If looking for a race during a lunch break, I’d think the half-hour duration would be more popular – allowing changing time and a shower more easily. In general, shorter duration races seem more popular than longer duration.
I think your breakdown sounds right.
It’s very course dependent though.
I’ll give a flat A race a go, but when the road goes up, if it’s 3-5 minute climb, some Bs are putting out 5.5w/kg+. I am not doing 500w for 5 minutes any time soon.
The thing that would make racing score better would be if it adopted the Zwift Racing.app approach of strengths and weaknesses for different courses. Adding a +/-50 points might be good.
This would lift 10 or so of the better climbers or sprinters into A each time?
I don’t mind too much. Unless you are doing a series like FRR or Chasing Tour, you can pick and choose which routes you do. Chasing Tour is great as its mass start and scratch racing with a good mix of routes. FRR is a bit dicey for me as its a lot of type 1 climbing fun with KOM points included.
I’m similar in that my anaerobic power is good enough for most routes that have less than 2 min climbs.
Flat races in A are tough if the 800 scorers do 400 watts for 30 mins. My success rate at getting to the end with the front in the Friday ZEAL races is very low as there is nowhere to get rest. I last about 10 to 15 mins.
Rolling is my go to. I can grab enough rest and recover quickly so i’m able to punch 30s to 90s power without getting dropped. If the big wkg riders let me get to the end with them I can hit them with my sprint.
I’ll mostly do hill climbs solo as a time trial, and only then if they are less than 5 mins long. 2 mins is good because its basically a long sprit.
The pros have the same dynamic. Sprinters win the classics, and on tour its about making the time cut on the mountain sections. Likewise the climbers aren’t going to win many bunch sprints.
I don’t think anyone can be a generalist and win all races.
You sure about that ?
I really think 95% of the Zwifters have no idea who the topriders are.
Even I cant name 5 of them.
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The people who race in A pay more attention to their competition. They have to in order to evaluate which races are worth doing. I know from promoting events targeting the A racer community that if you can get a couple of the well known people to show up, suddenly you start collecting a field of real hitters. It was interesting for me as a non-A guy to see how it works. Down category it doesn’t matter much.
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maybe this should say known to race organisers and the eSports community
Several of the 800+ racers have verified their performances including height/weight verification. Especially those racing Zwift Elite and MyWhoosh Sunday Race Club which are live steamed by official eSports channels.
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yep, and I think once a race or time slot gets a reputation for attracting a crowd people tend to sign up earlier and it feeds on itself.
In other categories its easier to jump in last minute.
There are more options - Zwift Crit Club, TT cou, Hill climb club, and more community events. Can’t judge it all on race score. Zwift will know active vs active racer counts (hopefully).
800-900 verify. 900+ Have no verification of any kind 
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That is also a lot easier since there arent many of them.
Those 800+ riders make up for what ? 0.5% of Zwifters ?
It is absolutely not easy.
There are a few discord servers we use to coordinate.
If someone wants to race as an A my advice is join and a team and get both access to events you don’t see and be ability to coordinate racing and training activity.
As an added bonus the team will be able to help people verify their performance and prevent any drama.
yep, not easy.
That’s the problem with a normal distribution. The riders in the top pen are few in number, but the gulf between ability is the largest among any cats.
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Steve, where is that chart from?
Is that FTP?
yep its FTP from this website.
How does your cycling power output compare? — Cycling Analytics.
I don’t know about the sample size, but Intervals.icu is similar and I think its safe to extrapolate the shape.
One of the first disclaimers though is that the Cycling Analytics numbers are drawn from Cycling Analytics users. Maybe worth looking at for the high FTPs, but probably meaningless deriving any conclusions about the Zwift population below 200 or so watt FTPs. Interesting site, entering in a 4w/kg FTP, it does say that about 25% of their cycling population has such or higher.
Agree with that. Unless you race, these folks are unknown randoms. Half of the people with a tick or pro icon against their name are unknown to me.
Lunch time racing is less possible now given companies are mandating work from office full time.
I think the point here was some of the top racers are known to the racing community. I think this is right - if certain racers are in the start pen, I know who they are, and I think ‘ouch’.
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Thing is, I have a much lower score than you and can usually finish the Zeal Race in the main field.
In fact you are in my ‘victims’ on ZP, but your ZRS is 160 points higher.
Not sure what my point is, other than with ZRS having decent anaerobic power is gonna get you way more points than sustaining big w/kg.
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Hi James, that’s true, but I think only because I race routes that suit me.
I haven’t raced ZEAL in a few weeks, firstly because the clock change which shifted it back an hour, but also because of other events taking preference. I think if I had my score would be lower. I’ve been selective with races in the Community Festival and had a decent run of Club Ladder ( 5v5 ) results which has bumped my score up. I’m probably closer to 720 to 740ish if I raced a variety of routes.
Looking at Zwift Power, you have around 17% more aerobic (20min) power than me, and I often see you higher up. In fact, on the ZEAL races, you’re one of my benchmarks - can I hang on as long as you - and the answer is mostly no. 
But that’s the thing with my power profile, if I get let off the hook by 350w+ riders, and make it to the final 1km then there is a good chance I can empty the tank in the final sprint and grab places. But if the road turns up for more than 3 minutes or the front leads a 5 to 10 min charge, It’s only a matter of time before I fall off the back.
ha ha, you are one of my benchmarks too. I want to stay in contact longer than you 
Yeah my power profile is heavily weighted in favour of longer efforts, although I am working with a coach now and have improved my 1m, 30s and 15s power by a lot, but still lower than you by some margin.
My score is low because I tend to seek out the hardest races with higher attendance. I’d rather finish 28/38 but have to go really deep and get 4.4 w/kg than come last in the sprint in a small group race with 3.8 w/kg, purely as a ‘bang for my buck’ thing with fitness.
I do like the ZEAL race as it is usually pretty flat, with a quality field. Tom Dumoulin has raced it a couple of times recently. As soon as I saw him attack I nearly killed myself bridging up to him just for the photo opp.
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