Requiring power on the descents of at least 1.5w/kg for the descent to count, or just making descents ineligible for gaining distance for upgrade would be a start.
I’m trying to upgrade my SL8 by climbing and descending Ventop - it’s slow at 43km a time. I’d lose my descent kms by the latter idea but so be it.
But how do you stop the bots racing around at 600km+ with 4.5w/kg?
Requiring power more than zero would be enough to eliminate all the people doing it from the sofa.
The bots deserve more attention for sure and were already a problem before the new incentives were added. That kind of abuse is already covered by the terms of service so those accounts are fair game for deletion IMO. Everyone doing that already knows it’s wrong.
this one should be really easy to catch.
Could have a pop up every 50 or 100km that you have to click to confirm you’re still there, kind of like the power saving on a TV that you have to click to stop it turning the TV off.
Fail to click the pop up and get booted.
This would be horrible in a race. Please no.
Just put the power flag back to where it was and let people verify if they get caught by it.
I didn’t mean for races, just those people that are flyinging around to get all the upgrades, maybe it could kick in after a longer period.
not sure it is too dissimilar to your suggestion anyway but maybe coupled with some kind of power requirement too.
ok good 
Here is a list of “easy” tweaks;
Harder tweaks;
Would be hilarious but won’t happen;
It makes me wonder why Zwift does not do anything about it. They could just run a script and see if everyone’s efforts were legit or not. Then correct it retrospectively. Same as the guy on youtube who gave instructions how to upgrade TT bike to max level while riding 0 km 
. People used to be banned by gaming the system in the past but looks like not anymore.
In other news, I finally got my first bike Level 1 upgrade today 
.
Up grading the TT bikes by logging in and not riding was not cheating.
It was exploiting a loophole.
Same for teleporting to a friend on a mountain top.
Just an exploit.
I wouldn’t recommend doing it because the gains seemed to reflect poorly on Zwift racing
Having multiple users on the same account riding or using a robot to ride is cheating.
Fortunately, the upgrades don’t really seem to be that great… But I did just purchase #1 for my SL8.
I also just did 2 1/2 Big Spin rides to get the XP bonuses.
Exploiting a loophole to gain an advantage is cheating IMO.
Most games consider intentional exploitation of loopholes cheating. Zwift does in regard to sticky watts
WTRL Race Control specifically called it upgrade cheating.
It didn’t seem right to me and I didn’t and don’t do it or condone it.
But, how did we get here?
Who opened these loop holes and who has not closed or addressed the loop holes?
Some race organizers are calling it cheating, that’s nice but you can’t just call an aspect of the game as cheating because you don’t like it.
Sticky watts?
Who has created an environment where watts are sticky?
I don’t do that either.
But, it not up to race organizers to define what is or is not allowed in Zwift.
Expecting the individual to not engage in these practices is also not working .
ZHQ appeared to be making a few steps toward improving racing but this has definitely been 1 step forward, 3 steps back.
Is ZHQ ever going to get ahead of these issues?
So, if, for instance, a category winner last week had done it, bragged about doing it, and then laughed about how it helped their TTT? Would they be removed?
Zwift created the environment for sticky watts to be more of a problem because they wanted to reduce the upset around drop outs.
In gaming there is always an ethical approach and non ethical approach. There is a grey line that gets calibrated by the game and gamer over time. Some common examples from the major MMO’s were around taking a specific action to duplicate loot, or using scenery to clear harder bosses. They went against the spirit of the game and were deemed bannable.
Third party programs are generally always against TOS but when enough people use them they become tolerated. Even if they become popular they can develop to give too much benefit and result in bans. Sauce is right on the grey line. If for instance it was able to unmask Power ups from other riders it would get more attention.
Cycling examples are more mundane… if you are over the line on your aero sock length then you are ok by some organizers and not by others. You probably get away with it near the limit, probably get dq’d if you are checked or go too far.
I see it as being against the spirit of the rules but not against the rules.
Should you do it? no
Can you do it? yes
I don’t think you can ban/reprimand anyone for doing something which is not explicitly against the rules.
zwift should change the rules but this is a big mes and has already been going on far too long to sort out in any nice/neat way.
Casinos look at card counting like this. There’s nothing illegal about it, it’s not cheating, but they’ll kick you out if they find you doing it. Zwift could take a similar stance here.
Are you missing the word “not” in this statement?
Have you read the rules? It would be very hard to claim it isn’t expressly against the rules when the behaviour changes race performance against others.
They even have clauses to state that they don’t need to act immediately and can take virtual items back
The only question is if they will. My guess is they’ll selectively enforce it until it stops.
Select clauses
It’s also incredibly boring. I’d like to earn my upgrades.
I rode in a Big Spin event with The Eric Min. He said in the start pen he was hoping to get the BMX bike this time around (he didn’t).
Someone said, “Can’t you just have one of your staff give it to you?”
His response was, “What’s the point if you don’t earn it?”
Exactly.
