Just experienced the mandatory enforcement again: it seems that all 3R races now mandate HRM.
This is easily visible in the Companion app. If you see the heart icon, don’t sign up.
Yes, I know. My point is that these events never used to enforce mandatory HRM and so now I’m being forced to spend money to enter races that I was fine to race in not long ago.
Your complaint is properly directed at 3R. They want it this way and specifically requested it. My guess is more of their racers want the HRM requirement than not. Complaints about lack of HR data are much more common than the reverse. If you don’t like their races anymore there are plenty of others that don’t require it (the majority in fact).
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reputation, i guess. personally i like the polar oh1 because it doesn’t drop out, charges from USB, doesn’t rely on the integrity of the strap to make the reading etc. but i don’t really care how accurate it is, and that’s probably £50 some people don’t wanna spend. i always have a lot of sympathy for anyone who doesn’t like hrms, since i must have some kind of phobia of seeing my own heartrate or something. i wear one, but i hate them.
i did exactly that, for that reason. the only downside is you get maybe 4 or 5 days out of a charge, if you can call that a downside
It’s not necessarily the sensor, I get the occasional --/No signal with the OH1 as well (the two others are also Polars, of course). I think the Zwift Bluetooth stack just somehow became less reliable when the new connection warnings were added.
It’s not the money that’s the issue so much as the random unpredictable failure at the start of, or during, a race. It’s not detecting cheats, it’s just random punishment beatings to make everyone feel that Something is being Done. It’s security theatre on a par with taking shoes off at airports. It’s a shibboleth, a talisman, you might as well wear a rabbit’s foot on a chest strap.
Has anyone ever seen a rider disqualified on the basis of HRM data? I haven’t.
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Are there? Zwift Crit Club, ZRace, KISS, 3R, all require HRM. My feeling is official Zwift races (Zwift Crit and ZRace) should not require HRM since they are literally never going to look at it and disqualify someone for having a weird heart rate, so it’s completely vapid (and costs extra money) and meaningless. Let CE be the main thing and don’t punish people who aren’t cheating by making them have this extra $50 every 9 months sent to Wahoo. Nobody has given a good reason for keeping these requirements other than they want them.
That’s your choice to keep throwing money at the wrong product.
Sorry that was unclear, I am talking about races that have hardware enforcement enabled and require the HRM to be paired in order to enter the pen, and will eject you from the race in progress if your HRM fails. These are the events that have a heart icon visible in the Companion app. That’s a small minority of races.
That’s different from races that exclude you from the ZwiftPower results after the fact. That’s the majority. That doesn’t prevent anyone from entering the race without a HRM and seeing a result at the finish.
Given that a HRM is one of the tiniest parts of the overall expense of riding on Zwift, it just doesn’t bother me - it does next to nothing to affect accessibility of the sport. People typically spend $500-2000 on a trainer, plus a bike, and a perfectly serviceable HRM costs about as much as a few water bottles. Personally I do not care about seeing HR data for anyone including myself, but I shelled out $33 so I’m providing the signal and that doesn’t bother me at all.
very rarely, but it never really seemed like the right way to deal with it to me even on the few times i have seen it. i think if i were organising and someone’s HR data stood out, i might ask the guy to show something that indicates he is more or less as strong as he says, but i wouldn’t like it to be a hard rule. even with my current polar oh1 i have at least one result where my avg hr was like 110 because gormless ass put the sensor into the armband clip inside out
but the “hardware enforced” event tag seems to be all or nothing when it comes to equipment. so if you want to enforce trainers, it’s necessary to also enforce HRMs etc. maybe a race organiser knows better, but i think it’s like that.
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The third one will be a Polar, don’t worry, but this misses the point. If having HRM data is not going to be used to DQ people, then it shouldn’t be required, period. Spurious requirements should be given the axe.
It’s annoying to get DQed because in the scramble to get the kids to bed, run downstairs, fill a water bottle, and hop on a race, I happen to have misplaced my HRM. I would understand if the HRM was actually used to do serious anti-cheating efforts. But it’s not. So it is at best something people don’t care about, and at worst annoying and unnecessary. I was in a race last week (which was a CE Zwift Crit Club Race), where the winner of the B field did 4.8 wkg / 339 watts average for 26 minutes. He wasn’t DQed because he was wearing an HRM (presumably, CE will now at least force him to be in the A’s). But a D rider who did 1.7 wkg and finished DFL was DQed for not wearing an HRM. This is completely assinine and I cannot comprehend how people are on here defending it. If you don’t care either way, then it should be gotten rid of. If nobody can make a decent positive argument for why the HRM should be required in official one-off Zwift events like ZRacing and Zwift Crit Club, then it should be gotten rid of.
And yes, I am talking about results on ZwiftPower, but they are still considered the relevant listing of results for many in the community.
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A lot of people care about it, I’m just not one of them. There are more complainers about not disqualifying the no-HRM racers than there are people like yourself who strongly dislike it. I suspect that’s a factor in why some organizers choose to do it. Naturally I’m not going to make an argument in favor, and people who care about enforcing the HRM requirement probably won’t either, because they don’t have to. I note that nobody from the Zwift events team has weighed in on this thread so we don’t know their reasoning. They might just be minimizing complaints as the top priority.
i’m a little harder than i should be on them sometimes, well ok most of the time. but just like any other event organiser, zhq are allowed to set the terms of their events too. i don’t even think a reason is necessary
but i’ll guess, because while i think zhq take up a little more of the calendar than they should, i appreciate the general approach
1: more people in pens
2: simple and easy to understand terms and conditions
3: no special requirements other than what has, historically, through no fault of anybody in particular, shown to be very disruptive in races (zpower as the primary)
if people try racing and like the idea of it, then they can start looking for what they really want out of it. but there’s no opportunity to do that if they never try it
Not the case, HR hardware enforcement is not linked to power hardware enforcement. We’ve put power hardware enforcement on Herd Winter Racing (started with the ‘autumn’ series) but still don’t require HR.
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cheers. i try to make sure at least 20% of whatever i say is accurate but it’s a daily struggle
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No problem. Until we asked Zwift about it I thought the same thing, it was implied that it worked that way by Zwift when they announced it.
[HRM Recommendations]
(Recommendations for HR Monitor)
I had a similar issue with Wahoo HRM failing. I have gone through 3 now. I picked up 2 Garmin Duals. Pretty happy so far. Cheaper than the Wahoo, no problems getting connected.
Personally, I think they should be required for the majority of races. And they are a valuable tool for training.
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