James Bailey posted the following on the Face Book page.
I’m surprised there has been no acknowledgment here.
This is long over due.
"starting on June 3rd, we will be preventing riders from using zPower in Zwift-organised races. Instead, all Zwift owned races will fall under the ‘Hardware Requirement’ categorisation, meaning riders will need to have a Power Meter, Smart Trainer or Smart Bike. We feel that this will be a positive step to improving fairness in racing events.
This includes:
Monthly ZRacing
Zwift Hill Climb Racing Club
Zwift TT Racing Club
Zwift Crit Racing Club
Zwift Epic Races
Zwift Women’s Racing Series "
Sounds great. It would be really helpful if they published a FAQ support doc listing of all the devices deemed equivalent to zPower since that includes more than just speed sensors. For example I think it may include all the devices that use the Elite Misuro B+ sensor but I’m not very knowledgeable about which devices will be excluded.
Hopefully it will at least be included in the release notes for the next update.
It’s disappointing that update announcements are regularly posted on “unofficial” social media fan pages, by zwift staff members, before being posted on their own forum.
It’s an interesting question in general as to what is Zwift doing from social media standpoint – it looks like Zwift has co-opted or started at least 4-5 or so separate FB groups (or at least, one of the employees whose name rhymes with games has done so). I don’t do twitter or instagram or whatnot, is Zwift doing the same over on those platforms as well?
as far as racing goes, it started as a community innovation originally and if you wanted to learn about racing and talk about racing you had to go offsite. i don’t know all the numbers but i would guess people still prefer to do that today. those pages were around before the official racing forum, so that’s basically the reason. KRT started zwiftpower and maintained a community forum there, and i don’t know if they started “zwift racers” on fb but sticky and i think glenn knight also moderated that for quite a while and that’s probably the most popular fb page for this stuff
more people will probably see announcements like that on fb than if they get posted in this forum, regardless
edit: and just a small bit of context - zwift have actively tried to migrate the racing community onto these forums in the past, by closing the original zwiftpower forums and suggesting they move here. it wasn’t well received at the time… by me either, i might add. though i’m very slightly wiser now so i can at least respect the intent and the idea
i’m not in any of them, so i really have no idea. i do think there should be some official community hub for racing that isn’t some offsite hellhole, but there are advantages and disadvantages to that. i guess the notable stuff usually goes to zwiftinsider, so there’s that.
This works both ways, it makes racing more competitive without Zpower blowing up the race. On the flip side it will prevent a lot of new users from transitioning into racing. Many people join Pelaton over Zwift because the hardwares are easy to adapt. This wouldn’t draw that crowd.
it might have but these are official zwift races, not races put on by the community members which is why there might have been offsite/3rd party sites
Same goes for WTRL, its a zwift event run by a 3rd party, if there are any issues with results etc zwift palm it off to WTRL, pr when there are server issues such as when everyone was showing as N.Valid zwift don’t reply at all because they never acknowledge bad/poor service
There will still be other races, community and Zwift.
There are still the non race fondo rides like Tour de Zwift.
I really don’t see a lot of ZPower users these days but I agree with you.
There needs to be a place for ZPower.
I started on ZPower and just couldn’t accept that it wasn’t possible to make it accurate.
Hi ZHQ and all - this has appeared on the socials and yet there is nothing on Chris Snook’s Zwift PR team ‘newsroom.’ What’s the truth behind this and how will you also level the playing field to ensuring that power meters aren’t ‘miscalibrated?’
Maybe detect sticky watts and give those people worse aerodynamics or no draft.
None of the trainers I use (or have used) give me that benefit. I also need to find some power pedals that give generous readings.
The other thing is how to stop someone using some modification device that adjust power and sends it to Zwift. Especially if they use it all the time, you’d have no reference of what the real power of that person is. Especially if the device only adds a slight amount more power such as 10w. Not much, but would be enough to get wins.
That said I’m all for limiting the impact of Zpower - in races and give them alternate leaderboards.
Maybe even prevent their avatars giving out any draft which should limit the impact they have on groups.
