Sprint PB - sure seems time based.
KOM PB - sure seems time based.
Time-based PBs are obviously time-based.
Do they matter?
It seems like an utterly pointless thing to care about. Your time is a factor of so many things around draft, pack dynamics, rolling resistance changes, bikes, other people pulling you. Zwift game speeds are inflated anyway.
It took 5 years from the dirt roads of watopia having a higher resistance for KOMs to change again, and it was done by draftable TT bikes
Sure sounds like the same argument could be made for racing.
Which seems like an utterly pointless thing to care about.
But I’m told that racing is the only aspect of Zwift were the halo bike upgrades have an impact.
1 Like
Which is why I said that I think other methods of cheating are a bigger issue than bike choice…
Anyway the optimal upgrade path for A cat racing appears to be;
- race on SL8 while it upgrades.
- train on zwift bikes until you can upgrade tron
- train on Tron
- assuming SL8 is upgraded keep racing on it until Tron is level 3
- once tron is level 3 keep using it exclusively, unless you do a 15min + climb
1 Like
Humans are wired to care about a lot of things that don’t matter. How many people click a heart below a social media post doesn’t matter, but tons of people care about it. How strangers think about you doesn’t matter, but tons of people care about it. Not just silly people or stupid people–but people whose brains work like normal human brains. Reward pathways are triggered by all sorts of things that don’t matter. If PBs help motivate someone’s training by triggering those normal human neural reward pathways, why don’t they matter?
I go for green jerseys a lot of the time when I’m just free riding. And missing one motivates me, so I work harder, and get faster (in theory). That seems to matter to me.
2 Likes
You think that’s better than going SP74?
The majority of the gains for Halo come from getting from 0 to level 3. Level 3 Tron saves 140s on flats in an hour. The last 2 stages only get 5s more. Specialized halo tops at 155s but loses out on hills.
So, there is a limited difference between Tron3 and SL8-5, and you can make progress to get Tron5.
(I’ll probably do both eventually, but Tron first for me. I’ve got SL8 at 4 so far).
Charts from Zwift Insider
1 Like
It 100% will not affect you personally in any way.
2 Likes
In races, your competitors are more important than their bike or wheels.
If you don’t have a halo or top tier frame, that’s on you. It’s the same as new racers who aren’t able to purchase top tier frames and wheels. But they aren’t the ones complaining. After all, one could argue that it’s only fair that every one have a disc wheel and a venge frame.
When you get to the start line, you don’t know how they earned their drops. I never look at other bikes, ever. And you won’t know if their bike is level 1 or 5.
1 Like
I honestly don’t go for KOMs or sprints, so it does not affect me, but, if someone values their position on a specific KOM or sprint leaderboard then a bike that is faster (even by a bit) ridden by a rider who is a bit ahead of them on the leaderboard can affect them personally by putting that person who did the same power ahead of them on the leaderboard.
So in that case it does “affect” the person without the halo bike in some way.
1 Like
The folks sailing along with zero power output doing 100km (or worse 500km) at 70km/h average speeds and not even on a bike do annoy me because it’s wrong. They do not deserve those upgrades or that distance at those speeds.
Look at Strava, they put in a feature to combat dubious performances - car based activities, motorbikes or other dodgy things.
Yet here in Zwift we have a huge debate on how cheating is perfectly fine because a few people say it’s just a game or that other games have cheats so they should be allowed here, or a few allegedly elite riders think working to achieve upgrades shouldn’t apply to them.
That’s not right.
If I’m putting in 45 minutes of maximum effort and someone has beaten me on the leaderboard by dodgy methods (weight changes, bot, bike upgrades achieved improperly) then of course I’m going to be annoyed.
6 Likes
But it does affect ( or impact, to use your original word ) racing.
OK. Sure. Got it.
1 Like
9 Likes
In what way is this a dead horse? Have you not been over to Ventop and seen what people are doing? Race teams and others?
I’m sure you are aware this is very organised to track who in a team is at what upgrade level and also testing the validity of potential hacks.
That’s not right.
The argument is going in circles, Zwift hasn’t said a word, it’s too late now anyway, damage is done. I moved on a long time ago, it’s not worth the effort to report people and all they get is a 1 week ban anyway. Time to let it go. If Zwift cared, James could sit at the bottom of ventop and ban everyone all day for a week until it stopped. I don’t see that happening.
5 Likes
It is never too late to start. This attitude is firstly sweeping things under the carpet and secondly is encouraging cheating.
It is also an insult to everyone trying to do things the right way.
And if it isn’t stopped it will keep going.
You might as well give the master the rocket launcher. He will have it soon.
One of the more enjoyable mini games available on zwift is beating people who cheat.
3 Likes
The problem seems to be everyone believes HIS/HER way is the right one 
1 Like