What about a triple chainring 56/48/34 with a 11/40 cassette.
I don’t see a lot of races on the Central park climb or Radio tower, most races is on the flatter parts.
The bigger issue is people sand bagging to stay in lower cats.
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There is some truth to what you say, but 100% isn’t the same on every trainer too. I do product testing for one of the trainer companies but I also ride the competing models. I did a ride today and at the same supposed difficulty percentage I was in 3 gear positions difference in the rear cassette at cruising speed. We need a common standard for what 100% means in my opinion.
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The only time trainer difficulty actually matters for racing is when the gradient changes. If you have a constant gradient, everyone needs the same watts.
How a change in gradient matters is as you get a hill, the trainer changes resistance and essentially forces you to increase power, providing you with a solid platform to launch an attack uphill over those with lower difficulty setting, who need to spin up themselves and cant rely on the trainer as much. On the flipside, when you crest the hill, the opposite is true. Those with higher difficulty have to spin up to get the same speed going into a descent, and depending on the descent you lose significant watts over those on a lower setting as the resistance has essentially fallen off.
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I think we can all agree that riding at 0% means resistance to the peddle is kept steady regardless of in game grade changes. This lack of resistance change means consistent cadence and wattage can be kept without changing gears. Conversely, the higher the difficulty percentage the greater the spectrum of resistance and the more gear shifting is required to maintain consistent cadence and wattages. There is lag time when changing gears to match grade changes especially when they are abrupt, this lag time has a cost. People riding at 0% absolutely have a competitive advantage.
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Hi Micheal,
I think I agree with what you say.
I am wondering if you may have missed one point in that, the real possible advantage comes if the “Trainer Difficulty” is set not at 0% but at a % that allows the Zwifter to reach an incline and not have to change gear at all, or to have to increase cadence for the power required to make the climb This is because the trainer increases resistance for the Zwifter and so the Watts go up but the cadence stays the same.
ie on the flat to be able to put out X Watts at Y cadence, but on an incline to be able to put out X+ Watts, still at the preferred Y cadence.
Not sure I’m right, just a thought.
Remember ZWIFT IS NOT PERFECT, BUT IT IS PERFECTLY FANTASTIC.
ps (not shouting)
Zwift has totally changed indoor training, it’s just that we humans are never happy, if you know what I mean.
Well I am, usually 
One last thought. At least we all have access to the “Trainer Difficulty” slider so from that racing point we are all on a level playing field with regards to its access and its choice to use it or not. I think there may be bigger racing issues to be fixed first.
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Until they have to change to a higher gear in order to go up the hill with more power to stay with the group because their trainer doesn’t up the resistance on 0% difficulty. No competitive advantage there.
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I agree with you, light resistance could be more of an advantage than no resistance. that’s a good point! No shifting and added watts on the hills.
i see your point. Maybe what would be best would be if race organizers had the ability to limit slider adjustment for their races. This way zwift wouldn’t be making a drastic change and riders would still have choice. If the concept catches on more organizers would do it, if not… business as usual.
The slider matters, but because IT IS a gradient/ gear changer.
At 100% you are going to be using your full range of gears to do a race going up anything with a serious climb. And if you are on rollers then you are doing a lot of gear changing and this can impact your performance. You can also drop your chain (did this in Tour of London).
If you ride at 0% then the gradient never changes. This means you can put it one gear and stay there the whole time. No gear changing. I know this as just before TdZ Stage 1 I snapped my rear derailleur cable and got stuck in my 11 cog. So I dropped the trainer difficulty to 0% and rode the whole thing in 50x11. I did great. Was super boring though (and hard).
Changing gears and changing cadence and rhythm impacts your performance. Especially true for those of us who are older (I am a veteran).
The only way to make it fair for races is level the playing field and have everyone ride on the same setting. Maybe vary this by category (A=100, B=75, etc.). They can then choose to ride whatever cassette they want.
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So what about someone that ride a triple with a 11-34 cassette with Di2 shifters compared to 56/48 with 11-22 cassette with downtube shifters. Do you think it is fair.
If you think there is an advantage then set it on 0% and go race.
The fact that you have a 50 up front already make it that you can spin more on a climb than someone with a 56.
How do you account for different trainers, some trainers can only simulate up to 7% incline.
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When you race in real life you are free to choose whatever equipment you want (within UCI regulations and budget). Want to race a triple? Go for it. But you are not able to flatten the course. Everyone does the same hills. Same descents. Racing in Zwift should have similar principles.
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No one is flattening the course, just reducing the resistance that the trainer has. If the trainer does not have enough resistance then you wont be able to generate the power to be competitive up the climb.
If you close your eyes IRL on a 12% climb with a 34 34 gear you would think wow this is a long 2% climb but if you do the same in a 56 11 on a 3% climb you would think this climb is super hard.
Well, yes, maybe.
But in the present state of technology the smart trainers are not consistent in their capacities.
In addition, people do have different trainers at their home, including different types of classic trainers etc…
So, yes, you might have a reason concerning the “general different effort”, but in the present reality, unfortunately you cannot force everyone to it.
Maybe in the future )
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The bottom line is that Zwift wants to be and needs to be INCLUSVE for all the differing types of Zwifter and their multitude of differing setups.
All shapes and sizes, weights and abilities, young and old, big budgets and small, casual and committed, for fitness and fun, professional or not, etc, etc, etc.
In this way so can all enjoy the platform and gain in health and fitness and well being. Anything else would be damaging to the Zwift’s user base as they would feel unwanted and leave which = revenue down = Zwift’s closure.
I totally get the idea that some of us want a race series that is harder, fairer, more life like and on a equal playing field.
If someone wants to organise say a “Neo series”, on a Neo 1 with a 52/36 11/28 on 100% slider difficulty with verified weight and no e-bikes and a heart rate monitor, no power meters using an iPad model?? etc, that is commendable. Or a “Kicker 2” series same rules or tougher. Anyone? I am totally sure there is a demand for it.
It could be a great series of races, but please don’t lets dictate/force what our other fellow Zwifters have to use in general Zwifting or general current Zwift racing. It’s a dead end for Zwift and us.
“Ride Happily On”
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Interesting idea, by the way.
I suppose one could stay in one gear the whole time during a race but you won’t win no matter what difficulty setting you have on.
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I am 100% for Zwift being inclusive. It’s one of the great things about the platform. Also very much understand that having the trainer difficult setting enables all the terrain to be accessible to everyone so am in favor of them keeping it as an option.
There is a lot of debate as to whether it changes the dynamics of the races. I think it does. Others don’t. Personally I am not going to lower it 0%. As said, it’s easier but it’s very boring. Back to the preZwift world of indoor training. It’s like any of the other sandbagging options there are.
But why not give race organizers an option to set it just like power ups and heart rate monitors, etc. It would give them one more tool and not exclude anyone (as there would be lots of other races where you can use it).
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Another suggestion would be to pass the data point to Zwiftpower so you could filter race results on it. We would quickly see if It has an impact if we had some data.
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Why do riders feel they should be able to Zwift without changing gears?
I have a dumb trainer and I change gears all the time, just like IRL.
In Zwift, when I come to a hill I may choose to just spin along and maintain my present power out put but I will slow down and get dropped.
I usually choose to increase my power out put.
I can stay in the same gear and pedal faster but I don’t like a cadence greater than 90-95, so I shift to a higher gear and on a big hill, get out of the saddle and push my watts up.
There is no advantage going up hill.
Everybody can always down shift.
The advantage come on the down hill.
Dumb trainers and smart trainers with 0 difficulty can push the watts and not spin out.
I’m not sure how much of an advantage this is because other riders can draft on the down hill.
To train for this, I do high cadence and low cadence workouts.
This idea of not changing cadence and gears seems odd and very artificial.
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@Gerrie_Delport
I’m not disputing that the effort for the same climb is the same. That’s not what I’m saying. My point is that the variability in terrain and resulting gear changing has an impact on your average power output. You only need to lose a second over the top of a climb to lose the bunch.
Some of the YouTubers (eg GCN Cycling, @GPLama ) have proven your point by doing the tests on the various KOMs. But I think it would also be interesting to do a test over more variable terrain.
Think about about doing high/ low intervals versus maintaining a steady effort. You might hit the same average power but it makes your legs feels very different. Especially as you get older …