Originally Posted by
nslckevin
I’m new to Zwift, but I do have a couple of observations from the racing I’ve done. It seems that everything is based on your 20’ power, but that power is irrelevant in most Zwift races. My 20’ power puts me solidly in the A’s, but I get my ass kicked in every race I do except TT’s and a race up Alpe du Zwift. They group you on 20’ power, but races are won and lost (or I get dropped or not) based on my 30” to 1’ power. All of the things I’m good at in cycling don’t help in Zwift racing and all of the things I’m bad at are really important. :-).
I’m no longer a spring chicken, but I can still do a P/1/2 crit and not worry about getting dropped and even maybe play briefly at the front. In a Cat A race on Zwift I get popped out the back. I think I’m still kind of figuring things out and the game is similar, but not exactly like “real racing”. I think I can improve, but I’m probably going to get a kicking more often than not.
I think that you can do quite well on Zwift without having a crazy high FTP. Certainly you need some, but I would hesitate to jump to the conclusion that a rider who does well on Zwift necessarily has a big FTP. More likely they have a decent FTP and really good 1-5’ power.
Another thing is that the “pond” is I think much deeper on Zwift. When I go to Master’s nationals or worlds a lot of really good guys go, but also, a lot don’t for any number of reasons. Not every quality rider has the time, resources or family situation to travel to nationals or especially worlds. A lot more of those people do have the time/resources to get on Zwift. If there are 5 top level guys in your age group locally, maybe only 3 will go to nationals. But on Zwift imagine 3 of the top 5 in EVERY locality hopping onto the Zwift race you’re doing today. It’s going to be kind of hard!
I thought that about "there are a ton of good riders on Zwift because you are drawing on all the good riders from all over the world". Then I realized it's probably not that, although it may be getting better.
When Zwift first started there was a rider that absolutely blew everyone away. I don't know the rider's real name, but it was a woman, and she was putting down crazy power. Then Zwift had the Zwift Academy to discover strong riders, and this rider... disappeared. I haven't seen her online since. She might have changed her name, etc, but it's possible that her data wasn't accurate. It's one thing to ride with inaccurate data "in the wild", but in a Zwift Academy setting, that kind of data will be very obvious very soon.
I think a lot of riders are wildly overestimating their power. For example, I use an SRM, I've calibrated it, I have an idea of my power, and I am confident it's reasonably accurate. So my 90 min Alpe time makes sense, my 180 min VenTop time makes sense.
Then I see someone that realistically will not be able to go much faster than me if at all, and they've gone 33% faster on Alpe.
At the same time, I've learned that if I'm pedaling (to start warming up) as Zwift boots up, it takes my power as zero, so if I'm rolling at 50w, then go, say, 200w on Zwift, Zwift shows 150w, because I lost that initial 50w. I've had to stop, get my avatar to put a foot down, then try again. On the track bike I can't get it closer than about 10w (so I am going 10w harder than Zwift), and my road bike is typically even or 10w off.
And at the same time, I haven't seen crazy good sprinters. I mean a Chris Hoy kind of rider, on Zwift, ought to stay out like crazy. I'm putting down literally half his peak, half his 20s power, and I'm one of the "faster" sprinters out there. If a modern day sprinter got onto Zwift, it'd be like a joke. But I've never seen such numbers, times, etc. No 2000w jumps, no 1500w sustained. But riders can do that.
As far as the racing goes, it's tougher for us tricky racers. I'm an okay 3, sometimes pretty good. In 2015 I was a pretty good 3, won a race, got three 3rds. On Zwift I was a D racer, barely. I can't sit in and coast like I do in real lift. Wind direction doesn't exist in Zwift so it doesn't penalize others (vs me because I sit in better). The coasting model is very aggressive, you coast like you're braking. Etc.