Unless you have dodgy equipment, there aren’t any efforts that artificially inflate your ability.
Race your best and celebrate an upgrade until we get a better system.
Awaits Andreas…
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I suppose it’s more ‘efforts that push him over the category threshold, despite not winning / placing in those races’.
There are certainly efforts that will inflate your number relative to riders who don’t do such efforts. They won’t push your number above what you can do. There are a lot of “really strong punchy Bs” who will happily do a Bologna TT but never find the time for a full gas effort on Tempus Fugit or the Epic KOM, for example.
I think that’s a mutually exclusive term.
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If you mean Rich Gammon, he has indeed been promoted, as you can tell by clicking on his name…mind you anyone producing a new 20 min PB on that route today has a true 20 min power that’s significantly higher.
Not having a team to race for is a bigger problem than having to ride at the low end of A (says the person who was DFL in A cat, though I was beating 2 people before I had a power dropout). I actually find it more fun struggling in a ridiculously strong A1 division than playing “who’s the biggest sandbagger” in B. It just takes a change of mindset.
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No need for the snarky tone. This must have just updated, as it was ‘almost A’ as of half hour ago.
The original point was that it’s a bit crap that he won’t get to take part in this weekly series now, with the pre and post race chat being a big part of it for us. His top end efforts have legitimately pushed him into the higher category under the current category set up - no argument there. But there is no conscious sandbagging there. It’s why some sort of rankings based system based on results against the folk you have raced against (like there is in Zwiftpower right now) would work better, which has been one of the main (among many!) talking points in this thread.
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Sorry wasn’t meaning to be snarky but it’s obvious from the raw numbers if you know how they are calculated. (The 95% button helps!)
Agree that the system is ridiculous and unfair. A couple of riders finishing well down in my wife’s race were over the boundary, one to such an extent that they may even get a direct DSQ. It just makes no sense to punish mid-race finishers for pedalling too hard.
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Well that’s a bit annoying now its fully updated but I didn’t get new 20min power pb, 5 minute yes that increased
The issue I have is wkg being based on 20min as everyone has the ability to smash out 20min and my highest 20min, 4.3wkg came from going up the alpe but my overall power was 3.8wkg for the race so you tell me if basing it on 20min is fair for certain people
Its the same for everyone though . It IS your 20min output , you just need the challenge of the Alpe to make you do it . You could do the same on the flat , but probably dont because you dont “need” to to keep the chimp happy on the decent speed requirements .
Why does going to A mean the end of the world , surely it will just spur you on to better things , if you are that way inclined ( and you should be to progress ) .
Why dont you try a few A cat entries to show you it really isnt a negative thing , yes you will find some races when the Elite racers will knock you for six but equally you probably find plenty to compete with in those races , and races where that doesnt happen . It will draw out those efforts you can only produce on the Alpe on other routes too .
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Agree with all that you are saying, and not disputing the upgrade. The original point was that he won’t be competing in WTRL with our little team for the foreseeable future. As I said earlier, a lot of the fun is the build up, pre race chat, and then post race chat. It is what it is - was more an example of a use case scenario of some of the limitations of the current system.
It’s not the end of the world just means I can’t race with mates now on a Tuesday night
As I said though 20 minutes shouldn’t be the fixed point for wkg and limits, just because I can produce for 20min doesn’t mean I’m not getting hammered in longer different routes
I have raced A cat earlier in the year and got smashed in the few races I did but I accept given the current rules/system that is in place I’ll be an A based rider fit the next couple of months
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Yes that is a problem and to be honest the fact that the main Zwift race focus is this event which is entirely TEAM orientated is IMO a problem , this being one good example of why . Its a problem if you are promoted in this way. I really enjoy the events but organising and keeping a team together is a lot of effort sometimes . More individual events needed with similar field quality and size.
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And this is why more orginizers need the tools not just WTRL.
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It is actually 95% of max 20 minutes therefore it is basically your FTP.
This has always been the rules.
Now that we have basically settled on Utopia for normal races, this nicely opens up a new point of discussion.
What is the best system for team based racing?
Is it an improved grouping/category system taking more data points in to account?
Would groupings by ranking work?
Basically same as we have at the moment but riders grouped by some pre defined category boundaries (like rankings, like you suggest).
Still means big onus on captains and managers to select riders based on accurate “groupings”, but it’s surely the only way to ensure the races themselves are well matched and fun for all.
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Yes absolutely , when I asked when they were restarting there Saturday series in earnest I was told in no uncertain that they were no longer interested , they had enough to do keeping the TTT and ZRL series working . IIRC they pretty much told me same , go look for someone else to provide this.
Zwift people if you are listening , you put all the racing eggs in this basket , but by own admission this basket is not big enough to ( at least want to ) do it all .
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Yes, as the somewhat prickly gatekeepers are not shy in telling us - they’ve been working 30 hour days and 9 day weeks to keep this show on the road.
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It has to supplement the individual categorisation with some sort of group one .
In terms of team results , does one A+ rider and 5 C riders beat a team of 6 Bs sort of thing.
on a TTT I think we can easily guess answer so I think it should be a sum total sort of thing . In scratch races would be it same however . Lets be clear most of us ( in the middle to low numbers teams ) cant field a team to control a race , only 1 or 2 do , and therefore we pretty much race as individuals so the same question IMO gets the same answer , a team with one A+ rider and 5 C riders would be beaten by a team of 6 Bs ( even though the A+ rider would win the race ) . The problem would be that all hell would be let loose here in the forums and in the race itself about that A+ rider piling off the front. So how do we address that ? , should we ? Is that just a tactical team decision ?
What we have now , works at a minimum level , but we have seen the issues with it in recent conversations when one team member all of a sudden gets bumped across the (artificial) divide of a race cat. He is still the same rider but a little bit better than the previous race but now he is in essense kicked out of the team he started in . Anyone who tries to herd teams into ZRL each tuesday from smaller club based teams will know how disruptive that is .
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aye I know its always been this way for calculating but there is no way I can go for that pace for an hour, this is shown on the alpe du zwift climb where i did 20minutes at 4.3wkg but ended the race at 3.8wkg which was under 58 minutes long, this is my gripe with the 20min power limit
with regards to FTP, its always said that you stay seated during the test, so how can a race where you are often out of the saddle pushing hard and also at times drafting then go towards your FTP?
I’m just having a gripe about the whole calculation system that zwift/zwiftpower put in place with regards to values and wkg etc as my overall power went up by 0.06wkg from last nights race which has sent me into a higher category race, its not as if I have magically added 30w to my power and become a faster/better rider!