Status of ZHQ Beta Circuit and Crit City Races

I’ve done a couple of ZHQ Beta Circuit Races in Paris this week and they use the Boost Mode race system. That mode used to be only available to Club Jarvis members so I guess it’s available for all to try now.

What about the ZHQ Crit City races though? They used to be a test for the Green Cone of Shame but I get the impression from reading on various forums that they are Boost Mode races now? Maybe they are Green Cone of Shame+Boost Mode races, maybe the Paris Circuit Races are Green Cone+Boost mode as well?

My question is which modes are active, Green Cone of Shame and/or Boost Mode in the Crit City Races and which modes are active in the Circuit Races in Paris?

The only thing I know for certain is Boost Mode is active in the Circuit Races.

Usually the Crit City races are on at a time that is inconvenient for me and the race descriptions are very vague so I can’t check myself.

I did a beta crit city race last week and the boost mode was active.

Same for me on a ZHQ Crit today. Didn’t see any green cones, but I did get a warning on entering that I might be disqualified (based on my old, falsely high, FTP from an inaccurate wheel-on trainer).

As far as I’m concerned, the boost mode is confirmation that Zwift simply isn’t interested in real racing; we are going full-on arcade game play. What will it be next, you get three bags of tacks to throw into the road to slow the riders behind you?

Time to switch permanently to Road Grand Tours and cancel my Zwift subscription.

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I did the 4pm UTC ZHQ Beta race in Crit City (Downtown Dolphin) today.

Boost Mode was active, and I actually quite enjoyed it apart from when I accidentally pressed the wrong button on the ZC app and went backwards out the front group :yum:.

I also got the warning message on entering that I might be DQ’d, which is ridiculous as I am a low-C at best. That said there were clearly NO anti-sandbagging measures in my race as the 9 out of the top 10 had a W/Kg of 3.6+, with 5/10 at ~4 W/kg.

Also from what I understand in other forums the Green Cone is no more.

Lol, I think that they are done testing the cone thing and now moving on before releasing both of these. Maybe both will come out in november update?

Don’t hold your breath for any coning measures. See the response from @Jordan_Rapp on the Slowtwitch thread entitled “Open Letter to Zwift HQ”

(can’t link here)

That’s interesting Adrian, after Justin’s post he reminded me about the warning about entering the wrong category before the race so last evening I signed up for a crit city and circuit race in D cat and both had the warning before the race. Of course, I didn’t actually join the races, I just wanted to see if both events had the warning.

So it seems that the w/kg warning is there when you go to join the Crit City and the Circuit races. Both events are also using boost mode now. The only question that remains is if the green cone of shame is active during the races with the most likely case seeming to be that the cone of shame is not active anymore.

In the two B cat races I did in Paris I found the pace to be the slowest B races I have ever done. Maybe that was because they were small fields (around 15 people only), maybe it was because everyone was boosting their power-up, maybe it was because I chose the +50w boost which has the smallest weight penalty, maybe it was because some sandbaggers had been scared off by the w/kg warning before the races even started. Hard to say really.

https://forum.slowtwitch.com/forum/Slowtwitch_Forums_C1/Triathlon_Forum_F1/Open_Letter_to_Zwift_HQ%3A_Dear_Mr._Eric_Min%2C__P7329160

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Thanks for the link. Basically they’re doing nothing, huge shock.

Interestingly I thought the same about yesterday’s race. The first lap felt relatively easy compared to your typical Zwift race…

@Steve_1506 - thanks for putting up the link, much appreciated :+1:

This is the result of Anti-Sandbagging measures in a recent Beta race.
Pretty much how VAR is applied in the Premier League, I don’t get it.