Hi, i made lots of reports in the last few weeks/months in the official webform but as i see all the reported OBVIOUS cheaters are racing now without any investigation or suspension.
My question is : why do You make such a webform if nothing happens. or what is the speed of this process, how many days do You need to check a reported rider? Or do You need the cheater’s money instead of fairplay racing? Just to clarify, if i report somebody that is 100% cheater on ZP, i have nearly 10years experience as powermeter/trainer expert, performance analyst so i can decide it with closed eyes …
Any response for this comment or was it unnecessary also? or hire me as ZADA’s team member and i will solve it quickly because this speed is a joke . BTW, the ZADA rules are not so strict , especially in terms of used powermeters/trainers and these difference, there are lots of unfair advantages at certain riders even with dual recordings in premier leagues too…
The Suito is not a bad trainer if it has the latest fw and properly and regularly calibrated, one of my friend is using it for races with Duos and matching perfectly within 1-2% (and Suito is lower) . The biggest problem the Wahoos (just check Ingo’s one at KC, on sprints he has +10%, on steep hill -10%…, on flats +3-8%… it is a totally bad setup and should be DSQd until he gets 2 matching devices…, but i can tell a dozen problematic racers, but in the original post i wrote about the “everyday” cheaters who has no duals, no real names, no strava accounts, nothing, just holding 5w/kg with 70-75% HR for “safety reason” to avoid the DSQs, so their FTP is 6w/kg or similar, of course , in every towns and streets have such a strong guy… shame), and the single sided powermeters (these should be banned as secondary pm, only dual/total pms should be allowed imho), and the +5-6% tolerance… (which is a nonsense if the ZADA allows that a trainer could be higher with such a difference above a dual/total powermeter.)
I fully understand the need for privacy and investigation but I think you are right to ask what the turn around is for this , when should we expect racers who blatantly cheat . Some clarity is definately needed to address some clear feeling of credibility in this new approacah . For example those whos weight and even there height sometimes vary wildly from race to race and its blatantly there in black and white on zwiftpower ( which is now owned and maintained by zwift ) , these are clear cut cases but they are left to ride on ( The the flagship Zwift racing league no less) . What gives . Is this just a lack of resources to do the job , or we should just suck it up as nothing will be done ? I am finding it hard to beleive its the former given it used to be handled very effectively by one person before .
Anyone had any success with the form yet?
I reported a guy today who does 6w/kg up the alpe for fun.
He might be legit, but with those numbers he needs to prove it.
Just the guy I was looking for. I would love the forums feedback on my current set up and why I’m being called a cheater and a pro rider.
I started training pretty hard about 4 months ago. I’m 5’10, 152lbs, I ride a Bowflex CS6 in my basement, use a heart rate monitor. I pretty much just started out doing workouts in Zwift and my FTP has kept going up from hight 200’s to now 392. Everytime, Zwift suggests a new FTP all my work outs get harder and harder. I"m trying to get the Tron bike so have been spending almost every workout or race heading up Alpe Du Zwift.
I am really curious as to if my work outs make sense or if something isn’t calibrated. I"m def. working hard and my heart rate is usually super high or close to max for most of my activities.
Anyway, I am only doing Zwift to stay in shape, have some fun, and try to beat my own person bests. The racing was something new I thought would be fun but kind of sucks when people give you thumbs down comment in Strava or call you out during a race.
Our numbers look pretty close to me in our results today so not sure why you called me a cheater when I passed you. Maybe, “take a look at your set up and make sure you calibrated correctly”, would have gone a long way in the spirit of trying to support one another and be healthy.
Any input on my setup and numbers is greatly appreciated, and I have no intentions of cheating. Just working harder and harder.
Get a power meter*. Even a quick search on this forum suggests the CS6 is laughably inaccurate. Your FTP increase to elite level in just four months of training should probably raise alarm bells in your own mind. These posts will get deleted in no time, so I hope you get to see this.
*Or don’t get a power meter, if your goal is to compare your own progress over time. That’s fine. But don’t be entering races and potentially spoiling the game for others unless you can provide some sort of secondary confirmation that your exercise bike isn’t wildly overestimating your power output.
Thanks for the response. Was not aware that FTP was elite level! Also, wasn’t aware of the inaccuracy of the CS6. Again, not trying to cheat just get a good work out and accurate level of my Power so I can race equal to what my level is. I’ll do some research on power meters and how I can add one to my current Bike instead of using it’s default meter. I’ll certainly refrain from entering races until I can rebase line and make sure I’m performing at the correct level.
ASSIOMA UNO pedals on the way. I guess there will be a bunch of data to correct once I get my new FTP. Sigh, I’ll reach out to Zwift / Zwiftpower to see how to recalibrate results once I set my new FTP. Certainly, wasn’t trying to skew race results, grrr.
Make sure you set up the new pedals correctly and calibrate them once they arrive. I’m pretty sure for Zwift you need to NOT double the power (since they are single sided), Zwift will double it for you so don’t set them up to double the power numbers.
I’m sorry I shouldn’t have said that. I guess we (zwift racers) have seen so who do knowingly cheat.
Your 6w/kg 20 minutes is pro level. ■■■■ mine at 5.5/5.6 is nearly there. I was questioned when I came on to Zwift. Rightly so, so I now dual record, always with 2 powermeters on and upload them for the races that require it.
I not only dual record but have a video of my weight. My numbers are very impressive, from over a decade of hard training and some ability. So I’m willing to defend them with back ups and weights etc.
Again I’m sorry I was so rude, I hope you get it all sorted out.
We (zwift racers) have had a massive knock to the legitimacy of the game since zwift power was locked 2 weeks ago. I’ve lost so much motivation because of it and that was me lashing out.
Thanks Tom. I’m a bit embarrassed to think I was making such great progress so quickly. I’ll get my new numbers all sorted once I confirm my FTP. Try to keep having fun and enjoy your hard work and competing at such a high level in the game.
Don’t discount that you have, progress is great to see, it just might not have been that just much progress. Or you may have discovered a hidden talent!
Got my pedals yesterday, did my FTP test today. 220 putting me at the very bottom of cat. B group in Zwift, pretty happy with that and to be at a legit base. You guys at the A level are simply amazing! Truly impressive to be holding those kind of kg/w numbers, I can’t imagine the years of training and hard work to get there, total respect. Thanks for helping me get this all sorted out and I’m still trying to figure out how I can correct my obvious incorrect race results in Zwift power. I feel badly that I won 3 races when others should have blown me away if my PM was correctly calibrated. The forum response was that my numbers would eventually change as I race more at my correct level but I don’t know how to disqualify my previous race results. Anyway, thanks again for all of the help and support to get this sorted out and hope to see you out there, even if not racing in the A class up Alpe Du Zwift =)
just thought i’d give you a slightly different perspective regarding cheaters and accusations of cheating.
i have been a zwift member for years, used it on and off and recently (at a friends request) entered a race yesterday - we both went in the same category as our averages are both the same and fall within the limits
reading up on zwift races, the advice is to come out fast, hang with the fast group as long as you can, benefit from their slipstream and then you should have a good distance ahead to hold on - so that’s what i did.
2-3km in and i get a message saying i’m too strong for my category (even though i was almost bust and was never going to hold anything like that for the remainder of the race) and was levelled up - i was also given a nice icon above me and on the list of riders at the side for everyone to see
now another 2km in and it would be apparent to anyone that i wasn’t too strong as my output fell and i was promptly and constantly being overtaken - but there was no levelling back down to make it fair - so i struggled the rest of the race, came in second last.
on zwift power, my overall race power average ended up within my initial category as expected (my friend who output the same watts/kilo in the race as me actually lapped me and finished way-way above me)… now i see this as just a fancy video game so not really that bothered about the result as such, but what i didn’t enjoy was singling out and the passing comments and accusations from other riders in the group chat
i’ve contacted zwift with a screenshot from zwift power and asked for their comments on my experience but i genuinely thought zwift was a safe space. even though it was clear that i was struggling after my initial exerts i had comments come up on the general chat about being a cheater and “another cheater beaten” etc - which i didn’t particularly enjoy. i suppose zwifts level up icon gave licence to my fellow community members to send abuse my way… but at my end it wasn’t pleasant
the end result is i very much doubt i’ll be racing again and the whole experience, especially my fellow community members actions during the race has made me kinda question if zwift is for me
so while your all out on your witch hunt looking for people who are cheating in your virutal game/races - just remember they may not be
You entered one of the ‘official’ anti-sandbagging races, those are the only ones that have the system you experienced in place. It’s fundamentally flawed IMO (the chap who created it has admitted as such, and no longer works for Zwift anyway) and really they should be pulled, especially now that ZwiftPower is owned by Zwift so there’s even more confusion. You entered the right category based on your ZP profile and were unfairly singled out.
Aside from the warning at the start potentially alerting a few people to the fact that they might be stronger than they thought, those races don’t help anyone. It was a FutureWorks project so I don’t really understand what they think they’re learning from it, at this point.
