I recently started using Zwift and have been riding a lot of time trials. One thing I’ve noticed is that quite a few riders seem to pace themselves poorly, blow up halfway through, and then disappear from the results altogether.
Personally, I think that’s a shame. In real-life cycling, if you start a race and don’t finish, you receive a DNF (Did Not Finish). I don’t see why the same principle shouldn’t apply on Zwift.
In a recent TT, I rode negative splits throughout the race and eventually caught another C rider who had started ahead of me. He appeared to blow up around 75% of the way into the event. Unfortunately, once the gap became too large, he disconnected and effectively vanished from the results.
I understand that genuine technical issues can happen, such as internet dropouts, trainer failures, or power outages. However, if a rider starts a race and doesn’t finish it, I think a DNF should still be recorded.
At the moment, riders who complete the race don’t receive any visible recognition for finishing ahead of riders who started but quit. A DNF classification would provide a more accurate representation of the race, reward those who finish, and potentially have an impact on Racing Score calculations as well.
What do others think? Should Zwift and ZwiftPower display DNFs for riders who start but do not finish a race?
Zwiftpower does sort of show DNFs. They’re listed in the Live tab, so in a sense treated as Not Finished rather than Did Not Finish.
Zwiftracing.app incorporates those riders into the results, though it can’t include and DNF riders who don’t have a zwiftpower profile.
I agree that the Zwift results should show DNFs. The current situation, where the number of riders listed in the results is different to the number given as the size of the field, is a sauce of confusion.
Is it because Zwift wants to attract as much riders as possible, to not enforce Zwift Power to be mandatory? Especially combined with private/closed profiles, it feels highly unfair to me for those who do have it. As it enables scouting your opponents.
No, ZwiftPower is reaching end of life and they’re not investing in any changes to it. All of that work is going into the in-game results, but there’s still a very large feature gap and it’s unknown where it will end up when it’s mature, so I wouldn’t conclude anything about their intentions other than that they intend for ZwiftPower to die and the pieces of it that they think are important will appear elsewhere.
Having a big fat DNF next to your name constantly on some of the results boards in the future would be very helpful though and maybe prevent so many people from abandoning races because they start to lose their lead.
Abandons in Advanced category are out of control and really beginning to have an impact on my already bare minimum enjoyment of the one day I’m able to attend them.
I’d really appreciate it if there’d be some amount of passive aggressiveness in racing and being able to see who is a known quitter.
This week’s experience was someone that broke away, and going with a teammate to catch the break… and as soon as we did the dude quit the race…
Sometimes I enter races and quit because I simply wanted to ride Bologna or Crit City courses. It would help if they opened those to free rides. To me it is simply a work-around.
Maybe it’s necessary to close this loophole and make it like other event special routes (eg, Macaron) so you have to reach out to Zwift to get your event on those routes. There is probably a reason these worlds were hidden away.
I don’t like having event only routes at all to be honest. If they are that way, I just won’t bother riding them. If everyone would avoid them then maybe this “event only” forever might go away.
To be fair Macaron is a pretty rubbish route. That would be better being event only without a badge so people don’t feel like they’re missing anything.
Actually… Some of these shorter non-looping routes I’ve been testing and using on some of our group rides this year.
There’s some incredibly good routes I held in secret by testing what happens to them these days now that people don’t get turned every-which-way; and while the route map looks stupid at first glance, the route you end up with is really really good.
Some of the fantastic examples:
Red Zone Repeats turns to Wandering Flats loop before Neokyo laps (4 in Neokyo, then a lap out to Yumezi and repeat)
Temple Trek
The most negative elevation route Zwift has to offer. Coastal cruise and then you end up doing loops of Tempus then Titans. Really great route for 90 minutes or less.
Hilariously, if you only ride for like 50 minutes or so and only arrive to Tempus, you’re still negative elevation gain; I don’t think you actually end up being positive until basically starting Titans Grove KOM.
Another example of a decent one is Coast to Coast; which ends you on laps of Jarvis; maybe get 3 laps of Jarvis for a 60 minute ride.
Most of the ones in Makuri end up looping in Shisa climb/sprint area.
Most of the ones in France sadly end up going to Ventoux.
Those are definitely the cream of the crop selection; all completely useful for events and races now that ride directions aren’t randomized anymore.
Point being, those little one way routes… are actually hidden gems; just have to ride them for longer.
This one is also great as the fastest way to Alpe. You start with this route then do two manual right turns. It saves a 3-5min versus Road to Sky, good if you are short on time.
