A was in a race this morning “La Cyclosportive by Team Foudre” (zwiftpower event id 3621077). Half of the race a rider changed his speed and left the group in a solo escape. After some laps, he even lapped all of us.
At that point, I wanted to watch the impressive cyclist with the FAN VIEW… and I discovered that his watts were strangely fixed at 435. After a while, I started recording because I thought it was really unusual.
The recording can be seen on youtube searching “435 stable Watt for this zwifter”.
What do you think about it? How can he do it??? is it regular or what?
You can use a simulator that will give a set output.
Easy to spot if the cadence & HR not present.
If they are they could be linked to another app & riding on that to provide the other metrics.
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It’s a curious case, but doesn’t necessarily look like an automation/simulator to me. The rider’s account is visible in Companion and the power/HR/Cadence plots of the full ride suggest that they started using an external app in ERG mode from about 70 minutes in, building up to the section that was uploaded to YouTube. The heart rate and cadence do vary, although not by much. Whether this rider was actually holding those watts (not impossible for a gifted cyclist) or has an over-reporting trainer, only they will know.
In any case, the forum admins will probably ask you to remove any reference to the zwifter’s identity, as calling out other riders goes against the forum guidelines.
Hi Niku. Erg mode? Well… i would expect to see watt changing to 430… 440… 435. Not so fixed 435, while bpm changes from 140 to 160…
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I could be completely wrong, of course. 
But with certain bike trainers that apply strong power smoothing in ERG mode, the resulting output can appear unnaturally steady in Zwift, even if the actual power generated was not.
Maintaining that kind of power towards the end of a two-hour ride is probably very challenging for this rider, even if they are gifted, so it’s not surprising to see the heart rate increase significantly during this period.
Here’s the full timeline from Companion:
If someone had wanted to use a simulator, I’d expect to see more regular lines all round. But again, I’m just speculating and ready to be proven wrong. You could just directly message this rider via Companion and ask them what their set-up is and how they were riding.
it is, even way below threshold you can probably expect about 3-5w variance per second for a smooth rider. i’ve encountered one of these guys before, personally i suspected an ebike, but who knows. i’ll try and find the power graph
edit: here
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To clarify, I wasn’t suggesting that anyone can maintain such a perfectly steady power output naturally (I agree that that isn’t possible, which is why I think some kind of power smoothing was being applied, with ERG mode); I was referring to question of whether this rider was actually holding this much power, as opposed to it being the result of an over-reporting trainer or some such.
I hadn’t thought of an e-bike, but that would still surely produce more variability in output than what we’re seeing here.
If you look at their Zwiftpower account they are an +A with only 9 races, they also have a check equipment warning. Watching the video their cadence barely changes a rev or 2 the watts don’t skip a beat, this looks like some sort of assist(e-bike), their HR is even suspicious as it barely moves.
Sounds like dodgy equipment. I see these riders frequently and report them - always giving supporting information on why I reported them.
This I can do because I’m not racing. It might not make a too much of difference all the time, but every little bit helps over time.
If this white trace is the power numbers then it looks like erg mode near the end.
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