Until auto cat actually comes in, just send out a message to the pen with the names of all the people racing in categories lower than their allocated ones…
Yeah, we get that. I though I was smart because I worked out that the cat system was crap (and what was needed to fix it) within a few weeks of starting zwifting. I then found out that loads of people had been pointing out it was crap for literally years and zwift (and to some extent race organisers) have no interest in fixing it.
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I believe that information is even in scope . I think I saw this recently on some Zwift UI which told me how many riders were entered out of category.
How difficult would it be to therefore take that in scope data and show it to the user when they joined . It is very easy to change Pen when you have joined so a simple "We think you might be in the wrong pen and could experience flagging or throttling if that is the case , we recommend always joining a suitable pen , would you like to join the correct one ? " prompt , select new pen and action … how hard can that be .
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That is why they use 95% of you peak 20min. You FTP is set at 283w so you should be able to do your FTP for a hour (it won’t be fun). we do 20min FTP test because recovering after a 1 hour FTP test is long.
There is actually no rule that you have to stay seated in a true FTP test. I checked all my sources and they all just say go as hard as you can for 20 min. Hunter Allen Power Blog: What to Expect - Your First FTP Test
I’d be surprised if anyone could do their reported FTP for an hour to be fair.
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I agree that will take a special kind of crazy effort. but that is the method Hunter Allen suggested for testing, I assume he used a lot of data from pro or semi pro riders that know how to suffer.
This has got me wondering. A lot of people on here say a results-based system is the greatest possible solution for categorisation. So I’m curious what people think about promotion in team races like WTRL - how many people should be promoted from each race?
FTP is defined as what you can sustain for an hour. It’s only an estimate (according to Hunter Allen and others) that what you can sustain for 20 mins can be multiplied by 95% to get your FTP. For some people that will be about right, but for others it will be way off.
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In reality, FTP tests means very little - Its 95% of what you can hold for 20mins. An estimate of what you might hold for 1 hour. They did revise it in the next version of the book to say between 40-60mins IIRC.
But its main purpose was to set baseline for training & workouts - It really shouldn’t define us as cyclists, but yes I know it does.
You then have the ramp test is essentially an estimate of an estimate - But as long as its in the ball park it ‘should’ work and it doesnt tax you as much as a FTP test which means you can recover & then train at a higher intensity quicker.
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That’s a cracking idea actually…
I think there is lots of room for discussion and experimentation about what would work best. I think it’s a shame that there isn’t even any progress towards starting this process. Marrying it to a team competition introduces an extra level of complexity and it would depend what your goals are.
I suggested a while back that a racing ladder might work well. Weekly races, the winner(s) move up to the next rung above for the next week and the loser(s) move down. That’s all. If you miss a race or DNF you keep your place in the list. New riders slot in according to their FTP estimate (doesn’t matter if it’s not perfect).
Number to be promoted/demoted each week would depend on the scale of the whole thing.
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To be slightly pedantic, FTP is what you can hold for an hour.
A popular way of estimating it is to use 95% of what you can do for 20 minutes.
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This is effectively what a results based system looks like.
Your category is based on your overall results for the last N months. Place higher and your results score moves up, place lower and your score goes down.
This is how bike racing works in the real world. Success moves you up. You get to do longer and faster and more prestigious races.
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In the real world, the system works well at stopping “ordinary people” from entering the Tour de France.
But with categories in Zwift you want the opposite - you want to stop Tadej Pogacar from entering the lower categories and blowing “ordinary people” away.
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It does both .
It prevents you entering races you are not qualified ( or accredited ) for but in addition and significantly , In the real world if you are a CAT 1 license holder you cant enter a CAT 4 race
It also significantly , certainly in the racing authority I ride under you cant enter a race at all until you get a category and accreditation.
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With this ZRL season, many racers are coming from a summer with not much Zwift racing and an artificially low 90 days W/kg. If racers were not risking upgrade/disqualification, we would see a lot (more than we already have) of cruising.
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So if we had a results-only system where Zwift cats matched those in real life, to get everyone in the right category:
Every new Cat 1 rider would have to blitz races in Cats 2, 3 and 4
Every new Cat 2 rider would need to blitz races in Cats 3 and 4
Every new Cat 3 rider would need to blitz at least a race in Cat 4.
Am I missing something, because that doesn’t make cats 3 or 4 sound great, and how many riders would you want to see move up each time?
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That’s what happens already Paul, except they don’t even get promoted for repeatedly winning, so long as they don’t pedal too hard for a full 20 mins
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That is how it works (mostly) IRL.
Speaking as someone who did run a lot of IRL events, in some cases we would quickly identify certain people and quickly push them up into higher categories.
Really though, mostly, in IRL, people want to race up. There is simply not a lot of glory in winning a short D group race. Or C. In fact we mostly had to make sure that people that wanted to race up in the B’s (Cat 3 equiv) would be safe. But when people are paying to race they don’t want to waste their time in lower categories if they are capable (and have the skillset) to ride in the longer faster and more prestigous categories.
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In zwift there is little reason to restrict people from racing up a category. In real life there are safety and event size issues.
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