Hi Folks, since some time now I experience sandbagging on regular base, where higher category riders joining the cat D events to grab the trophy’s and make the ride super fast.
Not that I dislike chasing with the guys around me, but I’m increasingly pi..ed about cat A & B riders behaving like this.
Anybody here sharing the same views?
Looking forward to hearing from you
Mykl
Group rides or races? Which event(s) exactly?
I’ve not looked, but it wouldn’t surprise me if there are some Category Enforcement Bs that have a Zwift Racing Score low enough to enter some ZRS pen D races.
Thanks to…
The ridiculous 85% seed score floor (your 100% 5min seed score should be your ZRS floor to prevent sandbagging)
The recent reintroduction of ZRS decay (it’s supposed to be fixed but suggestions some have kept their decay score plummet)
Not using power data history from more like 10+ months ago.
Loads of Cat Bs under 350 points.
Loads of Cat B’s race like they’ve got 350 scores too.
65kg, so too heavy to be under the watt floor, flat power profile so zFTP gets overestimated, bottom end B on zFTP but well under the zMAP limit, call it 250 watts for 5 minutes. That comes out to a 350 seed.
It shows the flaws of CE just as much as the problems with ZRS.
On the flat they do but they might as well be A+ riders when they are racing up hills against cat D riders.
Group rides
No one wins in a group ride, and anyone can enter them regardless of their racing score. I’m not sure what you are upset about?
Make it make sense! 
Would really need to see the details of the ride to know what the situation is. If it’s a group ride with no fence, and no text in the event description that riders will be expected to maintain a certain pace, then anyone can join in and ride.
If it were a “race” most riders would be locked out due to ZRS or category restrictions.
Can you share an example of a specific event? Most group rides are open to all so you may have people joining for an easy day even if they are strong (which is fine). It’s always up to the organizer to decide how they want to manage it, and if they care about the results. I often do group rides that are far below my capabilities just for social fun and I’m not thinking about it as a competition - I’m trying to increase my low intensity riding volume and I don’t look at the results because they don’t mean anything.
Quit comparing yourself to others if it hurts.
I wonder if it could be this “ride” – event ID 5215636
It basically doesn’t seem to really have any leader, no sweeps, no fence, etc. And you can’t even tell who the ‘organizer’ is from the description. It’s IMO a terrible title for an event like this.
I seldom race, but, two weeks ago I signed up to the CTT Winter Series of TT’s. These events have CE. The Zwift recommended cat for me was ‘D’, so I entered that. When I rode I averaged 3 w/kg (smack in the middle of ‘C’ cat). When I looked at the results I had been bumped into cat ‘C’, so it does work. However, as I was riding I was regularly being passed by people holding upwards of 5 wkg!
CTT winter series isn’t using Category Enforcement, they’re using the oddest power rules I’ve ever been aware of for a competitive event…
The limit to stay in pen D results is under 2.625W/Kg, but it’s based on your overall time for each stage, not your average power for a specific time duration such as 20mins.
So in round 1, you could do 2.624W/Kg for ~33mins, in round 2 you could do 2.624W/Kg for~43mins and for the Innsbruck UCI mountain route you can do 2.624W/Kg for ~70mins!
If you race on Zwift you either do it for the workout or you accept you will be disappointed (or start cheating too). Participation in Zwift racing is low compared to group rides primary for a simple reason. Real athletes hate being cheated right in their face, and in Zwift racing that feeling is almost guaranteed.
If you are a numbers guy and actually understand power and weight data from real world elite riders, it takes five seconds to see how ridiculous some of the W/kg numbers are on Zwift. Only a microscopic number of riders on the planet can hit those figures in real life, yet you see them in almost every Zwift race.
And the fact is that Zwift has basically zero probability of ever getting a handle on it because the cost and the scale are massive, so I use Zwift to train, then I race in real life where the numbers actually mean something.
You can see it on the big climbs in Zwift as well daily, also the Constance robopacer group, some outrageous numbers and distances that would have the person riding solo to victory in the Tour de France and leaving the pack for dead. I report the obviously false performances when I can and everyone else should do so as well, even if it seems pointless.
I trained around elite cyclists IRL for a lot of years so I’m aware of what they can do, and what numbers are clearly false.