Id never do this as my Zwift Power is an accurate log of weight and power but it does make me wonder how much easier itd be to be bigger. We really like the sound of this: In the future, well continue to bring potential product ideas and changes to members of the Zwift Racing Community, with the hope that youll embrace this as a collaborative effort to help shape the experience. I just we had a better system than category limits, racing license anybody? if someone is entering a fake weight on their Zwift profile, the only person they're cheating is themselves, cos they're going to get destroyed out on the roads where it really matters. The categorization system is, like you say, fundamentally flawed. If the categories are split using purely w/kg a lighter rider doesnt have any advantage up the climbs at all. otherwise no way in hell hes beating you. Its going to take a certain amount of calories for a certain person to perform a given amount of work in a given time. Thats not what I recall at all, everything is a race, even if you werent aware . I would thought with how sensitive the sensors are they could place another one somewhere on the unit that simply does the job and takes away all the manual input. While the benefits of being light fully kick in while climbing a mountain (as it is easier for smaller guys to achieve certain w/kg), the benefits of being a tall and strong guy dont fully apply in the flats. Nekkid and I only update my weight in zwift if it moves more than a KG. Hitting G on your keyboard will do it, or swipe up on iPhone or iPad, etc then tap the graph button. For the time being, height and weight will remain visible on ZwiftPower. Find some hilly races As a result your suggestion of the watts vs w/kg different systems is already baked into the game physics in a way. I lost some weight during these few months and gained on FTP Now facing going to C and not getting any good results within the category, Eric, thanks for bringing this to light. But without any hard and fast rules, we cant say anything is illegalat least for certain races. I think that point based system is an improvement, but it doesnt address the weight issue. Remember - Zwift is a trainingplatform.. and if a rider feels his/hers motivation to ride, is higher when entering 'wrong' it's ok with me..AND obviously with Zwift too. heavy riders have an advantage on flat courses.. https://zwiftinsider.com/wkg-tests/ plus 60-70kg is perferctly normal body weight for adult cyclists, nothing worth complaining about. Example: have you ever purposely avoided weighing yourself (especially you who have a Withings scale that automatically updates your Zwift weight) because you know youve put on a few pounds over the weekend? Why try to force IRL parameters that can not be enforced. The other race, events, and activities are needed to display that data. On a tablet or smartphone, you can download the. hanging with the front group is very though for me because i am exactly at the bridge between A and B. See how you can support Zwift Insider! Even at my age I still plan to compete in MTB races when the world gets back to racing. I agree with what you say Eric but the weight doping does negatively impact the casual rider if they are following other riders in a casual/social ride. Check out this FAQ for some of our frequently asked questions: Q:&. Honest and goal driven. , Myself being a lighter rider who fluctuates some 2kg during a week I tend to always use my upper weight giving me a lower Wkg. I am not saying that everyone with a low weight on zwift is cheating, but I am suggesting that there are many who are because zwift favours light riders, and people do like to win. In IRL there is a double draft. No one is going to lose or gain 5kg overnight or shrink a 1cm. I dont care anyway. So I dont expect to be as competitive vs. a pure cyclist. It just makes a mockery of the whole system. Whatever your answer, some people will never like it, but there has to be a clear, credible answer for the majority to support. If you're on Zwift and planning to get racing, then signing up to the third-party app ZwiftPower (opens in new tab) is an essential step. bottom line for me, its a virtual training world, a virtual hammer isnt the same as a real hammer. With racer categories? Zwift is full of cheaters and thats not going to change now. Introducing a horrible measure that addresses a problem that doesnt exist, and subsequently retracting it following mass protest is not exactly what I would call revolutionary change. I argue that he is intentionally misrepresenting his weight so he can place higher in B instead of getting shelled in A (like I do). nothing less. 2022 Primr RWB League - Cycling Ireland eRacing Winter League. I may try it just to see what difference it makes. I have been frustrated with the GC results in the current Tour of Watopia series. For example the threshold for cat B is FTP over 200 watts and over 3.2 w/kg. Why we are treating this differently from actual racing? Maybe they should display and categorise HR as a %age? I don't think you can do it from the game itself. I was going flat out the whole race, and by no means cruising along watching my watts. This is why for a while I was ranked as a C even though my w/kg was higher than 3.2 since my watts werent over 200. Current system means that heavy weight top of cat riders climb at the same speed as skinny guys with same wpk but can have 60% more power on the flats. My IRL time and my Zwift time are almost the same. Using your Mac or PC, you can do it online on the Zwift website. Terms of Use/DMCA Copyright Policy Racing on the Zwift virtual platform has only increased, with the professionals getting in on the act, too, via the Zwift Tour for All, the Virtual Tour of the Gila, and e-races organised by Team Ineos. We like this move from Zwift. But Its hard to confirm whether or not its transmitting the weight to Zwift. I put my real weight 95% of the time. As long as youre being honest with yourself I wouldnt worry about it too much. The bottom line is that in any competition there will always be someone who wants to cheat to win.Read more . If its a big hill, well then w/kg has us equalised. Would love your thoughts, please comment. The categories are power to weight divisions. His favourite races are Strade Bianche and the Volta a Portugal, and he rides a Colnago C40. I wouldnt personally do it since it throws off training metrics and just isnt true. Actually no, sorry, I was wrong. Whilst this might be the case, as Eric implies in flat races light weight riders have to work harder to stay in touch with the heavier riders in the bunch. Daniel has reported from the world's top races, including the Tour de France and the spring Classics, and has interviewed many of the sport's biggest stars, including Wout van Aert, Remco Evenepoel, Mark Cavendish, Demi Vollering, and Anna van der Breggen. Currently trying to convince a friend who is new to Zwift not to reverse weight dope. In theory (at least) weight dopers could game the results based categories as well. As such, we have agreed to pause this change while we develop tools that deliver greater transparency to Zwift racing while promoting wellness. Most of the time, this will be what you use to figure out your race category. Fact ! As a 96kg, 51 year old with an FTP of 317 and a resting HR of about 48 (and a theoretical maximum HR of 174) Im not sure why my lower HR during an event should seen as suspicious. Many riders is talking about cheating, when someone enters a lower category but it's not, in my opinion. First up, you'll have to head to Zwift.com and log in, then click on Settings > Profile > Connections and choose 'opt-in' under the ZwiftPower logo. 0.5kg discrepancy either side is actually quite small. Well Eric, my weight is plummeting, and Ill probably be taking a break from Zwift over the summer, so Im sure the upgrade is coming very soon!!! I dont know why this is, but i dont care one bit if people are cheating. The categories currently used in most Zwift events are based on your FTP watts per kilo- that is, your FTP in watts, divided by your weight in kilograms. Share your thoughts below! I completely agree with the last paragraph here. Theres a bit of a fuss on the ZP forums at the moment about this form of sandbagging where people deliberately ride within the w/kg limits but are riding well below their potential ability. Taking that info away further depersonalizes the platform, and and may be fine in group rides, but it is a step closer to racing against bots. Withings scale that automatically updates your Zwift weight, a month ago in the final post of my race category series, https://smartscalesync.com/?utm_source=tr, https://zwiftpower.com/viewtopic.php?f=68&t=5528, https://zwiftinsider.com/how-does-zwift-calculate-my-speed/, Zwift x UCI To Host Cycling Events for the Olympic Esports Series 2023, Race London ZRacing March Series Details, Notable Zwift Events for the Weekend of March 4-5. Living at 5,900 ft. adds a performance restriction on me, I get it. Other planned changes communicated last week, including plans to improve the reporting features in Zwift will be rolled out as planned. Im 170cm and currently 61kg with an ideal triathlon racing weight of 59kg. I should mention: many Zwifters have lied about their in-game weight for perfectly acceptable reasons. This can be seen by comparing Zwift physics with real life physics (calculated by websites likeRead more . Zwift is great just to ride around and it has lots of good training sessions which you can do. The 33-pound Hub is 14 pounds lighter than the 47-pound Wahoo Kickr, even though the two trainers are almost exactly the same size. I think the Zwift algorithm is quite relevant because it implies a good workout in any race for any kind of rider (and thats what we are looking for). Completing this first step means that you've given permission to share your results and activity history with ZwiftPower, so now all of your performance and race data can be transferred across to the website. Goodness. However, I was able to navigate to the settings page by doing the following. I dont think it can all be attributed to weight; it appears that some hardware tweaks can scale up the reported power output. Because narcissistic people want to get validation from somewhere/someone that theyre special/different and if they cant get it legitimately theyll lie, cheat, and steal to do so. (Its not the only part, of course! I know its just virtual but my godi hope they enjoy their lies. Visit our corporate site (opens in new tab). ), So what is reverse weight doping? Tour de Zwift events were races? Updating Your Public Profile - Zwift However, insecure Freds jumpingRead more , I am new to Zwift, but I do wonder how it is youll see a bunch of people finish at the front of a D race at 4-5 W/kg. This afternoon, Zwift posted a follow-up message on the forum. Zwift should take accountability for what matters most to start with and thats the cheaters. I do find it amazing, funny and sad that IRL at several Ironman events me, a C rider, beat many A riders in the cycling segment. So its not that easy for light people to hide in the pack and benefit from the draft in Zwift, which is half the reality (in many ways its easier IRL). As others have said, your higher weight helps on flat courses. We are new to Zwift and My son Whos 12 has used it to race to make up for his list u12 crit season. With Zwift control is difficult (in getting Zwifters to enter their accurate) wait. Zwift should offer a Validated Racer package for a slight premium over normal membership. Last week we announced Zwifts plans to remove rider height and weight from ZwiftPower, among other changes (read the full post here). But theres one problem: this puts you into the B category, and you dont want to race the Bs. But then you could have someone in the same age group who maxes out at 170. My 3 race FTP is at 4.07w/kg (248w @ 61kg), but Im still in Cat B. Someone sandbagging will get promoted out of category and will not be allowed to reg for lower categories. Please refresh the page and try again. Just from riding regularly I went from 166 FTP to 187 in 800 miles over a 2 1/2 months. The algorithms very much help heavier riders in descents, which gets forgotten when all we discuss is climbing. Zwift Insider makes a small commission on purchases made from these links, so please shop through them to support our efforts. People can be far to either direction im 25 and my max that I have hit is 217. The issues with e-racing remain the same, and largely ignored for years now. On the flats and descents she crushes her w/kg field. IMHO, enforcing in-category entry for races will be a quick, easy and effective change. Updating Your Public Profile Zwift takes your physical measurements into account for things like leaderboards, speed, and your avatar's physical appea. That guy who weighs 300lbs and gets 1st place in Cs for a month straight should be automatically upgraded to Bs and Bs to As. I think it would be best if there was a separate cat system for flat routes (based on watts) and for hilly routes (based on w/kg), My understanding is that Zwift still applies real world physics to this situation, and maybe the article doesnt allude to it, in that on the flat Zwift wont use w/kg to drive speed but your pure watts. The six-digit number highlighted in bold will be your Zwift ID. Though our intent is to protect potentially vulnerable users by removing labels that can trigger unhealthy behaviour What are they trying to protect? Or are you looking for a participation trophy on every race as well?