For the past 18 months I’ve been racing as a mid to upper cat B using an Elite Direto trainer. Recently I bought some Assioma Duo Shi pedals and did a comparison. The Direto had been giving a high power reading and since moving over to the Assioma my FTP has dropped from 302 to 245 (I have had a couple of colds since Christmas so I may not have been at my best recently but still…). By my own rough calculation I’m now riding as an upper end cat C.
Is it possible to get my ZwiftPower figures recalculated using my now accurate power figures? Is it possible to do the same for the autocat system? Or am I just going to have to suck it up and wait 60 to 90 days for things to sort themselves out?
You pretty much described the “whole” problem with the Zwift cat system, and why I lost completely interest in eRacing…
The guy/gal with the better equipment gets punished by the ones with the most unreliable one (most users)… Obviously, if you race IRL, you want the most accurate setup (you can’t make up watts or weight doping IRL) but if you only care for eRacing what’s the point of getting accurate data LOL
Hey Alan!
I also rode on the Elite Direto for 6 months! Then I put on my Assioma DUOs and dual recorded! Guess what I found? I found that my Direto overreported by 10-20w (except for 2 minutes after a spin-down).
I asked an experienced rider what the cause may be and they think my Direto is overreading due to a lack of temperature compensation. I was gutted. I thought I had made gains but now it makes sense why I suddenly gained 10w to my FTP after buying my Direto.
But I’m glad now knowing what I’m using is the real deal.
Alan, I’m 95% sure that your Assiomas are correct. I know others who had issues with the Direto power reading. My Elite Suito was bang on the assioma reading, which is weird since it’s their lower model.
I suggest doing what I did:
contact Elite and ask whats up and what they can do
use your assiomas for now
continue training
One last thing: make sure your crank length is set properly in the assioma app and you have done a zero offset calibration (also thru the app)
Here’s my tip: do your best and focus on yourself. don’t worry about beating other people. use people with funky equipment as a challenge to beat. lastly: don’t take eRacing seriously
Thanks for the comments Thomas. I’m pretty sure the Assioma are spot on, l did a static weight test on them and they were right and cadence data matches my Direto & Garmin. Also a good point about crank length (correct) and calibration which I do regularly (I swap them between bikes).
So yes, it took a few days to get my head around it but at least I know I’m straight and can work out new goals etc. Sportive season is upon us so outdoor riding and using the trainer for training is in order for the next few months & start again in the autumn.
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Hi Xavier, I’m sure you’re right…until a couple of weeks ago I was, inadvertently, producing wattages far above reality. I’ll still race but I’ll definitely take it less seriously - I tend to do iTT so most of the time I’m racing against myself anyway.
had a direto and found it was reading high compared to a 4iiii power meter and then it started making a strange noise which elite told me to strip the unit down and glue a part, it went back under warranty and got a different turbo and i had to contact zwiftpower to get them to reset my stats
You might want to try to email zwiftpower@zwift.com and see if they can remove old results and start fresh with the assioma as the power source
Agreed. There are so many variables involved that it’s sort of the Wild West. And then there’s eDoping with weight, height, etc.
I don’t see how Zwift can enforce fairness when it comes to eRacing, so IMHO it’s best to just treat it as a hard workout and fellow competitors as AI. I mean, who hasn’t seen some combo of Power, HR, profile pic, etc, and just sort of rolled their eyes and chuckled? I believe that most people with dubious performances aren’t trying to cheat, they just have uncalibrated or perhaps substandard equipment. In fact, I’m happy to see them on Zwift!
The good thing is, Zwift fitness is directly transferrable to the outdoors… where the real, (mostly) fair competition is! Ride On.
It is possible to get your ZwiftPower figures recalculated using your more accurate power figures. You can also submit a request to the autocat system to recalculate your power figures. However, it may take up to 90 days for the changes to take effect