Anyone with a 20 minute average over 2.7 w/kg doesn’t belong in cat D.
I don’t understand what’s so hard about this. Zwift certainly knows your 20 minute average in real time. If you’re over the category limit (based on computed FTP), you should be disqualified immediately and dropped from the event.
EDIT: Admin removed the names from the picture. Please don’t post names in pictures.
These races have Category Enforcement enabled, so for anyone over 2.5 w/kg to enter they must not have had any all out efforts in the past 60 days. Moving forward, they won’t be able to join the D pens any longer. Also, pay attention to their absolute watts, 1st place must be very light weight. 34kgs? And they won’t be upgraded if they don’t hit the minimum watt floor, I think is 200 watts for Cat C?
This is the first I’ve heard of a wattage floor. Are you saying that the winner of this race would have to have an FTP of 5.9 or higher to get disqualified?!?
Pretty much yes, there has been loads of chat on the forum recently about absolute watt category floors being a bit broken, i raced a B cat race last night, winner was 39 kg junior who averaged 5.2 but was only 203 watts
150 watt floor to get our of d so not quite that high but still around 4.64 w/kg for 20 mins.
As other have said and been discussed in length elsewhere the watt floor idea is totally broken. There were chosen as random values years ago and don’t translate well when you get really light riders as they have a huge advantage in races.
All category boundaries have been increased by 5%, to make the difference between Zwiftpower and CE less apparent and confusing (because Zwiftpower uses 95% of your best effort over 20 minutes).
These are now 2.62, 3.36 and 4.2w/kg.
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So no longer 2.5 w/kg.
And it’s not what you have produced in the race it’s what you have achieved prior to the race. This means an improvement in performance in a race doesn’t get you disqualified.
As others have said those with a low raw watts power also stay below cat D criteria.
I think all in the race rightly, or wrongly, probably fall within the C E rules.
Questions :
how do you know your Vo2 max is over 45 - I suspect possibly not
Is your CP over 2.62 w/kg - possibly not. ( your activity is almost private so not easy to tell )
I don’t wish to comment on anyones weight but unless they are lower than 60kg the 150 watts floor really doesn’t come into the Cat D ‘and’ CP equation.
That’s just what Garmin tells me. How would Zwift know? It’s as likely to be wrong as Garmin.
Xert says my FTP is 172 watts. My weight fluctuates between 68 and 70 kg. So, on a light day, my FTP is just over 2.5 w/kg. Critical power is the asymptote of the power curve? My critical power appears to be closer to 162 watts. So, between 2.3 and 2.4 w/kg.
But, according to the first column of the chart, VO2Max >= 45 and watts >= 150 puts me in Cat C.
It might have been better if I had written — I suspect Zwift calculates your Vo2 max to be less than 45.
I don’t think anyone really knows exactly how Zwift calculates MAP or Vo2 (or in fact CP). I’m sort of guessing that as your CP appears to be just below the 2.62 w/kg limit then your Zwift calculated Vo2 and MAP are probably also under the respective 45 and 3.9 w/kg limits.
Under Zwift Category Enforcement I’m sure you are a Cat D. Happy Days ?
I guess the takeaway from this is that I’m cat D as long as CE lets me join cat D. I will be annoyed, though, if I get bumped to cat C while riders pumping out 3 w/kg are still winning cat D.
