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

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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