Appreciate the thought Bath Salts. Definitely something to keep in mind. He’s aware of the difference between the game and real riding. He’s fast up hill in both worlds. Right now he’s frustrated with trying to race full sized humans in Zwift because they can drop their power on the downhills and he can’t.
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Its actually far worse on Zwift as there are no physics for cornering, braking, reaccelerating and center of gravity. Some of the difficulty he’s facing would be mitigated if Zwift modeled any of that. Consider the rollers in Titan’s Grove - some of those turns would require significant braking IRL, and that would punish bigger riders as their cornering speed would be lower, and it would be more difficult to accelerate out of turns. Maybe something to share with him if he’s bummed about how things are playing out on specific courses.
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I can’t see anything to address that occurring, not without a storm of controversy.
IRL indeed for slow corners (especially on steep descents) the bigger riders have to slow down much earlier (they have same size brakes to pull up much more kilos).
That sounds like a tough sell to me.
Yeah… No Sale on doubling his weight.
Sounds like he’d have to ride around like that for 90 days before his ZRS would update.
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He should get to be himself and be treated fairly without resorting to any deception.
I don’t know if that means that anything needs to change in Zwift other than giving him opportunities to enjoy races that suit his characteristics. I’ve spent a lot of time racing poorly attended events to get into the kind of race I enjoy. I wish the racing landscape were different but people don’t like longer races with climbs and I can’t make them show up. I learned to enjoy racing the longer smaller events, and doing team races (Club Ladder) where I can make a difference even if I’m not on the podium.
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A small rider shouldn’t be facing heavy riders at the same w/kg, someone double his weight at the same w/kg should be over 200 points higher.
I think the problem here is really the same problem that is being seen everywhere - that ZRS is placing incoming racers at their floor instead of their seed, and others can drop to the floor without too much trouble. This is giving them scores 15% lower than they should have, and that is based off the 5min power they have recorded in game which is not guaranteed to be anywhere near their true maximum.
The seed algorithm is good now, if everyone is at seed then typically heavier riders will do better on flatter courses and lighter riders on hillier courses.
The results based movement should only have to account for people whose recorded power is lower than their ability, and it should move them up to find their true level.
No one should expect to be competitive everywhere any more, but with varying terrain and changing pen boundaries everyone should be competitive somewhere.
Kids races could be another solution, so that riders start on a more level playing field. I’m sure that would come with its own challenges though!
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Yep, if I was him you would have got a resolute response to that idea. I’ve been around enough kids in my old cycling club (I used to run a lot of their races) and they are fiercely competitive.
Kids really need to be racing against other kids so they don’t struggle because of their lack of outright power and weight (on downhills).
I’m 59kg and I struggle downhill. Someone lighter than me would really be easily dropped.
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Kids races would be great but then you get into a numbers game.
Will there be adults who register factious accounts?
How do you verify?
I’ve come to realize there is no low limit for people.
I get frustrated at the inaccuracies of Zwift but there is only so much that can really be done
We don’t really know what anybody weighs.
Even though the program can’t accurately account for light wt riders, it’s probably best to keep them in our races.
Zwift could try to improve the algorithm for them but, we have to remember, most kids are not (were not) on paid account.
That may have changed.
@Oliver_ZRace_Central has run kids races in Zwift. I suspect the numbers problem is influenced by withdrawing access to child accounts.
Yep. Used to run an annual event but with covid no longer a thing keeping riders indoors and the lack of new kids accounts being created the attendance has just been fading every year and it’s a lot of work to plan. It could also never be an “official” event because Zwift runs into some legal issues having a bunch of kids in one event and with the chance that one of them may not be a kid will always run a risk.
Relevant…
(Wondering if this is from @Iaroslav_A)
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