Hey @xflintx, how’s that little ole category enforcement thing that’s been spoken about once or twice coming along?
Maybe should have saved that for the 2000th post now I think about it.
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Nearly Crimbo!
Anybody else following this like a race:
? (Seems I have made it back to the top 10 since the last time I checked…)
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84 years? What’s 84 x 2?
Seriously, though, it’s coming along nicely. We’ve tested it and have it running in non-production environments. The remaining work is the most time consuming, though, so while I’m confident in the progress we’ve made, we’re most likely looking at a post-holidays “release.” In other words, the date is still TBD.
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That’s good to hear.
What is in scope for the first release. Is it just simple cat enforcement based on zp cats?
or is there going to be any flexibility to allow organisers to set categories by other metrics or increase from the standard 5 cats?
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I’ve not seen this before, but I’m glad to be winning something without getting upgraded before I had the chance.
Or maybe I should really be focussing on another thread, and this one is a bit easy for me but I like the glory?
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Barking up the wrong tree here, it’s organised by WTRL. You would need to contact them directly. There’s also a separate thread for the chase race autocat discussion.
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This is an ongoing problem with IRL racing as well. Compounded by safety issues.
You really don’t want a super-strong tri-athlete jumping into a Cat 3 or Cat 2 race even if they might be able to keep up. Simply not safe.
Zwift of course doesn’t have that issue, so let new people select the category they think they should be in (with some guidelines on how strong you think you are) and if they cruise away to victory just DQ and push them up to where the data you have now collected indicates they should be.
It’s just one or two races where they might not fit in well until it gets figured out. Easier than IRL experience.
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Thanks @xflintx. Are you able to elaborate on what it is that has been developed and is being run successfully in test environments? What is the category enforcement based on? Will race organisers be able to toggle on and off themselves?
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I would be interested to know the thoughts around the statements that racing is niche and isnt for the wider audience, contrasted with, support events correctly and get 1400+ users signed up to a single race (thats 1 of 4) on a Wednesday night…
Racing when it is supported is probably the biggest draw on the platform.
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Are Zwift open to other race organisers than WTRL? I mean, it probably isn’t cheap to have the custom code they’re obviously putting in place, but I don’t know any others that have been given the access to Zwift’s systems that they would need.
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If you mean the race pass system, both TFC MM and SZ Wednesday use them. The way TFC do it is to send the race pass to the team captain so the team captain is responsible for their riders.
Well, I mean, someone other than WTRL being able to implement something like that. But certainly I appreciate that there are community events using extra tools now.
Nope. WTRL are paid by Zwift to run official “Z” races, so only they have the ability to enforce pens. Supposedly a test function but it destroys the competition, which has no such ability to enforce entries based on ability, age, weight, etc
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Hey, @gloscherrybomb, I saw this quote on WTRL’s chase race FAQs and thought of you; it sounds positive!
Q: How is my category determined?
A: Over the last 18 months WTRL has developed several categorization algorithms each able to work with multiple variables such as power, gender, age, previous results, ranking and many more. WTRL will use your existing race history to determine the best category to place you in. Initially these will be fixed categories but in the future all ZRacing races will become dynamic.
Source:
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Sounds positive if WTRL have developed it for Zwift to share with other organisers. If they are keeping it just for themselves then it’s the complete opposite of positive and will just further harm community racing if we don’t get similar tools.
I just hope whether it’s what WTRL are developing or what Zwift are developing for cat enforcement delivers on the points we have all been asking for. Time will tell.
It’s just the usual frustrations we have been talking in this thread for 9 months and we are still none the wiser what the plans are. @Eddy_Lee is doing better things with clubs far more engaging with plans and ideas and what is being lined up in the next/future releases.
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Yep what Gordon said!
This bit ‘sounds’ good, but what exactly is it?
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I don’t know exactly what it is but I thought you’d get more excited about the mention of “in the future all ZRacing races will become dynamic”.!
In line with what Gordon said, I wonder what’s meant by “ZRacing” - is this a new specific type of Zwift racing? And will all “ZRacing” be “Powered by WTRL”…?
ZRacing is what WTRL seems to be calling races they are organising that do not fall in to another category like ZRL.
You are right, I like the dynamic part, but only if that is part of the core Zwift offering and not a WTRL exclusive. It also needs to be backed up by a ranking system - but they mention ranking too, so I guess at least they are thinking about it.
The latest post from @Mark_Cote seemed to suggest that the WTRL work was independent from the Zwift work. Would still love some ‘Clubs’ style openness about what their plans are. Those discussions are a breath of fresh air and makes me realise what we’re missing over here. It just suggests that they still don’t really know.
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Enforcing the existing pens will not stop snadbagging at all though will it?
If guys sandbag and managed to stick to C - which is easily possible in ZRL - you can win huge numbers of points, stop for an hour and ride to the finish and keep your avg to “power limits”.
Enforcing pen category does nothing to solve that issue - those of us who ride clean - giving best each race - if that best happens to be low B - we are permanently just “making up the numbers”.
My point is, some may be happy just racing and being last every time, but a lot will just leave the platform - or worse - just learn to sandbag within category limits and ruin events for everyone.
Switch on pen enforcement by all means, but it does absolutely nothing IMO to solve the issue.
The very basic measure of randomly moving the category boundaries twice a year would at least give people stuck in “bordering” regions a chance to have some fun.
Some of the other suggestions about finer categorisation would also work, but perhaps switching to meritocracy is the way. You win you progress.
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