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I have a 7 year old who wants to participate in the juniors’ ride and race events. He weighs 24kg but the Zwift min weight is 45kg. It is frustrating for him to be at such a disadvantage when he rides with his peers.
Is there a way to fix this for juniors to allow kids to ride fairly?
I have a 9-year-old and a 7-year-old. The 9-year-old has already tried Zwift twice, and the 7-year-old is interested. It’s very difficult for the 9-year-old to get up to a reasonable speed when climbing on Zwift, because his real weight is about 26 pounds below the minimum weight in Zwift, even though he does have the type of account that is explictly for preteen children. I think we should be supporting and encouraging children in cycling in any way we can, not only for their fitness and long-term health, but because U.S. male cyclists continue to do so poorly in international competition (the women have done a lot better, admittedly). I really appreciate that Zwift encourages children to use their technology and even has a special type of account for them, but the minimum weights have to go, so they don’t feel discouraged. If Zwift is doing this to try to prevent cheating on power-to-weight: consider that a relatively large adult (like me) could just enter a very low weight and still end up with a ridiculous power-to-weight ratio.
Thanks for bringing up this feature request, Bob. I completely agree. I’ve just set up a child account for my 7 year old. I was delighted to find out this is free, but very surprised to find that the general weight minimum also applies to child accounts. He finds this disheartening and unfair (and with his weight being less than half the minimum weight, this sure IS unfair!) - not what you want on your first impression. Why not make an exception for these types of account?
Any news from Zwift on this? I just set up my son and he weighs 34kg but can’t enter any value less than 45kg.
+1 for this. My 8 year old is pretty unhappy with a near 50% weight penalty on Zwift.
My son weighs 38kg but is a strong lad and he is fast! Still on a dumb trainer though, with sensors so the readings are normally too high and he gets disqualified…so I’m IN for having the algorithms adjusted to suit a child’s profile…
+1 for this please.
+1 here too. My 3 years old son wants to “play zwift” and “make the avatar move”. I managed to create a simple adaptor to fit his 12 inches bike onto a Tacx. The only thing which is killing his fun now is the weight limit which slows him down a lot since he weights barely 16kg.
It’s a balance of
How many kids this would help
Vs
How much weight doping do we want to race against…
Maybe allow a lower weight but don’t let people under the current min weight to race
It’s awesome that Zwift supports junior riders with free training up to 16. But it’s still impossible to use the correct weight for kids. My son weighs 29 kg and minimum weight is 45!
They could, as already suggested, link it to junior accounts. They have the birth date anyway and honestly, cheaters will always find a way to cheat. Why do those motivated kids have to take it out???
Definately agree that minimum weight needs to be lowered for juniors. Have just signed my 9 year old up only to find minimum weight…She weights in at 25kg…
Understand the minimums but a big put off for the young riders that we are trying to encourage
Zwift please fix this…
This weight situation isn’t just affecting Juniors, I also have a disability that means I’m a lot shorter than most and weigh 37kg but I still want to race competitively.
A solution to cut out weight doping is it have a weigh-in at a trusted local Zwift experience centre.
My 7 yr old daughter wants to ride & weighs 23kg. Zwift, please help us encourage these young riders!
If an exception can’t easily be made based on account type, how about setting the minimum weight globally to 20 kg, but having the stats in the right riders-near-you column a different colour for riders under 45 kg? The same way they go orange if a certain w/kg is exceeded? That would make it really clear when an adult in an event was weight-doping below the ‘adult’ threshold.
I think it would help introduce kids to racing. There are ways of filtering out weight dopers for anyone interested in racing. ZwiftPower has really become the go-to location for legit racing results and transparency until something even better comes along. There are hoops that we need to jump through for our children to ride on zwift, so why can’t the “special weight” be associated with that license key we need to enter?
In my opinion this is not only related to kids. Due to a lung transplant my ftp is low, giving me a max pace about1.3. If i lower my weight max it is approx 1.5.
To take part in socal events like the Watopia tour demotivating as I always ends as the last one and the joy Zwifting decreases…
I hope the Zwift team will find a solution so that EVERYONE can enjoy the game…
My little one was so disappointed that he was barely moving due to the minimum weight and his wrong w/kg.
I also dont understand the reply from Zwift support:“…however the tools aren’t available at this time to make this adjustment” Does this mean they have zero programmers or that they dont have any development department at all to changes this one line of code?
For me it seems completely random to force this minimum weight.
I now have to adjust the setup of my powermeter so it measures 3 times more to have a realistic w/kg for him.
It that an option? If yes, how is it done?
I am sure they have plenty of very talented programmers that could program many spectacular things in no time.
I don’t think it has any thing to do with a random number. The physics of the game is based on real world factors in the form of complex equations. These equisions has upper and lower bounds of applicability.
So for them to go past those bounds they have to completely change the physics and develop a new model.
I doubt there are many wind tunnel tests for a 8 year old on a bike.