I’m pretty sure even Eddy Hoole could race in ZRL this week if he wanted to… what was he actually banned from? Just elite level racing, not community races.
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The only (indirect) knowledge I have of this was of a rider using an “unusual pedalling technique” in a ZRL race up the Temple KOM. His exploits were captured on someone’s livestream 
I can’t remember what the punishment was.
From my experience it does f all. Reported this guy 7 weeks ago, and nothing have happened since. Was using him as a test to see if the form was just complete bs and unfortunately it looks like it.
Can you say more about the specifics there? That’s so mysterious sounding 
Can’t remember if he was using Sticky Watts or Micro-Bursts, or something else. But he beasted the climb like he was riding a Ducati 
Most of his performances during that season were a bit suspicious.
No, WTRL will direct you to the zwift reporting page.
@Jadon_Jaeger I’m not sure it’s going anywhere either. No response or action to any that I’ve sent and heard the same from several other people
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That seems about right. Feel free to make a mockery of the racing in the community events but don’t dare try it in their few, select, official races. And if you use a curse word in the chat, even though there’s a language filter, you get threatened with a shadowban within days.
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How about holding 700 watts for a minute, all the while your HR decreases down to 110 at the end of the minute? Is that suspicious enough? Not to mention creating fake dual analyses.
The only way to get zwift to act is to post it in public… They care more about PR than everything else. Luciano, TFC pulling races all got quick responses as it impacted zwift in public…
My advice, don’t post it from your account or an account that can be linked to you…
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I’ve been trying to find out what micro-bursting is, but I haven’t wanted to ask because I don’t want to make it seem like I’m studying up for nefarious purposes 
ZI has a good old article on sticky watts, but a google of “zwift micro-burst” only gets me links to a Zwift workout entitled “Micro Bursts” I’m guessing it’s something similar to the stick watt phenomenon?
Some days I feel like all of my bursts are micro in nature.
Hoole manipulated the data stream, not just using a special pedaling technique.
Essentially it’s a bit of sprint and coast type effort.
It’s been hard to pin down, but I tested it and found I hit abnormal speeds when using it… The riders in game speeds goes beyond what is currently expected… it’s more of break of the physics engine in game.
There’s a thread knocking about that showed quite a few displays from riders, where they would pedal normally until they then started to use this ‘exploit’ and then go back to normal pedalling style.
Plenty of people will say it doesn’t exist, plenty will say it works…
Call it inconclusive at present
Huh, thanks for the explanation. I know I feel like I’m doing that a lot in the pack when I’m racing or with a PP, just to stay where I want in the pack and not be jumping off the front/getting dropped. Often I’m flipping around gears pretty quickly instead of bursty pedaling though, in a way that IRL doesn’t require (part of the pack dynamics issue). I might just muck about in a free ride myself and see what I can see–I do keep an eye on competitors’ w/kg during races, but I don’t know yet what ‘normal’ fluctuations look like, or what I should raise an eyebrow at. Would be good to know first hand what it looks like. Thanks 
I wish I could legitimately lose ~14Kg in the last 31 days. 
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I had a video of an Australian flag rider I suspected was using this in a pace partner ride some time ago.
It was the huge sprint then coast technique for an entire long lap. It was so obvious and outrageous that I grabbed my phone and started recording it.
I stopped recording after a while because my arm was getting tired, he was still going.
I cannot see any valid reason you would want to use this sprinting and coasting for normal training, you’d be wrecked after 15 minutes of it.
Edit: i rewatched the video again, it looks even more dubious because his HR stays below 150bpm or even goes down at times despite the 600w+ bursts.
I have two videos of it…
First time I was aware of it, a guy chased back into a group of 15 riders in a race after being about 45 seconds down using it… the speed at which he caught us and went past was incredible (he then pedalled normally once in the bunch looking at his wkg output)… we had been dropped in a race and were churning at around 3wkg in a B race and he pulled that 45 seconds back in no time on a flat course…
I’ve just been searching for the thread that Lee mentioned but, for the life of me, I can’t find it (it was very long & discussed the differences between Sticky Watts and Micro-Bursting and whether the latter could be considered a legitimate practice).
What you’re describing Tom, I would consider to be pretty normal practice i.e. on and off the gas to maintain position in a group. Micro-bursting is something else entirely and can be pretty obvious if you see it on a video live stream, for example.
Here, a rider could be e.g. trying to chase back on, be trying to escape off the front or using it to improve their climbing performance. Basically, you pedal hard for a few seconds to spike your power and then back-off. Depending on the model of trainer (possibly related to the flywheel size/weight and inertia or some such voodoo), this high wattage, and the concomitant speed increase, is held for some time whilst the rider is soft-pedalling and recovering. It’s a bit like Sticky Watts but the genesis is different.
Wow, all this makes me seem like an expert practitioner 
What I saw was definitely hard sprinting - bursting to 450-650w for a short time, then ease off to say 25w, then sprint again hard, all while heart rate staying low.
I would post a video but I’d need to edit out rider name first, it was very blatant and it wasn’t any normal training method, not when it was continuously used for an entire lap.
This was May 8 2022 at 5:39pm AEST on the course that sand and sequoias course with a pace partner group.
That’s the danger, right? “Hey, what’s this technique?” or “Here’s what it is”, you don’t want to sound like you’re too in the know, or too eager to learn, lol.
I got a link to a good description of it though, I think I have the difference straight. Thanks
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I was wondering many times about peoples efforts on zwift.
“Normal” zwift users,
mid aged,
doing almost twice the watts on zwift than normally on the road, while at the same heart rate.
Doing sporadic racing and occasionally winning in categories way above their supposed abilities.
When asked how this is possible, they do not understand my question.
Most of them are using dumb trainers or dumb trainers made smart, or just like to wind up their rollers like crazy, have never heard of or
do not care about calibrating their trainers, checking tire pressure and clamp force on smart wheel on trainers.
They say they are just riding on zwift and do not care about plausibilities regarding their numbers.
There are many users like this on zwift.
Are they cheating?
Is zwift going to discipline the thousands of riders like that?