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One man’s quest to end cheating in virtual cycling

139 points by Anon84 3y ago

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
xyzelement 3y ago
I think if you go into virtual biking expecting some sort of exactness - and if there's money/fame attached, you are just set up for disappointment. A while ago I noticed that all my Peloton PRs happened on the bike at my in-laws gym, not on my own bike. Clearly there is a calibration difference between the two that majorly advantages the in-gym one. And obviously every rider's bike is different so that person ahead of you on the leader board might be putting out less output than you are. But who cares? I was repairing my Peloton the other day and getting inside made it really obvious how else you can manipulate it if you really cared to. And maybe some people do but again, who cares? The two numbers that matter are; your weight and perhaps the comparison on output between yourself today and yourself some time ago. Anything where you attach significance to comparison between your number and someone else's, you are in trouble. Somehow the culture on Peloton is such that people don't get into that. Maybe because social interaction is blissfully limited to high fives and following someone's class history. This system of competitive e sports on temperable equipment was sort of latent with disappointment from the start.
- dktp 3y ago
  I think people are overblowing his investment in making it competitive It's quite easy to cheat in Zwift as you can put any weight on your profile (and the metric for measuring speed is generally W/kg). As well as different trainers have different power measurement accuracy, etc But to some degree Zwift and other 3rd party Zwift race-tracking platform find the cheaters based on outliers and other factors and remove them from the list All he did is figure out a way to cheat which should be simple to detect by the platform itself (changing weight mid-ride -> ie make yourself lighter uphill and heavier downhill) and demonstrated it. And he got banned for it The way I see it, it's the same as someone demonstrating an LLM prompt injection or a cheat in a video game. A geek hacking a thing they like and showcasing it
  - eitally 3y ago
    The most effective way of "cheating without cheating" is just using something like Sauce for Zwift or a head unit that displays your rolling 20min power, so you can effectively "sandbag" and keep your power under the threshold for the next category. This is arguably not cheating at all, just smart racing, but it is not a great racing experience when you're in the top third or so of a category and you race someone who very clearly is far superior and only staying in your cat to rack up podiums. To be fair, though, 1) this makes a lot of sense for team racing series, and 2) it's a really crappy experience to be at the bottom of a category and get dropped within 2 minutes of the start of every race. I'm 100% convinced the vast majority of people either outright cheating or gaming the system are Cat C riders trying to avoid getting upleveled to B.
    - 303uru 3y ago
      For heavier riders this is almost the only way to enjoy racing on Zwift. Even with a high FTP, I will never compete in A. So I jump in B races, use them as sweet spot training and get some sprint in at the end.
- artursapek 3y ago
  Yeah who cares lol literally go bike outside and breathe in the crisp autumn air
  - lvturner 3y ago
    I wouldn’t last thirty minutes in Hong Kong Island’s traffic. I’m sure many others are in similar situations.
    - nradov 3y ago
      The Strava heat map shows a lot of cyclists surviving in Hong Kong. https://www.strava.com/heatmap#9.83/114.11252/22.26615/hot/ride https://www.strava.com/heatmap#9.83/114.11252/22.26615/hot/r...
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - lvturner 3y ago
        I know, I've seen them and I always admire their fortitude -- cars do not leave them much space when they over-take. I said I wouldn't survive.
- singleshot_ 3y ago
  I started trying to think of reasons your times might be systematically different (other thin bike calibration, as you noted) and every one I could come up with -- altitude, CO2 level, noise level, how you get there -- could affect anyone at any time. If you're not racing next to me we're not competing to any degree of useful accuracy.
- sjfidsfkds 3y ago
  The trainers used by many people on Zwift (eg. the Wahoo Kickr) actually read out pretty accurate power numbers. The classic Peloton is basically a mechanical device with sensors attached - and none of those sensors are a power meter. The power estimates are widely reported to be inaccurate (they exaggerate output to varying degrees). On the other hand, the Kickr precisely modulates resistance and is able to accurately estimate power. I believe the newer Peloton Bike+ has a better system that produces accurate power readings as well. Of course, as long as the competitors are bringing their own hardware, there will be ways to fake the data. I’m just pointing out it’s possible to measure power accurately and hardware that does it is widely available. Personally, I find power readings to be useful because they help me understand the effort of cycling in different conditions. I can compare the readings I get in my garage to those from the climb up a steep mountain road, or into a gust of wind. Measuring my training based on my power output has helped me to go have experiences that I couldn’t have before.
- Lio 3y ago
  > I was repairing my Peloton the other day and getting inside made it really obvious how else you can manipulate That's because Peloton's hardware is ...to put it nicely... "somewhat economical". :P Peloton's never been intended as a serious sports science tool though, so it really doesn't matter how inaccurate it is. Its experience is much closer to gym spinning classes than outdoor cycling. A spinning bike is even cheaper in design, it'll just have a "make it harder or easier" screw to tighten a strap round a spinning drum. That's the level they're competing with. Despite the name you're unlikely to see anyone in the professional peloton warming up for a Grand Tour on either a spinning bike or something from Peloton Inc's current range. A high end smart trainer like the Tacx Neo family will use electromagnets to generate its resistance. 100 watts of resistance is 100 watts of electrical power to about 0.5%-1%. No calibration necessary because it's connected to a source of electrical power[1]. - 1. You can actually use a Neo without connecting it to the mains but it's less accurate and you don't get some of features like downhill simulation.
- 303uru 3y ago
  The Peloton doesn't have a power meter. They "calibrate" it at the factory with a curve based on resistance and cadence and ship it out. Meanwhile a good trainer has a power meter reading actual torque in real time and giving a power accuracy around +/-1% or better. There's really no comparison. For example, my FTP is 342 watts as tested on my Stages SB20. It's slightly higher outdoors. A buddy got a Peloton and asked me what my FTP was because he knew I rode a lot and was surprised that his was soooo good because the Peloton returned him an FTP of 280. I was suspicious so I asked if I could give it a go. My FTP on the Peloton was 560 watts. I'd best doped up peak Lance Armstrong.
- ben7799 3y ago
  It wasn't long ago all Power Meters cost more than a Peloton, some probably still do, but I haven't checked in a while. They are still expensive, so obviously they're not going to put anything decent in a Peloton.
freitzkriesler2 3y ago
[flagged]
- renewiltord 3y ago
  This is what I did when I found out that other people were aimbotting in CS:GO. I went outside and shot some real people instead. Nothing can substitute for the real thing, guys.
  - CommieBobDole 3y ago
    Well, if they were the people aimbotting, that would be an effective solution to the problem.
  - bdowling 3y ago
    You know, the rise in popularity of airsoft was probably driven as much by people coming from 3rd person shooter games as it was people wanting a more realistic military force-on-force simulation than paintball.
  - freitzkriesler2 3y ago
    You're trolling but... Airsoft and paintball games are a pretty good real life FPS equivalent and more importantly it forces you to get physically fit as opposed to sitting on your bum clicking. I recommend watching some actual airsoft and paintball games on YouTube. They're about as close to the real thing that you'll get.
- batch12 3y ago
  I thought about flipping your comment into one that encourages people to not comment online to prove a point, but to find someone outside and do the real thing, but that'd be rude. Now- I don't disagree that going outside is more desirable to me than this. Through the lens of playing a video game, cheating sucks. People that cheat suck and sour the experience for others. If it makes him happy to ruin these people's game like they've ruined his-- I'm good with it. If he's doing this to make his own experience more enjoyable-- I'm good with it. Either way, this was an interesting article. It was well written, and it gave me a window into something I will probably never choose to enjoy.
bongobingo1 3y ago
> He was taken aback. It couldn’t be cheating. Could it? Cheating? In cycling?? Say it ain't so!
- QuantumG 3y ago
  > “It would mean all this training is so useless,” he thought. That had to be written ironically.
paxys 3y ago
Basic life lesson – if you enjoy something, do not do it competitively.
- eru 3y ago
  That's not widely applicable. Many people enjoy competing in business for example.
  - cuu508 3y ago
    And in cycling.
  - callalex 3y ago
    Those people are generally sick in the head, and ruin things for everyone else. Endless growth and competition are objectively killing the planet. Seeking wealth for the sake of comparison to others misses all of the reasons life is worth living.
    - eru 3y ago
      Perhaps you shouldn't be commenting on the 'Startup News' website, then? ('Startup News' was the title before it changed to 'Hacker News'.)
      - heavenlyblue 3y ago
        This is a website that discusses more than just "startup news", so perhaps not
      - layer8 3y ago
        “Startup” doesn’t equate endless growth and competition. Building a (merely) sustainable business is a worthy goal and quite good enough. Most startups never even reach that modest goal.
        eru 3y ago
aaron695 3y ago
[dead]
arp242 3y ago
> He decided to publish what he’d found. The post racked up 800k visits in a day. > > It wasn’t knowing about the cheat that made someone a cheater, he reasoned. It was using it. The platform disagreed. Zwift issued a shadowban, allowing Pollastri to still ride — but no one could see his results. So predictable. "Please keep Mr. Feynman away from the locked safes." It seems really hard to get this 100% fair, because so much relies on physical equipment. E.g. "Elite riders learned the serial codes of batches of smart trainers that overreported a rider’s power, and sought them out on the used market" isn't necessarily "cheating" – if you happen to have one of these trainers but don't know it reports the wrong data. And what's to prevent someone from just hacking these things (e.g. the firmware, or modify it so there's less friction when pedalling, endless possibilities)? Seems basically impossible to detect all of this without physical access to the equipment. The stupid "cycles better than a doped up Lance Armstrong" ones get caught (what did you expect lol), but the more careful people won't.
- nico 3y ago
  > The stupid "cycles better than a doped up Lance Armstrong" ones get caught (what did you expect lol), but the more careful people won't I know someone who hacked their college system for applying for classes, it was a points-based system and he gave himself some ridiculous number of points, he got caught, ended up not getting in trouble They also told him they had fixed the vulnerability. But they hadn’t, so the guy hacked the system again, and he gave himself a high number of points, just not a ridiculous number. He never got caught again
- dktp 3y ago
  > It seems really hard to get this 100% fair It is, for all the reasons you mentioned, and nobody is aiming for that. He just found and demonstrated a cheat (bug) that the platform itself should have no issue detecting - changing weight mid race Zwift uploads race results to ZwiftPower and removes any cyclists that are outliers and it assumes are cheating. 8w/kg would be a big outlier. But it looks like the platform calculates w/kg based on the cyclists' ending weight. So if you change your weight to 25kg right after the race begins and back to 65kg before the end - while cycling at 200w, then Zwift's cheat detection system calculates your w/kg as ~3w/kg, which is completely reasonable and would not get caught. But cycling at 8w/kg is far far faster than 3w/kg The article is overblown. He's not trying to end cheating altogether. He found a bug and demonstrated it
AlbertCory 3y ago
> “It would mean all this training is so useless,” he thought. well, except that it made you more fit. Didn't it?
krackers 3y ago
See this defcon talk about cheating in virtual cycling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq9t0VEIMio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq9t0VEIMio
CitrusFruits 3y ago
I think this article is insightful in a lot of ways, but it actually doesn't even mention the easiest way to cheat: all you have to do is report your weight to be a couple kilos less than what you are. This is so prevalent that your "Zwift weight" is basically a meme in the cycling community. This is actually even complicated a little bit further since you weigh a lot of things throughout the week. If you go for a long ride and are a bit dehydrated, you can easily weigh 2.5kg less at the end than you do after dinner, which means you can report an unrealistic weight without "lying". For me, this alone always made Zwift racing a really hard sell. Bike racing is already hard enough without having to grapple with doubts that the people ahead of you reported their weight correctly.
davidw 3y ago
I think it's actually pretty cool that Zwift works well at all. I do the occasional race in a lower category, and sometimes they're pretty realistic. I did one with a fairly large starting group that broke apart on the first hill, and formed into smaller groups that worked together and in some cases merged back together on the flats, then split up again on the last hill. If you squint a bit, it felt like an actual bike ride with other people outside. Which is pretty cool for something controlled by a phone on a stationary bike in your garage.
- prmoustache 3y ago
  But most of what makes things interesting in road racing are not taken into account right? I mean the sheer violence of the accelerations after a slow corner, railing the corners at full speed in an exilarating way, being thrown in the gutters in crosswind fighting to stay on the wheel in front like your life depend on it, dropping other riders in a downhill section through faster speed in the corners, etc.
  - davidw 3y ago
    It's a fitness and, to a smaller tactics, game, not a handling game. So certainly far from the full experience, but... not bad when you're unable to go outside.
  - bunabhucan 3y ago
    >sheer violence It is safer! People die from time to time on group pelton road rides.
  - eitally 3y ago
    I think it depends what you find interesting. fwiw, now that Zwift supports steering, if you have the ability (hardware) to steer, it does give you a significant advantage. Otherwise, racing virtually is much simpler than racing IRL, but it's also just different (there is essentially no freewheeling in Zwift, so even on a race that isn't very challenging you still usually end up in z2-3 on flat sections). I'm thankful there isn't sheer violence in online racing. :D
nradov 3y ago
I don't understand why someone would waste their time on a quixotic quest to end cheating in a video game. Who cares? The whole think is ridiculous. It's not real racing anyway. I had a paid Zwift subscription for a while but the game aspects of are boring and pointless. So now when I do indoor smart trainer workouts, I just use my bike computer to control it and watch a movie to keep myself entertained.
- Mashimo 3y ago
  > I don't understand why someone would waste their time on a quixotic quest to end cheating in a video game. Are you sure you are on the right forum? :P For me it sounds like ~hacker news~ fun. Dig down into a deep hole and explore it. Find out all the technical ways to exploit something, try to find whys to fix it and blog about it. I can understand why you might not enjoy it, but do you really not see the appeal for other people in it?
VeejayRampay 3y ago
I use zwift on a regular basis and I'm still trying to wrap my head around how much of a complete loser you would need to be to cheat on a virtual cycling app, whole thing's just mind blowing to me
- ejb999 3y ago
  My thoughts exactly - I could just sit at home and write down in a log book every day that I beat my personal best and rode 1000 miles per week at a record pace, - some people really need to get a life.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- cainxinth 3y ago
  I’m reminded of the tagline from The King of Kong, the documentary about competitive Donkey Kong: “The competition is so vicious because the stakes are so low.”
  - npongratz 3y ago
    And essentially what Sayre's Law says about politics in academia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayre%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayre%27s_law
- bunabhucan 3y ago
  I once got a vm from a stranger telling me there was some stuff I should know about an employee. I asked the employee and the stranger was using a fake name and was upset that the employee had figured out the stranger was lying on some ultra distance internet forum. People would post times for "events" they did like "bike from Boulder to longs peak, run up the trail to 13k feet, climb the diamond to the summit then run down then bike home." Stranger was posting fake results then using sock puppet accounts to verify ("I met him with climbing gear at the end of the run, amazing effort!") He got caught because he posted a result on a rarely run trail that the employee had run, out and back, at the same time and not seen anyone. Forum was tiny, free to join, no prize money or sponsorship etc. Some people are just crazy.
diogenes4 3y ago
Have they considered therapy?
gonzo41 3y ago
Cheating such as tech, drugs, body positions, fairings, taking trains to skip parts of races, hiding off the race road for advantage, is as much a part of the sport of cycling as the riding bikes part. Why not this!
fluxem 3y ago
Go outside, touch the grass and ride on the streets.
- jbm 3y ago
  Apparently, it is going to snow 30 cm next week here. No grass to be had sir.
  - quickthrower2 3y ago
    Ski?
    - jbm 3y ago
      That was one of the reasons I moved back to Canada from Japan. The 4 AM dash for the first train and then the bullet train to a ski resort was much worse than a leisurely 7 AM wake-up, walk to the minivan, and a 50 minute drive to Nakiska.
      - hef19898 3y ago
        I still have hopes regarding winter in the alps this year, there are some places 50 minute drive away from where I life. Not high alps, but good enough for a day with the kids. Everything else tends to become a full weekend trip...
    - FrankoDelMar 3y ago
      Agreed. This thread confuses me because I get the impression that cycling is the _only_ form of exercise many bicycling enthusiasts are willing to engage in. I can understand if someone is a professional or aspiring professional and wants to train during the "off-season", but for Pete's sake, does it not get boring after three or four hours? It reminds me a lot of long distance runners and the treadmill. Like, what's the problem with doing arm exercises, strength training or HIIT? I have a lot of respect for endurance athletes, but to fixate on a single exercise seems to require a degree of obsessiveness.
  - 3y ago
scott_w 3y ago
Some things are difficult to solve because equipment manufacturers don’t really need to. Power meters just need to be reasonably accurate to each other and remain accurate to themselves as they’re a training tool first and foremost. Some things are reasonably easy: don’t allow settings changes after a race starts. Why they don’t do this is beyond me. That said, weight doping seems to be a big enough concern that esports organisers mandate athletes compete in a set arena and weigh in beforehand and use their calibrated trainers. I’m not sure how you solve that for people at home.
- prmoustache 3y ago
  > I’m not sure how you solve that for people at home. You don't. And it is valid for most "e-sports". But I don't understand Zwift anyway. A big part of the joy of cycling is about being outside, feeling the wind, handling your bike. The actual physical exercise is important but it is not the whole thing. I understand pro racers using turbo trainers when the weather is so crappy so that they can do specific structured training necessary for their job. But amateurs??? If the weather is too crappy (which only really happen in freezing temps or storms), just do another sport or focus on another hobby while waiting for the weather to be better. Note: I am saying that as a former elite racer.
  - mft_ 3y ago
    > But I don't understand Zwift anyway. A big part of the joy of cycling is about being outside, feeling the wind, handling your bike. The actual physical exercise is important but it is not the whole thing. I understand pro racers using turbo trainers when the weather is so crappy so that they can do specific structured training necessary for their job. But amateurs??? If the weather is too crappy (which only really happen in freezing temps or storms), just do another sport or focus on another hobby while waiting for the weather to be better. This seems unnecessarily narrow-minded. There are lots of hobbies and pastimes out there that lots of other people don't enjoy or understand; why the need to gate-keep, to judge? Maybe consider Zwift racing as competing on a computer game (think Fifa, or Fortnite, or Counter Strike) with the added bonus of exercise thrown in. It's also worth noting that the world of cycling is quite threatening when you're a relatively unfit amateur; even joining a local group ride can be scary, given the uncertainty of relative fitness and speeds. Attending a race is likely even more forboding, and it should be obvious that joining an anonymous online race would be magnitudes easier - logistically and psychologically.
atleastoptimal 3y ago
I've discovered that the more insanely pointless lying/cheating is in some niche community, the more likely someone is to do it.
darkwater 3y ago
Considering the history of cycling on this very topic (cheating), I would say that having ways to cheat is a feature, not a bug. It's part of the experience.
- prmoustache 3y ago
  Of any sport in fact. It is human behavior. Cheating is engrained in everyone's life. Mostly everyone try to cheat at life all the time. That coffee in the morning? Your cheating your way into life trying to be and feel more awake than you should. The nutritionnal supplements? cheating. The sleeping pills, antidepressant some people take. Cheating. The hormone therapy of aging mens. Cheating. The aesthetic chirurgy. Cheating. Mentionning stuff you were in fact barely involved in in your previous job in an interview. Cheating. Going past the speed limits while driving. Cheating. I could go on for hours with examples. In fact just considering using a turbo trainer at home and connecting to zwift can be considered cheating.
  - darkwater 3y ago
    > Of any sport in fact. Indeed, there are cases in every single sport out there (especially if practiced professionally), but cycling is probably the one with the biggest exposure on the topic (I would say the other big one is/was athletics).
    - prmoustache 3y ago
      Nordic skiing too in north of europe. The main reason it has the biggest exposure is because it is one of the sport that fights the most against it. The amount of testing and openness to this subject is just on another level to other sports compared to say soccer, rugby or tennis where there is so much money on the table that every possible scandal is shut down.
  - m463 3y ago
    There's a difference between doing the best you can, and behaving dishonestly.
geonnave 3y ago
> Back in ancient Greece, statues weren’t constructed to celebrate athletes: They were built to shame them into not cheating. Is this true? Could not find any source for it.
- bloqs 3y ago
  Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org https://en.m.wikipedia.org › wiki Zanes of Olympia
  - bloqs 3y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zanes_of_Olympia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zanes_of_Olympia
smallpipe 3y ago
Whoever made that graph for esport revenue should have their excel rights revoked. If you don’t look at the legends, it looks like a 4x increase over a few years, which is definitely not right
PeterStuer 3y ago
Preventing cheating in Zwift is unsolvable, and I mean not in the classic Red Queen co-evolving predator/prey sense. There are just so many physical hacks Zwift can never sense.
layer8 3y ago
> Back in ancient Greece, statues weren’t constructed to celebrate athletes: They were built to shame them into not cheating. Can someone elaborate?
skizm 3y ago
I'm always curious if they allow the instructors of the peloton videos to tweek their bikes to over report their power output so they can stay engaged while also putting up a competitive score for the people watching to follow along and pace against.
ubermonkey 3y ago
Somewhat hilariously: I use Zwift normally, but only as a means to drive my smart trainer in structured workouts. Early in the pandemic, though, my cycling pals and I DID do some virtual racing and group riding, which was a nice enough distraction from cabin fever -- run Zwift on one iPad, and run a Zoom call with your pals on the other. Anyway: actual world-tour pro Lawson Craddock is a friend of a friend, and he'd sometimes ride "with" us, though when racing he was obviously not in the same grouping as the rest of us. In fact, he got dinged for power output, and provisionally DQ'd from Zwift racing, because his numbers were too high. Apparently, if you're ACTUALLY a pro and produce ACTUAL pro numbers, there's an additional verification procedure you have to go through. He posted the screenshot on Instagram; it said something like "Somethings wrong -- unless you're a pro!"
acomjean 3y ago
I used to use Strava on my phone for my work rides. One time I forgot to turn it off, hopped in my car after coming home to do an errand. A couple miles down the road I realized that Strava was dutifully recording my driving as riding (in light traffic definitely faster than almost anyone would ride, especially me). Whoops. As the article points out they have trouble keeping cheaters out of bike races in the real world, they're going to have issues when everyone is at home in charge of their own equipment. I don't know why its seems like it a bike sport thing, maybe its the "bring your own equipment" aspect of it.
- elzbardico 3y ago
  There are a lot of impossible records on Strava in my corner of the world that I seriously suspect were logged in a motorbike or even a pro e-bike.
mikhailfranco 3y ago
Competition is for vainglorious losers (mostly men) - perhaps Vainglourious Basterds. There is always someone better than you, usually with a rare genetic gift, and/or an obsessive desolate life that is not worthy of any admiration. Just compare yourself to how you were yesterday. If it is a moral quest, then monotonic progress in wisdom is the objective. If it requires physical or mental agility, then adjust your PBs by age. If you compete and you cheat, you are a double loser - physically and morally.
- tantalor 3y ago
  Agree but I'd add a distinction: Competition with others is futile. Competition with yourself is productive.
  - mikhailfranco 3y ago
    I think that's what I said, but your summary is more pithy. I love pith. The world needs more pith.
  - FrankoDelMar 3y ago
    I generally disagree. Ideally, sportsmanship is be about appreciating the limits of human abilities. In that sense, the line between competition amongst others and oneself is blurred. Is it so hard to believe that people can compete against each other and also be supportive at the same time? It reminds me of the moon landing and the shared feeling that we, as humans achieved it, not necessarily just the US in its arms face against the Soviets.
- automatic6131 3y ago
  Pure cope. Mad cuz bad.

139 points by Anon84 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

I think if you go into virtual biking expecting some sort of exactness - and if there's money/fame attached, you are just set up for disappointment. A while ago I noticed that all my Peloton PRs happened on the bike at my in-laws gym, not on my own bike. Clearly there is a calibration difference between the two that majorly advantages the in-gym one. And obviously every rider's bike is different so that person ahead of you on the leader board might be putting out less output than you are. But who cares? I was repairing my Peloton the other day and getting inside made it really obvious how else you can manipulate it if you really cared to. And maybe some people do but again, who cares? The two numbers that matter are; your weight and perhaps the comparison on output between yourself today and yourself some time ago. Anything where you attach significance to comparison between your number and someone else's, you are in trouble. Somehow the culture on Peloton is such that people don't get into that. Maybe because social interaction is blissfully limited to high fives and following someone's class history. This system of competitive e sports on temperable equipment was sort of latent with disappointment from the start.

dktp 3y ago
I think people are overblowing his investment in making it competitive It's quite easy to cheat in Zwift as you can put any weight on your profile (and the metric for measuring speed is generally W/kg). As well as different trainers have different power measurement accuracy, etc But to some degree Zwift and other 3rd party Zwift race-tracking platform find the cheaters based on outliers and other factors and remove them from the list All he did is figure out a way to cheat which should be simple to detect by the platform itself (changing weight mid-ride -> ie make yourself lighter uphill and heavier downhill) and demonstrated it. And he got banned for it The way I see it, it's the same as someone demonstrating an LLM prompt injection or a cheat in a video game. A geek hacking a thing they like and showcasing it
- eitally 3y ago
  The most effective way of "cheating without cheating" is just using something like Sauce for Zwift or a head unit that displays your rolling 20min power, so you can effectively "sandbag" and keep your power under the threshold for the next category. This is arguably not cheating at all, just smart racing, but it is not a great racing experience when you're in the top third or so of a category and you race someone who very clearly is far superior and only staying in your cat to rack up podiums. To be fair, though, 1) this makes a lot of sense for team racing series, and 2) it's a really crappy experience to be at the bottom of a category and get dropped within 2 minutes of the start of every race. I'm 100% convinced the vast majority of people either outright cheating or gaming the system are Cat C riders trying to avoid getting upleveled to B.
  - 303uru 3y ago
    For heavier riders this is almost the only way to enjoy racing on Zwift. Even with a high FTP, I will never compete in A. So I jump in B races, use them as sweet spot training and get some sprint in at the end.
artursapek 3y ago
Yeah who cares lol literally go bike outside and breathe in the crisp autumn air
- lvturner 3y ago
  I wouldn’t last thirty minutes in Hong Kong Island’s traffic. I’m sure many others are in similar situations.
  - nradov 3y ago
    The Strava heat map shows a lot of cyclists surviving in Hong Kong. https://www.strava.com/heatmap#9.83/114.11252/22.26615/hot/ride https://www.strava.com/heatmap#9.83/114.11252/22.26615/hot/r...
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - lvturner 3y ago
      I know, I've seen them and I always admire their fortitude -- cars do not leave them much space when they over-take. I said I wouldn't survive.
singleshot_ 3y ago
I started trying to think of reasons your times might be systematically different (other thin bike calibration, as you noted) and every one I could come up with -- altitude, CO2 level, noise level, how you get there -- could affect anyone at any time. If you're not racing next to me we're not competing to any degree of useful accuracy.
sjfidsfkds 3y ago
The trainers used by many people on Zwift (eg. the Wahoo Kickr) actually read out pretty accurate power numbers. The classic Peloton is basically a mechanical device with sensors attached - and none of those sensors are a power meter. The power estimates are widely reported to be inaccurate (they exaggerate output to varying degrees). On the other hand, the Kickr precisely modulates resistance and is able to accurately estimate power. I believe the newer Peloton Bike+ has a better system that produces accurate power readings as well. Of course, as long as the competitors are bringing their own hardware, there will be ways to fake the data. I’m just pointing out it’s possible to measure power accurately and hardware that does it is widely available. Personally, I find power readings to be useful because they help me understand the effort of cycling in different conditions. I can compare the readings I get in my garage to those from the climb up a steep mountain road, or into a gust of wind. Measuring my training based on my power output has helped me to go have experiences that I couldn’t have before.
Lio 3y ago
> I was repairing my Peloton the other day and getting inside made it really obvious how else you can manipulate That's because Peloton's hardware is ...to put it nicely... "somewhat economical". :P Peloton's never been intended as a serious sports science tool though, so it really doesn't matter how inaccurate it is. Its experience is much closer to gym spinning classes than outdoor cycling. A spinning bike is even cheaper in design, it'll just have a "make it harder or easier" screw to tighten a strap round a spinning drum. That's the level they're competing with. Despite the name you're unlikely to see anyone in the professional peloton warming up for a Grand Tour on either a spinning bike or something from Peloton Inc's current range. A high end smart trainer like the Tacx Neo family will use electromagnets to generate its resistance. 100 watts of resistance is 100 watts of electrical power to about 0.5%-1%. No calibration necessary because it's connected to a source of electrical power[1]. - 1. You can actually use a Neo without connecting it to the mains but it's less accurate and you don't get some of features like downhill simulation.
303uru 3y ago
The Peloton doesn't have a power meter. They "calibrate" it at the factory with a curve based on resistance and cadence and ship it out. Meanwhile a good trainer has a power meter reading actual torque in real time and giving a power accuracy around +/-1% or better. There's really no comparison. For example, my FTP is 342 watts as tested on my Stages SB20. It's slightly higher outdoors. A buddy got a Peloton and asked me what my FTP was because he knew I rode a lot and was surprised that his was soooo good because the Peloton returned him an FTP of 280. I was suspicious so I asked if I could give it a go. My FTP on the Peloton was 560 watts. I'd best doped up peak Lance Armstrong.
ben7799 3y ago
It wasn't long ago all Power Meters cost more than a Peloton, some probably still do, but I haven't checked in a while. They are still expensive, so obviously they're not going to put anything decent in a Peloton.

freitzkriesler2 3y ago

[flagged]

renewiltord 3y ago
This is what I did when I found out that other people were aimbotting in CS:GO. I went outside and shot some real people instead. Nothing can substitute for the real thing, guys.
- CommieBobDole 3y ago
  Well, if they were the people aimbotting, that would be an effective solution to the problem.
- bdowling 3y ago
  You know, the rise in popularity of airsoft was probably driven as much by people coming from 3rd person shooter games as it was people wanting a more realistic military force-on-force simulation than paintball.
- freitzkriesler2 3y ago
  You're trolling but... Airsoft and paintball games are a pretty good real life FPS equivalent and more importantly it forces you to get physically fit as opposed to sitting on your bum clicking. I recommend watching some actual airsoft and paintball games on YouTube. They're about as close to the real thing that you'll get.
batch12 3y ago
I thought about flipping your comment into one that encourages people to not comment online to prove a point, but to find someone outside and do the real thing, but that'd be rude. Now- I don't disagree that going outside is more desirable to me than this. Through the lens of playing a video game, cheating sucks. People that cheat suck and sour the experience for others. If it makes him happy to ruin these people's game like they've ruined his-- I'm good with it. If he's doing this to make his own experience more enjoyable-- I'm good with it. Either way, this was an interesting article. It was well written, and it gave me a window into something I will probably never choose to enjoy.

bongobingo1 3y ago

> He was taken aback. It couldn’t be cheating. Could it? Cheating? In cycling?? Say it ain't so!

QuantumG 3y ago
> “It would mean all this training is so useless,” he thought. That had to be written ironically.

paxys 3y ago

Basic life lesson – if you enjoy something, do not do it competitively.

eru 3y ago
That's not widely applicable. Many people enjoy competing in business for example.
- cuu508 3y ago
  And in cycling.
- callalex 3y ago
  Those people are generally sick in the head, and ruin things for everyone else. Endless growth and competition are objectively killing the planet. Seeking wealth for the sake of comparison to others misses all of the reasons life is worth living.
  - eru 3y ago
    Perhaps you shouldn't be commenting on the 'Startup News' website, then? ('Startup News' was the title before it changed to 'Hacker News'.)
    - heavenlyblue 3y ago
      This is a website that discusses more than just "startup news", so perhaps not
    - layer8 3y ago
      “Startup” doesn’t equate endless growth and competition. Building a (merely) sustainable business is a worthy goal and quite good enough. Most startups never even reach that modest goal.
      - eru 3y ago

aaron695 3y ago

[dead]

arp242 3y ago

> He decided to publish what he’d found. The post racked up 800k visits in a day. > > It wasn’t knowing about the cheat that made someone a cheater, he reasoned. It was using it. The platform disagreed. Zwift issued a shadowban, allowing Pollastri to still ride — but no one could see his results. So predictable. "Please keep Mr. Feynman away from the locked safes." It seems really hard to get this 100% fair, because so much relies on physical equipment. E.g. "Elite riders learned the serial codes of batches of smart trainers that overreported a rider’s power, and sought them out on the used market" isn't necessarily "cheating" – if you happen to have one of these trainers but don't know it reports the wrong data. And what's to prevent someone from just hacking these things (e.g. the firmware, or modify it so there's less friction when pedalling, endless possibilities)? Seems basically impossible to detect all of this without physical access to the equipment. The stupid "cycles better than a doped up Lance Armstrong" ones get caught (what did you expect lol), but the more careful people won't.

nico 3y ago
> The stupid "cycles better than a doped up Lance Armstrong" ones get caught (what did you expect lol), but the more careful people won't I know someone who hacked their college system for applying for classes, it was a points-based system and he gave himself some ridiculous number of points, he got caught, ended up not getting in trouble They also told him they had fixed the vulnerability. But they hadn’t, so the guy hacked the system again, and he gave himself a high number of points, just not a ridiculous number. He never got caught again
dktp 3y ago
> It seems really hard to get this 100% fair It is, for all the reasons you mentioned, and nobody is aiming for that. He just found and demonstrated a cheat (bug) that the platform itself should have no issue detecting - changing weight mid race Zwift uploads race results to ZwiftPower and removes any cyclists that are outliers and it assumes are cheating. 8w/kg would be a big outlier. But it looks like the platform calculates w/kg based on the cyclists' ending weight. So if you change your weight to 25kg right after the race begins and back to 65kg before the end - while cycling at 200w, then Zwift's cheat detection system calculates your w/kg as ~3w/kg, which is completely reasonable and would not get caught. But cycling at 8w/kg is far far faster than 3w/kg The article is overblown. He's not trying to end cheating altogether. He found a bug and demonstrated it

AlbertCory 3y ago

> “It would mean all this training is so useless,” he thought. well, except that it made you more fit. Didn't it?

krackers 3y ago

See this defcon talk about cheating in virtual cycling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq9t0VEIMio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq9t0VEIMio

CitrusFruits 3y ago

I think this article is insightful in a lot of ways, but it actually doesn't even mention the easiest way to cheat: all you have to do is report your weight to be a couple kilos less than what you are. This is so prevalent that your "Zwift weight" is basically a meme in the cycling community. This is actually even complicated a little bit further since you weigh a lot of things throughout the week. If you go for a long ride and are a bit dehydrated, you can easily weigh 2.5kg less at the end than you do after dinner, which means you can report an unrealistic weight without "lying". For me, this alone always made Zwift racing a really hard sell. Bike racing is already hard enough without having to grapple with doubts that the people ahead of you reported their weight correctly.

davidw 3y ago

I think it's actually pretty cool that Zwift works well at all. I do the occasional race in a lower category, and sometimes they're pretty realistic. I did one with a fairly large starting group that broke apart on the first hill, and formed into smaller groups that worked together and in some cases merged back together on the flats, then split up again on the last hill. If you squint a bit, it felt like an actual bike ride with other people outside. Which is pretty cool for something controlled by a phone on a stationary bike in your garage.

prmoustache 3y ago
But most of what makes things interesting in road racing are not taken into account right? I mean the sheer violence of the accelerations after a slow corner, railing the corners at full speed in an exilarating way, being thrown in the gutters in crosswind fighting to stay on the wheel in front like your life depend on it, dropping other riders in a downhill section through faster speed in the corners, etc.
- davidw 3y ago
  It's a fitness and, to a smaller tactics, game, not a handling game. So certainly far from the full experience, but... not bad when you're unable to go outside.
- bunabhucan 3y ago
  >sheer violence It is safer! People die from time to time on group pelton road rides.
- eitally 3y ago
  I think it depends what you find interesting. fwiw, now that Zwift supports steering, if you have the ability (hardware) to steer, it does give you a significant advantage. Otherwise, racing virtually is much simpler than racing IRL, but it's also just different (there is essentially no freewheeling in Zwift, so even on a race that isn't very challenging you still usually end up in z2-3 on flat sections). I'm thankful there isn't sheer violence in online racing. :D

nradov 3y ago

I don't understand why someone would waste their time on a quixotic quest to end cheating in a video game. Who cares? The whole think is ridiculous. It's not real racing anyway. I had a paid Zwift subscription for a while but the game aspects of are boring and pointless. So now when I do indoor smart trainer workouts, I just use my bike computer to control it and watch a movie to keep myself entertained.

Mashimo 3y ago
> I don't understand why someone would waste their time on a quixotic quest to end cheating in a video game. Are you sure you are on the right forum? :P For me it sounds like ~hacker news~ fun. Dig down into a deep hole and explore it. Find out all the technical ways to exploit something, try to find whys to fix it and blog about it. I can understand why you might not enjoy it, but do you really not see the appeal for other people in it?

VeejayRampay 3y ago

I use zwift on a regular basis and I'm still trying to wrap my head around how much of a complete loser you would need to be to cheat on a virtual cycling app, whole thing's just mind blowing to me

ejb999 3y ago
My thoughts exactly - I could just sit at home and write down in a log book every day that I beat my personal best and rode 1000 miles per week at a record pace, - some people really need to get a life.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
cainxinth 3y ago
I’m reminded of the tagline from The King of Kong, the documentary about competitive Donkey Kong: “The competition is so vicious because the stakes are so low.”
- npongratz 3y ago
  And essentially what Sayre's Law says about politics in academia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayre%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayre%27s_law
bunabhucan 3y ago
I once got a vm from a stranger telling me there was some stuff I should know about an employee. I asked the employee and the stranger was using a fake name and was upset that the employee had figured out the stranger was lying on some ultra distance internet forum. People would post times for "events" they did like "bike from Boulder to longs peak, run up the trail to 13k feet, climb the diamond to the summit then run down then bike home." Stranger was posting fake results then using sock puppet accounts to verify ("I met him with climbing gear at the end of the run, amazing effort!") He got caught because he posted a result on a rarely run trail that the employee had run, out and back, at the same time and not seen anyone. Forum was tiny, free to join, no prize money or sponsorship etc. Some people are just crazy.

diogenes4 3y ago

Have they considered therapy?

gonzo41 3y ago

Cheating such as tech, drugs, body positions, fairings, taking trains to skip parts of races, hiding off the race road for advantage, is as much a part of the sport of cycling as the riding bikes part. Why not this!

fluxem 3y ago

Go outside, touch the grass and ride on the streets.

jbm 3y ago
Apparently, it is going to snow 30 cm next week here. No grass to be had sir.
- quickthrower2 3y ago
  Ski?
  - jbm 3y ago
    That was one of the reasons I moved back to Canada from Japan. The 4 AM dash for the first train and then the bullet train to a ski resort was much worse than a leisurely 7 AM wake-up, walk to the minivan, and a 50 minute drive to Nakiska.
    - hef19898 3y ago
      I still have hopes regarding winter in the alps this year, there are some places 50 minute drive away from where I life. Not high alps, but good enough for a day with the kids. Everything else tends to become a full weekend trip...
  - FrankoDelMar 3y ago
    Agreed. This thread confuses me because I get the impression that cycling is the _only_ form of exercise many bicycling enthusiasts are willing to engage in. I can understand if someone is a professional or aspiring professional and wants to train during the "off-season", but for Pete's sake, does it not get boring after three or four hours? It reminds me a lot of long distance runners and the treadmill. Like, what's the problem with doing arm exercises, strength training or HIIT? I have a lot of respect for endurance athletes, but to fixate on a single exercise seems to require a degree of obsessiveness.
- 3y ago

scott_w 3y ago

Some things are difficult to solve because equipment manufacturers don’t really need to. Power meters just need to be reasonably accurate to each other and remain accurate to themselves as they’re a training tool first and foremost. Some things are reasonably easy: don’t allow settings changes after a race starts. Why they don’t do this is beyond me. That said, weight doping seems to be a big enough concern that esports organisers mandate athletes compete in a set arena and weigh in beforehand and use their calibrated trainers. I’m not sure how you solve that for people at home.

prmoustache 3y ago
> I’m not sure how you solve that for people at home. You don't. And it is valid for most "e-sports". But I don't understand Zwift anyway. A big part of the joy of cycling is about being outside, feeling the wind, handling your bike. The actual physical exercise is important but it is not the whole thing. I understand pro racers using turbo trainers when the weather is so crappy so that they can do specific structured training necessary for their job. But amateurs??? If the weather is too crappy (which only really happen in freezing temps or storms), just do another sport or focus on another hobby while waiting for the weather to be better. Note: I am saying that as a former elite racer.
- mft_ 3y ago
  > But I don't understand Zwift anyway. A big part of the joy of cycling is about being outside, feeling the wind, handling your bike. The actual physical exercise is important but it is not the whole thing. I understand pro racers using turbo trainers when the weather is so crappy so that they can do specific structured training necessary for their job. But amateurs??? If the weather is too crappy (which only really happen in freezing temps or storms), just do another sport or focus on another hobby while waiting for the weather to be better. This seems unnecessarily narrow-minded. There are lots of hobbies and pastimes out there that lots of other people don't enjoy or understand; why the need to gate-keep, to judge? Maybe consider Zwift racing as competing on a computer game (think Fifa, or Fortnite, or Counter Strike) with the added bonus of exercise thrown in. It's also worth noting that the world of cycling is quite threatening when you're a relatively unfit amateur; even joining a local group ride can be scary, given the uncertainty of relative fitness and speeds. Attending a race is likely even more forboding, and it should be obvious that joining an anonymous online race would be magnitudes easier - logistically and psychologically.

atleastoptimal 3y ago

I've discovered that the more insanely pointless lying/cheating is in some niche community, the more likely someone is to do it.

darkwater 3y ago

Considering the history of cycling on this very topic (cheating), I would say that having ways to cheat is a feature, not a bug. It's part of the experience.

prmoustache 3y ago
Of any sport in fact. It is human behavior. Cheating is engrained in everyone's life. Mostly everyone try to cheat at life all the time. That coffee in the morning? Your cheating your way into life trying to be and feel more awake than you should. The nutritionnal supplements? cheating. The sleeping pills, antidepressant some people take. Cheating. The hormone therapy of aging mens. Cheating. The aesthetic chirurgy. Cheating. Mentionning stuff you were in fact barely involved in in your previous job in an interview. Cheating. Going past the speed limits while driving. Cheating. I could go on for hours with examples. In fact just considering using a turbo trainer at home and connecting to zwift can be considered cheating.
- darkwater 3y ago
  > Of any sport in fact. Indeed, there are cases in every single sport out there (especially if practiced professionally), but cycling is probably the one with the biggest exposure on the topic (I would say the other big one is/was athletics).
  - prmoustache 3y ago
    Nordic skiing too in north of europe. The main reason it has the biggest exposure is because it is one of the sport that fights the most against it. The amount of testing and openness to this subject is just on another level to other sports compared to say soccer, rugby or tennis where there is so much money on the table that every possible scandal is shut down.
- m463 3y ago
  There's a difference between doing the best you can, and behaving dishonestly.

geonnave 3y ago

> Back in ancient Greece, statues weren’t constructed to celebrate athletes: They were built to shame them into not cheating. Is this true? Could not find any source for it.

bloqs 3y ago
Wikipedia https://en.m.wikipedia.org https://en.m.wikipedia.org › wiki Zanes of Olympia
- bloqs 3y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zanes_of_Olympia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zanes_of_Olympia

smallpipe 3y ago

Whoever made that graph for esport revenue should have their excel rights revoked. If you don’t look at the legends, it looks like a 4x increase over a few years, which is definitely not right

PeterStuer 3y ago

Preventing cheating in Zwift is unsolvable, and I mean not in the classic Red Queen co-evolving predator/prey sense. There are just so many physical hacks Zwift can never sense.

layer8 3y ago

> Back in ancient Greece, statues weren’t constructed to celebrate athletes: They were built to shame them into not cheating. Can someone elaborate?

skizm 3y ago

I'm always curious if they allow the instructors of the peloton videos to tweek their bikes to over report their power output so they can stay engaged while also putting up a competitive score for the people watching to follow along and pace against.

ubermonkey 3y ago

Somewhat hilariously: I use Zwift normally, but only as a means to drive my smart trainer in structured workouts. Early in the pandemic, though, my cycling pals and I DID do some virtual racing and group riding, which was a nice enough distraction from cabin fever -- run Zwift on one iPad, and run a Zoom call with your pals on the other. Anyway: actual world-tour pro Lawson Craddock is a friend of a friend, and he'd sometimes ride "with" us, though when racing he was obviously not in the same grouping as the rest of us. In fact, he got dinged for power output, and provisionally DQ'd from Zwift racing, because his numbers were too high. Apparently, if you're ACTUALLY a pro and produce ACTUAL pro numbers, there's an additional verification procedure you have to go through. He posted the screenshot on Instagram; it said something like "Somethings wrong -- unless you're a pro!"

acomjean 3y ago

I used to use Strava on my phone for my work rides. One time I forgot to turn it off, hopped in my car after coming home to do an errand. A couple miles down the road I realized that Strava was dutifully recording my driving as riding (in light traffic definitely faster than almost anyone would ride, especially me). Whoops. As the article points out they have trouble keeping cheaters out of bike races in the real world, they're going to have issues when everyone is at home in charge of their own equipment. I don't know why its seems like it a bike sport thing, maybe its the "bring your own equipment" aspect of it.

elzbardico 3y ago
There are a lot of impossible records on Strava in my corner of the world that I seriously suspect were logged in a motorbike or even a pro e-bike.

mikhailfranco 3y ago

Competition is for vainglorious losers (mostly men) - perhaps Vainglourious Basterds. There is always someone better than you, usually with a rare genetic gift, and/or an obsessive desolate life that is not worthy of any admiration. Just compare yourself to how you were yesterday. If it is a moral quest, then monotonic progress in wisdom is the objective. If it requires physical or mental agility, then adjust your PBs by age. If you compete and you cheat, you are a double loser - physically and morally.

tantalor 3y ago
Agree but I'd add a distinction: Competition with others is futile. Competition with yourself is productive.
- mikhailfranco 3y ago
  I think that's what I said, but your summary is more pithy. I love pith. The world needs more pith.
- FrankoDelMar 3y ago
  I generally disagree. Ideally, sportsmanship is be about appreciating the limits of human abilities. In that sense, the line between competition amongst others and oneself is blurred. Is it so hard to believe that people can compete against each other and also be supportive at the same time? It reminds me of the moon landing and the shared feeling that we, as humans achieved it, not necessarily just the US in its arms face against the Soviets.
automatic6131 3y ago
Pure cope. Mad cuz bad.