Another week – another Zwiftcast. Simon, Shane, and Nathan unite to discuss the boom times on Zwift as the platform provides welcome relief from the burden of the virus.
The headline feature on this episode is the long-awaited Solution to Sandbagging. This is a short term fix which Zwift hopes to implement within days (for testing) and weeks (for a full roll-out).
The approach sees four types of warnings/sanctions applied to Sandbaggers… listen to a full explanation of the system from senior game guy Jordan Rapp.
The Zwiftcasters move on to discuss the measures Zwift is putting in place to prioritise the stability of the platform as truly enormous numbers flood the events as Zwifters look for a challenge to distract them from the concerns caused by the pandemic.
One of the biggest rides has been with Mark Cavendish – and Simon talks to a Zwifter who got picked out of 3,500 riders for a live Insta chat with the Manx Missile himself.
Later the podcasters speculate about the cryptic clues on a new feature outlined in the latest update and wonder whether some interesting development work on enhanced PowerUps described by Jordan may offer further hints.
Simon also gets behind the story of one particular Event on the Zwift schedule. The Bike Breaks Shop Ride is an IRL institution. Now transferred to Zwift, this ride is proving a source of much needed comfort and support for a bike business which has been hammered by the travel ban across Europe.
And finally, the Zwiftcasters talk about the implications of other platforms muscling into the online eSports arena and whether they’re making a good job of it.
We hope you enjoy listening.
Nathan’s right, this sandbagging system is going upset some A and B cat riders. In the last race I did 4 out of the top 6 in B cat were on ZPower doing A cat watts. A cat is going to be flooded with all the wonky ZPower riders. Interesting times ahead.
I don’t really understand why it would upset A riders? The sandbagging problem is people racing below their cat but Cat A is 4w/kg and above. So B and C riders that are in a cat A race will just fly out of the back and not bother anyone? What am I missing?
This is most definitely NOT the solution. My watts/kg run high because I am very small but I fight like crazy to get high watts and sustain them. Finally after much hard work, managed to get from D to C but to do so, my watts/kg run close to B. I am at the bottom of the Cs, struggling and off the back. I managed to upgrade using short high level watts, which would cause your new system to slow me down. Now that I am a C (barely by watts), this new system will keep me from being competitive. When I am putting out 3.2 watt/kg, I can only sustain around 138 watts. The hills and the flats will crush me and not allow me to ever move up. This discourages me from racing since I will be biased against unfairly. Very bad idea. Just DQ people who are a certain percentage ABOVE both cat limits (watts and watt/kg) or go to a points system. Don’t punish the light riders. Please consider that there are better options, thank you.
What if you sandbag but only trail behind the lead group, then smash them in the last 1 minute?