Smart trainers and software

[Mr Purple]

I got a decent ADZ lap yesterday - 45:38, I paced it very well and my power seems to be getting better.

Nice time!

Second all time one hour power PB of 252W in today's 'Tour de Zwift' event.

The 'Snowman' course is nasty at race pace - half of 'the grade' (2.11km/8.7%) stacked immediately on top of the Mayan and Itza KOMs (6.34km/2.2%). Didn't look too much on paper but when you've just spent 10 minutes doing 5W/kg to try and maintain 5W/kg for another six minutes becomes pretty difficult.

5th of 240. Interestingly of the four riders who beat me (all A+ on Zwiftpower) three of them were obvious cheats. 20 minute in excess of 5W/kg, no linked Strava accounts, racing scores of 600 each - which indicates that despite racing multiple events per week but none of them were actually races, just group rides. 600 is the minimum racing score, and exactly where you'd sit if you were avoiding events that may put you under any scrutiny. Was good to see the actual winner was genuine though.

To beat my all time one hour power PB twice in a week suggests something's working!

[Mr Purple]

Interestingly, ran into a very simple way of seeing if someone's genuine on Zwiftpower.

There's a hidden metric called 'HRR' which is literally the ratio of their heart rate to their power. (Power/HR).

Because I'm a small mammal mine is always (and I mean always) between 1.41 and 1.58. So at 1.41 in an event I'd expect 254W average at 180bpm.

Everyone's is clearly different, and it varies on the time it's maintained. But the consistency of the figure can tell you if someone's for real or not. If it only varies a maximum of 0.2-0.3 (mine's 0.17) their power is relative to their effort and they're for real. If (for example, checking a bunch of names from my event today) it swings wildly between 1.3 and 3 their power output has no relation to their heart rate and they're FOS.

Going by this metric at least half the event leaderboards are consistently bogus. Interesting that!

Sort of surprising it hasn't figured in any of the anti-cheating algorithms. Apparently some of the event organisers use it.

[g-boaf]

Stopping cheating means less money coming in when the cheats are banned.

So not going to happen.

Also heart rate information can be falsified, as can power data.

IRL racing is at least not affected by the exploits and cheating that is on Zwift. Also not just open cheating but the use of exploits of either power measurement from trainers or power meters or finding exploits in the Zwift pace dynamics.

[Mr Purple]

Stopping cheating means less money coming in when the cheats are banned.

Yes, this is it, isn't it?

I find the whole process of working them out interesting, though by and large don't care enough to actually flag anyone (unless I keep running into them repeatedly).

It is strange how many people are perfectly happy to cheat to win an online race with no prize where half the field can clearly see what's going on. It would be pretty demoralising being in the half that can't see that though!

As it stands the important thing is it's good motivation and I'm hitting numbers I've literally never hit before. Outside racing is a bit of a no-go to me now I know how much it hurts to hit the ground at 48km/hr.

[g-boaf]

I'm on ADZ most days and the cheating is rampant - it's even more obvious than in racing. I do flag them and provide detailed info, but I want to also do my lap and get a reasonable time also...

My multi-tasking abilities (eg, riding and typing) are somewhat limited.

Anyhow, another ADZ done, 53:30 today.