Change your weight so you're a D category racer and see how it changes the dynamic of the race for someone who simply can't put out more watts. Make your weight so that you're right below the D or C cutoff. Then you'll see how shitty the races are when you don't know who should actually be in your race. I was a D category for a long time and would now be in the C if I still did any races. I stopped because they're no fun in these categories.

AMEN!

I just race the rules and follow them. My cat is what ever ZP determines it based on my very best over the last three months, so it leans to my best not my worst.

Sure I've got enough genes and fittness to suggest if I was always training for this I would be competitive in B and well maybe I could even get to A. I was once in A for a while.

Not sure what your true grade is anyhow, just race what ZP tells me to, am I a B grader probably but right now I am untrained.

The system is odd when a person who comes tenth gets bumped up and winners stay where they are.

So this is not really Racing specific but talk about ANTI Consumer behavior

I did the Lutscher route today and thought it would fit nicely for a 45 min workout being 13,5km with a massive 400m elevation. I start out and I ride and ride, I pass 13,5km then 15 and even 17k before it starts making me go up the Innsbruck KOM AGAIN still with NO BADGE!
Here i have to end my ride and realize I got no badge even though I rode 4km more than listed and more than 50m elevation extra! That just stink and leaves you with a sour taste in your mouth, and yes the workout is the most important but badges are great motivation!
When I look it up online after I see that to get the badge you actually have to go up the KOM TWICE! Which means for the badge we are talking 25km of riding and over 800meter of elevation. I mean come on how badly can you mislead your customers! Why not write it in the route description in game "oh btw this one has 10km and 400m elevation lead in"?
I learned afterwards that the blue line in the route selection screen indicates lead in, but I assume most people don't know it and it is also hard to guesstimate that from a picture!
Or better yet, why not include lead in km and elevation in the listing, and not mislead customers causing frustration and confusion?
Looking at zwiftinsider there is around 8 routes with a lead in longer than 5km and god knows how much elevation making it impossible to find a matched route to your workout/training time.

The worst one and ZwiftHQ must really just be laughing at their customers at this point is a listed 5km route with a 12.1 km lead in. The lead in is over twice the length of the damn ROUTE!

if you do a meetup you often don't have to do the lead in (sometimes you still do though, so worth checking). for Lutscher and Lutscher CCW it normally starts you about 1km from the KOM banner in a meetup. I know its not the fix zwift need to issue but hopefully helps for next time you want to try to tick the route off! (if you don't want to do it in the meetup just join and then immediately quit said meetup).

I found the virtual physics feel in RGT considerably more realistic that zwifts (that seems to make it far harder to get dropped yet far harder to get away on a break). Each to their own I guess.

I don't think there's any way Zwift can manage people cheating a virtual system. It's too complex to manage, and it's too easy to cheat. Double power meters and Bluetooth scales can still be manipulated. I think there's likely some integrity in the "pro" races and the triathlon invitational series, but outside of that, I don't think it's going to work. It's just probably not for you if these things are infuriating, which was kind of the case for me. With e-bikes sat on a Kickr, too, there's just no way to simultaneously encourage more participation (the entire idea behind Zwift and its races is getting people to ride Zwift, for profit) and also encourage realistic and reliable virtual racing. Even with a perfect physics engine, it's just not going to happen. Two power meters plus a bluetooth scale is a big ask, and makes no business sense for a major feature. Even with those measures, there's nothing to stop someone from sandbagging at just below the required range while eating a cheeseburger until the last ~3 minutes and uncorking on a C or even B field. With a 4.5w/kg FTP, it would be easy to sit on 3.8w/kg for the whole race and then bump it up to 5-6 to win. Sure, there could be a sprint and they could lose that way, but it's for sure a valid tactic that can work in this type of race. So even if you CAN move people up after 1-2 races, it's not going to happen reliably or often enough to mitigate the issues. One could also add some weight to give you more absolute wattage at a lower w/kg, or maybe a bit of both. If your goal is to go win Zwift races of any category with cheating, it's pretty easy to do so. The two inputs of power and weight are just not good enough.

I guess my point is this: Zwift racing is an easy to cheat pedaling contest, and for some people that's really fun even without cheating. I'm glad that's the case! It's good for bikes and it's good for bike racing on the whole. For me, I'm going to stick to the outdoor racing because I can't pedal hard enough to do the virtual version successfully, cheating or otherwise. I'll enjoy the real world tactical nuance and racing skill that I developed when racing is back in full force and I'll let those who have done the same in the Zwift context have their fun, too. Come race some USA Crits or a TT outside. Let me sit on your wheel while you roll "6w/kg" and I do 4ish, or get your time trial position dialed and come out to a TT, and we can all have some fun!

I race on Zwift, but I pretty much agree with everything you say. Zwift racing is Zwift racing, bike racing is bike racing. I am REALLY good at Gran Turismo, and I win almost every time I go to my local karting track, and yet, that does not mean I can race f1. Buttttttt that does not stop me from enjoying all of those things. I get that people are cheating in racing, I just don't care all that much as it does not change my enjoyment level when playing the game. I would love if Zwift went to a cat system rather than a W/KG rating that no one is really sure if that means your FTP should be in that range, or you should average that for the race or normalized power.....
I hope soon we can race real bikes, in the mean time, this is all I have got.

This is probably not the first time the idea has come up - but does anybody know why smart bikes can't just directly measure weight of the rider vs. relying on a (dis) honor system? I'm thinking for the folks who take this very seriously, there would be a willingness to fund a dedicated machine for indoor-only use and adding a second set of strain gauges seems very doable. There could then be race series that require a certified weight-measuring bike. The good news is that the number of 5 ft & 45-50 kg adults who can hold 300W for an hour that have suddenly joined the bike racing world means somebody is doing a great job at outreach for the vertically challenged...

This is a really good idea, and how it works in many other sports. It would sort a lot of the issues out. Yes, you'll still have cheaters, but they will be purely the trainer power manipulators.

I'm surprised Zwift hasn't paired with bike shops to weigh riders. You could visit your local shop, jump on their scale to prove you weight and you're good on Zwift for six months. It would get foot traffic in shops and be a reasonably accurate way to check people's weight.

Sure, some people can't get to a "Zwift certified shop's scale" but it could help a large amount of the people.

I'd be skeptical. A good number of shops support race teams, have staff who race, and have circles of "bro status" customers. It'd be a pretty thin rationale for providing real independent measurement. Lots of conflicts of interest.

I could see those of us on the lighter side starting a side gig as "weight body doubles" we could show up shop as "you" then you go race with all the extra kgs. Nice thing about having the "bike" measure is that it's real-time. Pack on a few lbs, and you pay on the climbs. Plus wahoo/stages/zwift could use the weight measurement feature as an excuse to sell us more stuff, and we could then have a "need" buy more stuff!!

Why can't Zwift implement a special mode for TTT events? It's by far one of the most popular events on Zwift, yet the implementation is so half-baked as to be wanting. Specific grievances include:

1) no countdown timer. Someone actually has to literally call out the countdown to his/her teammates.
2) horrible draft dynamics, especially when it comes to passing another rider/team. It's so easy for dropped riders to latch onto a passing team, and it's also very easy for two teams to get completely disorganized when a pass occurs. As is, the passed team has to soft pedal for at least 15 seconds to create enough of a gap (5 seconds), so that they are out of the slipstream of the passing team. Why can't Zwift implement a special draft where one could draft only one's teammates, but no one else?