Sandbagging is always a big discussion in Zwift and recently I think for myself, if sandbagging is okay.
There are a lot of reasons for people to sandbag!
After a 100 Races on Zwift you realize, that the results aren’t really fair. In lower categories the heavier riders always wins because the algorithm favors them in drafting. And if you dont draft correctly as a lighter rider you get punished. But drafting is not in your own hands, it’s in the hand of the “Zwift drafting Algorithm” which puts you either in or out of the draft. So outsmarting people with physics is not an option.
Then you realize: “Okay, you have to learn drafting in race situations. So the more Race-Drafting experience you have, the better you will get at drafting.”
Guess what, it’s smarter to train this in a lower cat than you belong to, cuz you simply can do more events then.
Draft Training on a Pace Partner I hear you say? Yeah, sure. That washing machine effect is the same as a race situation. /irony
Another reason would be, that you want to be motivated by othe riders but want another (mostly lower) training effort but there’s simply no PacePartner or Group ride on in the zone you want to train in. Why not simply use one of that many races?
Zwift doesn’t want category enforcement cuz that would lead to more and more people leaving the plattform, because they can’t create an algorithm thats suits the majority of people.
I started another thread which could potentially solve this problem.
Feedback Forum / “THIS could solve all of Zwifts Problems”
But untill Zwift is making the game equally fair for all people, sandbagging IS a valid option. And ZwiftHQ knows that I guess.