chase races doing ZRS points is also weird.
I mean some guys try to exploit others working together to attack. Others don’t make any contribution to the ‘chase’ to be fresh for the finish.
Perhaps everyone who is in the group if it catches the group in front should get points?
Define “in the group”.
Within 1 second? 3 seconds? 10 seconds?
Late join???
Perhaps this too is an event not to get too worked up about the results.
Join, ride hard and have fun.
Nothing wrong with having fun.
Surely there are races where the organisers check the stats of folks and kick out the ones who claim to be 130cm tall and less than 45kg?
Not something I can do - I favour having knees that work. Might be good for a few short races a week but not for 2 hours every day at higher power as I’m doing. If I don’t use higher cadence I’ll end up injured.
your doing testing with 4iii=random number generator FYI, @Dean_Blower9503
Dont do it @James_Cavell_Amsterd . I see you signed up again for the Zeal race. Just stay away till they at least have removed the ZPower riders.
ha ha, yeah, like most cyclists I am a masochist!
It’s the last day of a 5 day training block and I just want to destroy myself.
I think this race is just something you have to look at as like being able to ride the finale with the pros or something. Don’t take it too seriously, but use it as an opportunity to push yourself right to your limits.
Maybe the 68kg, 140cm guy with the name that sounds like ‘Beat you’ will smash it up again?
Shame about losing so many ZRS points, but that’s a whole other load of Zwiftian nonsense.
Well, today was a fun one - actually managed to finish!
The winner is a renowned er… who once did 7.7w/kg for 20 mins and did 415 for 35 mins today. He spent the race constantly riding off the front.
The legit US pro came in second, ahead of the 50kg rider who only did my low Z2 (210w)
The colours of suffering!
I think its pretty solid as a single sided PM actually (the 4iii). It reads lower than both wahoos, but if i had to be pressed, I’d bet on the wahoos consistently overreading a little, probably due to their generous adjustment for drivetrain losses.
One of the reasons I’m not renewing my subscription l, it finishes on 7th April, is exactly this. While I’m not a racer I used to do them every week, but the blatant cheating is never picked up, but try printing something the moderators don’t like & your banned for a month . it’s pathetic.
But you have to blame ZEAL also for a part of this. They keep allowing ZPower riders and as far as I know they can also exclude riders from their event. On both they havent acted.
I was listening to the Nowhere Fast podcast today and Mike Swart mentioned that they allow late join in their races on purpose just to make things more ridiculous. They wish they could have coffee stops available in their races too… basically, some races are for the trolls… 
They are getting brilliant free advertising for their races courtesy of this topic and the topic author.
But also trashing the reputation of Zwift. I mean not that it matters much because outside of here in real life it already has a name for cheating and hacks among the elite racing crowd I know and ride with sometimes. They refuse to join Zwift because of that. 
One of them also called out a few of the racers on Zwift, amazing performances there but nothing much of note outside on a real bike to back up what’s happening on Zwift. I wouldn’t be that direct but he has he results on the board (and the striped jerseys) over the years to back it up.
Doesn’t take too many years on Zwift before you notice you are really getting pinged for being heavy on the flats. The flat is all about raw power, the more power the faster you are. The lighter guys then get even more disadvantaged in the pack because the drag of the larger rider begins to really drop out of the math. Speed on the flat seems to still be a W/kg formula which is wrong.
He’s joking. We allow late join so people can get home from work and get a ride in.
Coffee stops would be fun though, plenty of tactics related to them
Not really. A 50kg guy is regularly podiuming on the fastest flat races on Zwift averaging 215w.
The Japanese races are stacked full of lightweight riders, are flat, and the riders who seem to struggle tend to be heavier riders with higher absolute power. I mean I am averaging +/- 330, 4.3 w/kg and often get dropped, whereas I see riders in the top 10 also averaging 4.3, only at 250w.
It might not be weight so much as height, CDA etc but it’s immensely unrealistic.
I have seen their videos on YouTube, live streamed by the organizer, and while I don’t speak Japanese, my impression is that they don’t just tolerate the ridiculous performances, but welcome them. It’s all about a show, not a fair competition.
You’ve interpreted Carl’s post the way I did at first, but I’m pretty sure that what he meant to say was that In Real Life raw power is what counts on the flats, and that Zwift gets this wrong. I think you and he are in agreement.
I’d say that in the real world and on zwift speed on the flat is more about W/CdA.
The way zwift scales CdA to bigger riders seems overly punitive, like they assume a very upright position. It’s much more than just accounting for longer legs.
To a degree, yes, except when folks are sitting upright like an air brake, which I see quite a lot. They have a lovely cutting edge super aero bike, then the rider is on the hoods because the front is so slammed and he can’t comfortably use the drops…
Meanwhile I’m on a semi-aero light weight climbing bike and riding away because I’m on the drops, low and quite efficient, even though I might not have the same absolute power. I’ve even got just normal alloy wheels (Fulcrum Racing Zero Competizione), so no gains there.
Not that any of this matters, because IRL should be more realistic to Zwift, right?
That’s a fair bit of power for an entire ride with descents, flat sections, etc for that kind of very light weight. One of the younger riders from my old club was 54kg and had a 335-340w FTP, he was genuine though and also won a lot of A grade criterium races in real life and was typically up against well known A graders (names you would know).
