Sticky Watts
Sticky Watts
On Friday November, 7th, 2025 Fury Rhinos raced in a club ladder 5v5 race against SISU Kohota. I’m a member of Fury Rhinos, this was my third race. I finished 7th place and should have earned 4 points for our team but I was disqualified for “Sticky Watts.”
- Ladder Result (Login Required)
Below you’ll find a description of sticky watts followed by my defense. I did not cheat and it annoys me to have a disqualification on my record that implies such.
Club Ladder’s Description of Sticky Watts
These are defined similar to other community run events. Our intention is to spot and outlaw techniques that are likely to create benefit from things such as “sticky watts” or “micro bursts”, typically these involve a highly variable or “staccato” cadence style.
DQ for unusual technique is automatic, with a manual check from race control to validate so there may be some delay until the DQ is finalised. This DQ will be visible in the results so race control will not typically contact captains to discuss further.
Sticky Watts
This is very visible from a flat top on the power curve like shown. In most instances where such a flat top is visible it will be an automatic DQ, however other considerations such as cadence, period and frequency of flat tops may be taken into account.
DQ for sticky watts is automatic, and is for the most part an “open and shut case” as the system is accurate in spotting this. The main instances of false positives is where riders have significant device or equipment issues which cause the sticky watts. However as Sticky Watts and Equipment Issues both constitute a minor infringement, race control do not investigate these further as both are punished the same.
My Zwift Setup
My Zwift setup is as follows. Zwift runs on an Apple TV 4K and I run the Zwift Companion app on my iPhone. My iPhone is paired to my Garmin Tacx Neo 2T trainer, my Garmin Heart Rate Strap, and my Zwift Play controllers.
My best guess is some issue between the Zwift Companion app and Zwift directly. Just prior to the race the Apple TV updated Zwift. That maybe a red herring as I’ve seen no such discrepancies since then.
I record my races since 2025-09-28 when I got a capture card. I have a webcam pointed at myself, and using OBS Studio I overlay the webcam over the AppleTV output on the side. That turned out to be useful evidence in this case.
I also dual record with Garmin Edge 530 head unit. Here’s the Zwift / Garmin overlays:
- Zwift Power Data Analysis (ZwiftPower Login Required, but the dataset is set to public)
I agree there are flat spots in the power of Zwift. What confuses me is that the cadence value and the power value are both from the same trainer, and the cadence value was updated during the flat spots, but the power wasn’t. If it was a bluetooth drop out, I wouldn’t expect that. If it was an issue of the Zwift Companion app getting backgrounded, I don’t see why cadence would be preferred over power either.
I’ve now put as much of a defense as I can and it seems like I’ll just have to let it go.