From host Adam Zimmerman:Â In this special edition podcast I chat with my two Zwift teammates Greg Leo and Scott Cunningham about their upcoming Zwift CVR World Cup live event.
We are amateur cyclists who cover everything in the world of cycling. Co-hosted by Adam Zimmerman and Chris Smith, you can find us on Soundcloud or iTunes.
Editor’s note: Ian Murray is using Zwift to train for the International Triathlon Union Long Course World Championships held in Odense/Fyn, Denmark July 2018. His weekly Zwift Insider series discusses the previous week’s training and the plan for the upcoming week.
Well, the move is upon us. It is time to leave the Dominican Republic and return back to the US. I have my race bike and race wheels with me, but my Kickr and my training bike are somewhere between my old house and my new one, along with my whole Zwift set up.Â
I had no idea what to expect from this week. To say the least, it has been difficult. Well, the first half, at least. Monday morning started with a quick strength workout. Really, it was two strength workouts. The first was a real workout that I did in the hotel gym. After that, I had a series of shorter strength workouts loading and unloading the ten suitcases, including the bike and wheels, into and out of vehicles and onto carts and luggage belts. I must have done about 1000 deadlifts of suitcases. Finally, though, we made it through security and onto the plane. Yes! Freedom! Or not. No, we sat on the tarmac for an extra 30 minutes waiting for a passenger to have his bag unloaded and searched and then another 60 minutes due to a mechanical issue. The delay meant that we would miss our connection in Atlanta, but I was able to get on the airplane’s wifi to rebook us on a later flight. Instead of a 7:30 PM arrival, we landed in DC at 11:30 PM.Â
After a brief sleep, it was time to get the keys to our new place and start figuring out what we needed to get. Tuesday was jam-packed with figuring out the lay of the land, conducting a housing inspection and buying a few essentials. By Wednesday, I really felt the need to do something. In the early afternoon, I finally dug out the workout gear and got in a short run along the Mt. Vernon Trail, heading from Alexandria toward Mt. Vernon. It was spectacular. I put in a few hard efforts, or at least they felt hard, given the previous week, but only one of the eight miles was sub-7 minutes. That’s ok. The run was really about knocking off the dust and getting the legs moving.
By Thursday, we had gotten as settled as we could be and moved everything out of the hotel into the new house. I had reassembled the bike on Wednesday, so I loaded it up in the rental vehicle and made my way to Haines Point, a park on the edge of Washington, DC, with a very lightly trafficked 5K loop. After loading up the Endurance Lab 1053 Tempo workout, I got to work. A quick 90 minutes later, and I felt like a new person. Since I would be without my bike for the next two weeks, I opted for another ride on Friday, knocking out the Endurance Lab Road Race Simulation workout before running an easy 5K. I really enjoyed the workout, and my body responded well to the efforts. The 5K flew by, as I held almost a 250W Normalized Power, which equated to just under a 6:30/mile pace. I didn’t feel like I was back in top form, but I was pleased.
Saturday started another leg of the journey. At 3 AM, the wife and I got up, threw some bags in the rental, and headed to the airport again. I have two weeks of French training in Quebec, so things continue to be nuts. We arrived at our hotel a little bit after noon, but we were both too tired to do much. We ended up taking a nap and then walking to and around Old Quebec. Unfortunately, I did not record the activity on my watch, but we ended up walking nearly five miles, and it is crazy hilly here! We went to bed early and got up on Sunday ready to run. The weather was still a wee bit chilly for us, so we decided to eat breakfast first, and then run later in the morning. At about 10 AM, we headed down toward the St. Lawrence River and climbed down what seemed like 250 stairs to the path along the river. Based on what I am accustomed to, the run along the river was absolutely amazing. The path got a little crowded, but it just went on forever. At the 6.5-mile mark, I finally turned around, heading back to link up with my wife. Unfortunately, we somehow missed each other, and I thought that she had returned to the hotel. So I ran back to the hotel, climbing the 250 steps, and running down the big hill. She wasn’t there. I grabbed my cell phone, which I didn’t have with me on the run, and gave her a quick call. Turns out, she was waiting for me at the bottom of the giant staircase. So, I ran back up the hills as fast as my tired legs would allow and found her just after she finished climbing the stairs. From there, we walked back to the hotel, both pretty wiped out.
Following our long run, we had the opportunity to link up with a teammate from TeamODZ at his place outside Quebec. During dinner, Stephane and I made plans to ride during the week, as he offered to loan me his wife’s bike. After dinner, he proceeded to stuff me with ice cream, only to find out that this was a ploy on his part that I would discover later. We had a great time with Stephane and his family and then headed back to our hotel to get ready for my first day of class. All in all, it was not a very productive week from a training standpoint, but I do feel a little bit more rested. Well, I feel a bit less stressed, at least.
TSS Planned – 564; TSS Completed – 452
Being that I can’t figure out the weather in Quebec, I am taking things day by day. Ok, it’s not that I can’t figure out the weather. I have an app on my phone that tells me what the weather will do. It’s just that it’s frickin’ cold here! I can’t swim right now because the pool by the hotel is not yet open, and I prefer to ride when Stephane is available. So, I am pretty much focused on running for the most part for these two weeks. I plan on taking these next two weeks day by day, based on how I feel, how much homework I have, and what the weather allows. We’ll see how it goes.
TSS Planned – Somewhere around 650-750
Well, this is not how I would have planned to have my training at 3 and 4 weeks to go, but it’s what I have. Keep following on Strava if you can, since I will not be on Zwift, and I hope to have some good runs and rides for you. Until next time, Ride On!
Peter Castrop is a Zwifter who has organized a new racing league, and today at 11AM Pacific the first race of that league is going to be held… in Richmond… on a London day! This is a historic event, since it is the first time a race has been held on a different course than the daily calendar dictates.
Here is a link to today’s event. I chatted with Peter about his new race series… read the full interview below.
Tell me a bit about yourself…
My name is Peter Castrop. I am 55 years old and I am married to Diana. We have two children, Stijn and Judith. We live in the Netherlands in a small town called Hattem. I started cycling when I was 16 years old and I did criterium races in the Netherlands, sometimes in Belgium. I have always enjoyed cycling.
I started Zwift in December 2017 and I am really hooked. This year the hayfever is really taking away the pleasure of riding outdoors, and Zwift is a great alternative. It keeps me fit in a fun way.
Peter, you’ve created a new race for Zwifters. What sets your series apart from the races already on the calendar?
I try to do a lot of races on Zwift because I really enjoy them. The thing I do not enjoy so much is that, being a tall and therefore heavier rider, I always get dropped on the hills by the lighter riders. They are strong as well, so kudos to them, but I never get a chance to sprint for a top 5 result.
Once I did a criterium on the Richmond flat course, and all of a sudden I could be in front of the race. There are no hills on that course, so I didn’t get dropped. I messed up the sprint, but it gave me a great feeling to be able to finish in the first group. The only thing is that we only ride in Richmond two or three times a month. That changed when I read in the latest release about the world swapping feature for events. Events can be held on courses that are not in the current world. That gave me the idea to organise weekly criterium races on the Richmond flat course, because I think there are many more riders like me who get dropped on the hills. On the Richmond flat course not only the lightweight riders can win. Tactics become more important, as well as teamwork. I think that makes racing a lot more interesting.
I’m personally very excited to see that this is the first set of races to be held of “off” worlds. That’s a big deal in the world of Zwift! Did you have to twist Zwift HQ’s arm to make it happen?
On the contrary. Henry Loud and Jordan Rapp from Zwift have been very helpful to get these races on the calendar. It all went very fast, and the first race will be on Thursday June 21 at 20 PM (CEST).
Tell me more about HetisKoers, as I see they’re helping to make this league happen. Who are they, and what is their involvement?
Hetiskoers.nl is part of the Hetiskoers.nl Association. They are non profit and their goal is to offer great stories about cycling, written for and by enthusiasts. Stories about the romance of cycling and opinions about everything that goes on with cycling. They also organize activities such as Cinema Het is Koers, with documentaries about cycling, a cycling quiz, and a podcast called De Rode Lantaarn, named after the rider who is last in the standings of the Tour de France. Their website has over a million visitors per year. They also host the Dutch website for Zwift, zwift.nl.
They are very excited about the new league, in addition to their Friday evening social ride on Zwift off season. Their involvement with the criterium series is that they will host the website for the league in the near future. They will help in setting the league up and contribute ideas about sponsorships. It would be great if we can have some prizes for the riders in the league.
ZwiftPower is still down at the time of this article. How will the league scoring work without a site like ZwiftPower to record results and crunch the numbers? What will change once ZwiftPower goes live?
Until ZwiftPower is online again it is not possible to have a league scoring. Until then we have separate races. Once ZwiftPower is online again we will announce of how many races the league consists of. When the results are on ZwiftPower, I will do the numbers myself each race to create the overall standings. I’ll probably just use Excel for that.
If people want to participate in your races, do they need to do anything special (register somewhere, etc)? Or just join the race event like any other Zwift event?
There is no need for registration. They can join the race like any other event using the Zwift Companion app or on zwift.com.
Learn more about the Richmond Flat Criterium League at https://flatcriteriumseries.wordpress.com/
This weekend is CVR’s World Cup finals at the Harry James Sports Centre in Vancouver, BC. Past CVR World Cups were held in Paris, London, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles but this weekend’s event will be the biggest yet, with top prizes of $10,000 going to the first-placed men’s and women’s race winners.
Here’s everything you need to know about this weekend’s racing:
You may watch the racing via livestream online, or attend the event (tickets are free).
There will be two days of racing, with five “mini-stages” raced in total over the weekend.
Like the last couple CVR World Cup events, this is a points-based competition. But unlike those past events, there are “points lines” throughout each of the stages, so racers can win points throughout (and not only at the end) of each stage. This should make for very animated racing.
There are a total of 16 points lines in the 5 stages, and the racer with the most points after 5 stages wins.
First place finishers for men and women will each receive $10,000. Wow! Equal prize payouts, and big ones at that.
More more information, visit cvrworldcup.com or read this weekend’s race bible.
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100 climbs is the bible for cyclists who want to explore the high mountains. Simon Warren has ridden all of them. How entertaining is Alpe du Zwift for someone who knows the real one in and out?
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The alternative to Zwifting with a standard trainer is to use use rollers instead. It’s certainly a unique challenge! Elite produces a smart roller that works great with Zwift. But how’s the device itself?
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Cable is a device that converts ANT+ signals to Bluetooth. It can now also re-broadcast commands to control your trainer to adjust resistance on slopes and keep it steady in Erg mode.
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We frequently recommend Zwift’s online resources to you. But maybe you never got around to take a look at them! Here’s a guided tour through the main online resources related to Zwift – focused on runners.
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An interesting glitch occured at CVR’s post season semi finals. One rider was routed on a different track. And you thought that happened only in the real world… glitch or feature?
Editor’s note: Ian Murray is using Zwift to train for the International Triathlon Union Long Course World Championships held in Odense/Fyn, Denmark July 2018. His weekly Zwift Insider series discusses the previous week’s training and the plan for the upcoming week.
Well, the situation from last week continues this week. As I roll into six weeks until race day, I find myself with no time to train. It’s not all bad news, as I will soon get back to normal, but I am still walking around like a bit of a zombie.
I haven’t slept well in two weeks, and that was evident early in the week. Despite planning a light week, I have not even hit those numbers. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were a wash. I did go for a light jog on Monday to loosen up the legs, but it was more pathetic than anything else. I only went for about 20 minutes, but it was enough to make me feel less crappy. (Well, to be honest, I felt horrible when I started, so anything was better than that.) After returning from my run, I made a quick breakfast and got ready for the movers to arrive to start packing. The packing work went into the evening, and both the wife and I were gassed afterward, so there was no training getting done that evening.Â
Tuesday followed with another early morning finishing up for the last day of packing and loading up the truck… or so I thought. Yeah, the packing didn’t finish until late Tuesday afternoon, so the supervisor made the executive decision to begin loading on Wednesday morning rather than on Tuesday night. In the US, the would not have happened. Time is money, and they would have stayed to work late (I’ve seen it, and it kind of sucks and is great at the same time). Here, though, it was a good call. There have been a number of armed robberies in my neighborhood, so it’s better to do everything during the day.Â
Wednesday rolled around, and I had a good plan to run early. However, my last real meeting at work got rescheduled for 7 AM, so no early run for me. After the meeting, I drove to the office to take care of some paperwork, something that never seemed to end. By noon, I began the slog through traffic back to the house, stopping at one of our favorite restaurants, Chef Pepper, to pick up some lunch for the wife and Maria, who was helping out with the movers. Finally, at almost 6 PM, the truck, loaded with our stuff, departed. It was sad to see the bikes go, but I knew it was a necessary evil. I feel like a bad parent, packing them up in a container for the trip across the Caribbean and Atlantic back to the US. Oh, how I miss them.
Thursday morning came quick after a brief night’s sleep in the hotel, and we returned to finish up the last bit of cleaning. Maria came again, despite it being a holiday, and helped out. She made out like a bandit, though, as we gave her one of our older TVs and a few other things that we no longer needed. It wasn’t a complete waste of a day like the previous three days, but I was definitely not in my best form. Before heading to the house, I got on the treadmill for about 30 minutes, trying to knock out some 400-meter repeats at a hard but very doable pace. I felt exhausted with legs filled with concrete. It was the absolute worst run I have had in a while. My goal was to hold 285-290 Watts for the 400-meter effort and do it 8 times. I made it through 5 and called it. Between the dead legs and the lack of a fan in the gym, I just didn’t have it. I switched over to do some stretching and core work before getting cleaned up. After finishing up at the house, we made our way to the office, where I had to get a little more work done and to attempt a swim. One more frustrating couple of hours in the office put me in a foul mood prior to the swim. Getting down to the pool at about 3:30 PM, I could feel the heat emanating from the water surface. I made it a whole 600 meters before I quit. Man, I had no energy.Â
On Friday, I had another short, but better run, followed by a quick core workout before we headed to the house for the final time. We conducted our final checkout of the house and, you guessed it, headed back to the office for a bit more work. We arrived at about 10:30 AM, and I planned to be out of there no later than 1 PM. At about 4 PM, we left, heading back to the hotel to get ready for the first of three farewell events that weekend. At about midnight, we finally got back to the hotel room and crashed. It was the first decent sleep that we had had in over a week. Saturday and Sunday went by quickly. I took advantage of the almost 50-yard hotel pool, getting in a couple of 3000-yard swims and trying to relax a little. While I normally use biking or running to relax, I don’t think my body was capable at the time. No, I would have just gotten pissed off that my run wasn’t going well or not being able to get a good fit on the hotel bike. The swims, though, were great. I just played wall tag for about 45-50 minutes, enjoying the solitude and the feel of the water. I could feel the stress just starting to melt away.
TSS Planned – 461; TSS Completed – 331
The next week is going to be nuts. We fly out of Santo Domingo on Monday and then begin the process of settling in to a new city and house. Oh, we’ll also be traveling again, starting on Saturday. I know. It’s not the best plan in terms of training, but that’s life for the pramateur racer. The week is so uncertain that I don’t even have a plan. I’m just going to wing it. I know, way to lead by example coach!
TSS Planned – ????
It’s going to be a hectic last few weeks, so get ready. Being that I don’t have to go into the office and do any work from now until the race, I should be able to keep up with the posts, hopefully getting them out early each week. Since I won’t be on Zwift, I won’t see you on the course. You can follow the training here and on Strava at https://www.strava.com/athletes/11654372. Until then, Ride On!
Episode 9 of the Zwift Coaching Podcast features special guest Dr. Asker Jeukendrup who drops some science and secrets when it comes to food you need when training. The coaches also talk pickle juice, carb-loading tips, and nutritional facts & fiction.
Discussion points for this episode include:
Download Asker’s Fat Burning Session
The Zwift PowerUp Cycling Podcast features training tips from host Matt Rowe (Rowe & King), with regular co-hosts Greg Henderson (Coach Hendy) and Kev Poulton (Powerhouse Cycling).
Today Zwift announced plans for a new world patterned after the 2018 UCI Road World Championships Course in Innsbruck, Austria.
Zwift’s route will cover the “Olympic Circuit” at Innsbruck, which is 24km (15 miles) long with an 8km (5 mile) climb section with an elevation gain of approximately 400 meters (1300′). I wasn’t able to track down a Strava segment for the full circuit, but did find this segment which covers the climb section.
In September the men’s elite racers will begin their race in Kufstein and ride 84.7km to Innsbruck, where they will cover this circuit 7 times–and the final circuit is a modified one which includes an additional climb featuring 25% gradients. Overall, riders will climb over 5,000 meters (16,400′) over 265km (164 miles). Ouch! Sagan’s going to have to work for this one…
Innsbruck is a scenic Alpine town known as the “Capital of the Alps.” Elevations in the area range from 574 to 2350 meters, which explains why Innsbruck is an internationally-renowned winter sports center. The capital city of the state of Tyrol, it is the fifth-largest city in Austria.
While the UCI race is on September 22, Zwift has promised we will be able to ride the new course in August. Some of the world tour pros are already talking about riding the course on Zwift as training for their outdoor race. Bernhard Eisel of Team Dimension Data told Zwift:
The lead contenders will certainly be performing course reconnaissance in the coming months, as is the norm. However, what is new is the ability to repeatedly train on a key segment of the course and understand when the best moments to attack will come. For riders such as myself, who will serve as a supporting rider, we need to understand when the critical moments of the race will come and ensure our leaders are in the best position possible. And it will be super motivating to prepare alongside Zwifters from all over the world.
Editor’s note: Ian Murray is using Zwift to train for the International Triathlon Union Long Course World Championships held in Odense/Fyn, Denmark July 2018. His weekly Zwift Insider series discusses the previous week’s training and the plan for the upcoming week.
This was my last week of work in the Dominican Republic before we pack up and move to the DC area. When I originally built this week, I thought, “Self, you will have time to train, as you are way ahead of the curve regarding preparations.” Isn’t it nice how you often lie to yourself? Yeah, I may have been way ahead, but that only meant that I gave myself more to do. Grrr.
This week was supposed to be a recovery week. However, due to work and preparing to move, I was not able to accomplish everything in the previous two weeks. Thus, I figured that I would just add a little to recovery week, making it more like a maintenance week. I planned on doing some Endurance Lab workouts along with an ODZ Cat & Mouse race on the bike and a few runs and swims. Monday was ok but not great. I had some systems issues, so I couldn’t get all of the workout done before making an appearance on the ODZ Chat and Chill ride for a Q&A with Endurance Lab coaches. I got the required work in despite the issues, so I felt that the week was off to a good start. Tuesday’s swim actually went better than I thought it would go. I wasn’t as fast as I would have liked, but my slower 100s were faster than expected, and I did not need the recovery I thought I would. Unfortunately, my strength workout didn’t happen. I worked straight through lunch, as would be the trend for the week. On Wednesday morning, our first packing appointment meant that I didn’t have to go into work. So, I got in a quick ten-miler before getting cleaned up for the first round of movers. Thursday was another solid swim, where I turned out pretty good times for the 400s and the 800, getting faster as the workout progressed. By Friday, I was feeling pretty hopeful. I was still one swim short of my plan and I had not gotten any of my strength work done. But, I planned to get some extra work during lunch and maybe after work. As you can probably guess, that did not happen. Not only did I not get everything done, I had to stay pretty late at work before coming home to get things moving on the packing front.
The weekend didn’t provide much relief. On Saturday morning, I did a lot of work as a domestique for the B group in the ODZ Goats & Bears race, where we did the Volcano Climb route twice. That was a lot of fun, and it was good work. Basically, I sat at 4.1 w/kg for about an hour driving the pace from the front of the group. On the second lap, halfway up the volcano, I hit the gas, throwing a grenade into our already small group. After whittling it down to two teammates, myself, and one other rider, I told the other two ODZ riders to get ready. I surged one more time, bringing the pace to 5 w/kg. Within seconds, we dropped the non-ODZ rider, and I told the other two to get read to launch. About 100 meters before the crest of the climb, my legs blew up, but we had a gap. My teammates took off, and I sat up, trying to recover briefly before hopping on the back of a small group on the descent. With the luxury of teammates up the road, I simply sat on, calling out time splits to them. After watching them go 1-2, I tried to close out the podium but didn’t have the sprint to do it. I was shot. The week of late nights and early days had caught up with me.
After getting off the bike, eating, and cleaning up, I got to work tearing down the bike room and disassembling the bikes. We worked until about 10 PM getting the house ready, only breaking to eat some food. Sunday morning rolled around, and we had not made enough progress. So, I skipped training and went back to work. I could barely keep my eyes open, I was so tired.
Planned TSS – 733; Completed TSS – 569
Technically, I’m not moving this week. Monday through Wednesday, though, we’ll have movers at the house early. After that, I’ll pretty much be reduced to running and swimming until June 6. By then, we will have access to our place, and I’ll be able to get the bike put back together. I just packed her up, and I already miss her.
Planned TSS – 389
In the end, the TSS looked like a recovery week, but it sure didn’t feel like one! I’m ready to get this move done, so I can get back to my routine. Being that I move quite a bit, I should be used to it. That is not the case, though. Well, time to suck it up and push through. Unfortunately, I will be pretty much all outdoors until race day, so I won’t be able to see anyone on Zwift. I’ll be here, though, posting away. Until next time, Ride On!
On May 25th ZwiftPower, the central service for Zwift race results, announced a temporary closure due to GDPR-related issues. As a web developer myself I am well-acquainted with the challenges GDPR poses to companies working with personal data, so I chatted a bit with the ZwiftPower folks to get their take on the situation. (Note: I also reached out to Zwift, but haven’t heard back from them yet.)
The General Data Protection Regulation was passed by the European Union on April 14, 2016, with enforcement beginning May 25, 2018. It created an EU-wide set of standards for the protection of personal data relating to EU Internet users. But it is important to note that GDPR standards apply to the personal data of EU users regardless of the location of the entity holding their data. So companies in the US (such as Zwift) who handle the personal data of EU users must comply with the law.
So this is why you’ve been receiving so many emails announcing privacy policy updates. You can read the full GDPR text here, but to summarize its purpose GDPR exists to give citizens back control over their personal data.
From the corporate standpoint, GDPR is a pain in the butt. But from the consumer’s standpoint, it’s a very good thing. As Techcrunch said, “… consumer trust is essential to fostering growth in the digital economy … trust can be won by giving users of digital services more information and greater control over how their data is used. Which is — frankly speaking — a pretty refreshing idea when you consider the clandestine data brokering that pervades the tech industry. Mass surveillance isn’t just something governments do.”
An Application Programming Interface is a set of tools which allow services to easily interact. In terms of Zwift, the API (until recently) allowed third-party sites to fetch your basic profile data, activity details, followers, followees, etc.
Third-party sites like ZwiftPower, ZwiftGPS and CVR’s CycleData have been pulling rider data from Zwift’s unofficial API for a long time. That all stopped this month when Zwift’s Wes Salmon posted the following on the Zwift Coders Facebook group:
Hey coders, I have some news about the current state of Zwift’s APIs and what some upcoming regulations mean for the future. It’s likely that no matter where you live in the world, you’ve heard of the new EU data protection law, known as the GDPR. The GDPR is going into effect on May 25th, 2018 and this will impact how the team here at Zwift HQ manages and secures our API endpoints.
While we work through the logistics of ensuring GDPR compliance in all of our data streams, we will need to make a few changes to our Zwift APIs.
First, we ask that any developer currently using the Zwift APIs to stop doing so by May 25th.
Second, we ask that you delete any personal data related to Zwift users collected through our APIs by May 25th…
So the core issue here is that Zwift’s API was exposing Zwifters’ personal data to third-party services in ways which were not compliant with GDPR standards. And since GDPR comes with potentially massive penalties for non-compliance, Zwift made the sensible decision to comply with GDPR even if it meant a temporary shutdown of some important community services.
In hindsight, it appears Zwift should have given a higher priority many months ago to GDPR-related matters. This would have let the API get updated earlier so Zwift and third-party sites would be compliant on May 25th. But let’s not cry over spilled milk.
ZwiftPower’s return timetable is in the hands of Zwift. Zwift has communicated June 1st as a target date for coming back online, but my sources at ZwiftPower (and myself) are doubtful that target will be hit, especially with the server team off work today since it is a public holiday in Rio.
When ZwiftPower does return, Zwifters will need to explicitly consent to their rider/profile data being shared with ZwiftPower. ZwiftPower will not receive data from Zwift for users who do not consent (not even finishing lists) so this will have a major impact on ZwiftPower’s ability to display “accurate” race results.
For example, a race may have 100 participants, but if only 50 have consented to sharing their data then ZwiftPower’s finishing lists will only show those 50 riders.
Racers will know that a lesser but similar issue already exists with ZwiftPower, thanks to their proactive changes back in January 2018 when they implemented their own explicit opt-in which was required in order to be included in final race results. While this covered ZwiftPower legally, it created a new problem where racers could compete in-game without opting in to ZwiftPower and being included in final results (like the example above). While this issue effected final results, you could still see the “unfiltered” list of finishers if desired. With these GDPR changes, though, the only riders listed on ZwiftPower will be those who have given explicit consent.
More than once I’ve put in hard efforts to beat someone in-game only to realize they weren’t even in the final results list. With the new API restrictions this will become an much bigger issue. Yes, I hear you saying, “It’s just a game, you’re building fitness.” But I want to know the people I’m racing against are the people I’m racing against, and that will only happen if Zwift adds some sort of ZwiftPower GDPR consent requirement in-game. So I’m hoping that is exactly what happens, even though I don’t see that happening within the next few weeks.
Here’s how I see this shaking out: once Zwift’s API is updated (let’s say within a week), race organizers will need to make a big push to get Zwifters to consent so they can be included in ZwiftPower results. And eventually, hopefully, this will be streamlined and handled in-game so all racers are required to opt-in.
