’t go over their 20 min limit, or i guess they could use this program
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Words like cheating are emotive. Managing your 20 min power is directly promoted by zwift(power), it’s hardly cheating when it’s designed into the game. You might as well call people cheats for drafting as much as possible up to the final sprint.
The real scandal is that pedalling too hard is actually regarded as cheating by zwift(power), you get disqualified for that!
Try to imagine a running race where you get disqualified for running too fast. A boxing match where you’re disqualified for punching too hard. A darts match where you get disqualified for too many treble 20s. A tennis match where you get disqualified for serving too hard.
I still find myself wondering, what on earth were the people who dreamt up this W/kg nonsense smoking?
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242w at that weight seems believable. I’m about 5kg heavier and 242w is a walk in the park for me. Maybe that person is not very tall either.
I knew of a rider similar weight to the person in question with much greater FTP. All normal - he races in real life and does well in A grade. Also destroys me up hills too. 
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Enforced pens + Rankings = no sandbaggers or cruisers
Cheaters will still exist but they’re just avatars who will eventually be racing against their peers (with real ability or otherwise)
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ZRL… well, that’s a whole different ballgame! I haven’t even bothered to put a team together for any of it.
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TBF, I’ve brought it up previously. Reverse engineering Zwift data is against the terms of use.
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yeah, i have the same FTP and i am roughly the same weight. i’m not particularly aerobically gifted either. some of the prem league guys have ftps in the 300s at our weight
I’m not anywhere near a cat threshold, so maybe I don’t get it. But if someone intentionally is always throttling back their effort, just to stay in a lower cat but at the top, then they’re choosing to have a high placing in a race, at the expense of not working harder and improving? Someone just reconfirm for me… there isn’t actual prize money at stake, is there?
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Unfortunately that is the way of the world, people will always bend the rules to suit them. They would rather keep on looking good in their own reality rather than work a bit harder and have a chance of getting to the top of the Cat above.
We all look at things in a slightly different light, in my opinion it’s all about trying your best and if you get promoted so be it.
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Let’s be clear - managing your power to stay in a particular Zwift Power category isn’t cheating. The rules are ride in the category ZP gives you. Of course people are going to game that system.
It’s not my cup of tea personally, I find it more rewarding to do as well as I possibly can, but I’ve long moved on from being annoyed at those that do exploit it. If the size of the problem is made more clear with tools like this, maybe it will help speed up improvements.
The issue, as has been discussed to death, is that the system promotes this behaviour. The anti-sandbagging thread has covered this over and over again.
Zwift have hinted that category enforcement is close, which certainly doesn’t solve cruising, but the system will also be the foundation to allow race organisers to split pens by lots of difference metrics. When there are no ‘categories’, cruising to stay in category goes away. That will be the biggest change to Zwift racing the platform has seen.
I really wish the pace was significantly faster, but I am growing more confident that this problem will, eventually, go away.
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We are NEVER going to get rid of cheating but as long as we can make it as fair as possible is all anybody is asking for. Even the pros who have to submit two forms of data get caught cheating.
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That’s your view, sure. Let me clear - in my opinion it’s cheating. Cheating the system if you prefer, but cheating nonetheless.
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I’m using cheating to mean breaking the rules.
You’re using cheating to mean unsportsmanlike.
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Yes we have… Live finals… CVR… KISS… no-one cheated there… maybe when the world madness stops Zwift could think of this again for the ZRL PL Playoffs…
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Humans evolved to cheat. Just ask the sabre toothed cat about how those cheating humans learned how to throw rocks.
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I’m not sure I fully understand your point, but I think I agree.
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While i agree that live is the best way to combat cheating, im sorry to tell you that the cheating was just as bad in the top races 2 years ago if not worse. Several of the strongest guys including the one winning races like the Kiss Super League and leading the zwift rankings Messineo where using sprint coasting clearly visible on the streams. The strongest sprinter in peloton Sanjath on bs trainer with all results completely erased after because of this, and unfortunately the list goes on with people using trainers like hammer v1 etc. The difference is now people are much more aware of the bs going on, and have a better understanding of just how many ways people can and will cheat
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For sure!
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One thing I notice lots is many riders coming to almost dead stops on steeper hills (meaning they must be using a wheel-on roller?). But performing relatively better in other situations. The wheel-on trainers don’t support steep grades. I doubt they are accurate during all-out sprints. I chose a more accurate trainer and a better overall experience; no regrets. I know my relative fitness level, and come summer, I look forward to keeping up with riders I would have otherwise had no chance of keeping up with before getting into Zwift.
In my first week I’ve noticed a few different kinds of cheating (or “cheating” in the case of sandbagging):
- Obviously anomalies with whatever trainer they are using,
- Weight doping,
- Sandbagging (kind of sort of not cheating but very detrimental none the less),
- And a combination of any or all of the above.
I would say that dealing with the cheating is extremely hard. Probably at least a quarter of cheaters aren’t even aware they’re cheating (how many people you think actually calibrate their trainers properly?). I would rather have a field of 80 riders with 20-60 cheaters opposed to a field of just 20 non-cheaters.
I would however like to see something done about sandbagging. It’s extremely hard for D class riders not to get completely left behind (maybe even split D?). I’m barely able to keep up in C (against riders who should be towards the top of B) but can live with that. I’m sure there’s something that can be done even if it’s arcade-ish.
If you pretend you’re in the Tour De France and the only person not on drugs, and finish 2nd or 3rd (2nd or 3rd last that is) it makes it kind of fun 
For more serious races/racers you could have some sort of qualification protocol, such as a trial at a designated physical location with standard equipment. And do that at regular intervals throughout the year.