A Zwifter has just completed a VEveresting and got the achievement badge.So usually I would say well done on a brilliant achievement but they used the coffee stop feature while doing the climbing.Not once but 16 times !! Surely this isn’t allowed and basically cheating ?
There are no rules for getting a badge.
Hello fellow Zwifters. Please bear in mind you’re playing a video game. Many people will use all available tools to gamify their experience.
By gamifying you mean cheat ! Surely IF you are doing an VEveresting and riding for over 10 hours you would want to be able to submit the ride to the official Everesting website and get it put on their list.
The Zwift vEveresting badge is not an official mark of completing a virtual Everesting. People who have actually done it are recorded on this site: https://everesting.com/
No, the only interesting part is getting the badge. I never thought putting my ride up that list, for example.
Not if you just want the badge to complete the set. 
My opinion is that it’s a pretty lame thing to do when you have all those descents where you can get off the bike to attend to stuff, but I definitely wouldn’t want to embarrass myself by making a forum post to whine about it when it’s not hurting me in any way whatsoever. 
Not embarrassed in any way.People cheat because others put up with it …
Personally I am not a fan of the coffee stop. As it is implemented it is mostly used to save energy on climbs, not for what has been said is its intended purpose. It gives people 3 mins of free effort whenever it is available, and that’s often how its used.
That said, Zwift does not seem to see this as “cheating” and they don’t invalidate any route badges or achievements with the use of a coffee stop to date. If a person uses the coffee stop to do the PRL Full on each lap of the climb they will still get the route badge etc.
For the case of the vEveresting, it is still a pretty big achievement to be able to do that amount of elevation, even with coffee stops, so it’s still worthy of congratulations. They should not get on the official Everesting site for the effort however given their stated rules - Personally if I were going to do a vEveresting attempt it I would try my best not use coffee stops. Not sure I can do it either way honestly, that’s a long time on the trainer with or without coffee stops.
I suppose a completely legitimate way to do the attempt, without using any coffee stops, is to ride the route for an hour a day, dismount, leave your app/computer running, resume the next day for an hour, and repeat..
I guess if that works, then that would be much easier than using the coffee stops to vEverest on one single ride.
I’d actually go further and have manual verification of vEverest attempts, riders have to give proof from the official website before they get the badge. There aren’t that many vEverest attempts so this wouldn’t be too much workload. I’m on that climb two laps per day and see relatively few attempts.
Given the glitches of coffee stops where it can result in a rider zooming off at 59km/h up ADZ, (seem that a few times) and gaining a big gap (a minute) over people riding for real, I don’t think this is right.
The folks using tricks and hacks for big efforts make it worse for people doing these big challenges properly, because everyone else just says “oh you probably cheated”.
Maybe a second vEverest badge could be added to Zwift: “Verified vEverest”
This is given manually to people who’ve had their effort officially verified. And the others can do whatever they want for the normal badge.
That’s a big ‘Don’t care’ for me. However, I object to coffee stops on a short climb, like Hilly KOM forward where someone gets in the top 10 Strava list by using a coffee break on a WC athlete, finishing with very minimal wattage. In fact, I recently proved the new ‘Boost’ power-up is too much of an advantage. I set several best times using this power up in testing. Granted, I went as hard as I could and calculated its best usage. But it gives even an average rider a tremendous weapon to wield that can not be matched.
For the Zwift badge, it is just an accumulative total meters climbed in one ride, no rules or anything. Not a single climb rule, not a limited breaks rule. There are no judges, so none of us can be one either. 1739 are listed by Zwift as Unofficial Everests.
The argument “no strict rules, so 16 coffee breaks are fine” just doesn’t fly. Above any rulebook, there is still common sense.
Something isn’t only wrong when it’s explicitly forbidden. Everesting is meant to be an extreme endurance feat. If you chop it up that much, you completely kill the spirit of the challenge and are just fooling yourself.
Just because it’s not forbidden doesn’t mean it’s right. 
Getting mad about something visible to you, vs something invisible. How many people did this with badly set up weight, inaccurate equipment, odd pedaling styles, on drugs, or with simulators?
The KOM up the Alpe is 8minutes from a zwift bug where you would retain your speed when entering the pairing menu, and someone was doing 88kmh
Gotta learn to let it go, ride your bike and celebrate your own stuff.
Thanks, Matt.
Really, only people with the Big E badge should comment. (Yes, I am one)
Second, no cash prize. Nobody stole credit from other riders.
Third, most people who take short cuts are not the riders pushing their bodies into maximum torque to produce nine straight sub sixty minute alps.
Fourth, just be positive. Live your dream.
The strava KOM is 30:54, with an argument over the validity of that time since it beats a whole number of pro riders.
The hacks and shortcuts impact others doing big challenges the proper way since everyone automatically assumes we are also cheating. Especially when you are doing multiple laps back to back in fast times.
Exactly so, Matt. We’re riding in a video game with Avatars that don’t have the sense to stay in the draft against other Avatars that might or might not be doing any number of other things to get some of us spun up. Ride your ride and don’t worry about what the other fake people are doing. You’ll find things much easier with that attitude.
My wife pointed this out to me a few years ago prior to CE with all of the effin’ sandbaggers polluting the lower cats. I would get wrapped around the axle when this would happen and she got tired of my constant ranting. Really, life is too short to worry about sh*t you can’t do a single thing about.
Sure you can do something about it, have another “verified” vEverest badge and a jersey. Which you only get by getting your ride on the official site. A manual process.
Sure people could still get the original badge, but it wouldn’t be the same thing.
This is a good solution. Another way to manage it would be to have a vEveresting club kit assigned by the people who validate the performances (everesting.com) so that Zwift doesn’t have to do any work other than making the kit exist. All the current tooling would support that.