Auto-Assign Race Categories

The Lamb Chop Race Today 05:10

So 324 riders on Zwift power and 65 of those were DQed. that is 20% of the riders on Zwift Power were in the wrong starting pen.

There were many more riders in the race, who knows how many of them were in the wrong pen.

With races like this it is important to start in the correct pen.

Zwift Please help us out.

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I completely agree that riders should be automatically entered in the correct Class depending on average race ftp (W/Kg)
I am a B Class but a lot of people with the same W/KG are entering the C Class which is why i will always end in the tail of the B Class.

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@Welby_Lloyd welcome to the forum.

this topic is more for Racing, and it seem like you are talking about a group ride. Group rides does not have different starting categories. but you are correct a D group ride should be at lower watts, but different D group rides has different w/kg ranges.

Looking at the ride on Zwift power, it look like the ride leader was within the w/kg range

I would suggest finding rides that have lower w/kg requirements, to build up your power while having fun.

Thanks for the info. But how do you find that info. Everytime I look at the ride the zwift is not and easy to navigate website. Seems like I have to go to the app to get more information. But I won’t keep replying here I am obviously off topic. Thanks

Welby:

Your question has been reposted over here: Group rides are to fast - #6 by Steve_1506

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Why hasn’t Zwift changed how we enter races yet? For example, if one is a Cat. A on Zwift power why would they have the functionality to race in the C’s? Each rider should only be able to enter their own category when it comes to races. That would eliminate the sandbagging issues that skew race results.

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Given the UCI announcement, the retirement of KISS from organising (as many) races, and the recent ZwiftCast interview, I expect things to happen on this front relatively soon.

Zwift have been mostly hands-off regarding racing up to now. Most racing is community-driven and supported, with some in-game updates and other assistance from Zwift (they host the ZwiftPower project for example, I believe).

But it’s untenable for them to remain so distant from racing if they want to position Zwift as the platform of choice for serious eRacing.

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ZwiftPower - Login is the way to go!

I so hope so.

Zoon :crazy_face:

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Hi, why not use AI to auto assign race category based on performance? keep the W/kg ratio but assign it after based on race results.

Maybe you can assign categories during the race based on average w/kg? so you still can see were your opponents are during the race?

this makes it easier and more real life then basing the categories on an ftp test… it also solves the problem of the duration of the race. different distances or flat or climnbing races will sort themselves this way.

The only thing you need set before the race is rider weight and the correct power settings for the trainer you use.
at the start everybody is in the same competition and based on the performance of the moment they automatically enter their own competition after a few minutes in race.

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I have no idea what this means?!

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I agree, although what I’d love to see zwift enforcing category limits at the completion of races- so many times I have been blown away by 1-4 riders early in a c grade race, finished best of the rest then log into zwiftpower after and see I’ve finished 1st or 2nd,either because the people that ‘beat’ me produced w/kg more than 10-20% over category limits, or they’re not on zwiftpower. This could seemingly be very easily done - zwift KNOW when a rider has averaged w/kg exceeding race category limits-so why do these people get classified in the race results that pop up at the end of the race at the end +in the companion app? I would love to see people clearly racing out of category not to be classified in results shown immediately after the race and in the companion app, with a big red Disqualified flag against their name…better yet a red flag over their Avatar if they ride at the end for a cool down… that would add some extra drama and excitement!!! A bit of tolerance should be allowed i.e. as your fitness improves (nothing like competition to bring out your best!) but in general feel zwift & zwiftpower functionality should be consolidated - there is currently not enough disincentive not to cheat and race out of category. I love zwift racing, but it does get frustrating when you frequently get blown away by people who should be racing in the grade above.

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If they do it even before the race start then there will be no need to do it afterwards.

Yes, that is true… a side of me however likes the idea of an honesty system on which category you enter into but then more overt disqualifications (a bit like real life) would add to the “theatre” of it!! That said, I would be happy with automatic grading- both ideas are much better than the current status-quo, whereby there is no disincentive not to enter into lower grades…

One problem however is that someone riding “high C” at 3.0W/kg could benefit from drafting a “low B” rider at 3.3W/kg, even to the extent that a 3.1W/kg C rider who missed the draft loses to the weaker rider.

Of course, up to a point, that’s racing. But the 3.3W/kg rider shouldn’t have been there in the first place for the 3.0W/kg rider to draft and benefit from.

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This sounds fun.
You would have tactics of people hammering it for the first 3mins to get into a fast group. Then spending a lot of time drafting, desperately trying to get their w/kg back down so they are not DQ’d.
Or lots of people refusing to pull on the front of a group for the same reason.
While remembering to run slightly under the DQ limit so they can sprint at the end.
Carnage :grin:

This is Zwift racing today! :smiley: Certainly the hammering from the gun!

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The best you can do is to do it like zwiftpower.com does close to if not equal to what www.procyclingstats.com does. Ranking riders based on their skill. Sprint, TT, Climbing and FTP!


Zwiftpower uses FTP (CP60) or at least CP20 * 0,95 and Weight to determine riders calssification - Watt/kg. Best you can do is to create an equation using parameters like:

  • CP0,25
  • CP0,5
  • CP1
  • CP5
  • CP20
  • CP30
  • CP60
  • aggressiveness (how many attacks per 5, 20, 60 minutes …)
  • consistency (how many races on podium)
  • effectiveness (subnormal-, normal-, overweight based on: height in centimeters minus 100 formula)

Zwiftinsider: Rider categorization based on FTP


En top of that it would be veryvery handy to disable riders using Z-Power or equal stuff and everything else (material, technic) affecting w/kg in a negative or unrealstic way. Powermeters can be identified by serial number and protocol therefore you could even specify the ranking process even more so by differ which Powermeter is online and/or is a powermeter online at all? I guess its not to difficult to prepare a kitchen aid to do the peadling for you … bluetooth… :shushing_face:

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That seem like a lot of effort. How a bout a simple point system, you beat riders with more points you get more points.

And Seeding for races - where the riders get grouped just (1 sec) before the race start, so if there is 100 riders in the pen the top 25 will be A next 25 will be B and so on. This will be fun some times you will be one of the fastest other days the slowest, but you wont know so you will race at max effort all the time.