Anti sandbagging and other areas that need development and communication

If you can auto assign pens, there should be no need to DQ for over performance post race. Those over performing will move up, those who manage their 20min efforts will continue to do so as they do now (thats just an issue with current system until a ranking system comes)

You then get the reward of win/good position and move up a Cat if you meet the requirements.

I think end users would move towards that path rather than the current system of upgrades and Dqs post race.

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Yes I agree all together is fun and for that reason I’ll probably be doing a bit of ZHR masters races over the winter. Everyone (apart from perhaps the very strongest few) is challenged plenty hard enough!

As it is, I can mostly forget about cats and sandbaggers by racing at the low end of A but while last season was ok, my ZRL A1 division is just a bit too tough for me this time sadly.

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:+1: ZHR Masters is one of my regular haunts for the reasons set out as a good race like intensity training ride.

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One of the best series on the platform, on at the wrong time at the moment for me, in my really old group we had some very good riders putting out very good numbers, all good fun though.

It certainly makes racing less complicated, but also less interesting as every race becomes very much like a time trial for the fastest group you can still draft. Granted, that’s not much different from my current race experience but that’s certainly not the case for everyone. I have looked specifically for mass start events when I found myself too far down in the category gap though.

Cat enforcement is a bit of an ugly measure IMO. A necessary evil probably, but certainly not the golden egg if you ask me. Yes it stops the sandbaggers from blowing up a race (not the cruisers), and hopefully leads to a larger field in the bottom of each cat. But truth is there are many riders receiving upgrades without being competitive in Cat x, let alone stand a chance to hang on in Cat x+1. This rider may struggle on towards further improvement, but engaging racing it is not… more likely this rider gives up on racing for a while, or avoids an upgrade next time.

Unfortunately an elegant solution requires more resources and I’m hardly convinced this is on the list of zwiorities at all. I’d be very interested in what ‘intelligent implementation’ may look like. But primarily I’m interested if Flint and the team will succeed to push any improvement forward. Go team!

12 posts were split to a new topic: ZRL timeslots not for USA morning

My current solution is to just race the 3R races.

Essentially, they are mass start.

I just race as an A each time, regardless of my level. I go as hard as I feel like. Nobody can tell me I’m too strong, too weak etc. It’s actually very refreshing. That’s my solution until Zwift actually do something to protect their customers in lower categories.

Every other staggered start category race I’ve tried recently is filled with the usual wall of cheaters. It’s not just the sandbaggers, it’s the sheer volume of cruisers. There’s so many now. The secret is out of the bag.

Just ride easy, never do a hard 20min effort in a race. Race down a category or 3. Cruise for the whole race, then miraculously uncork a 1500w sprint in D grade.

I’ve always wondered what these people do after smashing the D graders. Do they take a screen shot and have the image framed?

When they have people over to their cheater home, they show them the amazing picture. “That’s me winning the noob noobathon midnight noob up, awesome huh?”

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This is my strategy as well. I (mostly) do mass start races. I will do separated start races if it appears there will be enough people to make it likely that a high placement will get me a high (low actually) Zwift Ranking result.

I don’t race for specific race podiums, I race for Zwift Rank results that will get me an improved overall rank.

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Again, this is just like my experience with the Zwift Classic, even more so. The riders at the pointy end of the fields thought Autocat was the best thing since sliced bread; the riders at the back end of the fields were pretty sure the bread was moldy. When we posted up in the feedback thread, the front end riders said, “You’re overstating things and Autocat is great.”

When I started posting up the Zpowa results for my C3 and C2 events with the wide disparity in w/kg and watt numbers then they saw the problem. You’re doing the same thing here, Ole. Start times are great for you so “What’s the problem? WTRL must have a good reason for not accommodating the morning North American riders.”

There are what? 15 time slots? Many of them an hour apart. And a 7 hour gap in the middle of them. There can be no valid reason for it except WTRL doesn’t want be told what to do. Just like the Zwift Classic.

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Seems an odd response when you are requesting about a zone for west coast riders.

As you say this is totally off topic one final point comparing to the Thursday TTT which now has a zone at 7.20am est it is still pretty quiet with 16 teams (across all cats). That might work for TTT but if similar numbers appeared for ZRL it would not be enough to make a league out of.

I’d fully support more zones if there is teams/riders available so i’d suggest feedback to Zwift.

Hey who would do that to D group racing. i do some TTV of D group racing.

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Putting some money where their mouth is?

https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/2571812857

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Good news…

Another example of the disproportionate amount of status and importance WTRL events hold within Zwift racing:

Don’t get me wrong, this absolutely will not affect me personally. :rofl: But it doesn’t sit right with me that you must be registered with a third party company to participate in this. I started reading that article excitedly wondering if it was going to be some sort of community knockout competition that everyone on Zwift could take part in, in one way or another. Nope, same closed shop.

Will everyone affected by registered already? Almost certainly. This is an easy solution for Zwift. But again it sends the message that all other events aren’t really worth bothering with.

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“The ideal candidate has extensive experience designing PvP”

Zwift deathmatch inc! I hope they add Capture the Flag. :smiley:

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I’m with you generally on this however in this one I’m sure registering an account with WTRL will be the least of anyone’s worries given how onerous the requirements for registering for a UCI event are likely to be.

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Nah I agree, and I’m not saying it’s not necessary to have those very strict controls etc. It’s more that once again it basically says ‘WTRL/autocat = legit’, which denigrates everything else. It shouldn’t be necessary for paying customers to give their details to a completely separate company to ensure fairness on the platform, nor should their events be the only ones deemed suitable.

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Indeed, I find i odd that you have to be auto-catted via some obscure formula in order to be able to compete. Why not have it as a free for all. Surely those not strong enough won’t last the distance anyway.

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Be interesting to hear what @Eric_Schlange_ZwftIn had to say about the use of the term “auto categorised” in the story but the way I read it was just that it was only open to A category riders, per the existing A-D terminology and boundaries, not that it had anything to do with the Auto Cat experiment. Apart from anything else there was no “A category” in Auto cat.

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Perhaps you’ll be able to use a chainsaw or nailgun on sandbaggers.

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