Learn how to use Zwift in our Top 5 Videos this week! There are two beginner’s guides and some “pain cave” advice. You can also watch a Zwifter get the hang of drafting in a group. Finally, if you’re already familiar with the ins and outs of the game, you can hear some speculation about what might be next.
How to Use Zwift | Everything You Need to Know… the Ultimate Zwift Guide!
Jourdain Coleman gives a great breakdown on how to use Zwift, including what you need, how to set it up, and what to do once you’ve gotten started.
ZWIFT: The Complete Beginner’s Guide To Getting Started
Want a shorter, simpler, but still very useful beginner’s guide? Taren from “Taren’s MōTTIV Method” has you covered!
My ULTIMATE Zwift Pain Cave & What You DON’T Really Need!
Katie Kookaburra shows off her ultimate Zwift pain cave along with a simple, budget setup. She’ll also let you know what you don’t need and where you might want to spend more money.
TDZ Stage 6/Short Ride/Douce…Best Ride Ever.
Linda Messinger (“Zwifting With Granny”) learns how to use the draft more effectively to stick with a group during the Tour de Zwift.
Zwift Explores Price Increase and Adaptive Training
Tariq Ali from SMART Bike Trainers shares some insights about a recent Zwift survey that may reveal future plans for features and pricing.
Got a Great Zwift Video?
Share the link below and we may feature it in an upcoming post!
The “overweight” groupset bug affecting bikes using the new Dura-Ace 9200 and SRAM Red eTap groupsets was fixed in February’s update. That means the following frames now climb significantly faster:
Cervelo S5 2020
Chapter 2 TOA
Cube Litening C:68X
Canyon Aeroad 2021
Liv Langma SL Advanced Disc
Moots Vamoots
Dogma F
Uranium Nuclear
All of these frames are now 19-21s faster on our Alpe climb test, and 1.5-3s faster on flat ground.
Oddly, the Specialized Tarmac SL7 was not fixed, even though it was (is) affected by the groupset bug. In fact, it actually got 5s slower up the Alpe! We assume this is an oversight from Zwift that will be remedied in the next update.
Other Changes
Other changes were included in this update, although Zwift isn’t telling us what specifically changed. Our theory is that someone at Zwift updated some of the data which combines frames with groupsets and weights, when they cleaned things up to fix the groupset weight bug.
Here’s what we’ve noticed though:
Flat (aero) test results for other frames have changed – the Specialized Venge S-Works sped up by 1.5s, and the Felt AR sped up by 2s. The Tron is also consistently 1s faster.
The Felt FR was made lighter, as we suspected it would after our test results showed it climbed worse than the (supposedly heavier) Felt AR. It’s a better climber now, but still not a standout performer.
The Lauf True Grit, already a slow frame by all standards, slowed down even more, losing another 7.5s on our flat test (not no change on the climb).
Significant News
Prediction: you’ll be seeing a lot more Chapter2 TOA bikes on Zwift’s roads. (At least it as a color slider!)
Looking at everything that’s changed in terms of frame performance in the latest update, there are three significant things worth mentioning on the road bike side:
The Chapter2 TOA is now the best all-around frame, by a significant margin. In fact, we would say it’s the first real “Tron beater” in game, when paired with the ENVE 7.8 wheels. See Tron vs Top Performers chart for more >
There are now 4 top frames which turn in matching flat performance: the Specialized Venge S-Works, Felt AR, Cervelo S5 2020, and Uranium Nuclear. They don’t match on climb tests (separated by 4s), but they do match precisely on the flats. The Uranium Nuclear, especially, is a great buy for lower-level Zwifters since it’s only level 20 locked.
The Canyon Aeroad 2021 is back to being the top all-arounder for beginner Zwifters (level 10+).
Warning: I suspect this article is going to be longer than the usual “no more than 800 words rule” Eric gave me when he rightfully detected I had a genetic tendency toward both verbal and written incontinence.
Like always, the next lines are written genuinely, transparently, as I think them from the head and feel them from the heart. I do not pretend to own the universal truth. Just assume that all the sentences start with “In my opinion”.
To start with: I have been the center of attention throughout the entire #freeluciano snafu. However, at the origin of all this, we were three. If not for Enrico’s honesty and Stefano’s courage, nothing would have happened. These are the kind of crazy adventures that create lifetime friendships. So whatever your position about what happened, I want them to take their part of credit or blame. To be more specific: now that I am back to my sarcastic and pedant ZI character, if it is not too much to ask I am happy to take credit and leave them the blame.
Twelve years ago I made a presentation at work about social media crises leading to massive corporate blowouts, using the example of United Breaks Guitars.
What I did not anticipate then is that I would be at the center of a similar mess in the Zwift world.
To be honest, I have zero perspective and distance on it. Many Zwifters who have been around for a while are telling me this was a major event and hopefully it will change Zwift culture. Others are saying it is a fart in the ocean. (That expression comes from a Brazilian colleague. I guess it is from Brazil. I cannot think about anything more inconsequential than a fart in the ocean.)
Who cares. There are way more important things happening in the world as I write. Whatever happens in Watopia is of little consequence in comparison.
I will not enter into the argument on right or wrong, I think the positions are quite obvious by now. I believe the outcome is that the needle was moved in the right direction for the Zwift community and for the commitment to fairness in competition. We got two magnificent races for the UCI Worlds, and hopefully bugs will get fixed and the new bug bounty program is successful.
More importantly, hopefully it will change the dynamics of Zwift dealing/collaborating with the community around those issues. A lot of hopes. I am hopeful myself, as I got the commitment these changes will occur.
Some Lessons I Hopefully Learned (although I am used to stepping many times on the same stone)
The hope I feel won’t erase the four absolutely crazy and overwhelming days experienced from Wednesday to Saturday. For the good and the bad.
Because for me the biggest surprise is the fact that all of a sudden I was considered a threat to something that is (was?) an important part of my life and wellbeing, that I value (valued?) and cherish (cherished?). At times, it almost made me feel like a bad person. Am I hurting it? What if I was fundamentally wrong?
Zwift, until now, was a refuge, a bubble where most problems would disappear, a place representing only good things and feelings. Friendship, enriching exchanges, health, a window to the world, and, above all, the community, kind of a brotherhood, this conviction that you are never alone.
In that sense last week has ruined it and I am not sure it will ever come back again to that state of mind. Which is a shame.
I felt incredibly supported by the vast majority of the community. I will come back to that later.
I have received anonymous insults (never threats) by people obviously using the bug to cheat (watch out for the guys dropping their w/kg in the next weeks or mysteriously deciding not to race anymore).
More surprising was the hypocritical criticism from old guard Zwifters and race organizers, attributing a hidden conspiring agenda to our initiative, or an intention to hurt the platform. As much as I admire them for their contribution to this fantastic tool they have created, I have the feeling that there are a few early Zwifters, very important at the beginning of the platform, who believe they are more entitled or have more rights just because they were there before. It’s a shame that they live stuck in an “us vs them” instead of a together situation. I wish them good luck in their path to joy even if I anticipate it is going to be a long journey.
I have also received very instructive and constructive feedback from people I did not necessarily agree with, but where respect and willingness to reasonably exchange ideas was predominating. Sometimes we agreed to disagree simply because we had different opinions on what to prioritize or simply because we had different levers to work with. From some others I learned a lot (tons of people evangelizing me on standards in the industry to report a bug, an exploit, etc) and this information will be very useful for me in other situations where I’ll be able to consider other sensitivities in a different way, assess correctly the magnitude of the impact some things create, to assess short term vs long term consequences, etc. To all those people, thank you very much. It has been a super enriching experience.
An Involuntarily Evolution Into an Uncontrollable Frankenstein‘s Monster
Now the vast majority of the community has been incredible (or at least I would like to believe so even if I have no objective data to assess who was supportive vs who was not). The amount of spontaneous messages popping up everywhere and people reaching out directly… that was awesome, that was crazy.
The creativity of the people was absolutely astonishing. Comments with #freeluciano in Eric Min’s Strava activities, in Youtube stream, in subscription cancellations, threads on the topic popping up everywhere (Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Zwift’s forums), administrators deleting threads and not being able to shut the topic down because as one was deleted three were created, thousands of likes, comments, debates… totally overwhelming.
On a few occasions some totally false quotes, or even merits were attributed to me “Luciano said that…” or “according to the original post now deleted”, never bad things, never with bad intentions, however sometimes they needed correction.
That’s when I understood I was fooling myself and I was not in control at all. After spending entire nights online answering everybody, trying to keep it reasonable, I understood it was useless and… well, I saw I could trust people.
I was extremely worried someone would say or do something basically stupid to defend me, insulting someone for example. It did not happen to the extent of my knowledge. I have seen some heated debates on FB or Reddit, but at the end everyone knows what to do and self-regulate. If I learned anything this past week it is that reasonable people know where the limits are and you can trust them. Zwift should too, in my opinion.
At some point in time #freeluciano had its own life and it was owned by the community. I was another spectator of the monster growing up and covering and swallowing more and more space. So be it.
A Round of Applause
During this time I tried to show myself as enthusiastic and optimistic, but I had my lows. Real lows where I needed a shoulder to lean on. In those moments, my two partners in crime Enrico and Stefano were pillars, as well as my two brothers from another mother Edu and Peter, Maxime the King of Bad Jokes, and Eric from Zwift Insider. Those guys I already knew.
Before the drama I thought that my team, COALITION, was awesome. I was wrong. They are not a team. They are a family. Throughout the storm, the entire COALITION crew, as a collective but also many of them individually, were present. There was permanently someone ready to ask, to cheer, to have the right word, the right joke, the right GIF. On Friday, they also organized my first and hopefully only race as a Ghost in Watopia, through the Chase to the Underground event, where I could enjoy the privileges of being a Watopian in Review.
I shed a tear when Rhys and Andy mentioned #freeluciano during the streaming and was dropped from the pack at that very same moment. COALITION, you are a wonderful bunch of people (by the way our Mocha team won the WTRL TTT World Champs, wohoooooo).
What I could not believe is the number of people I did not know before reaching out spontaneously or even standing by me without even knowing me. There were way too many to name, but I just want to pop three names who were particularly important for me: Chris Ovenden (Killing in the Name Of) and Jonathan Crain (the 25cm 162kg meteorite) and Lucien Didot (the guy I wrote about here). IM(not)HO, if we had more of these three guys around, it would be hard times for cheaters.
Believe it or not, my ties to the Zwift community are exponentially stronger than they were one week ago. I cannot imagine myself without it. In one way the ban was good, as it made me understand how much of a Zwift Community junkie I am, how incomplete I would be without it.
However, I now make a very clear separation between the Zwift Community and the Zwift Corporation. Healing the wounds with Zwift Corporation is tied together with the fulfillment of the commitment Eric Min took towards the community in his announcement (see it at the top of this post).
Only 24 hours have passed since that announcement and I am quite convinced I can take that leap of faith. Without it being a blank check. I believe Eric Min’s statement is a declaration of good intentions, and the same way I trust people to make it right, I will trust Zwift to make it right. Let’s all make one step together in the same direction.
Super League Arena Games Sprint Race Series Launched
Today Zwift hosts the first in a series of sprint races in partnership with Super League Triathlon.
The 8-week series includes short races for cyclists as well as runners. It also includes warmup events hosted by pro athletes. Let’s look at the details!
Cycling Races
Bike races in the series are hosted in Crit City, either on The Bell Lap or Downtown Dolphin routes. Races are 4 laps long (7.9 km), which means they will be approximately 10 minutes in length.
These races will happen once a week on Mondays, in six different time slots.
With lots of signups from strong riders, these sprint races offer a wonderful opportunity for riders to boost your ZwiftPower ranking. Everyone races in the same category, so if you have strong sprint and VO2 power, you could potentially grab a lot of points in these short 10-minute efforts thanks to higher-ranked riders in the field. (The first event of the series had 98 ZwiftPower-registered riders take part, so it’s a large field with plenty of points to be had.)
Running races in the series are also hosted in Crit City, either on The Bell Lap or Downtown Dolphin routes. Races are 1 lap long (2 km), which means they will be approximately 10 minutes in length.
These races will happen once a week on Fridays, in six different time slots.
Prior to each race event, Arena Games is hosting “Podcast Warm Up Workout” events. These are 30-minute structured workouts that include some sprint efforts to get you ready for the shorter than usual race effort. They will also feature podcast audio with pro athlete interviews.
Unlock the Kit
All events in the series include the “jersey unlock” tag, so we assume participants will unlock the Super League Triathlon kit upon completing any event.
Well, that was a hot mess, wasn’t it? Simon, Shane and Nathan chew over the whole #freeLuciano debacle as a packed episode 104 hits your podcatchers.
In the longest Zwiftcast ever, the trio also assesses the likely importance to the platform of Club Functionality, now that it’s available to all Zwifters. Simon interviews Eddie from HQ, who we christen the King of Clubs.
Zwift is coming under pressure on disabled and differently-abled athletes as Zwifter Andy Shuttleworth starts a campaign to highlight the lack of representation in game. There’s news from inside HQ of what they plan to do on what is acknowledged to be a hot topic.
Is Zwift about to take over TrainerRoad? Only a very few people know for sure and it’s not Simon, or Shane or Nathan. That doesn’t stop them speculating on the likelihood and the wisdom of the move.
Zwift is making its most serious attempt ever to stop sandbaggers in their tracks in the racing sphere. HQ’s Flint McGinnis explains why the approach of Category Enforcement has been taken and how the scheme is expected to develop.
The Zwiftcasters look at the fairytale story of Academy Winner Jay Vine surging to victory in the e-sports World Champs while Simon goes off on the coverage.
And finally, there’s a dose of schadenfraude, as the chaps ask what went wrong at Peloton and whether there are lessons for Zwift to learn. We hope you enjoy listening.
The Zwift Racing Landscape, Part 2: Categories and Race Ranks – Do categories matter?
Competitive Zwift Racing, at the nexus of video games, exercising, and competitive team sports, is pushing the boundaries of how we think about competition. In the first part of this series we looked at the population of 80,000+ riders that participate on the ranked ladder – a truly global audience, often racing weekly – and the most popular events. And in a follow-up article we looked deeper into the demographics of that population – it’s quite different than what you might imagine the typical “esports” competitor looks like.
But after all of that “context setting” I still had significant questions about the outcome of all that competition. Categories, sandbagging, and weight-doping are certainly some of the hot-button topics in the community (though, potentially not more so than other competitive esports where terms like “smurfing” are similar lightning rods).
The difference between Zwift and other esports is there isn’t currently any concept of matchmaking – when you click the “join race” button, there is absolutely no guarantee you have a fair shot at winning. Zwift has recently started experimenting with “category enforcement” where you might be excluded from some races based on previous performances. This is a solid half-step toward a level playing field.
But is a level playing field on every race the right end goal? Sure in other esports, competitive games are all about winning each match – but in Zwift, for many (most?) it is simply a great way to get a good workout in. One interesting direction to look at is the race ranking that ZwiftPower tracks for each rider which turns each race into a meta competition across all 80,000 racers, not just those lined up next to you.
There is a great overview of the mechanics here and strategies for improving it here, but I had some fundamental questions about the whole system:
Should I care about rankings? Are the rankings actually predictive of performance? Are better ranked riders actually more likely to win?
What is an appropriate rank goal for me? How would that change as my power curve improves?
How should I think about Cat B riders that are ranked better than many Cat A riders? Should I be aiming to get to the top of my own cat rankings? Or just ignore category rankings and climb as high as possible?
Ranking Landscape Today
Based on the way rankings are calculated (best 5 races in the last 90 days), you really need to be racing at least 2x per month in order to have a rank that has a chance of accurately reflecting your performance. If you have fewer than 5 ranked races in the past 90 days, the algorithm assigns you a rank of 600 (the max) for the missing races which will tank your average.
Per my last post, almost half of the racing community races 1-2x per month, which leads to a huge chunk of ranked riders with a rank of 500-600 simply due to having missing data points. Beyond that, the distribution of riders by rank declines fairly linearly – this would suggest going from rank 300 -> 200 is harder, but not exponentially harder than going from 400 -> 300.
<100
100-200
200-300
300-400
400-500
500-600
0.3%
3%
7%
9%
15%
65%
[Methodology note: similar to the last article, population at each ranking range was estimated by finding riders ranked exactly “300” and looking at what their overall position was (so a rank 300 rider is reported as “in 9,000th place overall” this means there are 9,000 riders ranked between 0-300. Similar methodology was used for the below category breakdown chart.]
The other thing to note is the significant overlap in rankings between categories. There are many category B riders ranked ahead of category A riders. Similarly for the line between A and A+ and the line between C and B.
More on this overlap later, but my first question was around how important really are these rankings within a category (given folks usually race within their category)? How big of a deal is a 50pt difference? What about a 200pt difference?
[Methodology note: in the above, I took a random sample of races, broke each race down into a bunch of 1v1 races between each of the participants within each category, and looked at how frequently a rider of a given rank finished ahead of a rider ranked XXpts below them regardless of their overall finish position – so the 2nd to last place rider “beat” the last place rider. I also excluded the 65% of riders from the analysis ranked 500-600 given they may not have the full 5 races of data so their rank is less indicative of actual strength. Because the C & D categories have significantly fewer riders ranked less than 500, we can see some partial data for C, but are missing D data entirely.]
It turns out rankings are relatively predictive of performance. If you line up next to a rider in your category ranked 100pts better (lower) than your own race ranking, you have ~80% chance of finishing behind them at the end of the race (though 20% of the time you will beat them!). As might be expected, small point differences matter a lot more in category A than in B & C where a <50pt difference only gets you a small bump.
So what is a good ranking goal to shoot for? To try and put some guardrails around a reasonably achievable goal, I looked at the average performance of riders with different rankings in actual races. This should give me a sense “if I wanted to ride like a rank 200 B rider,” what kind of power I would need to put out in a typical race.
A
<100
100-150
150-200
200-250
250-300
300+
20min w/kg
4.3
4.2
4.1
4.3
4.1
4.2
5min w/kg
5.0
4.9
4.8
4.8
4.7
4.6
1min w/kg
8.2
7.4
6.9
6.6
6.4
6.1
15sec w/kg
12.2
10.8
10.2
9.1
8.7
8.1
B
150-200
200-250
250-300
300-350
350-400
400+
20min w/kg
3.6
3.6
3.7
3.7
3.6
3.4
5min w/kg
4.3
4.2
4.1
4.1
4.0
3.9
1min w/kg
6.2
6.1
5.6
5.5
5.2
5.1
15sec w/kg
9.9
8.9
7.8
7.4
7.3
7.1
C
300-350
350-400
400-450
450-500
500-550
550-600
20min w/kg
3.0
3.0
3.0
3.1
3.0
2.9
5min w/kg
3.5
3.4
3.5
3.4
3.3
3.2
1min w/kg
5.1
4.5
4.6
4.4
4.1
4.0
15sec w/kg
8.0
6.5
6.6
6.0
5.3
5.4
D
450-500
500-550
550-600
20min w/kg
2.3
2.2
2.3
5min w/kg
2.8
2.5
2.6
1min w/kg
4.0
3.4
3.3
15sec w/kg
6.0
5.4
4.6
A couple of interesting points:
20min w/kg is pretty consistent across rankings within a category – this is likely just the pace of the peloton, no reason to push harder than the front group is cruising. In reality, top-ranked riders very likely have higher max 20min w/kg numbers than lower ranked riders, but they arent hitting those in typical races
You start to see a gradual ramp up in 1min and 5min power output as you get higher rankings, this is the “don’t get dropped on hills by the front group” power output needed
And then lastly, the 15sec power output seems to be the real differentiator, as would be expected given the importance of the sprint to actually winning races. The important takeaway for me here was, based on my race power outputs, I should be able to stick with better-ranked riders than myself. Just need to get after it!
Lastly, worth pointing out the overlap across categories. A rank 200 A rider is putting out higher 20min, 5min, and 1min power output vs. a rank 200 B rider (the “don’t get dropped” requirements of the cat) but actually fairly similar 15sec power. Same for the overlaps between B & C, and C & D.
So could a rank 200 B rider beat a rank 200 A rider? Are top-ranked B riders “just cruising” during most races and could actually hang with, and frequently beat Cat A riders when racing head to head? Said another way, when I think about the overall stack ranking of Zwift, should we put all cat A racers above all cat B racers – or just ignore categories all together and use race rankings? The answer is definitely “it depends” but we could at least look at some data to help.
To take a crack at answering this question, I narrowed in on races where all categories start together – in these races (largely hosted by 3R) while a category B rider isn’t officially competing for a podium spot with a category A rider, they are riding side by side, so comparing the finish times of riders across categories should allow us to do a similar analysis. In the below charts, I looked at instances where a Cat A and Cat B rider (and then Cat B and Cat C in the 2nd chart) both had the same race ranking in these races. For Cat A/B this overlap occurred with both riders ranked between 200-300 most frequently; for Cat B/C this ended up being in the 400-500 range.
It turns out, the vast majority of the time (~80%), the higher category rider finished ahead. Looking back at our earlier win percentages within a category, an 80%+ likelihood of winning correlated to at least a 100pt difference in ranking, often even higher. So at a minimum, if you wanted to stack rank all of Zwift by race ranking alone, each higher category should get a 100pt+ bonus (e.g. a 300pt cat A should be ranked at least as fast as a 200pt B).
For the sake of completeness, I also looked at win probabilities of riders with different rankings across categories:
Maybe the most interesting bar is the far right bar where we look at riders in B (or C cat) actually ranked better than a rider in A (or B cat). Even in these situations, the higher category rider is more likely to win, even though they have a worse rank. This data, at least, would suggest that in the stack rank of all Zwift riders, category comes first, then ranking matters a lot within categories.
So where does this leave us, hundreds of thousands of data points and a few too many charts later?
The competitive Zwift Racing Ranked population is somewhere around ~80k riders (maybe 10% of the total Zwift population), who each race about once a week, come from all over the world (though weighted toward Europe), and all age ranges (with the average somewhere in the 40s)
Racing is clustered around ~4-5 major event organizers who are often hosting 100+ events a week, each with ~40 racers
The vast majority or ranked racers compete in B and C categories
The ZwiftPower race rank system does provide a fairly predictive way of stack ranking racers within a category
However, despite the fact there is significant overlap in race rankings between categories, the data would suggest racers in a higher category are indeed faster than racers in the lower categories, even if the lower cat riders have achieved a stronger rank
Generally, I wish that last bullet was not true and we could develop an absolute measure of a racer’s relative strength that was predictive both within and across categories. That would take some of the pressure/importance off of the categorization system which is imperfect in many ways.
The eighth and final race of the regular Zwift Racing League 2021/22 Round 2 is Tuesday, March 1st. Fittingly located on the bricks of Paris’ Avenue des Champs-Élysées, this is one for the sprinters… but that doesn’t mean it’s flat.
Let’s dig into the race, including tips for bike choice, powerups, strategy, and crucial segments.
This route has a long lead-in which nearly constitutes a full lap. A/B racers will be racing 6 laps (total of 43.1km), while C/D will race 4 laps (29.9km).
Let’s discuss the four key parts of this route, beginning from the start pens:
First, the climb up Montée des Champs Elysées. 1km long and averaging 2.3%, the main “climb” on this route is more of a “drag” really. It gets steepest at the end after it levels out for a bit, so save a bit of punch for that final effort.
Second, the Lutece Sprint Reverse. 220m long and slightly downhill, this is a short sprint so you’ll want to hit the start line at high speed if you’re looking for FTS points. Both FAL and FTS will be tracked/given on every lap.
Third, the parking garage ramp. After you go through the lap banner the road will take you around Jardin des Tuileries, dipping down into a parking garage then ramping quickly out. Don’t get dropped off the back of the group on this short ramp – burst your power to maintain a good position.
Lastly, the finish. The finish arch is around 1.3km from the sprint banner. It’s almost entirely downhill until a slight false flat and flat road for the final 300m. Don’t go too early here! But at the same time, watch for sprints that turn into long attacks. This will be an interesting finish for sure.
Riders will be awarded powerups through each banner, and there are two banners per lap. So A/B will 13 powerups while C/D will receive 9.
These powerups will be randomly given out at each banner:
Aero Boost (helmet): makes you more aerodynamic (reduces your CdA by 25%) for 15 seconds. Use at higher speeds (flats and descents), especially when no draft is available (although it is still useful when drafting.) Super useful if contesting the sprint, and when sprinting to the line for the finish.
Steamroller: reduces Crr for 30 seconds so you roll as fast as a road tire on pavement regardless of wheels or road surface. This route is all brick, which means road tires have a slightly higher Crr (.0055) instead of the .004 they have on pavement (see our Crr post). A 75kg rider traveling at 40kph will save around 13 watts when using the steamroller. Heavier riders and/or higher speeds will increase this savings, but only up to ~20W.
Feather: reduces your weight by 10% for 15 seconds. Best used on climbs, when weight matters the most. Save this for Montée des Champs Elysées.
The Tron bike is a solid choice here, but not quite the fastest. (And our Tron vs Top Performers chart is a bit out of date since Zwift retooled some bike weights in the last update.)
For those who are wondering: yes, the Cervelo S5 2020 is now fixed, as are the other frames who had overweight groupset bugs. But oddly enough, the S-Works Venge and other fast frames sped up a bit to match the Cervelo in the latest update! So the Cervelo S5 2020, Specialized Venge S-Works, Felt AR, and Uranium Nuclear are all about equal. Choose your weapon!
A few Zwifters have asked us if a gravel bike is a good choice here. The simple answer is: no. Gravel bikes have a higher Crr than road bikes on brick, plus they’re heavier and less aero. A bad choice all around.
More Route Recon
Many events are now being planned each weekend on the upcoming ZRL route. If you’re not familiar with this course, jump into one of these events and do some recon! Here’s a list of upcoming Lutece Express events.
Looking for a video recon, with lovely British commentary to boot? Check out Si and Sherpa’s recons below:
Si Bradeley
Sherpa Dave
Strategic Options
Points Distribution, Week 8
A/B Race
C/D Race
The maximum points a team of 6 could earn in this race.
As you can see from the charts above, it’s all about sprint points this week, especially in the A/B races. So what strategies will riders employ for the last big race? Here’s what we predict:
Targeted Sprints: nobody can sprint at max power on every lap, so riders will have to decide which sprints to attack, possibly based on the powerup they’re holding. Chances are good that early sprints will be faster since the group is larger and fresher, but that also makes it harder to win those FAL points.
Long Sprints: with FAL points on offer every lap, you can bet you’ll see riders popping their aero powerups and flying off the front in hopes of being first across the line. Do you chase, or save your legs for your own attack?
Attacking the Hills: riders with some w/kg punch may want to put in hard attacks up Montée des Champs Elysées to drop some sprinters and sap the legs of those who can hold on.
Long Finish: riders who don’t fancy their chance in a pack sprint will attack on the final climb, hoping to stay away around the Arc and down the hill to the finish. This may be difficult for one rider, but what if two or more teammates work together?
Your Thoughts
Any insights or further thoughts on this race? Share below!
Update (Feb 26, 6:20am PST): Zwift’s CEO Eric Min just posted the following on the forum thread related to this topic:
I would like to personally issue an update on a situation that has escalated over the last 48 hours, concerning a ban imposed on a Zwift community member.
Having been brought up to speed, it is clear to me that this situation could have been better handled by both parties. The performance increasing exploit was until now, relatively unknown both within Zwift and outside, but this is no excuse to not have addressed it. The exploit is detectable, and we have the ability to look back and identify those to have used it. That said, our priority is not to look back, but to look forward, and fix this as a matter of priority in one of the upcoming game releases.
For this reason, we have taken the decision to lift the 30-Day shadow ban issued to Luciano. For clarity, a shadow ban does not prevent a Zwifter from using Zwift, they simply do not show to others.
Neither party had ill intent and I can only apologise to all involved, but in particular to Luciano himself. We have an obligation to the community to address exploits on the platform and will fix this particular exploit as a matter of priority.
It is important for us to uphold our terms of service as they exist to protect the enjoyment of the majority of Zwifters. Rather than share information on how to exploit a performance bug, we would always encourage members of the community to come forward to Zwift with performance exploits they find. The process on how to bring such issues to the attention of Zwift hasn’t always been clear, so in order to improve this, we plan to introduce a bug bounty program that will not only make it easier for Zwifters to highlight issues but will also reward them for doing so. We will need time to develop this program but will share information in due course.
Thanks, Eric Min Co-founder & CEO
We’ll talk more about this in coming posts, I’m sure. Especially the good news about the bounty program! But for now, I wanted to share that Luciano has been freed. 😊
This week a bit of a kerfuffle has arisen in the Zwift racing community. I feel it’s right to document the key parts of the story, at least from my perspective. I’ll finish with a few thoughts of my own.
The Story Begins
On Wednesday, February 16, Luciano (who writes the hilarious Lucianotes series here on Zwift Insider) contacted me via Facebook Messenger, asking for my thoughts on a potential Zwift racing exploit.
(I’m not going to detail what the exploit here, but let’s just say it’s an easy exploit to execute, and could massively affect race results.)
Neither of us thought the proposed exploit would even work. It was too easy, too obvious. But Luciano said he would test it the following day (I was traveling and unable to do any testing for a few days). We figured it would make for an interesting Zwift Insider post: “I tried to cheat in a race, but it didn’t work.”
The next day Luciano pinged me again:
He explained how he tested the exploit, and what the results were. Here’s my reply:
We put together a plan for Luciano to compose a Google doc containing details of how he tested and verified the exploit, then I would share that with ZwiftHQ to make sure the right eyes saw it, when I was back in the office. That was on Friday.
The following Tuesday, Luciano shared the basics of the exploit on a private team Discord server. It became apparent to him that other teams/racers already knew about the exploit, that ZADA had been informed of the exploit, and that Zwift had been told about the exploit years ago.
So on Wednesday, February 23, I woke up to the news that Luciano had published the exploit’s details on a free WordPress site he spun up for just that purpose. He then shared that post on the Zwift Racers Facebook group and Zwift’s forum. He tried to share it on WTRL’s Facebook page (because his main concern was that the TTT and ZRL were not affected) but that post was rejected because it promoted cheating.
And that’s when the %#&! hit the fan.
Luciano’s account
Shadowbanned
As the Zwift Racers and forum posts started blowing up, Luciano’s post was shared on Reddit.
Then a few hours later, things took a surprising turn. Zwift put Luciano’s profile into “Watopian in Review” mode.
Anyone who has read Luciano’s posts here on Zwift Insider knows he obsesses over Zwift racing – particularly the Thursday TTT. He and his Coalition team had planned a big TTT the next day, at WTRL’s TTT Worlds. He asked me, “May I race being Watopian in Review?” I didn’t know. But I had my doubts.
On the Zwift Racers Facebook thread, one rider posted #FreeLuciano when they heard his account was locked/banned. This hashtag would begin showing up everywhere, including the comments of Zwift Community Live’s Thursday TTT stream.
WTRL posted on their Facebook page, referencing Luciano’s post without actually naming him. They subsequently took the post down, but here it is:
I immediately reached out directly to Zwift via a private Slack channel to find out what was going on, because Luciano had received no communication from Zwift at this point. I was told that Luciano had received a 30-day shadowban due to his publishing/promoting a Zwift racing exploit.
What’s a shadowban, you ask? On Zwift, this basically means you can see others, but they can’t see you. You also don’t show up in race results. It’s a way of removing bad actors from the game experience, while still allowing those riders to use the game.
I explained to the Zwift folks I was chatting with that Luciano was a well-intentioned dude who only published the post because he knew other racers knew about it and Zwift had been told about it long ago, with nothing was being done. But they held the line – he had violated Zwift’s Terms of Service and the ban was justified. Specifically the cheater catch-all section 5.vii:
“Use our Platform other than for its intended purpose and in any manner that could interfere with, disrupt, negatively affect or inhibit other users from fully enjoying our Platform or that could damage, disable, overburden or impair the functioning of our Platform in any manner;”
It became clear that he wouldn’t be making that race. I pinged Eric Min via Facebook to make sure he knew about the issue, and to express my disappointment at Zwift’s handling of the situation.
Messages Fly
Luciano hadn’t received any notice from Zwift about his account being under review, so he reached out to support. That poor support chat host eventually forwarded Luciano to another team (I think it’s fair to say Luciano had turned into a “special case” at this point). Eventually Luciano received a more complete email explaining his ban, and the need for him to take down his post:
Luciano sent this in reply:
Hi Nick,
Thanks for getting back to me. I was not aware of what a shadowban was.
Could you please refer which articles of the TOS I have specifically violated so I get the context and I do not repeat the mistake in case I eventually decide to remain a Zwifter?
As you point generically to the terms of service but no point in particular, I see nothing on performance metrics nor reporting functional issues. I am not exposing anything relating to the code (I have no such technical capacity) nor vulnerability of the platform… just a functional issue. An easy and obvious functional issue that you and many already knew about and not preventing you from running races and competitions without any problem.
That mentioning publicly functional issues is sanctionable with any type of ban is news to me, and I don’t see it mentioned anywhere. The same regarding the fact that such situations should be exclusively reported through a support ticket.
I would be also grateful If you could also let me know where I can find the different sanctions or bans applicable to Zwifters, as the notion of customer associated to the one of sanction is rather an illogical one from my perspective.
Performance wise I don’t see how I can be considered to have benefitted in any aspect. The test was done during an Individual Time Trial, with no draft, therefore no influence on the race, and I made sure I would not be eligible to any Zwiftpower points as I explain very clearly in the video.
On the second point. The cheat was reported in many occasions to Zwift, including ZADA and many users, and also through tickets, as many other Zwifters have now reported to me. WTRL facebook post (https://www.facebook.com/WTRLracing/posts/1133810887356502) acknowledges this is a well-known cheat for two years, so I don’t understand at all how my post has any impact on the capacity to cheat. It is surprising that you define it as a guide to cheat while at the same time you acknowledge it is there for years, and publicly written still in Zwiftpower forums.
If anything, I feel Zwift has ignored the previous reports and failed to ensure the basic functionalities in order to try to prevent such an easy cheat that it had known for a long time.
I want just to show how ridiculous the situation is.
Anyhow, I am really surprised about the way all this is handled. I think I have been a very active member of the community and the platform for almost two years now, encouraging many people to join, providing a lot of support to different clubs and teams and even writing tons of articles on how fun Zwift is both in Zwift Insider, on Facebook etc…
Today was an eye-opener of the very little that you care about your users overall, and obviously a breach of trust and faith as an until now delighted customer.
There are other alternatives to Zwift in the market, that I like way less than Zwift I am not going to lie, but are good enough so I don’t have to be compromising on basic things as feeling valued as a customer and as a human being.
Obviously, at this point in time, I don’t see any possibility that I delete the wordpress post. I will just voice my opinion on this topic with the same intensity that I have been promoting Zwift until now. I will see in a month from now where I stand and I understand you will make the decisions suiting the best Zwift corporation interests.
No worries, I am not going to refer to an overutilized freedom of speech concept that has nothing to do here. It is just a matter of personal ethics. I would like to be able to finish saying Ride On.. but that ship has passed.
Have a great day.
Luciano
Disappearing Posts, Re-Appearing Issue
Then the posts started disappearing. The Zwift Racers topic went away. The Zwift forum topic disappeared. And WTRL took down their thread as well. (These post removals weren’t a surprise, as Zwift has never allowed discussion of specific cheating/exploits in their forums or Facebook groups.)
But the Zwift community had caught wind of what was happening, and James Eastwood, ever the stalwart advocate for fair Zwift racing, created a Zwift forum post which didn’t detail the exploit, but asked Zwift to let the community know the status of a fix. See that post here >
The initial posts had been removed, but the Zwift community was sharing the perceived injustice of Luciano’s shadowban to the world. Mass media reporters began contacting Luciano about the situation, the Reddit thread was alive and well, and James’ Zwift forum post took on a life of its own with hundreds of replies and several posters (including James Eastwood himself, as well as Zwiftalizer’s Mike Hanney) posting that they were pausing their Zwift accounts to protest Zwift’s handling of the situation.
Thursday morning Luciano unpublished his post and wrote to tell Zwift support he’d taken it down. And Zwift finally replied to James’ forum thread with their point of view:
Luciano tells me that as time goes on, he’s hearing from more and more Zwifters who have seen this exploit used in races. Including one very prominent race organizer who reported the issue to Zwift four years ago.
And that brings us to where we are right now.
My Thoughts
Here’s what I posted in the Zwift forum thread on this topic. I think it explains how I feel about this ugly and avoidable situation:
Just to go on record here, since my reply in Zwift Racers was deleted with the rest of the thread…
First, let me say this: I think Luciano could have handled this better by reaching out to Zwift with the issue, perhaps even telling them he would take it public on X date even if it wasn’t fixed because he was concerned that it’s actively being used by cheaters. Then if Zwift didn’t respond, he would have a stronger case for publicly posting the hack.
So I’d say he jumped the gun a bit. Which is hard to fault him for, when he had multiple people telling him Zwift already knew about the exploit, and race teams knew about it too. That’s hard information for a rabid Zwift racer to just sit on.
Since Luciano went against Zwift’s ToS, Zwift has the “legal” standing to shadowban him or do whatever they’d like with his account. They’re within their rights to do so. But that doesn’t make it the BEST decision on their part, and I’ve tried to communicate this to ZHQ this via private channels in no uncertain terms.
I would have loved to see Zwift take this approach with Luciano’s WordPress post:
“Hi Luciano, We just saw your post about the Companion exploit. While we don’t like seeing Zwift exploits shared publicly, we know by the content of your post that you did it in order to clearly demonstrate the hack to us and get our attention so it would be fixed. It worked!
Since your post demonstrates how to cheat in Zwift races, we’ve taken what we hope is a temporary disciplinary measure and shadowbanned your account, which is our standard practice in these cases. We request that you take the post down immediately so more Zwifters don’t learn about the exploit. Once you do so, we will reinstate your account.
On our side, this exploit has been moved near the top of the list of bug fixes. We anticipate at least a temporary fix rolling out in the month of March.
Ride On”
Some of you are bugging me to do a Zwift Insider post about this topic. I’m still not sure what that’s going to look like, but I’ve been in near-constant contact with Luciano during all of this. We’ve joked about how many parts this series of posts is going to have, as the saga continues way past what Luciano foresaw. All that to say, I’m sure this will be talked about on ZI… I just can’t promise exactly when and how.
In the end I, like many of you, wish Zwift had handled this differently – in a way that showed they value Luciano as a person. He may have jumped the gun, but Zwift could have easily taken the high road and come out of this sparkling clean. Now it’s just sort of… ugly all around. And that bums me out. Heck, I got my Zwift Insider kit in game finally this week, and I haven’t even ridden with it yet because I’ve had a bad taste in my mouth for two days.
I’m not leaving Zwift like some of you. I’m just annoyed to see this script playing out again. I hope Zwift learns from this and does better next time.
Whew… that was cathartic.
Ride on, my friends.
Wrapping It Up
What began as Luciano’s attempt to reveal a game exploit has turned into a story about how Zwift handled Luciano’s revealing of the exploit. But it didn’t need to turn out like this.
I’m sure this isn’t the last we’ll write about #FreeLuciano… or about the exploit in question. But I think it’s enough for today. My hope is that this post does a good job of telling the story fairly and truthfully up to this point, while also sharing my position on how things unfolded.
And I hope ZwiftHQ can take a step back, look at how this situation spiraled, change their processes to avoid it happening again… and #FreeLuciano.
Your Comments
I’m sure some of you will have thoughts on this topic. Feel free to share below, but keep it civil. Thanks for reading!
There are two big shows in town this weekend: the UCI Esports World Championships on Saturday and the “Rapha Rising” race series which spans the weekend (starting Friday). Plus we’ve picked a few other fun events, including your first opportunity to unlock the new Zwift Insider kit!
Watch Party Ride – UCI World Championships
I appreciate that this isn’t an event we can participate in, but it is one worth watching. Zwift has created “Watch Party” events for the men’s and women’s races. Pull up the race on YouTube, hop on Zwift, and ride/chat while watching the race!
Women’s Race Watch Party Saturday, February 26 @ 6:15PM GMT/1:15pm EST/10:15am PST Sign up at zwift.com/events/view/2788896
Men’s Race Watch Party Saturday, February 26 @ 7:45PM GMT/2:45pm EST/11:45am PST Sign up at zwift.com/events/view/2788915
Race The World // UCI Cycling Esports World Championships Course
If you fancy a go at the course, so you can compare your times to those in the Championship event, Zwift is giving you the chance to race it. “Join us for a community race on the same course the elite riders are racing on during the UCI Cycling Esports World Championship. Experience the rolling, curvy, and scenic Central Park loop then head to the futuristic KOM with gradients up to 17%.”
Zwift Insider’s Eric Schlange is leading a Z Badge Hunt ride on Innsbruck’s Achterbahn route. And this ride is extra special, since it’s the first chance ever for Zwifters to unlock the new in-game Zwift Insider kit!
