So I’ve done 26 Alpe du Zwift climbs over the past 2 months and the roulette wheel landed on wheels 13 times. The likelihood of this occurring by random chance is approximately 1 in 30 thousand - assuming the roulette wheel is unbiased, which I’m increasingly suspicious is not true.
By the way, if the roulette wheel is indeed rigged to land on wheels (which comes with a 1000 XP bonus) half of the time, then doing Alpe runs is by far the fastest way to farm XP in the game for anyone capable of completing this climb.
Oh boy! You’re very welcome to the Forums, Piotr, but you are going to be raising people’s blood pressure across the Zwiftiverse!
There are stories of people still not having got the Lightweight Meilenstein wheels after 20+ Alpe ascents, cursing their piles of gloves and helmets, so yours is definitely an outlier case!
As a coincidence, I’ve also done 26 Alpes, but my spread of spinner wins is far more even at 8 / 9 / 9, according to my notes. The wheels first came up on my second ride – again, very lucky – but then didn’t reappear for quite a while.
As far as anyone can tell, the pseudo-random generator for the spinner behaves in randomly freakish ways, so no one can accuse you of gaming the system or getting unfair wins. Keep on chasing those 1000XP windfalls!
Thanks for the warm welcome. I’ve been meaning to post this for a while now. As the numbers pile up and the odds become increasingly astronomical, I find it harder and harder to believe I’m just on a lucky streak…
By the way, if you got wheels 8 times out of 26 climbs then that’s also a freak accident as the expected value is just 3.25 (assuming 1/8 odds each time).
I don’t keep a tally but, anecdotally, I have landed on the wheels significantly more frequently since I won them than I did prior to winning them. There definitely seems to be some sort of bias that, once you get the wheels, the game is far more ‘willing’ to give you big XP for summiting the AdZ.
I didn’t keep a tally of gloves and helmet before I got the wheels.
It took 14 times up the Alpe to get the wheels. I’m at 24 climbs now, and have the wheels 5 more times, the helmet once, and gloves the other 4 times.
I have not had the +250 XP at a banner now for probably over 2 1/2 years. I saw it quite frequently prior to that.
I’m with you on that one, @Marko_TeamVegan.
Not sure I’ve ever actually had 250XP from a banner. (Currently level 49.)
Once in a blue moon, the red circle with plus icon (250 XP) lingers in the power-ups position on the left… but ‘10XP’ appears briefly to the right of the XP total…
I can’t find the reference now but I recall reading someone breaking the odds down - the Lightweight Meilensteins were a significantly less common prize than the others.
I also feel the likelihood of getting the wheels goes up after you get them for whatever reason. It took me 12 rides up to get the wheels, then I’ve gotten them (or rather the 1000xp) 3 times in the last 5 efforts after that.
I’m fairly convinced there’s something fishy going on, and yes, I find it perfectly believable that the likelihood of getting wheels stays at 1/8 until you actually get them, and then goes way up afterwards.
Of course you can never be absolutely sure - that’s the nature of statistics - but like I said, looking at the past 2 months I’m at 13 for 26, which works out to an approximately 1 in 30 thousand chance (assuming 1/8 odds on wheels). Moreover, I only started keeping count once I realized something was amiss, so my actual “lucky streak” (if it can indeed be called that) is actually a lot longer, and - by extension - even less probable than what I posted. Overall, I’ve completed the AdZ climb 190 times.
Wow. Then after a few more months you’ll probably have a pretty solid data set. I’ll be using the Alpe for some workouts after I hit 25 runs up I imagine, but it will take a long time to get 190 data points
I’ve been meaning to post this for a while now. As the numbers pile up and the odds become increasingly astronomical, I find it harder and harder to believe I’m just on a lucky streak…
