LOL, 4 units per hour is another limit, or 4 w/kg average in one hour (which is my 5 minute power, can’t imagine doing that for 1 hour).
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Yeah, pretty sure none of my rides have hit any of the factory tour limits yet 
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This is very fortunate for me, as doing much more than 75km is rather painful. So I’ve just been smashing 60-65km with the Constance robopacer group and before that just doing ADZ laps, which is not very good because you smash yourself uphill then coast downhill which isn’t all that useful.
At the moment I’m focused on unlocking the rollerblade bike which means riding all the crappy Cannondale bikes and none of them are climbing bikes, not even the Evo which IRL is a lightweight climbing bike. That one is done, I’m now on the Synapse.
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SO if I am a clydesdale (110 kg) it will take almost twice as long as somebody else who rides with me the whole time who weighs 65kg….so there is a fat tax on this challenge…
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Not really, it’s based on watts per kg per hour so you both get the same amount for doing 2.5 or 4.0 w/kg. Your absolute power is higher, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the lighter person isn’t working just as hard as you.
It’s more like another example of how having relatively low power works against riders in Zwift in terms of progression. Lower power = slower progress towards all challenges, slower levelling up, etc, etc. I accepted it a long time ago - just pointing out how things are.
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The formula for accumulating benefits (Power Units) for any ride is:
Benefits = (Average Watts × Time in hours) / Weight in kg
Let’s use a hypothetical 1-hour ride where you both ride together at a steady, fast pace. Because you are “riding together” at the same speed, your Time is identical, but your Average Watts will be different.
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Rider 1: 100 kg
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Rider 2: 65 kg
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Time: 1 hour
Let’s assume that to maintain this speed, the 100 kg rider must average 270 watts, while the 65 kg rider must average 220 watts. (These are just realistic estimates; the principle holds true regardless of the exact numbers).
Calculation for the 100 kg Rider:
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Average W/kg: 270 W / 100 kg = 2.7 W/kg
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Benefits Earned: (270 Watts × 1 hour) / 100 kg = 2.7 Power Units
Calculation for the 65 kg Rider:
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Average W/kg: 220 W / 65 kg = ~3.38 W/kg
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Benefits Earned: (220 Watts × 1 hour) / 65 kg = ~3.38 Power Units
Conclusion
As shown in the math, the 65 kg rider earns ~3.38 Power Units in the same hour that the 100 kg rider earns 2.7 Power Units. The lighter rider is accumulating benefits faster because the challenge is designed to reward your power-to-weight ratio (W/kg), not your total power output.
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And the 65kg rider has to work at 3.38wkg for that hour as opposed to easy cruising at 2.7.
nice ChatGPT formatting too
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Yeah it’s not the same effort and ignores any drafting, so I guess this would technically be true if it’s an ITT and they are both on TT bikes with no draft
you must Pay the Fat Tax., i am #93kg so i can talk thick. @W_Ranger Just ride more.
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Isn’t it sort of like the Everest Challenge? (Except in this case you can’t get it for free with a bunch of banded rides.)
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The 65kg rider is working less, only doing 220W vs. 270W AND earning more progress.
3.4 w/kg is less work than 2.7 w/kg??? Help me understand.
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Work is defined as joules. More watts = more joules, or Force x Distance
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So light weights don’t work hard, I knew it!
93kg club!
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It’s a cycling game, so I expect there to be some advantages to being a lighter rider, and some goals and experiences that would target pure watts, and again some experiences that would target time on bike only.
This is what Zwift has. Some challenges are more based on w/kg (such as getting the Tron, and the Factory Tour), some are based more on pure watts (such as XP per km, which is most easily gained on flat roads), and some based on time only (unlocking TT bike upgrades for example).
Zwift “could” try and make everything time based and put everyone on a level playing field all the time, but then the best way to get everything would be to put no power down anywhere, and just noodle all day for all achievements, unlocks, and tasks, which I would think would be more boring overall. And then would definitely help retired people more than folks with jobs, family, and not as much time to bike, so we’d have a different set of people complaining anyhow 
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I think neither wattage, speed, distance nor w/kg should be the measuring stick. It should be by percentage of max HR x time. 
Pretty sure that would be problematic for Zwift if someone had a heart attack while riding to speed-run a pair of invisible underwear
it’s all good -this is a great community. Of all the things in the world, the gamification of riding an indoor setup has been great for me personally… and at the end of the day my digital socks and digital frames don’t matter…but you, my digital friends, I do appreciate. (even you skinny bastards blowing by me on every ride lol).
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Nothing is stopping the heavier riders from putting down 3.38 W/kg for an hour (except training status)
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