IS E-RACING A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD?

In many ways, e-racing has been our saviour over the past year. Having a competitive outlet to replace all the cancelled outdoor events has kept us sane, fit and distracted from lockdown monotony. But anyone who’s developed an e-racing habit will attest that it comes with a certain level of doubt and distrust: are the avatars ahead of mine really putting out more power and deserving their place ahead of me in the results?

We decided to conduct a survey to find out how CW readers feel about the state of fair play in the virtual realm (see pie charts). Of the more than 800 who responded, 96 per cent said they doubted e-racing was a level playing field. This was deemed to be no big deal by the 45 per cent who race indoors purely as a fun way to test themselves, but for those more serious about e-racing who want to rate themselves against others, fairness matters. It was time to find out why e-racing is so plagued with dubious performances, and whether anything can be done to make the results as realistic as the virtual parcours.

Is your trainer telling the truth?

The chief limitation on e-racing fairness is the accuracy of equipment being used – currently a very mixed bag. In community racing, Zwift – understandably wanting to keep the platform as accessible as possible – allows riders to compete using anything from the most advanced smart-trainer to a basic wheel-on ‘dumb’ trainer combined with a speed sensor. In the latter case, Zwift estimates power based on wheel