You are correct it won’t stop sandbagging but I think it will make it harder to sandbag. The first step is not to catch sandbaggers but to get everyone in the correct starting pen.
Once that is working then it can be refined to use what ever metrics the orginizers want to use (w/kg, age, speed, length, ranking or weight)
Pen enforcement is just the first step. Variety in the way pens are split (ideally doing away with the concept of the existing categories completely) is the natural next step.
As said above, pen enforcement is the first and necessary step before we look at anything else. Until we have that, the rest is wishful thinking.
Also, if a rider stops for an hour before the end of a race then they come last. That’s not sandbagging, that’s idiocy. As for points races, I sincerely hope that organisers make sure riders have to finish to collect any points.
Well I know that at the velodrome, home of the “points” race, you don’t get points if you don’t finish, and you need to finish (roughly speaking) within about the amount of time it takes the winner to take his victory lap (about 30-40 seconds.)
IRL we routinely cut off people that are too far behind. And TdF (as a super high-end example) has a strict time limit.
So, it would not be unreasonable for zwiftpower (or organizers) to DNF people after a reasonable time period.
Yes, pen enforcement should be a thing.
When will they force everyone in the race to sign up with ZwiftPower?
I think what to do with DNF is a debatable point and it may depend on the ranking system. If you can force yourself down a category by losing, it may be attractive to some riders at some point. This could happen under an Elo-based system, indeed it happens in chess where the Elo system was originally developed. If there’s a major competition coming up with an under-1800 category I can ensure I qualify for it by deliberately losing a few meaningless games against weak players.
A points-based system avoids this by only measuring (and effectively rationing) successes. You would only drop down as the points expire over time (as happens with the current W/kg and ranking systems on zp). Of course such an approach has other limitations. So it depends what sort of compromises are preferred.
That’s not what I was referring to: the complaint was that riders were earning points/primes during a race without finishing. Someone could go for a suicidal attack to pick up as many points as possible for their team and quit (or finish much further back).
Organisers of such races can and should ensure that DNFs collect zero points. And, like Stuart said, have a cut-off time for those who coast around.
is that even a thing, from my experience on zp if you don’t finish a race you don’t appear in the results for points or primes?
As for doing that and finishing much further back is a perfectly valid tactic happens all the time in zwift and irl racing.
Yes there was a notable example in the ZRL a while back when a cat C sandbagger picked up all the primes in the first 15 mins or so and then literally stopped pedalling to bring his 20 min power down under the threshold (though he did then go on to finish the race somewhere behind the front group, though not at the back of the race). Of course such behaviour is a function of race design, and entirely legitimate under the system as it stands.
LOL, picturing this “C” racer with a wall of Zwiftpower result printouts hung above his mantle to show his friends and family how he’s gamed the system to become a champion racer.
If you think about, that is really not possible. What makes more sense is that Zwift Power and Zwift share the same Ts & Cs, and a single log on. Therefore everyone automatically has a ZP account (they are one and the same).
I agree with your second approach, a ranking that fatigues over time (and is weighted to more recent results) seems like the best approach.
I think this is the case with the gold standard solutions we have discussed before - iRacing and TrueSkill.
Looks to me that both of those systems can be sandbagged in the sense of a rider deliberately lowering their ranking by throwing a race (and if DNF counts as a loss, they don’t even have to ride it out, just start). The current ranking points system (and also the W/kg cat) just looks for the best few performances and adding in poor ones doesn’t have any effect at all.
But this is all a bit hypothetical, we need pen enforcement and then assuming it’s reasonably flexible as promised, ranking systems can be tried and tweaked. All of them will be better than what we have now 
did a race last night, a B nearly A rider in the C pen, pretty much every single result of his is showing UPG
called him out out on it mid race that he was sandbagging with no reply, they don’t care about that, pen enforcement in this case would have had him in the B pen and also negated any C riders trying to chase him to keep up and blowing their race apart
It genuinely is though.
I raced ZRL with my mates, got UPG to B just after end of season, we won no races, not in playoffs, now I’m barred from racing with my team and either have to go to a new team or setup one in B division meaning I’ll be last in nearly every race and nowhere near and FAL FTS.
“reward” for being “above average” but not winning.
One of the teams that made the playoffs is full of guys who are getting little gold cups at C level on ZP and even cups at B level races, but manage their numbers to stay C and they get to carry on racing with their friends and are always going to win league or be in playoffs.
If Zwift wants to retain users and ZRL wants to retain some idea of sporting fairness it would adress this issue.
I repeat “pen enforcement” does absolutely nothing to stop sandbagging or address the issue.
For ZRL you can get primes, get off the bike for 1 hour and get back on the bike and finish and score all your prime points and probably even some low finish points in most leagues - keeps your avgerages within C limits too.
Enforcing a system that is already broken is not a starting point that any further ahead of what we have.
The category system is inherently broken. Scrap it and start again.
And how long are we going to wait for that.
They have to start somewhere and that is by getting every one in the correct pen. I don’t think the system is broken, it is not the best but at least it is a set of rules. Once they know how to aply this rule it can be expanded.
I think it’s reasonable to start with the concept of having pen enforcement. Without that, there isn’t any point in any ranking system. And it requires some modifications to the way we enter events.
I do agree that 20 min power is an idiotic way of ranking riders, but we are promised that the enforcement will be reasonably flexible which should enable a variety of rankings to be used.
It’s frustrating that such seemingly simple steps are taking forever.
This is why the language on this thread has changed from ‘cat enforcement’ to ‘pen enforcement’.
It doesn’t matter what clever algorithm you use, dynamic rider splits, rankings, etc - if you can enter whichever pen you want, that all goes out the window. Pen enforcement does not stop ‘cruising’ but it stops people racing in the wrong pen, obviously. That is a quick win.
The next step is to remove the concept of categories altogether. It’s hard to manage your power to stay in a category when you don’t have one.