Please improve Zwift racing

Racing
1

I’ve just begun Zwift racing again after a long break.

I was excited to see the Zwift racing score improvements. Unfortunately, it still has one glaring issue.

It does not protect beginner racers or the generally less fit riders. It definitely sorts riders better and moves them up and down etc, which is great. However, it still fails to solve the biggest flaw in Zwift racing. Sandbagging or better put basically cheating, be it intentional or unintentional.

I’m returning from injury, because of that I was able to enter the second lowest group. All three races were ruined by single or multiple riders that were way stronger than the group. In one case it was obvious within the first minute. That rider was multiple categories stronger. It’s a shame because in that instance the rest of the field was perfect.

This is very simple to fix. I just don’t understand why Zwift won’t fix it. It’s been years. It boggles my mind. There are many solutions. It does not help if the rider is upgraded AFTER the race. they have ALREADY ruined the race for many other customers.

Protect your customers Zwift.

If you have no up to date power data on a new or returning customer you simply have to have in race protection to protect your customers from the uneducated new racers or essentially bullies.

IN RACE PROTECTION.

It’s very simple. If a rider significantly breaks the ceiling of the race category remove them from the race. You don’t even have to totally remove them from the event. Simply make them invisible to other riders and race results. Tell them after the race. I say this because I expect Zwift are so worried about losing customers that they are worried about a racer being angry and leaving the platform. It has to be something like that as nothing explains why Zwift continually fail to protect the lower category racers.

The old cone of shame was a poor attempt at a similar idea.

I believe simply making them invisible to the other races is the easiest option. Nobody blows up trying to chase an obvious cheater and said hero gets to continue to demonstrate their greatness by riding away.

I wouldn’t make them aware till after the race, as if they are intentionally sandbagging to get brief glory before being upgraded, Zwift will get their actual power data.

Do better Zwift.

Protect your customers.

Protect the lowers categories from bullies.

The new system is clearly improved, it just needs in race protection.

Rant over :grinning:

17 Likes
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Multiple examples of these sort of riders in every race. If they are not sandbagging, they are weight doping or using overinflated power numbers from woefully inaccurate trainers or power meters.
Basically, if you are an honest rider,playing by the rules, you have pretty much zero chance of ever winning a race.

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@AHouse if there “using overinflated power numbers from woefully inaccurate trainers or power meters” they would not be in that Cat but there are in that cat is that is there Cat. you need to work harder.

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I agree.
In ZRS terms, if someone pushes out enough power to move their floor score above the category limit they should be instantly removed from the race.

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This is a very good idea. If someone is clearly busting the norms for the category then removing them from the race right away would work well.

And a secondary measure for all types of riding in Zwift would be to detect and similarly hide riders with blatantly impossible performances or unusual changes in performance/rider data.

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they do that call the Cone of Shame. flag that pop up over the riders head. @Chris_D9

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Not automatically done.

If I had a dollar for every time a 39kg rider goes zooming past me with impossible speed on ADZ on their 3rd or 4th lap I’d be rich…

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I’m not sure.

There’s a fine balance between encouraging users to show true power and punishing riders for showing true power. Any time you DQ for going over a threshold you actually make the whole system worse.

Add in, in ZRS world there is no power threshold, and each users zrs score will change on personal metrics such as weight, meaning rider A might trip an upgrade and rider B might not with similar performance and standing in a race.

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People shouldn’t be near their floor to begin with, that’s 15% lower than seed in the current system. And as I understand it long term you should end up settling at or just above your seed. So pushing hard enough that your floor is above the limit is more than just stepping over the boundary.

The messaging would have to be positive - you’re much better than our system thought you were, we’re giving you an upgrade. On their profile they can have the race result showing as Upgrade rather than DQ.

If seed were equal to floor then I’d add some allowance before removing someone. I suppose it’s similar to the old zwiftpower categories where you’d get upgraded for going over the limit, but there was a margin before you’d get disqualified too.

And I’d never want people removed from the results after the fact due to a results-driven movement.

1 Like
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If your trainer reads 400w when in reality you are only doing 250 W then you have the option to ride around with the pack all day with HR barely ticking over, but also pull a short breakaway or win a sprint any time you like. This doesn’t move you up to the next Cat unless you’re careless with it.
Not a difficult concept for you to grasp, surely?
People who are apologists for cheats are invariably cheats themselves.

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Yes, Automatically, King salts shake his head at the noob.

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this is joke right ? @AHouse

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It is not that simple. So you want to penalize the person that trained for weeks to move to the next category by taking his last win. A racer has the right to win his last race that he has been training for. The next few months he will be in a higher category and possibly wont see the front of the pack for a very long time.

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That is not that simple, since when we went from CE to ZRS we do not have ceilings anymore. It is all result based.

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Riders can put out world record-setting performances and not trigger the cone

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A five minute power strong enough to move your floor up into the next category qualifies as your ceiling-breaker here.

ZHQ is not going to fix ZRS to the point of making it “good,” you’re going to have to wait for a third party to actually fix Zwift racing.

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Wouldn’t the strong rider just sit in and then win anyway?

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The cone is no longer automated. If enough riders flag someone as a flier then they may be removed… but people either can’t or don’t.

Screenshot 2025-02-16 at 10.19.09 AM
Screenshot 2025-02-16 at 10.19.09 AM1230×240 15.9 KB

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I’m pretty sure I saw an automated cone recently but the person was doing like 30wkg

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Use a vELO ranking system, which for results rather than power will only give an increase if you beat someone the rankings say you shouldn’t!
The zwiftracingapp vELO goes up to ~3000, so five pens should split into groups of ~600 spread. By the end of race 4 Tiny Races yesterday, from just the racers shown on zwiftracingapp (so only those on zwiftpower and who were not DQed), 20 of the 52 shown in pen E ended above 600 and a number of those were much closer to a vELO of 888 than 600.
https://www.zwiftracing.app/events/4827085

Use a ranking modifier that tweaks your score depending on if the race course is essentially flat, rolling or mountainous!
We had racers averaging up to ~3.49W/Kg for ~11.5mins in race 4 Tiny Races yesterday in the weakest pen, which compared to the old Category Enforcement limit of ~3W/Kg for 11mins is excessive, they should have been in pen D for an uphill race (their time would have given them 37th/67 in pen D).

For races with back to back races in relatively quick succession like Tiny Races, please get pen exclusion working!
The Companion app gives score changes much quicker than those seen on Zwiftpower, so use them.
My score increased from its floor of 168 to 170 pretty much immediately after race 4 after coming 25th/88 on the app and it’s still 170 today, suggesting these scores aren’t changing significantly ~12 hours later.
At least three exceeded 260 after race 1 Tiny Races yesterday (~4 by race 2; ~5 by race 3), including the racer awarded overall winner of pen E and overall 5th.

Equip everyone in a pen with the same frame and wheels!
Again in race 4 Tiny Races yesterday, I only finished 25th in pen E because I was using the Specialized Crux gravel bike on Sea To Tree, there were a number of racers averaging similar or higher to my 2.47W/Kg who finished up to ~43secs after me because they were on a road bike.

1 Like