Zwift? Completed it, mate. The Doc’s plan for virtual cycling domination is starting to take shape
Towards the end of last year there was a performance-data hacking scandal on Zwift. I like that this is an opening sentence which just a few years ago would have been almost totally meaningless. We can be proud that cycling is such a progressive sport, and never more so than when we’re thinking of new ways to cheat.
In this instance it was fairly straightforward. In a qualifier for the UCI Esports World Championships, South African rider Eddy Hoole won after riding up the final hill at a pace that was not completely believable. He averaged 8.5W/kg for four minutes, and just to give you a sighting shot of what that means, if I could do that I’d knock about 12 seconds off Filippo Ganna’s individual pursuit world record. I think people would ask questions about that, too.
One of the big differences between e-cheating and doing it in real life is that with e-cheating how far you take it is a matter of choice. Even in the mid 2000s, when riders worried about getting caught with trace amounts of urine in their EPO samples, there were still physical limits. It was unusual for a rider to turn in a ride so ludicrous that it produced a unanimous opinion based solely on performance level.
(I can recall Stefan Schumacher winning a Tour time trial so outrageously that Ned Boulting felt able to start a mixed-zone interview with a question along the lines of, “Come on mate, really?” But it didn’t happen often.)
In Hoole’s case, applying a factor of 25% was a misjudgement. He might have got off with 15%, which in some ways shows that assessing honesty purely through performance is really more of an intelligence test.
At least for someone competing in a Worlds qualifier, the motivation for cheating makes some sort of sense. There’s a UCI jersey up for grabs, considerable kudos, and some pretty decent sponsorship.
I’m more confused by lower-level Zwift cheating. The available adulation is close to zero – for about my first year as a Zwift regular it actually never occurred to me that anyone would cheat in a random Tuesday night burn-up. It’s not like a club 10-mile TT – there isn’t even a handful of other riders whose adulation you can demand face-to-face.
It would honestly be at the level of altering the calibration of your power meter for an interval session so that you think you’re getting fitter. Nonetheless, it happens. The chat box on most races will have a certain amount of, “Don’t bother chasing him – he’s been riding at 5.7W/kg for
