Since 12/23 when I started on Zwift and racing in April was in C the bottom of most races. Well my age and lack of experience. Now 12,000 miles later , level 85 and 128 races I have seen my CAT in the last month jump from CAT C to D and back to C with rankings rise and fall as well. And I would change what CAT I would race in . Now I’m back to C with ranking going from 424 to 525 and race segment score drop from 1545 to 445. Simple question, why ?
There are a few different things going on here.
Race Ranking comes from your best 5 results in the last 90 days. You had good scores from a round on Tiny Races on the 31st of August. These have just gone beyond 90 days which is why your Race Ranking changed.
Your Racing component of ZPoints is also based on the last 90 days, and has likely dropped for the same reasonsl as above.
Pace Group comes from your power profile from efforts over the last 90 days. This can go up or down from various new PBs being set and old PBs going beyond 90 days - with how the calculations work a new PB can push you up or down depending on what interval has the PB, and how it relates to your other interval PBs.
There is also the new ZRS system, but there are enough threads about that already
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Thanks Tom, makes since, I was riding OH hill no and my PR is 19:40 but that was beyond 90 days and now it shows when I start the climb as 21:30. So it’s always a reset every 90 days on racing or everything we do on Zwift ?
A lot of things are reset on a rolling 90 day window, not quite everything but enough that if something changes unexpectedly that’s probably the reason.
Hi Tom,
this CAT system is quite a mystery to me and that with 840 races done.
I quite understand the strength and weaknesses of the Cat A+ to D system.
IN addition ZRL has quite a good system; strength in these leagues are really close (so a pity they do not count, but this I understand why).
I cannot find anything on that the best 5 races count if I read the documentation on zwiftracing.app
I just moved up for the 2nd time in two weeks (also moved down obviously).
I do not understand why I hoover between 2 cats (above and below 520). in the same period my Velo cat drop significantly (only once). I fail to see the connection between the two.
But by far the most annoying is the number of A and B riders in the sub 520 group.
Please fix this.
I don’t work for zwift, just an enthusiastic amateur. No power to fix anything, but I’ve got a fair idea about how things work.
Velo scores are fundamentally different to ZRS. Long term they might give people similar ratings, if allowed to work properly, but the movements from each race will be different.
Neither system relies on only the best 5 races, there was some miscommunication about that at some point. There is a separate Race Ranking on zwiftracing.app, and a Ranking on zwiftpower, that do come from your best 5 results.
The hovering between two categories is what I expect to happen to everyone eventually if the category boundaries are fixed. ZRS is based on OpenSkill, which as fast as I can tell is designed to work with dynamic matchmaking and will not work with fixed boundaries. As more race organisers use custom boundaries this effect won’t be as obvious, but the event management tools don’t make life easy for anyone in this regard.
Pace Groups are different to ZRS score ranges, and you shouldn’t expect to never see any A or B pace group riders under 520, but I agree that they are more common than they should be. There is a change to the seed score algorithm coming soon, the details were promised to be released this week. Hopefully that will improve the situation.
Thanks for your response Tom. I would have hoped on more extensive hidden testing before this was rolled out.