There needs to be a couple more low end categories for people in the 1w/kg and 1.5w/kg range, primarily because if you’re starting from a lower W/Kg then the delta between two riders will be incredibly significant. For example, going from 1W/Kg to 1.5W/Kg is a 50% increase in performance (0.5W/Kg for someone riding up around 5W/Kg is closer to 10% at which point racecraft becomes a significant factor).
Racing score alone is a poor metric for grading racers at the low end of the spectrum. For example in a race I just entered I was last place and 3mins behind the leaders just 12mins into the race, from there I couldn’t be stuffed putting in any effort and just strolled through to get the route badge. The other riders in this race were comfortably doing over 2W/Kg.
It’s frustrating coming last all the time and not having an opportunity to be remotely competitive. This would be a bloody easy change to implement and manifest in real, tangible positive outcomes for people.
Already been requested before, simply too big a jump between the existing categories.
You have to factor in that more race categories would result in more people racing, lets face it the racing is hopeless if you are the bottom of a category of a huge power gap.
A better solution I feel however is age based races, Concept 2 band the races for indoor rowers every 10 years, it simply makes a better dividing line. Rowing also has a lightweight/heavyweight class so everyone under 75Kg and everyone over 75Kg. The same thing would work pretty well for cycling, its not that Zwift is short of numbers. What you would find is dramatically more people would race if the racing was closer and you could stay in the main peloton for the whole event.
This just furthers my point - if there is a concentration in towards the mid groups that tells me the groupings are too few and structured such that they encompass the bulk of the bell curve distribution of riders. In principle I believe it makes sense to keep A Category at lofty heights - the middle categories should be positioned such that there is an even distribution (in broad terms) of riders. I fully accept that lower categories (E, and my proposed F and G) would have fewer riders (or simply schedule less races and have them in primetime slots).
There is nothing to lose here - if it is such that E is a zombie category then why wouldn’t you try to structure it such that people like me would chose to participate more.
I disagree with age based races. I see racing as being about competing against others who are of similar capabilities (ideally slightly better). The idea is that your performance lifts to match their output and you improve over time (at an accelerated rate vs going at it alone). Age is not an indicator of performance. Lots of old bastards with elite level performance and lots of young whipper snappers that are well below average.
From my short time on Zwift my key take away is that I’d rather have fewer races available to me at any point on the condition that they are more appropriately graded and binned for my performance level (which can only be described as pathetic!).
I know there are a decent number of people out there at the same level as me - I see them in the races with me way out the back. I might look into trying to start a weekly event.
There is one weekly series where the lowest category is 0-125 and the highest allowed racing score in any category is 425. It’s put on by the HERD club, so it would not be difficult for you to talk to them about it. The main barrier to creating weekly events that have low participation is they get deleted from the schedule if they don’t average around 30 total participants.
I guess another thing to look for is mass-start races where all cats are together. Then you basically just hang with whoever you can. Tends to be more of a threshold effort in that case, but the whole ability gamut would be present there.
I recall James saying they tried to get interest in a lower category a few times and had issues getting the participation numbers.
Lets get real here, there is no such thing as an “Elite Level” 59 year old rider like me. You could be considered to be “Elite” in the 50-60 year old category but even this from experience is highly unlikely, if your performance is near the top you will suddenly become Elite in the 60-70 old category.
Zwiftpower results have the number of older riders dropping away. What I’m saying is you don’t need to make every single race age based but clearly Zwift should run some age based racing, if only to see how you stack up. Zwift obviously needs to lock in your age so it cannot be changed or next minute it will just be more cheating.
You actually have no idea in reality of a persons performance on Zwift. Until they start putting up a column of “Power Source” devices its all meaningless. The current scope for cheating is just too big and its really, really hard to fix.
Age is pretty much the only clearly defined metric that Zwift could easily enforce at this stage.
There are already age based races. They are not very popular, perhaps because age is a poor determinant of power. At age 55 I can ride more than 3W/kg for an hour and that is not remarkable - there are many riders above and below that level. I’m still around the middle of the bell curve for power. Beginners can’t touch that kind of power, and yet in an age group event I will be out the back door if the fit people show up, even if you disregard the people with dodgy trainers.
I’m pretty confident most people who want to be in a F or G category would not have a ton of fun in most age based categories. At least not in any age range <60.
The ability range in the current weakest pen (E) would be lower by simply replacing the 85% 5min seed score floor with 100%, preventing racers from purposely performing badly in races to try and stay in their current pen or drop to an easier one.
Power data, where available for a rider, should go back way longer than 90 days to determine seed score.
Getting rid of score decay would prevent racers from at least temporarily racing in pens they have no business disrupting.
Nevermind just the top three finishers, the top 10% should be getting more success points and they should be temporarily added to 100% seed score for at least four weeks, if not longer.
Zwift Racing Score is just one bandaid after another, including the two score ranges for the Zwift monthly race series, especially when time rather than position matters.
Pens F and G aren’t required, a better racing system is needed than this abomination that’s been around for ~19 months.
You are Totally right. I do the « cyclo by foudre » race every sunday morning, it is age based catégories, and in my category (50-60 yo) the first are competiting with the best Young.
This morning we had the French e cycling champion for example in 20-30 yo category but we also had some 50-60 yo finishing in the same sprint for scratch (ok he is doing 15th on scratch in ironman and winning ironman in age category, but that’s the point : 50 - 60 yo cat is very compétitive!)
@Thirsty_Dog - I’m in the Herd race organizing group. Right now we’re running 4 Categories - 0-125, 125-225, 225-300 & 300-425. We had been running 5 but merged 2 because of numbers.
I don’t think it’s been mentioned, but the pens A-E are a hard code limitation in the game. From what we’ve had Zwift Developers say in the past I think it’s fairly fundamental in the original event implementation and would be quite an effort to add more pens in an event. The Zwift HQ zRacing races use offset pens alternating hours, along with the “Advanced” running less frequently to shrink the sizes of pens and/or give different people the chance to be “top of category.” I think both strategies are good, though would be better if ZRS was binned for vELO (or potentially vELO 2!)
Cheers for directing me to your beginner races, Craig.
Just had my first win. But more importantly because I was racing with people more aligned with my ability I felt compelled to push a fair bit harder than all the other races I’ve been in. A complete sea change from a recent experience (like most of my other races) where I was in a 0-200 RS (E) pen of the Stage 6 Tour de Zwift. I was averaging around 220W for the first 10mins but was still dead last and -4mins from the leaders.
My previous best power output for a race was 1.3W/Kg and this race I was around 1.45W/Kg - a solid 10% or so improvment. I reckon I had a bit more to give though but because I got out to a 2-5 second lead then pushed that out to about 30seconds I did hold back a little. At one point I had to get of the bike to turn the fan on, wont forget that again.
Anyway, this was way more enjoyable than the bullshit races I’ve been in before, but like I said, most importantly I felt compelled to put in because I actually had a chance!
I had the second highest mean raw watts for anyone in the race, which is cool. Probalby would have had top raw numbers across the board had the race gone the full distance. I ened up messing around and had a squirt at times when I finished the route:
Competition, by definition brings out the competitive nature in us all. My power numbers were higher because I felt there was actual competition. In previous races there was zero point in trying to blow myself up knowing that I will be dead last by +30mins. the effort in those races was to keep ticking over and finishing the race at about 80-85% max effort (it’s a training ride, effectively).
Is orange good/bad? one of the things I noted about my performance is that I maintained a consistant output (relatively anyway). Up until I stopped at the end of the race, but before route completion (this was the large gap in power mid ride). Small period of no power towards the start was me getting off to turn on the fan - on a short downhill.
I’ve never complained about my other competitors. I have complained about the makup of low tier race pens though.
