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.
2 Likes
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 
This is Zwift racing today! 
Certainly the hammering from the gun!
2 Likes
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…
1 Like
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.
Sound good how would you do it?
No it won’t it would be super boring! 
If riders match A and if all match 100 A then all will be A. Why not?! 
ZP does something at this point: 
I don’t understand?
Ok i understand. Well that would be interesting of course but why should you do it? It’s to linear.
Lets take it seriously. Example:
Race with 100 riders
90 riders have an AVG of 5 w/kg
5 riders have an AVG of 4.5 w/kg
5 riders have an AVG of 4 w/kg
So the TOP 25 will all race with equal base (5 w/kg)
So the TOP 26-50 will all race with equal base (5 w/kg)
So the TOP 51-75 will all race with equal base (5 w/kg)
So the TOP 76-100 will all race with different base (4, 4.5 and 5 w/kg)
Well you could try it but it won’t be super amusing because it is in no way different from the way it is currently. Just people would manually join.
More intrestingly would by a point system. Basend on your racing experience or how many races you did TOP 10 or finished on podium and so on.
If you finish 3 races TOP 3 you will rise from E to D or
if you finish 10 races TOP 10 you will rise from E to D.
I would keep it the way it is! With some aspects Zwiftpower.com is using. Meaning extend the table In-Game by some lines for a deeper insight in other riders performance output.
BUT the most important aspect is WHICH Powermeter unit is online!
Is it a SMARTTRAINER or just simple ROLLERs without resistance.
I guess there is still a lot of variability when it comes to POWERMETER units. Some show 30 W more or less than others. That is a huge difference!
You could double check Powermeters with Smarttrainers for example. I guess there is to much cheating involved. People buying certain Smarttrainers or PM which shows higher Wattage than others.
If you want a serious ranking think about that before! But here it comes to negative feedback for certain manufacturers and i guess this will be interesting if not impossible because some would definitely outclass themself by their buggy implementation of P = W / t what strain gauge and how many in use (these can manipulate measuring results over time!) and so on … Now you could you could create a race series which complety restrict their PM units to manufactor X or only Powermeter units from manufactor X, Y and Z are allowed but others not or even better you start a special society. Everyone on Zwift or Zwiftpower or both who is in the TOP 100 list will get a Powermeter unit from Manufactor Z and henceforth must use this unit in every race!
Peace and ride on! 
If you go back to my post you will see that I was talking about a points system.
The question wasn’t did Gerrie_Delport talked about a point system or not. It was how would it interact ingame. Therefore: Yes and no. Point system ≠ point system.
Just reaching certain amount of points wouldn’t bring any difference.
What if a Cat E racer races like mad and collecting points lets say over 20 races and reaching Cat B or so but not getting better in any way? But a Cat B racer who is only racing one time but winning has the equal amount of points???
Both racers sum of points is equal not so their power output! And now?
Certain Cat should be basend on w/kg as is and also on permanence (total wins or podiums).
Think about it Gerrie_Delport.
That is not how a point system work, it is the best out of X amount of races. And you get scored on how you perform against the strongest riders. There are lots and lots of ways to handle the point system.
But we are not there yet, the point of the thread is to Auto-Assign Race categories.
So you should start a new thread so we can discuss power meters and points systems.
Yes but on which base? Randomly would be fun. 
This would be an excellent start to improving Zwift racing. However, I’d go further and have a B, B+, C and C+ ratings. Things seem like a real struggle going from a low recently upgraded B to a competitve B rider. It would also improve the sense of in game progression.
Also some other things that would improve racing would be to rank plug pullers or have all riders automatically included in Zwiftpower results unless they opted out. I started a race today with 15 or 20 other cat B’s and by the end I finshed 4th. Unfortuntely this was out of the four of us that finshed. I’m sure at least 5-10 guys dropped out of the race as they weren’t doing well enough and a similar amount weren’t even listed on Zwiftpower.
2 Likes
Agree. Auto select category based on FTP test. Then continue to review weekly based on FTP. Get a “level up” award for FTP of category increase.
Why not also colour code categories so in a race or session you can see who is in the same category as you.
A red
B green
C blue
D Yellow
So when the race starts you can see where you are relative to your other banded riders.
Not everyone cares to do an FTP test. They’re also easy to sandbag to deliberately get a low categorisation.
1 Like
The first 19 people were in the wrong cat. How disappointed must the new D riders be to know that they will never win a race!
Removed Face book link
1 Like
I don’t get the relevance of the Zwift Riders Facebook group.
Oops, tried to point to a specific topic.
Thats why I gave up the racing side of Zwift. Find I get a much better workout and push myself harder if I can find a group ride that is a bit above my level. Much more motivation than getting dropped in first km of a race by riders doing twice the w/kg of category.