When I check the Zwift Power individual ranking (by age, by countries, etc.) I observe that many cyclists are classified while their HT power sensor is obviously malfunctioning (ZP or power worthy of a Tour de France winner at over 60 years old).
Why not, by default, limiting this ranking to racers who regularly provide a dual power recording and a Strava link (if you got a 20’ > 5W/kg, you must got some KOM IRL) ?
Of course, this will eliminate 80% of the classified riders, but at least it will provide a realistic individual ranking. And I guess riders using dumb trainers don’t mind being or not classified.
As it is, the individual ranking is of no interest (except for the first scratch positions which actually present these data -dual recording and link to Strava-).
I think you may be underestimating the Zwift user base: there are lots of seriously strong riders, from around the world and not just the small pool in your IRL area. Most races already exclude zPower (estimated) riders from the Zwift Power results, and you can see the gap between the number of riders that show are indicated in the Zwift interface and then in ZP later. I believe riders only get the lightning bolt next to their average power in ZP with a powermeter so that’s visible too. There are certainly sandbaggers but I don’t think there’s much evidence many people are manipulating their numbers, and if you think there must be cheating going on just because you are getting beat I may have some bad news for you.
“Why not” your suggestions? Well, I spent $1400 on a smart trainer to get accurate numbers; I don’t want to spend hundreds more so I can see my mediocre B class results. Dual recording is often required for A class podium finishers, and that seems appropriate. As for Strava, not everyone is on it, has open road near them (perhaps why they are inside?), and Strava is broadly a competitor to Zwift. And how would you weight those results? Popular routes in my major metropolitan area have thousands of users–a top 20 in one of those segments represents a far greater achievement than a KOM with ten other people. With the proliferation of e-bikes I would actually trust the trainer numbers more than outdoor Strava results.
I see your point but i do not use STRAVA as it like zwift has its limitations and and can easily be manipulated with its data. Like most things we need to take common sense approach and eliminating 80% of the ZWIFT users is not really a sensible option. After all it is only VR and not real in comparison to racing on the road where I have seen stats of STRAVA users climbing 14%hills at 25mph by simply holding onto a car . Nice thought but not really a starter if you want people to use the platform
I agree with your points. I was unclear in my initial post. I’m not speaking of the race ranking, but of the “macro ranking” which indicate your position (1st in the world, 1st in your country, 1st in your age group, 1st in your country X age group, etc.). This global/macro ranking is useless for many riders (which only consider their ranking in a race).
I’m not considering that people want to cheat (if so, their is alway a possibility) but are you using poorly calibrated HT, because it’s not an issue for them (and they don’t even know that they are ranked in this global ranking system).
Actually I was thinking that this particular “macro” ranking could be limited to the ones who really want to be part of it (and agree to provide required data, like it is required in some particular races).
But it’s not a big issue and I understand that people running Zwift Power got other priorities (I was just thinking it was really easy to implement)…
I see now–I totally misunderstood what you were looking at. I had never tapped on that “info” button on ZP to see the further breakdown of rankings. (In my case, the numbers are so large that their irrelevance is already built in!) I do wonder whether the folks with bad numbers are the type to regularly race, which is to say the rolling 90 day cut-off to count race results might already cut down on the issue you have identified. But then for example the Kinetic trainers are apparently overly generous to riders’ numbers and those users might not know, or might enjoy, the boost, so maybe there is indeed a substantial group of racers with inflated numbers. Weight “doping” whether intentionally or negligently seems likely to be a bigger distortion and that’s a hard one to solve too.
Here’s your idea in action, the DBR Friday Race description:
Race organizers may request riders in all categories to provide a dual recording or a matching RL effort (Strava) in order to verify a Zwift race effort. Failure to comply may result in disqualification from the event. Failure to provide a dual recording or RL effort on three requests may result in disqualification from future events, until a dual recording with a matching effort is provided.
Thanks. It sounds good. Anyway, I understand that many riders don’t have a dual recording possibility and want to race. So it’s too restricting to make it mandatory for each races. That’s why I suggested to make it mandatory only for the “macro” ranking (which concerns, maybe 1% of the Zwift racers -so 0,1% of the Zwifters-). It won’t prevent any newcomer to enter Zwift and will satisfy the small part of the racers looking for a fair global ranking.