I’m nearing 60 years old, I have never been a super athlete, and never will be, but generally i am fitter than most of my age. I like Zwift, but really only for the racing. It is unlikely I will ever become any fitter or faster than I am at the moment, In fact my health is likely to deteriorate.
My problem is, I’m very much on the boarder line between D & C categories and is the difference between being competitive in one and not in the other. This is also the case for team selection in WRTL. This is very frustrating!
I had high hopes for Zwift Racing Score, only to find this is even worse.
Zwift, do something about all this perceived unfairness please, preferably before I die!
Then work to get better.
You can do it. I had a crash and serious injury and permanent physical differences, FTP gone from 313w down to barely able to do 100w for 5-10 minutes. Now I’m back up to 280w after over two years. And I’m not exactly young, never did anything like riding bikes when younger either.
Focus and train smart and you can do it, don’t write yourself off just yet.
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I think the new racing categories have a better chance of putting you in a category that I’ll call ‘weak old men’ rather than mixing you in with the category I’ll call ‘fat kids’
That’s the problem with D at the moment. W/kg gave anyone who is light a big disadvantage - and likely meant you would end up promoted to C without actually being able to win a race in D.
This is because adipose tissue or fat doesn’t produce any power but it does make someone who can produce power appear as weak as someone who is weak when you compare them using w/kg (which was never intended as a metric to compare fat people - it was a way of comparing lean, elite athletes)
But as these fat-but-can-produce-power win they will get moved to a higher category regardless of their w/kg.
Of course most people will end up in a category they are average in. You have to get over that. Because you say you are average. So why do you expect any different? It’s like an 80 year old won 3 records at Derby Velodrome the other day. Amazing guy. He cycles some ridiculous amount of miles every year. But he’s been an elite athlete all his life - he did the commonwealth games et al back in the day. Take the average 80 year old who is fitter than most 80 year olds and put him on the track with this guy? They’ll lose. You’re not going to be any better against 60 year olds now than you did against 30 year olds when you were 30.
But, you need to see zwift racing as training. It’s a motivation thing - most people are not great at doing a big effort against the clock or if the road around them is empty. If you’re like most then having a bunch of other people riding really hard and you have to struggle to keep up that makes you push that extra 10%. You’ll get fitter. That’s a zwift race. Do them instead of your hard days and see the results. But I wouldn’t sit there fretting about what position you finished in. We’ve seen that the old system allowed people to so-called ‘cruise’ that is enter a race well below their ability and they ride z2 or z3, maybe a few bits of z4 and win it - but what is the point of that? Then they have to go and find some other way to train because if you ride soft the whole time you’ll just lose fitness.
For sure if you drop off the back and it becomes a solo ride then it probably is a waste of time - there are some people for whom there’s little or no point racing because they’re not fit enough. D racing category was never a D robopacer ride.
If all you do is get dropped then you may as well do the training by yourself. But the chances are if you ride at the right time of day you’ll find some group in a big enough race to sit with that’s both above your comfort level and that you can stick with.
If your only motive for racing is winning then you’ll never be happy. There’s only 1 cyclist who will be happy in the “Only winning makes me happy” and at the moment that’s Pogacar.
Think about runners. They all enter a race, there could be 30000 people in it, they’re not even at the front at the start. They’ll finish 17435th place - and they’ll stand there holding a medal and a banana smiling. Why? Why is a runner capable of accepting they’re average or below at something they enjoy doing? Why do cyclists all think they’re winners? It makes no sense. You’re not. You weren’t when you were 25, so you’re definitely not now.
But why does that matter? The bulk of the population are average or below at everything they do. If I cook a steak it’s edible, but I’m not Gordon Ramsay, if I play guitar it sounds musical but I’m not Eddie Van Halen. If I work as a computer programmer I make a living but I’m not Donald Knuth or Alan Turing. Why are so many cyclists in crisis about their cycling performance to the point they need zwift to create something that hides reality from them?
Why can’t you just enjoy it and stop fretting about not being very good?
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Thanks Mike, your first line had me literally laughing out loud!
I hear what you are saying, I know I’m average/not very good and that I shouldn’t fret about it.
I don’t really. Just disappointed I can’t race in the last WRTL race on Tuesday.
The Category system does seem a dark art and with some obvious inconsistencies.
Anyway, find me, follow me, D. Griff [GXY] I’ll follow back and rib you about your results, just kidding!
Cheers.
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Racing is to push yourself…How does the 5 minute W/kg look against your best? Is the chart trending up?
I race occasionally, when something is available when I have time to ride…Won once when the pen had 10 Cat D’s and the front three were disqualified due to no HRM. My goal is top half…that is it. Big races I have been in… as I recall I get close.
I am 62, just had a knee replaced and will be starting from scratch…maybe we start a Team and call ourselfs the Mid-Pack Old Farts…
Ride On!
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I’m 59 and I’m between D/C Cat i find D Easy But C defo not so easy lol
I’m fit for my age but a tad heavy at 13 stone 6 so i do factor that when im up againt riders that are 7 stone wringing wet lol.
My racing score is 295 not good but that’s the best i can do with the work life balance etc
I chuckle at some of the race finish times compared to me and I’m way behind in some races.
I often wonder if some riders are cheating not that I care that much i just race and enjoy it.
Anyway just ride on and enjoy 
There will always be people at the top and bottom of the categories, however they are designed. There is a top-of-category experience, and a bottom-of-category experience, and they’re quite different. It takes a different mindset to race at the bottom of the category where you are not going to be a protagonist in the race, and being a protagonist (even if you are not a contender for the win) is undeniably more fun than being blown out the back on the first bump in the road. When you are at the top of D serving up pain to other riders, think about how the people at the bottom of D find motivation to enter a race. Of course many simply don’t do it, which is fine - they should do whatever brings them satisfaction. When I look at a race and can’t find the motivation I usually do some kind of group ride. Some of them have a hot finish so they go steady for a while and then smash it for the last few kms, which can be fun in a kind of race-like way.
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Aging is indeed a significant factor, often overlooked. When all else is equal—weight, height, VO2max, FTP, etc.—a 30-year-old would typically outperform a 50-year-old. period! Recovery time needs growth exponentially after your 45’s/50’s…
It can be tough when you are at the bottom of a category. The likelihood of winning races is near zero. When I find myself at the bottom, I consider doing better than expected to be a “win.” I strive to hang on to the front group as long as possible. Again – doing better than expected counts as a win.
Continuing to finish races ahead of Father Time is a big win.
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Hi,
I am similar one, 65 yo, zwifting in winter only (Nov - March/April). Starting in D each year (no wins, sometimes podium) - after some races always in C cat. The reason was my zMap, not zFTP. Curious about ZRS now.
I would not say racing is wasting your time - but I recommend (and I do) some workouts, free rides or robopacer. Racing is for me reward for hard work, like a cake after the dinner.
Try it, you will feel better - and you definitely can be faster!
Ride on!
I am not sure what your racing score seed is, but if you are landing back of the pack in ZRS you should see yourself drop, as long as your seed isn’t so high you can’t get into the last category if you keep ending up end of the pack you will end up top of the lower category again.
That said, as soon as you start winning (or even coming in over top half) in that lower category you will start moving up to the higher one again.
So as long as your seed doesn’t preclude you from dropping down far enough to make it into the next lower category you should be able to experience both categories.
That said, I think it would be better if Zwift mixed up the cat boundaries more so people would get more opportunities to be a part of various field strengths particularly for folks who cannot drop a category based on where their seed is etc.
Lots of good comments in this thread. I as someone who finishes running races in the 1000s, I agree winning often isn’t the point. Still, since Zwift went to the trouble of creating a numeric ranking system and seemingly arbitrary category boundaries, it would be nice if they occasionally mixed up the boundaries a bit to give more people a better chance to win.
Btw, You’re not wasting your time—couch potatoes are; that’s precisely what we aim to avoid. 
Agree, but it’s not all on Zwift. I do notice that Zwift though quietly eliminated the split Low/High End events. However, aside from the Women’s specific races, Tiny Races and the HerD Beginner races, few and far between examples of others experimenting or changing the default cat boundaries. That’s a shame.
My understanding is it’s a bit of a pain in the butt to make boundary changes for organizers, but I’m not one of those, so I honestly don’t know.