Yes, GDPR is real but Zwift could do more to direct people to enroll in Zwift Power when they sign up for each and every race.
After they sign up for ZP, there could be a box to make the ZP ticker disappear from the game when participants sign up for a race.
It would be nice to have the forum overrun with posts “how to get ZP message to disappear?” or “what is ZP?”.
Some category D races are well attended. this race “3R Volcano Climb Race” had 27 racers in the D Category.
But Unfortunately they did not use CE so there was once again people spoiling the fun for real racers.
Yeah. Though only 6 results in ZP (9 on the unfiltered). The first placed finisher in ZP is 8th on your list. There seems to be a majority percentage (would be curious on overall percentage) of D racers who do not enroll in ZP, which is unfortunate in light of the great attempts mentioned above to try and create and publish results on split cats within D wkg range.
I’ve found this with other non category enforced races, numbers looks decent but inevitably turns out to be C or even B riders sandbagging.
I’d strongly be in favour of all event organisers enforcing category boundaries pre-sign up.
Since I joined zwift 2 years ago I still don’t fully understand how it fits into the overall Zwift ecosystem, either now or future plans.
I still pay little attention to the ‘normal’ leaderboard on zwift post-race, as far as I’m concerned zwiftpower is the only legit ranking, even since category enforced events became a thing.
3R want all their races to be category enforced, but because of the complexities in the events system some can be hard to find - I’ve added a lot of them though!
I’ll try to find some time to find the rest, but that’s not going to happen right now.
Is it a manual update for a certain number of events already programmed in James? I don’t see too many usually.
Yep, all manual.
The race I referenced is CE.
When I signed up, it allowed D as an option but I guess that was my first hard ride in 90 days.
By the time I felt experienced and confident enough in Zwift to want to start racing I’d managed to do a couple of exceptional efforts in Zwift Academy and a touch of weight loss that have Category enforced me to C. Now I’m stuck well toward the back of C and I can only really judge my overall performance by interpreting zwiftpower rankings. I’d be much happier in D getting the odd good result and this would be more immediately satisfying than having to nerd out on stats.
A fun way to increase participation would be for the system to randomly automatically invite 40 to 50 riders with similar w/kg ratings to join a short race when they’re already in-game? there should be XP/drops bonuses associated with doing well and rankings should be obvious in the game and on the companion
It’s tough being at the lower end of each cat, but I think it’s more of an issue in D given the huge range and the impact on getting quality race experiences.
That said I’ve been ‘lucky’ enough to finish well now I’m on the verge of C, but it’s taken me 2 years to get there. Paradoxically I’m desperate to be anywhere in the C pack now 
The following is a theory I’ll put out for discussion and challenge.
As a solid Cat-D rider (not racer) who did about 5500km over the winter in Zwift: I don’t give a flying fig about racing, or winning races. I’m here for general fitness. Zwift content (badges, challenges, events, friendly group rides) keeps me interested.
I wonder if many (most?) other Cat-D riders are in the same boat - we’re just here to have fun.
Once you start pushing yourself and doing structured training, I imagine a lot of people can and do move from Cat-D to Cat-C. (context: I went from struggling to keep up with D.Diesel at 1.5W/kg to now being able to keep up with D.Maria at 2.2W/kg and all I did was Zone 2/Steady-State riding)
I think you’re implying that racing by definition can’t be fun or be a part of one’s means of maintaining fitness. To go slightly off topic, 99.9% of the entrants in the NYC Marathon, aren’t expecting or hoping to win. They do expect and hope though to not find themselves all alone on the course though, but rather be surrounded by others of comparable ability.
I’d agree that, hopefully, the more you ride, the more you will progress and for a lot of people that, along with levels and route badges will be enough. However the element of competition does add a fun dimension to Zwift that I’ve only recently begun to explore - I doubt I’ll be able to go too far with it as I’m pretty time crunched and a lot of the races are long or not at convenient times, but when they do fit, they’re worth a try. The problem with Cat enforcement “promotions” is that you’re always going to be right at the back of the next group up, and if you cant stick with the main packs in a race you’ve lost all of the draft and you don’t have anyone to pace against. It’s a bit like if they said you were only allowed to ride with the C pace partners - in fact it’s maybe even a bigger step than that.
I’m not sure where I’m supposed to find another whole 1w/kg.
Unfortunately that is sport… get promoted and you will struggle for quite a long period. Better, stronger riders, better tactics, it takes more training time to compete and improve.
I would recommend that any newly promoted rider look for the Split Cat races so the riders are closer to your ability.
I tend to agree. I don’t think that many folk doing even a modest amount of structured training and/or a reasonable weekly volume of steady Z2 are going to stay in Cat D for long. You’ll just naturally get aerobically fit in the general direction of 3wkg. Jeez, I’m 54 and 8 months of structured training and newbie gains got even me from the very bottom of Cat C to getting semi-regular Cat C podium finishes. In no way would I consider myself to be anything other than “average but hard-working”.
I’ve gone from 2.3 to 3.2 since February. Some of that is more power (177 to 231 = 54w) and a bit is weight loss (76kg to 72kg)
A couple of hard interval sessions a week and a bunch of Pace Partner rides.
I am 63 and 6 month - believe or not, 54 to 63 is a bigger difference than for example 45 to 54. Riding only outdoors in summer I start each winter in D and come in relatively short time to bottom C - and that’s it.
But when you’ve already done that to get to a high D then the potential to improve is significantly depleted
It depends a lot on what training you have been doing and whether you are able to add volume and workouts targeted to your goals. It’s hard to gauge potential without working with a coach or trainer for a while. You certainly shouldn’t judge potential based on using Zwift training plans which are mostly pretty bad and not designed for you. I don’t work with a coach any more but I learned a lot from the experience that still helps guide my training.
