I would like Zpower riders to be clearly identified with a Z on their back so that I can ignore them. Often in a race a rider would go off the front and I would follow them not realizing that they are a Zpower rider who is able to hold 5 wpk for an hour at a 110 beat heart rate. Of course I blow up 1 minute later and totally wasted myself for nothing. Meanwhile the Zpower rider goes on to win by 7 minutes.
It is hard to see the power symbol indicating a Zpower rider. I want to be able to easily ignore all Zpower riders.
I always thought riders using zPower dont have a lightning bolt next to their w/kg number, so its easy to tell who is BSing and who isn’t (of course you can also run a wheel on trainer and not calibrate and have the same result).
I’m a Z Power user and I’m used to these comments.
Not all Z power riders have 4-5 w/kg.
I would like to add, how about preventing people who don’t have Zwift Power accounts from entering the race.
I don’t see why all people who chose to race don’t register with Zwift Power.
If you are an A or B rider, then Z power set ups are already not allowed in your group for the race, or at least they are DQ’ed on Zwift Power.
If you are C or D, relax. your not winning the race anyway and your not keeping up with 5 W/KG either.
Just race the people in your vicinity and have fun.
Without standardization, there will always be irregularities and focusing on the irregularities takes the fun out of it.
Zwift wants to be fun, first and foremost.
Racing is great but its bad business to start excluding huge groups of people just to please a minority.
They already have your money and they have my money too.
If I leave, Zwift loses.
Yes make racing better, but be as inclusive as possible.
It’s nice and makes good business.
One thing that will help is if Zwift will put everyone in the correct cat at the start of the race, i don’t mind racing against a Z power rider that is in the correct Cat. Like Tim said not all Z power are that inaccurate.
Take this example. Rider Bob has Zpower he has never ridden a bike his FTP on Zpower put him in the C bunch he enter a race and ride at a average HR of 95% of his max, although he is probably not a C IRL he gave me a good workout he rode just as hard as I did and both of us got a good workout.
the only problem that I see with my solution is when Bob reach Cat A and win races.
“I would like Zpower riders to be clearly identified with a Z on their back so that I can ignore them.”
Your first sentence is horrible but you go on to make a good point thereafter. By ignoring zPower riders, you are depriving us of a full Zwift experience. I want to know that my break away stuck because you couldn’t chase me, not because you refused to. I will believe the former regardless, but it would be nice to receive my fair share of chases.
Yesterday, I was in a group of 5 and one went off ahead. The other three (all non-zPower) wouldn’t help me chase him. One said he doesn’t chase zPower. We noticed that his output was 5w/kg every time we looked, and afterwards we learnt he had no HRM. What was he doing? Electric bike? What’s the point? Let him win, I care not for that, I only want to be surrounded by people I can compete with, regardless of equipment. Zwift tells me that my average power output is over 300W, or 35-40kmph (~4w/kg). In the real world, Strava estimates my output to be around 150W (25 kmph on a good day). I don’t mind that Zwift massively miscalculates my power. My set-up is consistent, my sweat is real, and I’ll probably never meet these genuine 300+W riders that I’m able to ride beside on Zwift.
I could manually increase the resistance on my Elite Turbo Muin direct drive non-smart trainer, but then I’d almost certainly have to switch down to my smaller chain ring. I’m already in a lower gear than I would be on the road. I think it’s the zPower algorithms that are scuppering me. If they could allow us to honestly submit an FTP based on a real life top effort ride, and then calibrate all Zwiftings against that, I think that would solve the problems for non-cheating zPower riders. For example, I say I do 25 kms in one hour, top effort. I then can’t do more than that on Zwift, but I can have short bursts of power when I need to.
Personally, I feel sick at the animosity or snobbery towards zPower. You can equally cheat on a smart trainer. My turbo was about £300. That’s plenty. I wanted direct drive. I couldn’t justify spending three times as much for something that changes resistance (at the time it seemed like a gimmick to me).
I’m going to ask Zwift if I can organise zPower-only races. Is it bizarre to exclude non-zPower riders? I agree. But so is excluding zPower, which is common.
I watched the stream of the Zwift National Championships a couple weeks ago and in the men’s race, there were a couple racers using Z-Power. The announcers even stated those riders would not be permitted to be on the podium but they were still there and appeared honest.
I just got bumped up to Cat B so I guess I’ll be disqualified a lot.
Hi Tim, your first comment in this thread talks about riders without ZwiftPower accounts. I think this is more significant than whether or not a rider is using zPower. The lack of a lightning bolt seems to be an invitation to unjustified discrimination. I can’t work out why Zwift allows that. More useful would be an indication of a rider’s heart rate. So that if somebody goes up to 5wpk but has a heart rate of 110 (as Liam put in original post), or no heart rate data at all, then you can fairly discriminate because you know they will will maintain 5wpk for significantly longer than you can, or if no heart rate data then you just don’t know what they are capable of, and you can choose to ignore them. Inviting riders to ignore zPower riders is plainly horrible. You can see what I’m capable of on ZwiftPower if you do your research. You can see what my height and weight is. You can then decide whether or not to go with me when I try to make a break, because you’ll know I can only do 500w for about a minute. Maybe the lightning bolt should be used to show whether or not you can research that rider on ZwiftPower. In my group of 5 last night I was the only one on zPower, but somebody else had the advantage over the rest of us because we couldn’t see on ZwiftPower what he is capable of, or what his weight is. Could we compete with him in the final sprint, or should we make an effort to drop him him beforehand? We couldn’t know, but he could know about us. Advantage him. Yet I’m the one who fears discrimination.
Hi Thomas,
I think this statement might be the problem.
You say…
“Zwift tells me that my average power output is over 300W, or 35-40kmph (~4w/kg). In the real world, Strava estimates my output to be around 150W (25 kmph on a good day). I don’t mind that Zwift massively miscalculates my power.”
You might not mind, but others will.
If you can’t be bothered to attempt to achieve a realistic power output,
why would you expect anyone to be bothered to race you.
I think you have actually done more damage to z-power riders and their
setups.
It’s because I’m not articulate enough in forums. I’ve had this problem before and managed to get booted off a chess website when people gave up trying to understand me. I understand your comments and I understand my comments, but you don’t understand my comments. I might be more articulate with mouth words in a video I intend to make on this subject for YouTube. Not sure when that will be. Sorry.
Estimated power on Strava is a load of rubbish and from my experience and often way off the mark.
If you want to just ride on Zwift and even do workouts then zpower is fine. I trained for a number of years on Trainerroad with my Fluid 2 trainer. Power numbers were consistent from ride to ride however when I got a power meter there was difference in power with the power being understated by about 20 watts. I did a test on Zwift with zpower and Trainerroad running on another device. Trainerroad’s virtual power (same as zpower) was about 20 watts under whereas zpower was 35 - 40 watts under my power meter. The power meter is accurate as I now have a second power meter and both are very close in power.
However if you want to race on Zwift and have your results count you have a responsibility in my opinion to have reasonably accurate power. Hence the reason many race organizers don’t allow zpower to place.
If I had my way I would have both Zwift and zwiftpower.com list the actual power source in the results by trainer model or power meter model. Would make interesting reading in my opinion.
Thomas,
I think I do understand you, I think from your posts that you are wanting to
be accepted in to Zwifts racing world.
I’m on your side. I not concerned about other users setups. When I race I just
try my best depending on how I’m feeling.
However if you or I race with a possible 150 Watts extra what is the point?
150 watts extra, is a massive increase. I lost 40/50 Watts due to setup issues
and I was way off my usual performance, total nightmare. Give me another 150 watts and my Zwifting world would be transformed. But when I get to meet the genuine cyclist who can put out those numbers out for real, how would I feel?
A good number of Zwifters take the Zwift racing much more seriously than you
or I and they have the power output to backup their performances inside and out.
The racing is just as much fun and just as much a workout in the lower Cats along
side riders of a similar real life ability as they are in the higher Cats.
So…
The part I don’t understand is…
Why you would want to happily run a setup that is so wrong and post about it?
If you have chosen to run that setup and don’t want to change, fine, just don’t tell anyone.
Why don’t tell anyone?
Because I think some of the comments are not helping your cause, which is a shame as I’m all for Zwifting/Cycling on a tight budget and everyone enjoying the
experience.
Hi Nigel,
I wonder how many of us would be changing trainer if we found out
that a certain brand was consistently winning races?
I’d like to see the trainer make and model but I doubt we ever will.
“Ride On”
I said it before and I will say it again, I don’t care what setup you have if you are doing an all out FTP effort in a race then I will race you. If your setup is 50w high I don’t care, that will put you in the next higher category and you will race naturally stronger people.
My solution: Zwift should auto assign people into the correct starting blocks, based on a performance points system based on the current w/kg system. That way is you get to the A group you will be required to have a power meter or smart trainer.
Thomas if your trainers has a resistance knob then set it one level up then your 150w advantage will be closer to 50w. You can try to borrow a powertap wheel and calibrate your trainer and find the best setting on the resistance knob.
I don’t think I can put a power tap on my direct drive turbo. I can tighten the resistance and then cycle in a granny gear. On the Elite software that goes with my Elite turbo I would do 300W and 25 kmph, so I never questioned it. I think Rouvy was the same. It’s just on Zwift where 300W = 40 kmph. A small part of that is drafting. I might get a different turbo, but it will be one that allows me to connect to Bkool.
Hi,
300W for 25 km/h? I think there is something wrong.
I am 187cm, 94kg, has a power2max NGeco and a Canyon Inflite bike, 9,5kg. P2m says NGeco is ±2% exact.
On a flat outdoor course I make 27,5 km/h with 190W.
that is true, sorry I missed the part where you said what trainer you have. but you can check it with power pedals or a power meter chain ring or crank arm. But you wont be able to adjust the resistance. So your best bet is it save up for a power meter to use with your trainer.
also we are not questioning the speed, speed is calculated by Zwift using Power, so the same rider on the same road will do the same speed if the power is the same no matter what trainer they use.