THIS could solve all of Zwifts Problems

In that case just eat more so you get heavier!

1 Like

:grin: good one.

1 Like

But heavier riders DO have to work harder in the draft. More so than real life where the draft is just a cruise regardless of weight. (I do think the draft effect should be more significant, and overall pack speed limited to encourage guys at the front to work and allow more breakaways, but again that is a separate conversation)

It’s not a load of heavyweights disagreeing with you by the way, it’s everyone (I’m 71kg, cat A). You’ve just got it wrong.

2 Likes

Correct me if I am wrong but weight (and in particular more of it) doesn’t provide an advantage - you are merely working on the assumption that heavier riders “automatically” put out more power (which is questionable).

Furthermore, your entire argument seems to center around a largely unsubstantiated claim that lighter riders are somehow materially disadvantaged by the in-game drafting (you also mention steering and cornering as being discriminatory despite the fact that all riders are subject to the same automated logic for positioning).

Finally, let us also not forget that, with the exception of a sustained climb, IRL, power and not w/kg is king.

People are likely beating you (and I assume they are beating you by the way you are going on about this) because they are putting out bigger power numbers than you (and rightfully so) and not because they weigh more.

3 Likes

First of all, you weigh 70kg witch if you look at the weight at most of the riders in the top 20 in the world on Zwift, that’s above average. Next, if we look at this race you did where you finished 19th, you avraged 4.2 w/kg for 20min. If we look at the 18 riders that finished ahead of you, 14 of them averaged a higher 20 min w/kg. Not only that, 16 of the 18 averaged higher watts for 20min. This shows that you were beat by stronger riders and not because of physics.

The race I used is the following one: ZwiftPower - Login

Let me be clear on this one: I don’t complain about MY race results. I really don’t care.
Please think about the following:
2 riders in a random race, Rider A is 100kg 160cm, Rider B is 50kg 160cm. Race is entered Cat B, both have an FTP on the upper limit of 4 W/kg. So Rider A has an FTP of 400W, Rider B has an FTP of 200W.
Race is on and they get up to speed 45Km/h.
Just to calculate right let’s say you need 300W to hold this speed if you get randomly pushed out of the draft.
Rider A is doing upper Z2 effort to hold Group, Rider B is going Anaerobic on 150% FTP.

Yeah I know, that there is CDA Calculation going into this on Zwift, BUT ZWIFT IS GUESSING THIS! No one is right in the middle of the Bell Curve, especially our two example riders.

And even in the draft, Rider A has to do round about 210W but Rider B has to do the same. Or am I wrong?

These two riders are getting measured on FTP, but are treated not equally in a race.

So PLEASE, it’s NOT ABOUT MY RACE RESULTS, it’s about the game logic.

I still don’t understand this statement. Zwift has a formula that use height and weight to calculate CDA. Is it 100% accurate no but it is not random or a guess. There are formulas that will calculate CDA from Hight and weight.

I think CDA is very high for heavy riders because they don’t fall in the normal range of pro’s and therefore they are assumed to be wider. But we don’t know the formulas.

Comparing two riders (Bicycle Speed (Velocity) And Power Calculator)
60kg and 1.7m tall need 300w to hold about 35.8km/h
100kg and 1.85m tall need 380w to hold about 35.8km/h

This is very close to how it work in Zwift. You can look at people doing the TTT races and you will see the heavy riders have to do a lot more power on a flat road to do the same speed as a lighter rider.

3 Likes

If Zwif would work with a point based racing system, it would be more fair and everyone could play to his/her strength.

But on the economical side as a business Zwift made a smart move with the W/kg system cuz it’s easy to enter and race with. It attracts more people till they find the flaws in it. So on the business side it would be better for zwift to work on a solution for this W/kg system.

Zwift is working on a race point system it was confirmed in a post earlier today. But it is a big project.

The community started the w/kg racing system, we raced on Zwift before Zwift had racing. Zwift just created a format from what the community started.

4 Likes

You can be 100kg pure muscle or you can be 100kg muscle and fat. Fat has more volume so CDA would be different on these two riders.
Zwift simply can not be right on CDA just with height and weight.

And even your calculation on speed shows the problem. Light rider going anerobic, heavy rider not even FTP.

I agree it can’t be 100% correct.
So the guy with pure muscle will be at a disadvantage because he has a smaller frontal aria than the guy with more fat. So light riders has an advantage.

We will never know, cuz we don’t know which point on the bell curve zwift uses for it’s calculations.

But CDA is not the problem. You calculated it yourself with the two riders. If you get randomly pushed out of the draft, heavier riders have to spend less energy in relation to get back in. And that’s even true with a point based racing system.

This is something that should not happen. The only reason why you go out of draft is if you fall off the back. I know Zwift is working hard on making this better but again not easy.

I know Zwift is working hard to make the game better and find solutions close to real life.

But Speed based purely on W/kg could also be a good solution. Maybe this concept also has it’s drawbacks, but it’s an easy option to solve a lot of problems and make the game more attractive even for non hardcore racers.

I would love to ride a flat at 40km @ 4w/kg and climb a hill at 40km/h @ 4w/kg. :slight_smile:

1 Like

Thanks for your idea, but let’s park it for now.

3 Likes

@Gerrie_Delport_ODZ and @gloscherrybomb boys, that was only constructive critisism. And you’re last reactions were a bit nasty. Thanks for that.

1 Like

I was not trying to be nasty :scream: but rather funny :rofl:.
Climbing is my nemesis, I research every route to know where I will be dropped. So anything that will make my climbing easier will be awesome.

:relaxed::+1: Thanks

1 Like

In your example, Rider B would actually be in Cat C due to the hard limit and would be destroying the field…

My other half is in this position… weighs around 50kg, has a 4wkg FTP… Finishes on the podium on most of her hilly races…

As has been mentioned, you want a fix for your own benefit…
your premise is massively flawed and yet you keep repeating it…

Yawn…