Yeah I’m a little confused about that. I did 2.6 w/kg in my last race and came in 4th. The three ahead of me were doing like 2.8 and 3.0 and 3.0. What’s more I had an average heart rate of 158 so clearly I left pretty much nothing in the tank. the guy ahead of me doing 2.8 had an average heart rate around 120. So clearly this guy is capable of even more than 2.8. Shouldn’t people like that not be allowed to race D? I even outperformed the “D” rules for the race (but only barely as opposed to WAY over)
Is it possible to win a D race without it being because you’re in the completely wrong category.
I had the exact same issue with my cadence reading 64 no matter how fast I was peddling. I thought I was going crazy. Everything seemed to pair correctly. What I was doing was detecting the Wahoo speed sensor and the the cadence sensor was automatically pairing.
I now go into the pairing menu, and disconnect the cadence sensor, and the reconnect it by explicitly selecting the cadence sensor, and then all of a sudden everyone works correctly. Hope this helps!
As others have mentioned, get on ZwiftPower.com and see more appropriate results. But, in my opinion, I always start with a group I think I can hang with for at least half the race. If I pop, I find the next group and roll. I prefer to compare results to MY previous results and don’t pay attention to placement (okay, I’ll fight for 99th place (or similar) in bigger races).
sign up to this website: https://www.zwiftpower.com/
then you can view your results like so: ZwiftPower - Login
they record slightly more “official” results and DQ riders riding below their true category.
much more accurate representation of results.
at lower categories, higher weight riders have a big advantage. a light rider and a heavy rider both going at 2.5w/kg on a flat? the heavier rider will be going faster. the light rider can’t go past without getting DQ’d for going above the category limits lol.
there’s a lot of cheating/“sandbagging” in zwift races where people keep their stats at a specific level to ensure they stay in a specific category by adjusting their weight etc. so watch out for that and also atm there’s absolutely nothing within Zwift to stop a Cat A rider signing up to one of your Cat D events and blasting everyone. (although there is an anti-sandbagging feature in the works - look up “green cone of shame”.
another very useful website for tips and tricks (especially for races) is this one:
tonnes of articles, lots of advice, and good route maps.
and also atm there’s absolutely nothing within Zwift to stop a Cat A rider signing up to one of your Cat D events and blasting everyone. (although there is an anti-sandbagging feature in the works - look up “green cone of shame”.