thanks Dave, good to understand why it happened from a technical perspective…
…i suppose what it doesn’t address is the behaviour of some of my ‘fellow community members’ who seem quick to brandish people cheats - the only reason i posted my experience was as a counter balance to the general tone of the early posts on this thread about reporting people etc
anyway, enjoy your zwifting - i think it’s fair to say that while it’s a great platform - it’ll only ever be as good as those who use it 
Still no response from Zwift on this? I flagged a guy last month who went from 80kg to 50kg in three weeks as evident on Zwift power, and is still cruising around events at 5.5 and 6 plus avg wkg outputs. Ruins the experience for all involved.
Games do ban confirmed cheaters, its ok if Zwift does too
OK I was looking for the form but now I see that it’s waste of my time. Todays time trial first 2 places with people putting in a nice 435 Watts for 22 minutes.
Another one 387 watts with HR @ 96 .
The winners profile says it all 15sec power 10% higher than his 20 min.power so electric bike on the rollers I guess. A pitty
You may well be looking at unprocessed/live results which is still a problem Zwift are working on.
Steve, i know that hungarian guy at 2nd place, his real power is 80% of this… garbage trainer and unqualified rider… as the 1st one and as most people in virtual world. Probably 1-2 riders are trustful from top 10… ignore the racing on zwift, since the Zwift took over the ZP, the racing is pointless below premium level.
absolute waste of time reporting. I did it last week with a guy who finished a 16 mins race in 4 mins, not because he was cheating, but because something went wrong somewhere, but he still shouldn’t get the race win. I opened a thread and got told it was closed and to use the form.
The form is rubbish by the way… but as of yet, still the guy is in 1st place. I don’t hold anything against the guy in question by the way… wasn’t his fault.
This all gives me the unpleasant feeling, that Zwift HQ doesn’t care about Zwiftpower and there users.
I think that in the near future, the real racers will move to other platforms.
But that’s not a big problem for Zwift HQ, because the people who are using Zwiftpower are a minority.
Yeah but now as Zwift now own and maintain ZP you’d think they’d either start caring more, or get rid of it and use their own system. It’s quite clear from the number of daily entrants in racing that Zwift Racing is massively important to many many of us. They’d be idiots to not do something to make this easier.
Some info from another thread that people may have missed:
This stuff bugs me but for a particular reason. Zwift is becoming unusable as a training tool in its current form. I enter races not to win but to train and use other riders as motivation to push on and try to keep with a group. I am recovering from injury but I’m a middling Cat “B” at best.
In a race today I ended up in a group of riders including Cats A - B - C and a D. This is crazy stuff altogether. Who can I focus on to try to stick with and improve ? It’s impossible to judge who is at a similar level in any given race with all the messing that’s going on at present (forever).
I’m riding a Watt Bike thats pretty accurate so I know that the Cat “C” and “D” riders sticking with me with a low HR can’t make sense when I’m busting a gut just to hold a wheel.
Generally as a middling Cat “B” I am constantly being trounced by Cat “C” riders and often blown “off the wheel” of my fellow cat “B” riders. There is no correlation to riding on the road with riders of similar ability so therefor racing on Zwift is useless as a motivational or training tool.
It’s very annoying at the best of times…
Zwift is a game/training tool/escape from the cold. Like any game, people cheat. People cheat in life, period. It gets them what is commonly called the “dupers delight”, cheaters high. Knowing that you can get away with something brings its own high, even when the rewards are not tangible.
It comes down to integrity. We see this in Zwift, people doping their weight to get higher w/kg, cheating to get the Tron bike, etc. I think most who cheat in Zwift also cheat in life, with little reward besides the temporary high they may get.
I have been on Zwift for many years, and until recently I’d get mad about the cheaters to the point I’d stop using Zwift for periods. Now my attitude is more accepting, which isn’t forgiveness. I compete with myself, compare my progress to my past performance. Let them cheat I say. Getting mad about the cheaters, getting irritated, wasting your time policing them; they win. Knowing you earned another PR, or you out sprinted someone to the line, or seeing your FTP steadily rise; YOU WIN.
Well said, Doug. It’s not like the cheaters really win anything or take anything away from us. Virtual trophies? Bragging rights? None of that sh*t matters IRL cuz Zwift isn’t the real world.
Thanks for the fresh perspective.
I just started racing on zwift. And even after a couple of days I saw a couple of guys doing 4.7 w/kg at 130 heartrate… First thought was being annoyed.
But then I thought - these races are just fun, and they are by far the best way for me to do proper workout in Winter, I have never ever managed to train on this level in winter.
In the end, it doesn‘t matter which category and rank you end up as long as its fun, and I could see slight improvement in my performance already. usually I end up somewhere in the middle of B, if things run well first half. Its just fun!
And yes, sometimes I get blown away by cat D racers…
It really can’t be that hard to restrict entry based on your best x performances from previous x weeks (like your category in Zwiftpower) can it? Men are barred from entering female only races.
Surely that would be much easier to code than the existing anti sandbagging beta that doesn’t work that well as far as I understand.
Is anything like that on the road map @xflintx?
Replying here as this thread is the newest plus I can’t find any previous threads on this specific issue.
ZADA/CEVA used to have a threshold of 6w/kg for 5 min and ~5.2w/kg (?) for 20 min, if you went over these you triggered an auto-flag? Is that how it worked or still works?
These w/kg thresholds are decent numbers for men. They are pro level numbers for women. Is there a separate and lower threshold for women that would auto-trigger a look at the file by whatever ZADA is called these days? If not there should be.
How should I suggest this to ZADA/Zwift, any ideas?
I’d agree 100% except I thought I could use Zwift and it’s races as an approximation to a training tool. It’s not possible to use races even for training if you’re constantly blown out the back and doing a solo effort every time (or a lot). The whole point of riding in a group, even if it’s racing is to be able to motivate yourself not to get dropped and so therefore eventually you become stronger.
If your co-riders are totally in a different league altogether you lose the ability to even fight to hang onto a wheel whereas in real life you’d grit your teeth and probably be able to hang in. I guess my expectations from a VR environment are probably too high.
For me it’s not about a specific Cat or even placing, it’s about looking to enter a race and know straight away that I may well suffer but I’ll be able to fight to hang on and enjoy the racing… This I can do IRL but I can’t do (too often) in Zwift…
I’m probably in a bracket that feels the effects most - i.e. mid to low end in any specific Cat.
It’s not any cheating in and of itself that’s the problem, rather it’s the cycling environment and the experience and fun of the race that’s devalued as far as I can see, the more so for beginners and people like myself who are in a specific Cat and are mid to lower level in that Cat.
I am still not seeing much improvement in turnaround and velocity on this front .
The mitigating defence that it is because only 1 person is doing it doesnt really hold much water , Given it was 1 person before (until they bundled him out ) .
Zwift took over zwiftpower to improve things … or did they ?
Chances are real that all e-dopers, upon getting caught cheating, will consider you a ‘bad guy’. If you are looking to enforce the rules and keep the Zwift platform fair and level, this is obviously not a point of consideration 
imagine wada inspectors reasoning in the same way 
It’s somehow telling how this response reveals the true consideration of ZHQ in addressing this issue: fail to address it and loose subscription fees of disillusioned Zwifters who want a level playing field VS address the issue and loose subscription fees of deliberate cheaters who ‘think you are a bad guy’ for not allowing them to break the rules.
When oh when are zwift going to introduce native dual recording and subsequently races only those with this option open to them. It would be an extremely minor software patch… it would also make the PL and pro races much easier to police