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Cheats never prosper..
Robot doping!
I earned my Tron bike over 14 months of effort. They should throw the eBook at him.
Holy shit, I didn't realise it was such a thing. Get out there and race with real people. That's where its really at surely? Even if it's a cat b downhill race like we were at last sunday, its gotta be better than "racing" on a simulator.
Apparently he lied about his weight
National Rank: 77
Get out there and race with real people
He's ranked 77th in UK outdoor And had a 2nd in one stage of the Ovo tour. I think he's ok for that aspect
He’s ranked 77th in UK outdoor
Fair play to the lad...
But that wasnt enough and he wasnt good enough to be top 10 so he cheated on a simulator. What a tool. Did his mum come in to the garage and cheer him on whilst he was on the "home straight" of a virtual stage? Not quite the same is it?
Apparently he lied about his weight
no, he used a programme to ride his avatar up and down AduZ to gain the Tron bike, which he then used in the finals, Ian Bibby was on a Tron bike also, Jeffers just went early in the sprint,
it was live on BT with everyone using calibrated turbos after a weigh in, in a studio, not in his garage at home
1h40m for the last 1km
Apparently he lied about his weight
If you read the story, he used a bot to ride long distances at high power and low weight, thereby shortcutting the acquisition of the Tron bike, which he used to assist his qualification.
What I don't understand is why they didn't just impose a standard bike on participants in the qualifiers, and why bother acquiring the Tron bike? Surely he could just have used the bot in the qualifier, if racing remotely? How did the qualification process actually work?
I didn't even realise that the bikes performed differently until recently, and thought they were just cosmetic. I'm still riding the white starter bike with ordinary wheels on principle...
I didn’t even realise that the bikes performed differently until recently, and thought they were just cosmetic. I’m still riding the white starter bike with ordinary wheels on principle…
there's naff all in it
4 seconds over 35 minutes at 300w separate the top 9 fastest frames
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https://zwiftinsider.com/fastest-framesold/
Makes sense. Who wants to ride indoors anyway? LOL.
Did his mum come in to the garage and cheer him on whilst he was on the “home straight” of a virtual stage? Not quite the same is it?
I'm guessing you never saw the actual scale of the event and being on live TV on BT sport.
Plus the e rules book was written after he was "gifted" the ebike. Sounds like a bit of a witch hunt to me. Think they would have preferred a big team rider to have won
Blimey I'm amazed the UCI are in on this stuff. It's only a game after all.
I see, didn't realise that they used different bikes in the live final. Seems like a schoolboy error by BC and Zwift not to have standardised them.
No I genuinely didn't and I can't believe it's that big a thing. Obviously it is and I was piss taking re his mum in the garage but that's what I assumed. I just find it a bit odd. Imagine running 100m sprints on calibrated tread mills, people would always question the calibration if say someone like Usain was roundly beaten.
DCRainmaker with the facts
Blimey I’m amazed the UCI are in on this stuff. It’s only a game after all
Tell that to the riders from 25+ pro teams from teams like Canyon, Dimension Data etc etc who've raced in these 'games'
Blimey I’m amazed the UCI are in on this stuff. It’s only a game after all
It's an obvious new market so it's not surprising the UCI are interested. They started the world Fondo series after sportives got really popular.
It's not the first crossover between real and virtual competition. I think there was an esport motor racing competition recently where the winners got a place on a real team. They've done the same with Zwift to recruit riders for a couple of cycling teams.
I think they’ve got previous form with him over Cam blatantly ignoring the no camera rules in crits for his YouTube channel. So harks of a witch hunt.
As usual, and as with the camera issue, BC come out of it looking like short sighted luddites.
And it would be interesting to know who tipped them off too.
A number of riders have got pro contracts off the back of the zwift academy. One of the women was doing really well? Canyon SRAM team took them?
Agree they should have been on standard bikes and probably should have thought of the rules before the event. Makes it simpler.
Hilarious! 🤣
Ahhh so that was what the bike with the dayglow tyres was that flew past me on the NYC KOM this evening. New to Zwift and I'd never seen one before.
Jeez now I'm lusting after bloody pixels!
Should have all been on the same bikes. This is BC shutting the gate long after the horse left. Probably as a result of them not knowing how to standardise the system for the event. All the turbos were calibrated. But the algorithm for speed for power was not the same for all riders. That makes no sense.
Do they use different metrics for distance on the indoor rowing championship? Exactly.
Well, that turns a mildly ridiculous "sport" into a bit of a laughing stock, doesn't it?
Well done everyone.
Who would have thought pretendy racing would get so serious? 🙂
Still, dopes will dope...
The Sports industry is worth around 600 billion and the global games industry around 130 billion. We are in very early embryonic days but the naysayers on here thinking this is a joke are very very wrong. ESports are going to be massive. Our children are already as familiar with gamers as they are with sportspeople, perhaps more so. Combining the two is a natural progression.
Essentially this is the same as using a bike he knicked 6 months earlier to win a race. A bike with some small adv but the same as some of the other competitors were using.
He still won the race fair and square, but they are saying he broke some ethics, which is fair enough. Especially as most view esports skeptically as open to the sort of cheating he used to get it in the first place, essentially hacking the system with a bot.
I earned my Tron bike over 14 months of effort. They should throw the eBook at him.
🙂
Lol @ flashy!
Winston, Esports can be as massive as they like, it's still a nonsense.
I was reet guid at Daley Thomson decathlon on my vic20, feel really cheated that UK athletics never gave me the call.
I was reet guid at Daley Thomson decathlon on my vic20, feel really cheated that UK athletics never gave me the call
The difference is, on Zwift you're still using your legs. The fast boys indoors are fast boys outdoor too. Riders like Ian Bibby, his HR still hits the same highs and his legs still go round with the same efforts.
Ride it like you stole it. pic.twitter.com/TdslhZJr1v
https://twitter.com/ZwiftNews/status/1180265351440982016
Ride it like you hacked it, more like.
He got the bike before the championships apparently....
Do these guys pay for their zwift? Just a silly question that popped in my head.
Ethically I can see how he's on shaky ground but competitively I don't see an issue as it was never a level playing field. It's not like he cheated in the race but used a glitch to avoid grinding for a better item. Happens all the time, if UCI want to to be involved in esports they had better get someone to administer competitions who knows what they are doing.
Like others have said this should have been done in a level playing field, it's not difficult to run fully unlocked competition accounts for these sort of things.
I think there was an esport motor racing competition recently where the winners got a place on a real team.
The Nissan Development Academy and Sony have been doing this via Gran Turismo for years now.
it's a big "meh" from me
BC should've left it to zwift, who should've given him a "special" bike & kit for all future races
Why is it less of a joke just because there’s a lot of money in it though? Or is money everything?
What a gimlet.
"But, but it's not cheating as the rules didn't exist when I got the bike and and and I offered to help British Cycling but they didn't want my help, and and and other people cheat so there, and and and it's not fair because I spent loads of time and money on this..."
Cretin.
Its pretendy bicycles. Whether or not a small amount of people have turned pro off the back of its is immaterial, it's just tarted up Spin Cycles hooked up to a computer game. "Power ups"? Why not include a banana skin launcher and go full-on Mario Cart?
Why are the participants not wearing helmets? 😂
He broke a rule that didn't exist when he broke it. To gain an advantage which didn't give him an advantage because other bikes are just as fast and the differences are minimal. And when he broke the rule, he wasn't apparently even intending to race the GB-e-sports champs, so arguably wasn't even trying to gain an advantage. Would he have been sanctioned if he hadn't used the Tron bike in the actual race? You know, the bike that didn't really give him any advantage?
Don't get me wrong, it's naughty to cheat to get the Tron bike when other people are working hard for it, but the rest of it seems a bit Orwellian.
It’s an obvious new market so it’s not surprising the UCI are interested. They started the world Fondo series after sportives got really popular.
I don’t know much about this roady lark but I’d have thought they’d have a healthier diet than dipping their food in melted cheese?
Do they have to use an electric car to follow the race, and still stand out of the sunroof, or can a hologram do that
Several people have said “they should all be on the same bikes / level playing field”. I’m curious why - there’s no similar rule in real world cycling, from olympics to WC. In other esports there’s no requirement to use same keyboard / mouse.
Because if a bike has perks and is unavailable other than through unlocking then it gives an unfair advantage.
Real world conditions are different and not really comparable, neither is the keyboard and mouse (unless it has macro commands built in which may be disallowed).