Age related groups

I have noticed being nearly 60 years of age Zwift still have me racing in Cat B against 20 yr old kids. When is zwift going to look at catagories and also the age of people so it is a fair fight. Create a veterans group for those over 55 or even 50 so i and others do not get backsides kicked by the youngsters

Does age matter when the categories are based on power?

Probably, the younger you are, the more often you can repeat an effort - So its not necessarily about category level power, but the ability to keep repeating hard efforts. Plus, its over category power is what decides races and splits the pack. 1/2/5min power not whatever ZFTP is purporting to be this week.

Of course age matters. When you get iver 50 you it is more difficult to keep muscle mass and your vo2 max starts to drop . No matter how hard you train . I do 16 hrs a week you will never match a per at least 40 years your uunior

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No matter your age this does not look like a C rider:

There are a few age category races and trust me they are a lot harder than power based categories.

We used to run the ZHR weekly series and of all the racing I have done that was the hardest.

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And how many Cat C riders do you think ride that much?

Shoot, I am even willing to bet I don’t even know any B’s that ride that much.

You’re stronger than you’re letting yourself on to be. Do you have a sprint? Not really no. Does that matter in Zwift in… 99% of the races? Yes, it does.

You’re plenty strong. Do races that suit you; endurance races, 1 hour plus.

I’m lightweight, I consider myself upper B, but you ride a boatload more hours than I can, and have a higher w/kg by a significant margin than me.
But when we get ZRL races that are closer to 1 hour than the typical 40 minute mark, I at least stand a chance at the end as most people start to fizzle out by said 40 minute mark.

Find endurance or climbing races.
It just sounds like you’re trying to fit into a spot that you’re weakest.

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If it wasn’t for OP’s zFTP being below the arbitrary Watts threshold (250W for A, 200W for B, 150W for C), they are mighty close to a zFTP >4.2W/Kg promotion to A :rofl:.

Even when at my numbers best, last year before covid late September, I was averaging ~10 hours a week including ~2 hours of gentle commute.

We’ve recently had a goalposts move on zMAP thresholds and the rolling number of days looked at, let’s have a random minimum Watts goalpost change to for instance 225/175/125 for A/B/C respectively. :upside_down_face:

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Just a suggestion for zwift to add more age categories races. I’m over 50 and last week had what I’ll call a good race and bang now I’m a B. I get it but when I go through Zwift power after my races there are a handful of over 50 but the majority is masters and classic. Or maybe add some sub categories C-C+ and so on. Either way I’ll keep pushing but not as fun fighting for last place.

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There’s a really long boring thread about this somewhere

Being bottom of a cat is not so fun no matter what your age is. There are a couple of options for folks at the bottom of a cat such as choosing races where all cats are visible (even the Zwift L’Etape Du Tour Fondos are now classified as mass start races for all cats for instance), or see if you can find a VirtuSlo race that might fit your timezone, those use a different cat system which would probably be better for you.

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You can find some suggestions for events you might enjoy in some of these threads

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One problem is there is no age verification on Zwift. There may be more extreme examples, but iirc Bath Salts is aged 109. :rofl:

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@Steve_Cl are we age shame are we now ? here i was think i was 108. lol

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Just wondering why zwift don’t run the races in age categories?
I would love to race against rider’s off my own age as well as in my categorie

i did a race this morning I’m cat c and 58 i did ok but coming 88/122 tells me i must have been up against a lot off younger rider lol

Did you look at the results on ZwiftPower? I suspect you’ll find quite few older riders near the top. There are a lot of people in the 50-60 age group who are absolute beasts. I like to glance over the age groups in race results to enjoy beating younger people, but the cruel thing is really the category system and where your power places you in it.

Nothing wrong with wanting better age group visibility, but if my racing category were based entirely on age group my results would be worse.

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I’m 61 and actually find that the age related races can be tougher than my normal Cat B. Less riders, so it tends to get a bit more spread out, and there are guys at the top of 60+ who are still riding cat A & A+. I see there’s a 70 year old with a 20 min best of 508w or 6.43 w/kg.

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I came 21st out of about 300 the other day, and then 6th out of about 90. I’m Cat C and 55.

It ain’t just about trips around the sun.

:wink:

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Masters racing events recently announced by HERD:

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I don’t know about anyone else but I’m quite happy the categories aren’t based on age as a D cat rider in the master age group. If I had to race 30-something As and Bs in every race it would be the end of Zwift racing for me.

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