Hi. I have strated racing in Zwift very recently. Last saturday I did a TT in cat. D. The winner had this numbers: 183 average watts and 4,6 w/kg. The maths says this person should weight around 39 kg to produce those numbers.
There is something am I missing about this or this person is a cheater?
If you want to be very charitable you could say they were a very small person with badly calibrated equipment but using Occam’s razor I’d probably say it is far more likely they were cheating.
I reported him in the app companion, because those numbers made the race a joke. Zwift does usually ban this raiders? How often this situation happen in Zwift racing?
I don’t race myself so have no real experience of it but there are a lot of similar complaints on here so it doesn’t seem like it is a rare occurrence
Well then. I have done some esports and I know that this cheating situation is going to bite Zwift hard if they want to make Zwift racing a serious esport.
The racing community has been asking ZHQ to take these things seriously for years. Doing so doesn’t only benefit racing, and the solution shouldn’t only apply to racing.
Anyone who has seen a segment board leader with an obviously impossible time is impacted. And maintaining the integrity of the leaderboards and races will make the platform more attractive for existing cyclists to join.
ZHQ only seems to be interested in what the majority are doing. It’s the outliers that have the biggest impact, and there are enough outliers around that their impact is visible to anyone who cares to look.
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Not a cheater, they are a perfectly legitimate paying user. Right…
I’ve been beating this drum for ages but it goes nowhere.
Something has to be done to automatically filter these people out of rides and keep them out of leaderboards. The same as ZPower riders should have their own leaderboard category.
Reporting via the app takes time - it would be better to stop these people before they can impact events, rides or leaderboards.
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Cheaters are also subscribers.
I understand that you say cheaters also pay, and you say it with sarcasm. In other esports, even free ones, this kind of cheating—where it becomes impossible for opponents to beat you—is punished with a permanent account suspension.
Maybe Zwift thinks that banning cheaters will make them lose money, and that might be true in the short term. But if they allow a culture of cheating to take hold in the competitive side of Zwift, they will eventually lose subscribers who get tired of dealing with cheaters.
As for me, I’m considering not renewing my subscription. I use Zwift for workouts and the occasional race, and if I see that Zwift does nothing to fix the situation, spending my money, time, and effort is simply not worth it.
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Cheaters also lose subscribers as well.
Another platform that didn’t properly deal with rampant cheating started to lose content contributors because of it.
It is Zwift’s best interest to keep the riding accurate and honest, otherwise it just becomes a slippery slope.
Let them cheat, but without being on any leaderboards and hide them from other riders so they can’t have any effect on races or any other types of riding.
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I think it is too late for that, it has been many years and little has been done unless you are in the elite levels of esports where they have more strict rules and verification procedures. However, for us normal users there is not much being done around equipment and weight verification, or removing bots.
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I understand that it is impossible to verify the actual weight of Zwift riders, but in extreme cases like the one I have mentioned, where a rider claims to weigh 39 kg and produce almost 5 W/kg, it should raise suspicions and result in the account being suspended until the rider provides proof. I understand that it is not easy, but something should be done.
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I’m with you. I’m not convinced Zwift are.
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As far as the specific case in this thread, I don’t know - 40kg/88lbs, 180W? For a moderately talented and small 12-14yo that seems absolutely plausible. Impressive, but there are a bunch of people on the planet that can do that, at least some of them will be on Zwift. Riders that small definitely have an advantage in the in-game physics over real world.
As far as looking for more stringent rulesets - Dirt Racing Series, Ladder League, and lots of community races are definitely ready to DQ someone for very good results and make them submit supporting information before re-instatement
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In this case the raider is 46 years old…
To OP, if you are new to racing and looking for races with tighter rulesets, enforcement, and some rider verification, you’re probably going to want to chose community sponsored races over Zwift Headquarters sponsored racing. Zwift HQ doesn’t prioritize those things the way some** community race series do.
** Not all community races adhere to this standard.
The downside to these community races is that you have to know where to look for them (some are semi-private meaning you have to register for them outside Zwift for them to appear as options in the Companion App) and they often offer fewer time slots.
The plus side is that the organizers tend to take things you and others mentioned above seriously and they take the time to sort through things they see as being off as well as those reported by riders. The races also tend to have a dedicated group of enthusiastic racers.
If you’re interested in community sponsored racing, I’m sure folks in here have many recommendations, but here are a few to start. (These lean heavily towards stage racing as that’s what I like lately, but others here can give recommendations on one off or short series racing).
Flamme Rouge Racing - https://flammerougeracing.co.uk/
(Stage tours etc)
Tugaz -https://tugaz.pt/madeira/
(Stage tour next week)
Chasing Tours on Ecro App
(Racing follows world tour schedule)
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It´s good to know that there are communities that dedicate time and effort to create a good racing environment in Zwift. But as a noob in racing, I don’t know anything about these communities—I’ll look into it.
However, if these communities, which do the work for free, can manage these situations better, Zwift should be able to do it too.
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@Paul_Southworth @Gordon_Rhino-Racing
Would you be able to provide some links to or info on community races/series that you would recommend?
The things you mention above are good.
For Team racing i would recommend things like Dirt, 5v5 ladder, wtrl ttt
Best thing is probably find a club that rides at similar times is the easiest way to get involved in team events.
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Hi @J_Tortuero, welcome to the forums! I’m Francisco from Zwift Support.
Thanks for flagging this with us.
When you notice unusual numbers or behaviors like this, it’s always good to report them so we can investigate further. Zwift has an article with the steps on how to report another Zwifter properly. Here’s the link: Reporting Another Zwifter.
Following the steps in the article helps ensure the issue is documented correctly and can be looked into by the appropriate team. Thanks for collaborating with our community.
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