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 think I first won the Lightweight wheels in 2023, after starting Zwifting in late 2020. And yes, I had done the Alpe enough times to win the masochist badge.
In 2023, I believe I’ve got them 4 times so far. I had always figured that there were 10 or 11 slots on the wheel, and that the probability was at most 1 in 10 or 11. So, if a number of people are reporting streaks like this, I wonder if something in the code is breaking the original probability distribution.
I also have 122 of them (some weeks 5x ADZ) and usually get wheels two times
Having done a lot more ADZ since last post above, my thoughts are that it’s supposed to be tough at the start otherwise people will get the wheels and not ride ADZ any more. Once you’ve done 50 or more ADZ it’s a nice reward to get them more frequently.
It’s a good part of the game and I hope it never changes. That makes it fun and a challenge.
If I had my way the wheel would only appear in normal ride mode instead of ERG, because with ERG you are not getting the enjoyment of experiencing the gradients. ERG also wouldn’t be timed.
I had a bit of time, so I graphed it out, assuming it’s fair and the wheels should come up on average once in every 8 spins.
As you can see, there’s a 60% chance of landing on the wheels 2, 3 or 4 times if you ride AduZ 26 times. There’s just a 3% chance of not winning the wheels if you do 26 trips.
Clearly, 13 out of 26 means the wheel is rigged in Zwifters’ favour. Yay!
The thing is, the percentage chance seems to change substantially once you get the wheels. Ever since getting the wheels I hit the 1000xp bonus every 2 or 3 times, pretty consistently. This has happened over 60 or so alpe climbs.
I suspect the truth behind your observation is that once you have the wheels the odds change. Which, if true, is probably a really good thing in terms of motivating folk to ride AduZ.
The lure of winning the wheels is bigger than the lure of 1000XP, and changing the odds reflects that.
Yeah, I think it took me 12 climbs to get the wheels, since then I don’t think I’ve gone more than 4 climbs without the 1000xp, usually every 2 or 3, but sometimes twice in a row etc.
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…
