This week’s game update included this interesting and intentionally vague note: “We made some improvements to ensure that bike upgrades are unlocked via genuine efforts.”
What’s this about, exactly? Are Zwifters unlocking bike upgrades by less than genuine efforts? How is Zwift trying to stop them? And will these changes actually block the exploits? Let’s dive in…
What’s This About?
Ever since Zwift launched their Bike Upgrades feature in March, a small, squirrelly subset of Zwifters has been gaming the system by teleporting to riders perched on big descents. The Zwifter could then coast downhill, accumulating time or distance towards their next bike upgrade. Wash, rinse, repeat… long, continuous descents like Ventoux or Alpe du Zwift let you accumulate distance or time quickly, with zero effort.
This has become a sort of dirty little secret in the Zwift racing community, which of course is full of riders who really care about the performance of their in-game bikes. There is definitely debate about whether “gaming the game” is ethical. Some riders say, “If the game allows it, it’s allowed,” while others say doing so clearly violates the spirit of the upgrade system.
I’m with the latter group, but I’m also not losing sleep over gamers gaming. After 10 years on Zwift it’s what I’ve come to expect, and preaching about it from an ethics standpoint won’t do much good. The only real solution is for Zwift to block the exploit.
How To Block an Exploit
Zwift is being vague about the measures they put in place to “ensure that bike upgrades are unlocked via genuine efforts.” However, it doesn’t take much thought to figure out what those measures could entail. A few ideas:
- Power threshold: Require an average power of, say, 10W before incrementing distance or time towards an upgrade.
- Elevation threshold: Require your elevation descended to be less than or equal to your elevation climbed before incrementing distance or time towards an upgrade. (Zwift would need to build a bit of wiggle room into this one to account for routes that begin with a short downhill, perhaps saying descended meters must be less than or equal to climbed meters + 100m.)
- Average speed ceiling: No legit rider can average more than ~50kph for very long, yet coasting down Alpe du Zwift you’ll average 70-80kph. Zwift could simply not increment distance or time towards an upgrade once your average ride speed goes over, say, 60kph. Zwift could even make this rule a bit smarter and add power into the equation, dividing your average speed by average power and saying something like “If your average kilometers per hour/watts is higher than X you don’t get credit towards an upgrade”.
- Teleport trigger: To reduce the chance of legitimate activity being flagged, Zwift should only trigger checking the activity with rules like those above after a Zwifter has teleported in their session.
Of course, I don’t know exactly how Zwift is blocking the exploit. But by testing it, perhaps we can begin to get some ideas…
Testing, Testing
To get some clarity on how Zwift’s anti-exploit measures work, I ran a simple test. I placed a bot atop Alpe du Zwift, facing downhill, then had a second bot teleport to this rider.
The first thing I learned: the rider you teleport to needs to be moving downhill when you teleport to them, otherwise your avatar won’t go anywhere after teleporting until you put some power out to get moving downhill.
Once my “cheater bot” was moving, I kept my eye on the minutes accumulating toward the bot’s road bike upgrade, which requires a certain number of kilometers to be ridden in order to upgrade.
What I found was that only the first 3km of descending counted toward my upgrade. While my avatar actually coasted downhill for ~12km, Zwift has some sort of new limiter built in.
Next, I tried the same with a TT bike, which requires a certain number of minutes to be ridden in order to upgrade. My first attempt was part of the ride activity above, after I descended the Alpe on the Zwift Aero bike. My bot began with 0 minutes logged toward its first upgrade of the TT bike, then coasted all the way down the Alpe, which takes approximately 9 minutes. Afterward I rolled to a stop at the bottom I checked… and we were still stuck at 0 minutes!
Working on the theory that the first teleported descent (with the Zwift Aero) must have triggered some sort of limit which made it so I couldn’t log even a few minutes of descent on my second time down the Alpe, I saved that ride session and started a new one.
Once again I teleported to the top, and descended the full Alpe again with the TT bike. This time, I logged a massive 2 minutes toward 240 needed:
No Takebacks
If you’re a racer who didn’t try to game the system – and actually, if you’re one of those who did – you may be wondering if Zwift is planning on clawing back the bike upgrades that were earned through less than genuine efforts.
Zwift has told me that they don’t plan to retroactively apply these rules. This is in line with how Zwift usually handles these sorts of situations: if Zwifters figure out how to game the system, Zwift may release an update that blocks the exploit, but they don’t go back and change what people unlocked, take away XP/Drops, etc.
Conclusions
These simple tests don’t show exactly what Zwift is doing to limit the exploit, but they do show that the exploit is now greatly limited, at least in the circumstances I tested.
Of course, we can count on Zwifters to push the limits of the system, looking for ways to unlock bike upgrades more easily. I’ll be keeping my ear to the ground to see what they come up with next, but please share below if you hear anything!
It’s good that they’re doing something to stop these exploits, even if has come months too late.
Have you tested whether simple bots are being detected for this purpose?
It’s a good question. I have not tested it, but I do know work is being done on Zwift’s side (finally!) to detect and block bots. We’ll hear more on this soon, I think.
I saw someone coned on the alpe a few days ago for the first time ever. Seems it’s actually happening.
Last night, I teleported to someone at turn 9 of AdZ, and used my Aethos to climb to the top. At the top, I swapped to my Crux and descended. I get credit for all of the climb elevation and the 10 km of going around the top and descent with my Crux (I had a race that I needed to get to the pen, so I didn’t have time to do the full descent).
Since I did about 6 km on the ascent plus a bit at the top, the amount of descending I did was about 3 km more than the non-descending. Not sure if the 10 km I got in credit for the descent was just a match for my climbing plus the 3 km extra descending you see or if I’d climbed enough not to trigger that.
Since what I really want is to finish upgrading my Aethos, I was just kind of playing around to see what the new rules were. In my case, inconclusive. Had I had longer to test the full descent, it might have been different.
For me, I got to skip the long lead in to the climb (and the boring lower bits) and get right to accumulating elevation for my Aethos upgrade, so I got what I wanted out of the teleport.
I also had this weird thing that, even though I entered Watopia on my (level 4) Aethos, after the teleport to my friend, I was suddenly on my (level 5) SL8 (where further climbing would do no good). It did let me swap back to the Aethos after the pedal assist ended, but that meant that I was no longer climbing with my friend. Did you see that as well, or was that some weird one off?
Hopefully its smart enough not to trigger the “no credit for descending” algorithms if you have actually climbed the Alpe properly!
YES HOPEFULLY THIS! I do the climbs and then switch bikes to take advantage of all the hard work I’ve done!
Same, I’ve been climbing up on the Aethos then freewheeling down on the SL8.
I found a very simple solution to this: I unfollowed zwifters I catched cheating this way. Easy as that. At one person it did hurt. The other two… were just random anonymous followers… no pain there…
Zwift has done nothing about cheats in races but suddenly they care about cheating in free rides? I don’t get it.
I hear what you’re saying, and I’d like to see some better race controls as well. That said… this exploit applies directly to racing, doesn’t it?
It does apply to racing, although indirectly. If everyone had the fastest set up, then however you get there doesn’t matter for the race itself. The race itself will be fairer than if everyone had different set ups and one is way faster than the other, but takes ages to get there while cheaters already unlocked it within a day. That would indeed be unfair.
If anything, they need to crack down on racing, but that can be quite difficult as well, or just give everyone the same bike. What is the point of upgrading if everyone had the same bike?
My only concern…I don’t want to be penalised in any way, shape or form for riding legitimately.
I want all my effort to count towards my progress and it not be hampered by controls targeting the ‘cheaters’.
A very valid concern, which is one reason I conducted some tests. I know Zwift is very concerned about the same – they would rather err on the side of letting “cheaters” cheat a bit, than invalidating legit efforts.
But so far, it seems the controls they’ve put in place are working well against the exploit without impacting any legit efforts.
Not all heroes wear capes.
Thank you, boss 👌
Concur. I was healthy and had a healthy lifestyle and my VO2 max was ‘superior’ as measured in a lab and i challenged myself for improvement on zwift. Then I got cancer. Had cancer surgery. Then chemo. Then had a near fatal reaction to immunotherapy resulting in intubation and ICU stay with long hospitalization. Just recently after 6 months can get on the trainer by myself and teleport to where my husband is riding down and ride together for what is a short time compared to my previous self. Am I cheating? Or am I doing what I can do and having fun.
a clubmate did this for weeks and weeks from Ventop – literally 4 hours at a time just descending constantly, 10m overall gain….crazy.
What an absolute loser
Why is that rider in your club or you in theirs? Those are choices about who your club welcomes as a member, who you want to be associated with
The worst thing is the hundreds of strava likes and ‘great ride’ comments – which I thought might be sarcastic but looks more like people just seeing 70 miles and 4 hours etc. Def lost a lot of respect for that person who did grind to get lv100, but now basically cheating to upgrade the bikes. One week she rode 1000 miles…mostly down off Ventop. Maybe 1 ride up and another 3/4 hours of coasting down each time. or an hour easy spin then a teleport for a few more hours of descending. Literally every ride was in France lol
i think i know who this rider is
👀 give me an initial lol…
⭐,❤,💯,🏆and🏅
How about just get rid the bike upgrade all together. Or have ZRL not implement bike upgrades into races.
or if “everyone” cares so much, force a verifiable weight which changes “performance” just as much…
Bike upgrades are a nice motivation to work for. I sort of lost my sense of purpose after earning my tron bike
Well then, they shouldn’t have dropped the “upgrade bike system” in the first place untested like this. After all the history of gamers gaming the game, they should have thought about this kind of “hacks”. Computer games have always been subjected to cheating, altering and modding and Zwift even incourages this with their stupid “aero, feather” and other in ride boosts. Same thing with disc wheels in races (which use of in mass start events if forbidden under UCI). All bikes should be the same, just different cosmetics. After all, it’s about the legs, not bikes. But no, the brands who pay Zwift get better performing eqiupment in game.
Or their stupid leveling system which they chaneged many times and every time ppl had to ride for leveling up all over again even if they had enough accumulated distance/exp points.
Like someone has already said, Zwift doesn’t care about gaming the races, but suddenly they care about gaming the uogrades?
First of all isn’t bikes almost always neutralized in races?
Second isn’t it a little ironic coming from someone who primarily uses bots on zwift as the writer and creator of this site, maybe you should get all your data from actually doing the rides instead?
He rides all the time lol. You really think he should spend all his own ride time running tests for you rather than using bots?? The use of bots allows him to test things quickly and accurately and give us information! That’s possibly the most ridiculous comment I’ve ever read on here and that’s saying a lot.
Then stop complaining about people who teleport and roll down hill which uses no 3th party applications.
If zwift has to fix that then bots SURELY should be removed for both the same reason (upgrading bikes) and the potential of using a bot in races
Eric uses bots to test, since one of the primary principles of testing is repeatability. Can you imagine trying to hold the exact same w/kg for an hour on each bike/wheelset combo on the same course (and then again for more courses). It is not like he is using his bots in conjunction with his actual racing account, they are completely separate logins, and I am guessing that Zwift HC knows exactly what accounts they are.
The fact that you are comparing gathering/sharing information with actively cheating in Zwift makes me think you are nothing but a troll.
I highly doubt everyone upgrading bikes that way is racing either, and you could easily use a bot to gain upgrades or even use in zwift races, that zwift won’t detect.
You’re a loony.
🙄
In answer to your first question: no, bike neutralization is actually rather rare in the universe of weekly Zwift races.
Second: this one actually made me LOL, and I won’t dignify it with a response. 😆
I thought they were neutralized but fair enough.
Second was not meant as an insult but if racers can’t upgrade via teleporting and rolling they could just use a bot.
And what bikes are they actually upgrading because manually it takes what 2 weeks to upgrade something like the SL8 or Athoes or are they racing on halo bikes?
Eric is using methods of scientific investigation. Totally legit.
If you want cars to meet safety standards, would you prefer accident simulations be done with actual people on roads in the real world or crash test dummies in a controlled environment?
Are you really comparing the importance of crash test dummies to bots for zwift?
Dude, let it die already.
I know at least one person well-known in the Zwift and Everesting community who used this cheat to increase his bike levels + go from level 92 to 100… and was proud of it.
You don’t play chess where new players get fewer pieces than players who’ve been playing awhile. That’s silly. I like bike choice for Zwift racing, since it means you have to think about how to best tactically approach a race–am I going to attack on a climb solo and so a lighter bike is a better option? Or am I going for a 1km to finish flat break attempt and I’d better have an aero bike? That’s great. What’s not great is penalizing people who haven’t played as much. Unlocking cool kit, fine. Unlocking faster bikes, not fine. All racers should be on a level playing field and let race tactics and legs decide the race, not who has been playing the longest.
I haven’t used any so-called “cheater” methods to unlock bikes, but I think its dumb that I might beat someone else purely because they haven’t put as many hours into the virtual game yet.
I wish I could race in Zwift for prize money where it matters like you seem to get to. 🙄
If you’re so concerned about it, you could always go race your bike outside where every rider is on a totally level and equal playing field at all times.
Weeks ago, I was climbing AdZ, and I noticed on the Companion App someone I followed was passing by me while descending, over and over and over again. I sighed and wasn’t surprised at the end of the day.
It does seem that anyone who upgrades their (halo) bike rather quickly, relative to their “usual” biking activity pre-upgrade availability, should raise the algorithm’s eyebrow.
As most already know… Zwift will “Always” have Cheaters!
Zwift will “Always” do their Best to try and Stop them…
# Zwift will “Always” have Cheaters… When I enter a Race,
I know that there may/may not be a Cheater or two…# Zwift
will “Always” have Cheaters… Every time Zwift blocks something,
someone will figure out how to Game the System…# Zwift will
always have Cheaters!
I have just learned let it go, and Race my Race. My
real world Bikes are Felts, and a Bianchi…So I up-graded
both Felts, and that’s it I’m done…Don’t care anymore about
the Tron Bike, or the “New” SL8 everyone seems to be
wanting to Ride. I race what I ride in the real world, and if
I do well… Giddy Up! If I’m Pack Fill then so be it. I feel/think
that getting the right Power Up at the end of a Race is more
important than the Bike your on 🤔
So again…# Life’s too Short to worry about those that feel the
need to Cheat! That’s something that they have learned to live
with, and I’m not living their Life…So I can’t judge them for what
makes them feel that Cheating fulfills something that they are
missing in their Lives.
# Zwift will always have Cheaters 💪
Yay…ride a Felt FR30 myself and did the same. Fully upgraded the Felt AR and now working on the Felt TT bike. The seconds difference between those and the top aero/TT bikes is meaningless to me.
I can still gamify the system. I can ride a flat loop at 100w, or at least zwift thinks so, but it is a bot deveie that constantly sends 100w towards zwift. How are they gonna check that? It’s just an app that I can connect to zwift that sends constand wattage. I pedal, I accumulate distance/time climbing.
Yes it’s essentially fully cheating. Not that I care, I just ride for myself when I race. There’s no glory in winning if I didn’t do any effort, plus when I do wanna race, my pace group is gonna be too fast…
But like, I appreciate zwift trying to crack down on “cheaters”. But still, if everyone just raced in the same “fastest” bike, it wouldn’t be an issue anyways how you get the fastest one because it doesn’t give you an advantage. If anything it levels the playing field if everyone had the same bike.
Cool story bro. I hope Zwift finds a way to stop your cheating.
I look forward to the day when Eric and Zwift come clean and tell us that all the performance deltas across the bikes has been one long running, super-elaborate hoax, and all bikes within each category have had exactly the same performance all along. They just thought it would be great for views/usage/subscriptions. I mean there’s a LOT of effort gone into it, but I’d laugh so much if it happened!!!!
Shhhh…
Zwift should address disparity between drops gained on climbs vs flats instead. Massive disadvantage trying to upgrade a climbing bike while folks are chilling with pace partners with 2.5x drops
Try Cobbled Climbs or Royal Pump Room with a robo pacer, you will accumulate slightly more drops than on flats due to multiplier on short climbs and higher speed on descents, as well as -400m elevation per hour. That compares pretty well with distance upgrades on flat routes.
I’m not sure if someone has commented and I just missed it, but have you tried the anti cheating with the pacer bots? I forgot to check my KMs before joining the bot after my ride, but I assume that any KMs gained while coffee stopping would be applied normally?
Yes, km’s from coffee stops are applied normally.
ZRL and Most high profile races need to just neutralize all the bikes anyway and let it be up to the riders.
Too little too late, was easy to max out any TT bike as it is time not distance, could login to an event, start it late, then teleport to the pack, coast along on the pedal assist, then when that runs out, just sit there, not logging out until you hit the required time for an upgrade!!
Can’t they just disable teleport up to the KOM’s? Counting the Epic and forward there are few of them that really matter
They should have climb in calculation. If you are riding flats you should get the upgrade easily. The person climbing put in much more effort at lower speeds to climb.
The HISP team has been promoting this “trick” among its members for a couple of months… It is very sad behaviour.
I think people should spend time earning upgrades by riding their bikes instead of searching for exploits.
Lots of bots on Ventop the other day, going up and down holding an absolutely constant power. Many had hundreds of kilometers on the ride distance.
Seeing quite a few halo bikes around already, and doubt any of them were earned legitimately. Cheating to get ahead seems to be acceptable in all circles these days.
If I rode to the top of Alpe du Zwift and coasted down afterwards I would expect to be credited with that downhill time / distance.
I would think it unfair if Zwift wouldn’t credit me for that 🤨
Zwift WILL credit you for that. What they WON’T do now is give you credit if you teleport to the top and coast down.
Basically, legit efforts won’t be affected by this change.
Have you tested how far you need to climb for it to work ? Lets say a friend is doing the Alpe and is on corner 10. I teleport to him and climb up with him. At what amount of climbing does the downhill count for the upgrades ?
So, if a person rides up AdZ on a bike that requires climbing to upgrade and the swaps to a bike that requires kilometers to upgrade and rides down AdZ do we still get the full amount of kilometers descending?
Yup. You’ll be fine!
Two things amaze me at the same time. 1) That people would spend time cheating like that to get a virtual upgrade on Zwift; 2) That other people are bunged up about something silly on Zwift that really doesn’t effect them. Seriously folks. Get outside more
I think ZHQ is making things unnecessarily complicated. The point here is “genuine efforts”. There is a very good measurement in game for genuine efforts already, thus, the factory tour credits. Power x time = efforts. Just price tag all upgrades (and even HALO bikes) with factory tour credits and job is done. Of coz they can’t figure out those bots yet 😂
Tried to do a bot pyramid today – got to 106kms and checked bike upgrade progress and it had stopped after 70km. I had worked my way up to Coco at this point. Had to end the ride and start again to get the bike upgrade working again. Have logged it with Zwift.
Looks like they have stopped Bike XP banking when you hit an unlock level but keep riding.. I did 100km after getting an unlock to save some drops and when I did the upgrade the next level showed 0 progress. Wonder if this is part of the Anti-cheat update.
Asking for a friend….can “somebody” teleport to another Zwifter near the top of Alpe du Zwift to access the spin wheel without the climb……?
Nope.