Good morning,
I have done several races with riders who passed me with a direct FTP lower than mine.
So, I go towards the rider and I observe that he is at 400W at 115 revolutions without cardio.
Its power of 400W never varies.
I took several screenshots during the race.
Can we report them to ZWIFT?
Hi Alex, you have seen a Z-power rider. Zwift estimates the power and because this estimate is very inaccurate, such a rider is only allowed to ride a maximum of 400 watts. These are not real watts - just an inaccurate estimate of power on a dumb trainer.
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Of course, a rider taking part in the race is not a Z-power rider. it goes from 220w to 400w over the last 30 minutes of the race… Catches up 2min behind over 5km. While he rides in category B!
During the event you can bring up the rider’s profile in the Companion app and flag them. Also ask other racers to do the same. I wouldn’t be surprised if this were Zwift’s most frequent bot operator who uses throw-away accounts to cheat with impunity. They should automatically detect anyone with power perfectly constant for more than a few seconds and immediately eject them from the event, but the anti-cheating controls are extremely lax to the point of being useless. IMO they should not allow trial accounts to enter races at all.
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Don’t see anything wrong with this, just another Zwift user enjoying the platform to the maximum (and then some). [end rant]
Flagging users doesn’t really do much when they keep coming back under different accounts and doing the same thing again and again.
Zpower users should have the ability to use Zwift, yes, but given them separate leaderboards.
Also need to have a way to automatically filter out riders with unrealistic power outputs automatically without people needing to flag them.
Totally agreeing with all those points and adding to that, either put ZPower users on separate leaderboards or don’t show them at all on leaderboards. Also do something to reduce their impact on group rides.
It isn’t z power.
Most of these rides are old dumb trainers with adjustable difficulty.
Instead of riding level 7 (think of old magnetic style trainers), they ride on level one.
Thus, at easy pedaling, they are credited with 400 watts.
These trainers should be listed as z-power. It is a long-term problem.
I lost a cherished qom to one of these riders. Aggravating to say the least.
That’s the definition of Zpower, isn’t it?
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Yeah although some other devices are also put in that category, but with 400W as the imposed limit for “unknown” smart trainers, it’s a reasonable guess.
Assuming it was a zPower rider, there are a couple things to know: first, you can tell if you’re seeing a zPower rider because there will not be a little lightning bolt next to the rider’s W/kg number in the riders nearby list; second, you can avoid entering races that allow zPower if you open the filters in the Companion app events tab, select the hardware enforcement filter, and then in the results look for events that have an icon with a lightning bolt in it. This month the Zwift ZRacing series enabled hardware enforcement for power meters (but not heart rate monitors). Many community racing events use it as well.
No.
Zpower is an (high) estimate of one’s power based solely on wheel speed alone.
Unsupported trainers and adjustable resistance trainers are capped at 400 watts.
My first year, I had a Kinetic trainer (one of the best and most accurate). Later, when I bought a real power meter, I found out my watts were at least 50 watts higher than what I was actually doing. However, this kind of trainer does not have a 400 watts cap. If I selected JetBlack trainer, it would read even higher(?). I shared my data with the team at Zwift, asking them to lower the estimated watts. But they have never toned it down that I know of.
Allowed in races? Allowed on podium? Not in my opinion.
Would some people stop Zwift if not allowed in races? Probably. Power meters, even used, are not cheap, neither are trainers.
You’re on the wrong platform if you want fair racing (unless you’re at Premier Division level where they disallow bad trainers).
Quite correct, even at the high levels people have been caught out cheating:
Why would anyone do any virtual racing on any platform?
He wasn’t banned from Zwift. Just banned from elite events. He was back shortly after the incident with the same account. Just changed his in-game name a few times. Given the damage he caused, both direct and indirect costs, I found that surprising. It’s not like it was worth it to keep him as a customer.
Problem is that anyone banned can just come back with a different account and away they go again. There is no way to stop that.
None of the other virtual cycling applications can do it either.
The only racing I’d ever be involved in is IRL. While it’s still possible for someone to hide an e-motor in the bike, it’s fairly unlikely. Same with doping, someone can still inject themselves with bad stuff, and while they might get a benefit, they might also shorten their lifespan later on life, or they’ll get caught in doping controls.
Sorry, I can’t trust any virtual racing.
IRL isn’t much better. it’s less funny when people cheat IRL, also. at the amateur level, those doping controls aren’t there. and all a guy has to do is switch you one way or do you like dylan groenewegen did fabio jakobsen because he went out of line for a second and now you can’t do sport at all
speaking as someone who has personally been spat out of the back of a zrl race by mr hoole in the distant past. in retrospect, it kind of was pretty funny. virtual racing is pretty fun, at least for me, because it really doesn’t matter if i come 1st or 20th or what category i do that in. i still woke up that morning with the ability i have and i’m still gonna wake up tomorrow with that ability also, god willing
he’s welcome to come back and race, in my books. at least, legitimately… and i believe he still is racing again, cant comment on the legitimacy since i’m not planning on sharing a pen with the guy. but do the crime, do the time.