Zwift riders have been pushing the limits of human endurance since the platform launched in 2014. It’s time for a central repository of verified Zwift World Records, overseen by a trusted team and visible for all the world to see.
Below is our set of proposed Zwift World Record (ZWR) rules. We are posting it today in hopes that the Zwift community will share their feedback and help us finalize a fair and reasonable ruleset before we built out the ZWR system.
Zwift World Record Classifications
While we will initially begin with a small number of ZWR classifications, the hope is to expand to a much larger set quite quickly. This will include:
- Separate classifications for men and women
- Separate classifications for drafting and non-drafting
- Various distance-based classifications ranging from 4km to 500km
- Various elevation-based classifications ranging from 1000 to 8,848m (vEveresting)
- Various time-based classifications ranging from 1 to 24 hours
Examples of ZWR Classifications:
- Women’s Non-Drafting Hour Record: held by the woman who rides the furthest over an hour’s time in a non-drafting environment (solo ride or on a TT bike).
- Men’s Drafting 100km Record: held by the man who covers 100km in the shortest time. Drafting is allowed, but of course not required.
- Women’s Non-Drafting 5000m Climbing Record: held by the woman who climbs 5000 meters in the shortest time in a non-drafting environment (solo ride or on a TT bike).
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Proposed ZWR Ruleset
1: Weight and Height Verification
You must record pre-ride weight and height verification videos, and supply their links with your ZWR submission.
Why? In-game speeds are greatly affected by the height and weight used in your rider profile. Verification videos ensure that your in-game height and weight are accurate, keeping the competition fair.
2: ZwiftPower Account
You must have an active ZwiftPower account in order to submit your ZWR attempt.
Why? Dual recording data is required for verification purposes, and that data will be stored in your ZwiftPower profile. Additionally, a link to your ZwiftPower profile will be included in your ZWR details, so other Zwifters can see your Zwift history.
3: Dual Recording Data on ZwiftPower
Your ZWR effort must be dual recorded, with that dual recording marked as public and available on your ZwiftPower.com profile. You must supply this activity’s link with your ZWR submission.
Why? No power meter is perfectly accurate, even when set up properly. It’s also possible that a power meter could be miscalibrated. Requiring two sources of power readings greatly reduces the chance that a rider could gain an unfair advantage by using a power source which is incorrectly reading too high.
IMPORTANT: Your primary power meter must be your smart trainer, with your secondary power meter (pedal, crank, spider, or wheel-based power meter) being used for verification purposes only.
Dual recordings must be trimmed and offset properly so the data line up and are easily compared by the Verification Team.
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4: In-Game Video Including Rider Webcam
All ZWR submissions must include a video uploaded to YouTube showing your live webcam feed (you on the bike) overlayed on the live Zwift game screen for the duration of your record attempt.
Why? Showing your live camera feed for the duration of the effort ensures you are the person doing the ride. Additionally, a complete recording of the Zwift sessions lets the Verification Team make sure no hacks or bugs contributed unfairly to the record attempt.
Additionally, the video must show three additional elements in order fairness:
- Show pairing screen: this lets the Verification Team see that you are using your smart trainer as your power source
- Show profile screen: at the start of your ride (ideally before you start pedaling) open up your profile settings in game to show your height and weight, so the Verification Team can make sure your in-game values match your verification videos
- Use metric units: your profile must be set to metric units, to ensure fairness and to keep units uniform across different ZWR attempts.
5: Public Activity on Zwift.com
Your activity must be public and saved to your Zwift.com profile. You will be required to supply this activity link with your ZWR submission.
Why? This provides an easy way for other Zwifters to see the detailed data of your ZWR attempt.
6: Route Choice
All ZWR attempts must be done on official in-game routes. No manual navigation.
Why? Because otherwise, everyone would start their hour record attempts from the summit of Ven-Top!
7: Official Measurements
The official time, distance, and elevation for your attempt will be taken from the in-game HUD at the top of your screen.
Why? Because one uniform single source of truth is required. Additionally, using in-game measurements means the Verification Team can check ZWR submissions against the In-Game Video Recording.
Using official in-game time, distance, and elevation means ZWR attempts can only be measured as precisely as the game’s display allows. That means no fractional seconds or meters of elevation, and distances will only be measured to the tenth of a kilometer.
Your ZWR attempt’s time or distance must be supplied on the ZWR submission form. The Verification Team will use the In-Game Video to verify these values.
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8: Submitting Your ZWR Attempt Data
For inclusion in the ZWR list, details of your attempt must be submitted using the official form on ZwiftInsider (link coming soon).
This form will include the following required fields:
- Name
- Email address (for Verification Team only, will be kept private)
- Gender
- Age
- Selected ZWR (Hour Record, Fastest 100km, Fastest 5000m Climb, etc)
- ZWR attempt’s time or distance
- Weight Verification Video YouTube URL (for Verification Team only, will be kept private)
- Height Verification Video YouTube URL (for Verification Team only, will be kept private)
- Activity URL on Zwift.com
- Dual Recording URL on ZwiftPower
- In-Game Video YouTube URL
Additionally, the following optional fields will allow you to tell the story of your ZWR attempt. This content may be included in your ZWR listing and Zwift Insider articles about new Zwift World Records:
- Images and photos from your effort
- A written description of your effort
- Link to your Strava profile
Suggestions or Comments?
We want this ruleset to strike a balance between ensuring efforts are legitimate without weighing down athletes with an impossibly difficult verification process. How did we do?
Share your comments and suggestions below!
age groups for each records?
Perhaps. The challenge is that increases the number of ZWR classifications by what… 7x? Just a huge jump in workload for the Verification Team… including having to do age verification.
I understand, but being 50+ (and therefore not really up to par with the youngster) that would be cool to have like the athletics (running for example they have up to 100+ by 5 years gap form 40 and up). But I know it would be a big multiplication factor in ‘rankings’ but not results 😉 just an added data field to sort hehe.
And thank for all the nice work. 🙂
Agreed Pierre!!
Agreed, reduce ther number of records, not the number of age cats!
Age categories are a must. I have to think of the wonderful Robert Marchand and his hour record of 22.547 km, age category 105+
Master and 5 year age group s
With my limited knowledge on this subject, I think it looks good. I look forward to following developments.
Maybe one could do age classes later?
Great, let’s create those records for events too – we can start with my Mountain Massif TT events 👍
These are individual records, not tracking event participation numbers. That’s an entirely different ball of wax!
I’m assuming for a climbing attempt you don’t have to have a specific route should you want to do hill repeats? Would we go off of the HUD or would it be a strict number of hill completions like in a vEverestig attempt?
Do whatever route you’d like. It’s all based on HUD elevation.
Climbing records would be interesting using this ruleset. Standard vEveresting rules wouldn’t apply, since vEveresting specifically requires you to do hill repeats, turning around at the top and bottom, and specifically prohibits doing loop routes. Zwift’s routes are mostly (all?) loops to some extent, so you’d have to find a good climbing route that minimized flatland effort. Maybe Innsbruck/Lutscher? Not sure what Ven-Top does if you keep riding after you go up and then down.
Climbing records were added as an afterthought – perhaps the “you gotta stick on a route” thing should be amended so people can do hill repeats. Otherwise the records will be… interesting, as you say!
Just make people ride Tempus Fugit for distance/time records and whatever they want for climbing records. That’s something to level the playing field you cannot easily do in real world.
You could require specific bike setup too to level the playing field even more.
Thing is that in the end it doesn’t even matter anyway, since trainers have a significant error margin for these long efforts and if on a 100 km distance someone makes a WR by 10 seconds you don’t know whether the effort really was a WR or if it was just better error margin in his/her favor.
Two issues: 1. If you have a smart trainer that automatically calibrates such as the Wahoo Kickr or the Neo 2, you should not have to buy an extra power meter; 2. The weigh in should be 24 hours before the attempt. Before a hard several hour effort, 3-4 hours, I typically gain 2 to 3 lbs the day before, so when I finish the ride I will not be at an unhealthy weight. Otherwise riders will not eat properly before the attempt to try to get their weight down.
Weigh-in video description above already specifies the 24-hour window, FYI.
The auto-calibration suggestion is an interesting one. I’m not sure how to best verify that someone is on an auto-calibrated trainer, for one thing. And just because a trainer is auto-calibrated doesn’t mean it’s accurate, either (although the KICKR and Neo seem to do a very good job).
On the other hand, not requiring dual recording is an appealing thing! Hmmm…
Under Rule 4, riders are asked to show their power source on their Pairing Screen in a video – so that’s how you could know they’re on an auto-calibrated trainer. You could specify permitted models (auto-calibrated, +/- 1% or (2%?)) in the ruleset as exceptions to dual-recording. Also on Rule 4 – wouldn’t the profile info (height/weight) be available to see on the Zwift Power activity? But should the rules state that the video must capture from the start of the activity to the saving of the activity, to prevent changing the profile info after completing the activity but before saving?
I know a couple of others have said this but I would love to see something age related. Like oldest rider to do _____ or youngest rider to complete _____. Love the idea and I’m looking forward to seeing some of the records.
I think you need to add a rule on trainer setting – either 50% like zada or 100% like Hell’s 500
Why? Isn’t that like having your gear ratio dictated to you?
Not really. Without some sort of requirement you could do a climbing challenge at zero difficulty, therefore emulating a perfectly flat road. No gear ratio in the world would be able to do that IRL. A climbing challenge should emulate just that, slower cadence and the feel of fighting gravity from the trainer resistance.
Setting the difficulty to zero doesn’t change the amount of power that you have to produce to compete a climb, it just lets you avoid switching gears. Picking a more uniform climb does effectively the same.
It doesn’t change the power you need to apply but it does change the torque required. Try doing multiple Alp repeats at 100% difficulty and then again at 0% difficulty its much easier.
The human body isn’t a wattage generator. It’s not an electric motor. Dealing with grade changes is part of the challenge.
Changing the trainer difficulty setting has ZERO effect on the time it takes you to climb. If it takes you an hour to climb a hill at 200W average, then that’s what it takes, changing the trainer difficulty won’t reduce your time or your watts – only effort will do that.
no!!! it is nothing to do with gears!
Definitely agree that this should be standardized.
Agreed
My only concern is the reliance on ZwiftPower, it has historically (and currently) been less than reliable…any way to get around this? I know the WTRL folks use direct .fit file review…or some other magic to make sure they are not handicapped by ZP issues
Fair point. But we’re just using ZwiftPower as the dual recording comparison tool. Riders can manually upload both their Zwift ride file and the secondary power source if ZwiftPower were to somehow fail to record their Zwift data. So I don’t think ZwiftPower is going to cause any hitches in people’s ZWR attempts or submissions.
Seems like the effort of recording may be more difficult than the record itself.
Perhaps – but that’s how world records work, in my experience.
Look into setting a world record in basically any discipline – it generally takes a lot of preparation, money, etc, to have it certified by the governing body. (Not to mention the actual world record effort…)
If one creates a meet up for some of the Innsbruck routes you start at the top of the mountain, this is on an official route. Might want to add something to the rules to clarify that this is not allowed.
Good point. Might restrict it to free rides and official events from the start pens. And no keep together/rubberbanding settings allowed!
Steering allowed?
What about Clydesdale and Athena Categories?
Do you have explainer articles on dual recording (including trimming ride records) and how to visually record a ride. Im fairly sure only a tiny fraction of Zwifters have the faintest idea (I am in the group that has no idea how to record and submit dual power records or trim records).
Specifically on dual-recording. Are there a set of trainers that are known to be accurate enough – or is this an anti-cheating measure?
I’m guessing the fraction of Zwifters that will be attempting world records shares a lot of the same people as those that know how to dual and visually record a ride. I’m not in either category 😁
Elevation should be to 50km for fastest time to Tron bike on fresh account.
Maybe I missed this or maybe it is simple common sense but no e bikes.
What’s the proposed strategy for dealing with in game bugs, physics changes, or performance changes to existing gear. Who decides which game updates trigger which record invalidations and what’s the documented process for that.
Are there specific criteria a power meter must meet? Accuracy levels, whether the settings must prevent 3 second averaging or other data smoothing, whether Zwift needs to be configured to talk to the power meter a certain way.
Good points, definitely need a procedure for dealing with potential changes to game mechanics. Things like the recent changes to group dynamics, and the slowdown of gravel a couple years ago, can have a major impact on in-game performance. There should be a documented process for reviewing these and determining whether or not they have an impact on existing records.
Sounds painful, all of it. If you’re going to include more extreme records then perhaps a liability waiver may not harm? I’m no expert, just have seen it used for other challenges.
Very interesting!
I prefer no-draft records, so i hope there will be two categories as soon as this project starts!
Another question is: the WR attempt must be done in a normal workout and not in a preset one (like 1h steady with erg mode on), right?
If someone wants to do it in ERG mode, I don’t see a problem with that. (I think it’s a bad idea and won’t work, but they could try it.)
Hi Eric, on this rule:
“6: Route ChoiceAll ZWR attempts must be done on official in-game routes. No manual navigation.”
I don’t think it’s the manual navigation you want to limit, it’s whether someone can gain from starting at a higher Zwift altitude. Another option could be that records always have to start at a specific starting point in each world.
Imagine doing an endurance record and someone saying it doesn’t count because of your accidental u-turn 90% of the way through! I did a wrong turn in Neokyo last week just by changing camera angles to enjoy the view 😉
Great idea @eric
I think this is a good point. Choice of route isn’t actually easy issue, it’s requiring an appropriate start point. So, is it more a question of requiring that the record attempt must be started from:
For rolling starts: at a sprint end banner or from the exit of a pen.
For standing starts: from a pen or a roadside position associated to a pen.
The rules probably do need to make clear if records are standing or rolling start!
What about ERG mode?
For female records how would gender be verified and what would the policy be for transgender athletes?
There should be stricter rules about drafting records i.e. limits on the number of people involved. It should be a record for a team time trial not a pack ride. Or for 24 hour rides a limit on the pack size at one one time.
Otherwise you will get a 1000+ people pack on tempis and somone who sits in pack the whole time may just grab the record. Saris did something like this to finish 100km in under 2 hours. The record would become more about the size of the group you can orgainse rather than the effort required.
Looks good! My only concern is for the non-drafting records – if one is doing a solo ride on a non-TT bike as proposed, it is still possible to draft, albeit at random with passing strangers. The way around this would be for all solo rides to have to be on a TT bike (or in a world where you are the only rider, which is a bit more complicated). I too would like to see age records, being an older rider myself.
Here are my thoughts:
1: Height and weight verification doesn’t require metric units, but the rider profile (in 4) does. This should match or a clear rule of conversion including rounding should be given!
2,3: Zwiftpower and dual recording is good. Maybe suggest “certified” power meters? Also please add clearly how large of a gap between the two power meters is permissible.
4,5: OK
6: Route choice still has many loopholes.
7: Maybe you need to clarify a bit more. So the WR will consider the ET time displayed ingame when ingame counter hits i.e. the 100km and the verification team will basically freeze frame this?
8: This requests Youtube links. Are other platforms allowed? Some people might be streaming their attempt on Facebook or Twitch.
Finally I would recommend age groups and nationalities (filters). This could be an addition to height/weight videos by showing an official ID. You might be the fastest rider from country X in your age group but you might never beat some guy or gal from country Y. Hence you won’t be the WR holder but still hold your national record. If you collect this data from the start you can still implement this later.
I can’t think of anything more boring. I just hope we don’t end up with tons of articles saying Mr\Mrs X is going to attempt record X this weekend as most people will fail and it’s not news before the event, its only news if they make it.
Yeah, we wouldn’t do articles about upcoming record attempts. That’s just silly.
FKT’s for each Zwift route part of it?
Geographical categories? 😉 Hoping to become the Fitchburg, Wisconsin Clydesdale draft-on, D level hour record holder!
But agreed, with everesting and FKT’s rules are needed so this makes sense too.
I think you’re going to need to find a way to record fractional seconds, especially with distances as short as 4 km. Maybe some other more precise method of recording (Strava, .fit file?) could be used as a backup when 2 riders have a tie?
I think you’re going to need to find a way to record fractional seconds, especially with distances as short as 4 km. Maybe a more precise method of recording (Strava, .fit file?) could be used as a backup when 2 riders have a tie?
For the records to be relevant there has to be some level of believability about them.
If a frequent premier league rider with extensive and supporting IRL activities holds a record I might be enticed to measure myself against it.
If someone with a cat picture as a profile, limited zwift activities and who never rides outside holds it, maybe not so much.
The difficulty is creating a verification process that supports this. Case in point, the ZADA process was changed a while back to accept Zwift based activities in place of IRL ones so that people who never cycled outside weren’t excluded from racing. While I understand the need to be inclusive I don’t think allowing people to backup their Zwift performances with, er, other Zwift performances is the way to go. Perhaps ZADA needs to create independent verification stations at local bike shops.
Good luck!
Copy what Concept 2 use. If people cheat that’s up to them. Age range is important
I guess I can live with this although I don’t see the old, fat guy category…..
Ban all Elite products. They are just crap.
Honestly though, I think the idea of a zwift WR are just a bad idea. It’s technology, and foul-able. It only takes 1 person who is really good at cheating to mess it up for honest people with legit attempts. Plus it’s never going to be a drug tested environment, so it almost encourages dope.
I think zwift is better served as a tool to motive people to be more fit. Weather it’s just being able to do a structured workout with others or a spur of the moment drag race to a segment finish. It’s about users at home today, being better than yesterday.
Rule 4, recording the entire ride with both footage of the Zwift ride and rider. For the longer record attempts – 6hrs+, this is going to create a lot of footage to put together, edit, render and upload, becoming quite prohibitive to those without the knowledge, software or computing power to do so.
Furthermore, it also restricts attempts to platforms that can be recorded natively, i.e. a PC or MacBook. I use an Apple TV for Zwifting, I find it to be super stable and not had it crash on me in the 1000s of kms I’ve clocked on it, even if the UI/remote is crap. Yet, by this rule I wouldn’t be able to use it.
Taking videos of weighing in, setup/profile screens is fair enough and easy to do with a phone. Surely there needs to be some re-think here to allow more/all users to attempt records? Otherwise it’d be restricting it to the tech advantaged users, not necessarily the best.
How about team records, both TTT and tag team?
Can’t wait for this development.
I hope it will be ready for the 26th of feb, as we will make a 24h drafting with Team 3R and I will try to follow all those rules !
Will the 24hrs be time lapse or riding time ?
did this come into existence, or just peater out ?