I’ve been riding zwift for a few years and as with many other riders it gets pretty frustrating watching other riders holding 5.1 watts/kg for 12 hours straight or racing against people who sprint at 21 watts per kilogram. But rather than following the advice of many commenters on this forum who ask us to just ignore cheaters, I was wondering about the creation of Zwift In Real Life Studis.
I can’t help but think that if peloton can successfully create a market for spin classes, then zwift could create a market for people that actually want to go somewhere where they can ride with real people and demonstrate and authenticate their actual physical abilities.
I think it would be worth it to pay $20 per session to ride for a couple of hours at a studio of zwift rides and have your performance authenticated as you ride with other real human beings
And even have IRL raceing events.
But no doubt there will be an abundance of replies advising me to “just ignore cheaters “ but I just had to get this suggestion off my chest
If there’s a market for this, would Zwift need to be involved at all? Are you thinking that each person at the studio would already need to have a Zwift subscription, or would there just be ‘dummy’ accounts where the height and weight are changed for each user?
I always thought someone would have created an open Facebook group by now and posted photo and video proof of cheaters. Maybe it would bring attention to Zwift that something is actually wrong and they would want to do something about it.
You are talking about actual spin class ride or race. Would Zwift actually have to prove what device is being used. Because they sure don’t authenticate that now, and when 3rd party apps can bluff the type of trainer,.. everything is back to square one,.. Zwift does nothing.
I get fed up with them as well. I report them all the time even though it doesn’t seem to do a lot of good because you see the same people back the next two or three days doing the same thing. Everyone just has to consistently report the impossible performances.
Excluding Zpower from leaderboards (or giving Zpower its own leaderboards) is one thing.
Certainly murmurs around in private groups. Everyone knows the regular riders who are doing dubious performances or distances.