Zwift, my journey, my weight and my fitness.

I'm getting a little fed up with Zwift racing, I still think it's an amazing platform and enjoy riding it but there seems to be more and more inaccuracy between real life and Zwift results.

For example in last Tuesday's CVR World Cup league race zone E; I raced and finished in 109th place, being 15th in Div D, and now up to 6th place overall. Then the rider who placed 108th liked my Strava log, so I popped over to his Strava log to do the same back, to be friendly. Then as I looked at his activity list I was amazed to see his FTP was significantly lower than mine, he has been clocking less than half the mileage I have this year. He hardly ever rides outside and no sign of any real races!

So given I've been racing XC all year and just done a couple of the Swedish CX cup rounds with good results, I'm amazed he can be faster than me!

Maybe I'm naive or just slow! But all this talk about variable trainer outputs and slower riders placing better in races takes a little of the competitive fun out of it. Maybe I should just buy a cheap trainer and sell my Neo to get faster lol.

see his FTP was significantly lower than mine

And his weight?

Fair question, can't see that on his profile but being a stalker and looking at his photos I'd guess he's simlilar 😐

Dammit I missed my chance to try and ride behind Puck Moonen for a lap 🙁

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I didnt see Puck unfortunately, however Andre Greipel gave me a ride on...that is going on my CV 😆

Fair question, can't see that on his profile

Ha I got passed, by someone who'd done 260 miles averaging 5.0w/kg who apparently weighed 60kg last night.... now that's properly cheating, assuming the distance was real why would you fake the rest of your figures? "Dear Strawberry" if anyones interested 🙂

So you can! Actually the person in question was 2 in front of me, and his weight is stated as 65kg, apparently. So either he's 16kg lighter than me or he's lying!

I think with Zwift racing you just have to think "right, i'm racing him/the" and accept them as competitors at that exact moment in time. You'll find later some people are so far from reality it's ridiculous, but you can only race whos next to you. The rest doesn't matter to an extent. You give it your best and you go with it.

I'm struggling at the moment with it all. This month has turned into a bit of a chore. The legs are tired and the mind is weak... Another 35km today taking me to 7880km for the year... So just 120 left. My plan is to potentially find a short 1 lapper tomorrow and then i've got 4-5 days off for Xmas as i'm away with family. I could of course take the bike with me, but in honesty, the rest will do me good. I'll then come back on the 27th and have 100km to knock out before NYE 🙂

Then we're onto next year and different goals instead of the distance we had this year.

but there seems to be more and more inaccuracy between real life and Zwift results.

There's nothing real about zwift. You just have to ignore any comparisons you might be tempted to make between zwift and real life. Last race I did I rode 60km at an average speed of 43kph. In real life I've never managed more that 34kph over 30km. And I'm sure there are many who lie about their weight in order to increase their w/kg. I can't think for the life of me why, but I'm sure they do.

It's pretty much what drove me to start Crit racing fo' real- the wondering about it all.

Not that Zwift racing isn't valid- it's just human nature to pick holes in it.
In a funny way, ZP actually fuels the paranoia. If you just raced who was in front of you, the leader board flashed up and then you moved on with your life it would be fine but via all the different channels you can scratch the itch of whether they are somebody you 'should' have beaten. And then it's a slippery slope!
My favourite is checking British Cycling for the UK riders 😆

Outdoors it's a lot simpler. There's a line on the track and you can see exactly who's crossing it in front of you!

I think with Zwift racing you just have to think "right, i'm racing him/the" and accept them as competitors at that exact moment in time.

I'm struggling at the moment with it all. This month has turned into a bit of a chore.

Wise words from you all.

We're off to the inlaws for Xmas this year as ever and I'm purposely leaving my bikes at home! Just taking my XC skies and ice skates lol.

There's nothing real about zwift

🙁

I recently received a pair of those assioma pedals. Popped them on the trainer-bike just to confirm that they matched my super-accurate Drivo trainer so I could send 'em back if necessary.
They didn't match.
MrB very kindly interruted his day today to spin up my pedals on his Neo (which he also knows matches another meter). Turns out the pedals are right and my Drivo seems to be wrong

Far, far worse than that though, it's been OVERreading. I'm an e-doper! 😳
Need to get it sorted and then join weeksy and chums at the back of the B bus

Bah, happy Christmas one and all

( 😉 )

How wrong ? lol

MrBlobby has ruined my Christmas !

Happy to be of assistance 😀

I tend to treat Zwift racing as just an interesting form of training. Not having a power meter I was satisfied to get a power number from Zwift that I could use to race/train to on my Kinetic Road Machine trainer.

I'm as careful as possible to set everything up the same each ride and my weight is spot-on as well. It's even gone down 2kg since starting although that wasn't my goal as I was already quite slim. It's just a function of all the extra virtual miles I'm doing now on top of my road miles.

At 3.0 W/kg I'm very often just racing one or two other riders for a minor position but it's such a giggle to out-sprint someone for 10th place in group C! 😆

weeksy, about 10% or a bit more 😳
Apparently I'm not the messiah

Thanks MrB, appreciated (-ish!)

Oh dear... I may keep you in sight for 1/4 lap now 🙂

Scaredypants - i have turned myself inside out at times to beat you and all this time you were e-doping, no more ride ons from me young man and dont even think about having pudding tonight 😀
I think by the time i get back on the bike rather than being at the back of the bus i may well be the size of a bus. I may have to borrow those pedals scaredypants while i work off the mince pies.

😯

Does that mean you are another local Scaredypants??

CH - Southamptonish

Just realised I've missed a trick here.

For Sale, 1 Elite Drivo smart trainer. 11 months' use
£2,000 ?

Blader, pudding is off indefinitely. I've got 10kg to lose

Isn't the Drivo meant to be super accurate?! I have one and it broadly matches my PM (reports a little lower). I'd contact Elite as it shouldn't be that wrong. Get some money back or a working turbo (assuming it's wrong anyway).

Yes joe, +/- 1% and each unit supposedly tested before release from the factory

It's coming up to a year old and may just have drifted - I only tried another meter this week so can't say

Have been in contact with the shop and with Elite; I've also just done another spindown calibration thing on the app. We'll see

I have been riding exactly 4 months today and coincidentally I have just clicked over 1000 miles on zwift. My real life riding is simply mountain biking in a forest next to where I live (although I did do 40k on the road on my mountain bike last weekend which hurt - no I don't know why I did that either).

Zwift is simply fun for me. I am an endorphin junkie and zwift has allowed me to get my fix as I can't run anymore. I am about 20w short of being a B so that is the target for next year. It will be interesting to see if I can make it without doing anything too structured.

Have a great Christmas and new year all. The great outdoors beckons here so there won't be much zwifting.

Scaredy I can't believe I gave a ride on to an e-doper this morning 😯 😀

scaredypants - Has your threshold/ftp moved quite a bit since getting the trainer? If not I guess that indicates it was wrong from day 1

(I've not followed this thread 100% so might have missed a 250w - 300w threshold gain!) 😉

Scaredy I can't believe I gave a ride on to an e-doper this morning

Joe, not massively though I don't measure actual FTP etc much so can't say what it really is (I did an FTP plan recently but ricked my back and didn't get to do the FTP test at the end before I had my hernia done so still an unknown quantity)

Scaredy I can't believe I gave a ride on to an e-doper this morning
You're correct - I wasn't on it this morning
(oh, wait - is it you that's in NZ ?)

Yep that's me. 😉

Decision for this morning is ... 4 lapper of Classique at 9.10am for approx 30km total... or 1 lapper for a quickie at 10.10am for only 10km.

The legs are suffering a bit at the moment but sometimes you just need to get on with it.

Ok well my completely unscientific viewpoint is do the miles to get to your goal *

*I am on my 5th pint as I type this...

Decision for this morning is ... 4 lapper of Classique at 9.10am for approx 30km total... or 1 lapper for a quickie at 10.10am for only 10km.

Looking out the window.... very mild out, quite warm, no rain, very little wind, get outdoors! 😉

Have my 9 year old at home today mate, so no outdoor.

I did the 4 lapper... as expected with 200km in the legs since Mon, i was rubbish LOL.

with a few km warm up, i'm now at 7915.4km !

Looking out the window.... very mild out, quite warm, no rain, very little wind, get outdoors!

Even I went outside!

Glory days of Cs over. 16/21 in B.

id have been 2nd in C lol

I could only dream of being in Group B 🙁

this time last year i was propping up the back of C. 3 months before that i was mic pack fodder in D.

your time will come

pssst, trainer still available

😀

this time last year i was propping up the back of C. 3 months before that i was mic pack fodder in D.

your time will come

Thanks for the encouragement weeksy! The thing is I think I am already quite fit for my age (62) and no real weight to lose. I've just gone through 6000 miles for this year, cycle 3 times a week on the road and MTB as well. I've just discovered Zwift and am loving the extra dimension it gives to my training and the ability to ride when the weather is bad.

I would love to make getting in to Group B with an FTP of 3.5 W/kg my goal but I suspect my time may have past! It's nice to have a goal though so we'll see...

Just noticed I made a mistake - Group B is 3.2-4.0 W/kg. I am currently 80kg with an FTP (on Zwift) of 247W means I only have to get to 256W to get to the magical 3.2 W/kg. It's doable!

I feel a New Year's resolution coming on...

I'm under that limit in every race, but this lot forced me to move up!

With your figures you won't be last.

FFS, -3 on CVR... who's bright idea was racing today lol.

Weeksy, as already said, you care too much about points. That said. I'm expecting plus points for my EVR race this morning. It'll spoil my Christmas if they are negative. Curse you EVR!

LOL i don't honestly 🙂

I'm now in the situation where every race is going to be borderline for me. I went through a lull and lost a load of points, after that i went through a peak where it was great for me for a couple of weeks and now i'm in a place where every race is split between a couple of points either way, sometimes a plus and sometimes a minus. I can't really affect or influence it any more than racing at my best and improving gradually, be that with racing skills, training skills or zwifting skills, it's always going to be tight.

I don't lie awake worrying though. Promise.

Or you could fake your weight like some do.............just saying. Not encouraging.

LOL i plan on not needing to fake it and actually dropping some after Xmas.

Went for a ride with offspring this morning and felt I needed some more so I entered a 4 lap race. My goal was to get a my weekly total ks up and thought a few laps with the Cat D bunch would be a good way to do that.
No warm up, and bang off they went. at least 10 of them off over the hill at 3+W/KG. Soon reel them in thinks I. Tortoise and Hare moment coming later. Rest of the Cat Ds went off in pursuit with me propping up the rear hoping a group would form. Not likely, one by one they blow up and dropped out with the front lot still doing 2.5, 2.8 and more. So I did a 15km time trial watching them pull further and further away till I got pissed off with it. Worst race yet. Sandbaggers, what is the point? All the legitimate Cat Ds killed themselves inside 3 kilometeres.

Its A strange one for sure. We see it time and time again, race after race after race, whether it's Ds putting out 3.5 or C's putting out 4+, it's always several riders.
I find it hard to grasp these riders are newbies every single day. So assume they must be aware of Zwift.
Don't really know the answers.

morning all (few)

weeksy, much as I hate to say it, that cycligent system is an attempt at exactly that - scoring riders against their previous performances rather than a self-allocated grouping.

Doesn't stop the people doing it in their first couple of races but after that it's better. Means you have to perform pretty well just to stand still in the tables though

I haven't done any of their races but actually reckon it'd be no better for me since, last I heard, I (and you) as a B sit in the top rank with nath and his speedy chums which again risks not knowing who to follow at the start. Race rank numbers might be a goer - they obviously know your predicted position since that's how they allocate points. I might not chase an ex-pro up a hill if he had number 3 on his back in a race of 200 with me at 150 or whatever

I wonder though how many racers are aware of CVR and ZP rankings. Could it be that we're in the minority here and they just log into the Zwift app and race when they want etc? They may not care about their pending DQ/upgrade and just want to win on the road.

aye, you may be right but the cycligent system would still take care of them though

ZP could do something similar, obviously, and auto-categorise riders either according to power from the last few races or using positions (haven't they already started doing some sort of rankings ?)

I can't see ZP cats being that difficult to enforce within the various Apps, although it would require integration between Zwift and ZP.

I think that for now, we just have to accept it for what it is and the pleasure that comes from racing who's next to you on the road irrespective of who they are and how real their numbers are.

I'm feeling a bit of a bunny rabbit in races now in B, with the foxes of C cat all hunting me. I still race of course at the same speed I did last week, so most guys round me are either slow Bs or fast C's, mostly fast C's. I'll get there though over time and climb the ranks of B.

Oh, I agree - and I don't really mind it (and TBH, I reckon fewer people go sandbagging in B anyway; if you're really an A and want easy wins then C is the place for you to hide, sit in and then destroy the pack towards the end or up a hill). Forcing riders into cats would be a good start IMO

I still think though, some identifier on a racer would be nice (I originally though of different coloured rear lights for each cat but that doesn't tell how good or bad a racer is within their cat). surely zwift could add a number tag to people's names or a race number on their avatar, though as you said that'd require integration with zwift itself

I did a 4-lap flat race this morning and for the first time managed to get everything just about right. I didn't go off too mad at the start but settled in to a group of about 10 riders going at my pace.

I got dropped on the short climb at Whitehall on the second lap and really had to crank out the watts to get back on. I managed to recover though which was encouraging and made sure I didn't make that mistake again.

For most of the last lap I was at FTP but I managed to hold on to the group. The group was down to 6 or 7 I think by the sprint on the Mall and two riders got away from me but I managed to beat 3 others which was amusing.

I finished top half of group C which suited me just fine and had a great workout. I just treat the races as an interesting way of training now rather than just sitting on the turbo. My average speed for the ride was the fastest I'd ever done including the 1-lappers which demonstrates to me the benefit of drafting in a decent sized group.

That sounds like a great performance mate. Well done.

Cheers weeksy. It's my intention to race on Zwift once or twice a week on top of my existing cycling commitments, to see if I can't get my FTP up to 3.2W/kg and scrape in to group B.

Signed up for a four lapper of the London flat course. Cat D usual shenanigans going on from the line. Five from a field of about ten went off like trains. The results page had them at 2.9 to 2.7 W/Kg average.
I rode in no mans land on my own for a couple of laps till I caught a guy on a TT bike. Managed a lap till he dropped out. There was another D a little way back so I slowed down to let him catch me. Got to be more interesting than being on your own isn't it? When he catches me he really put in some effort, i suppose trying to get away from me. Managed to hang on a settled in for the last lap. Starts winding up from about 3.5 K out but I hung on till the last 300 meters when I was left like a bad smell.
Enjoyed that one. Was not able to hold the wattages I could before xmas and I am not sure why. Maybe I have been doing too much. Maybe I am coming down with something.

8000km done !

Admittedly a decent chunk of that are optimistic Zwift Kms. But they all take effort.
That's a heck of a 2017 for me. Way more than ever before.

Can I lie down for a month now?

Well done weeksy! So far I have logged all of my Zwift rides using my Garmin and I usually find most Zwift rides to actually be shorter than my Garmin readings. That's probably due to the fact that I start the Garmin when I start to warm up but the Zwift mileage is usually just the race itself.

If that's the same for you, you may find you have ridden a fair way longer than your Zwift miles may indicate.

No slacking off now unfortunately as the New Year beckons! 😆

I did the wbr 4 lapper this morning and with a field of 126 and a course i just dont do well in i reckoned on some big negative cvr points. I always get dropped by the A group on the long first lap so i was determined to at least get to the end of that still with them. In fact i got all the way to the end of lap 2 before the elastic snapped, ended up in a small group of 4 and just trying to recover but the pace was quite high. Legs kept turning to jelly again for short periods but i think that was because it was fasted ride plus getting rid of the lurgi. Not sure what position we were vying for but hung on and outsprinted them all. Turns out i was 7th in B group and 19th overall in the race so probably my best result on that course. The race was pretty fast looking at the stats, i finished with 283w avg ,3.5w/kg and np 292w. I removed my ftp score just to see what it would be in race conditions and it was 279w,my ftp test result was 310w.

Well done weeksy on the mileage, thats going to be tough to beat next year.

Well done Weeksy!

I've really got into Zwift now, loving the way you get the "hoops" to aim for during intervals. Popped out to do some scheduled sweet spot this morning:

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...and completed all that which I'm pleased about after the Christmas binge.

So far I have logged all of my Zwift rides using my Garmin and I usually find most Zwift rides to actually be shorter than my Garmin readings

Kryton that sweetspot training looks good, i think i will incorporate that in to my cycling plans for next year. Is that training with erg mode off? I do a weekly workout with MGCC crew and its pretty feisty but i dont really like the erg mode on function as it just tends to end up with you just using the same gear all the time.

I reckon Zwift kms are 20% more than outside kms for the same time/effort. On a flatish course I can average 35-36 kph on Zwift, zone 2 power. Outside in flatish Berkshire I'd be doing 30 kph for a similar effort.

Doing the mountains course on Zwift brings it closer to reality.

I've 187km left to hit 12000 for the year - 4000 of those on Zwift.

Is that training with erg mode off

It is yes, I only have a static trainer. You do need to workout your zones properly. SS is within 82% - 99% FTP, and I find that my indoor power reads about 12% lower than outdoor, so a little maths is needed to ensure your in the right zone if your training outside also.

For competitive reasons, I'm not writing down that values I'm working to up there 😀

Just to add agreement to Beej's post - you can see on my screen shot the speed is 39kmph on a 1% incline. In reality I register about 34.5kmph at the outdoor-equivalent wattage.

ow does that work then? Surely the Garmin doesn’t know about the hills on Zwift which is why the rides are longer (assuming it’s only getting its input from your speed sensor on your wheel?) Or is the Garmin linked to Zwift somehow?

I'm using a Kinetic Road Machine trainer and consequently ZPower. As you say, the Garmin doesn't know about the hills even though I change gear to simulate the gradient, my back wheel is still travelling faster than the equivalent Zwift speed on gradients. On the flat I've noticed the speeds are pretty close. I guess those of you using smart trainers your Zwift mileage will probably be a lot closer to reality.

So, hi, just signed up to Zwift, will be on it tonight with any luck.
Newbie question, can you join any races/rides or do you need to be invited? And related, any particularly worth going for? Based on the website I reckon I'll be around cat C but that's very much an educated guess.

You can join any race (as far as I'm aware anyway)

My advice would be to start with a 4-lap WBR flat race. Start fast, try and hang on for as long as you can. When you do get dropped try and latch on to the next group coming through. And most importantly - make your avatar look cool and pick a nice outfit.

8000km done !

Don't forget Eemy! I could accept not making it to a nice round number.

make your avatar look cool and pick a nice outfit.

LOL! Difficult to do with the 10,000 other newbs I just saw on there! 😆

There’s a “Team Italy presents BL Bicycle Line Race (A,B,C,D)” ride soon, might have a crack at that I reckon. Sound reasonable?

I love round numbers so my mileage for this year so far is 4136.2 miles.

Why not lunge. Give it a whirl!

I can't get Zwift to pair with my Kikr through my laptop. I was running Zwift off my iPhone but the trainer wasn't working properly and any time I went over about 120 watts the power reading was all over the place and the resistance just dropped away. I tried to use the erg mode on the phone but it wasn't available, I'm not sure if this is a paid feature.

Has anybody any pointers because I've 20km free left and I'm not in a rush to pay $15 to find out its still useless on the paid version.

What are you using to pair? Ant+ dongle?

About to pop my cherry on Zwift with an Apple TV and a smart turbo on the way in the next couple of weeks.

Just checked in to this thread to find an absolutely terrifying array of jargon, acronyms and know-how.

How plug-n-play is it? How long will it take your average dunderheid to get the hang of it such that you can actually enjoy it? (Assuming that even if you're completely clueless it's still more fun than plain-vanilla turbo sessions).

Just done the WBR 1 Flat Lap, enjoyed it felt like s good intro. Reckon I’d have done better if I’d have known the course too. This will get very addictive...

How plug-n-play is it?

Depends on what trainer you’ve got and how it talks to Zwift/Apple TV

My set up is entirely Bluetooth so apart from calibration upon setup it was quite literally plug and play.

Calibration on mine wasn’t much, direct drive so it’s just a couple of minutes via the manufacturers app.