I think perhaps you need to try to equate Zwifting to outdoor riding. “Structured Training” and “Z2” – there will be many who are not at all into doing that or even know what that is. But as outdoor riders, they join a club, do the B16-B18 rides. There are lots of these types of riders. 3wkg OTOH equates to a steady ~35kmh (~22mph) on the road (and that’s as a solo rider). That’s pretty darn good amongst the hobbiest community.
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I’ve done a mix of structured training (wattbike programs mainly) General zwifting and not nearly enough outdoor stuff and I am where I am. I don’t realistically have much more time to dedicate to Zwift (although I’m on the brink of getting a new trainer for home so that might help a bit).
I can’t speak for anyone else - but this feels like the cusp of if you want to become a “more serious” Zwifter / rider. Personally I can’t invest that time.
I’m at the point now where I want to continue riding to maintain fitness, If I can improve a little along the way that’s great.
Racing should be the cherry on the cake for me - try to to the right z2 and other workouts through the week and then hit a race (on miniraces) at the weekend - at the end of the day it’s still just a workout, but I can easily see why it it gives you more impetus to do well than following targets on a workout.
When the platform works well it should remain engaging and exciting for all levels, which is a lot to ask from any product, and I think overall they do a good job. I do think though they need to consider the “experiential journey” for users in the medium to longer term. It is a game after all…
The USP is riding with others (and they have the userbase to ensure there are plenty of others). But in a PP ride or group workout you’d barely know if the other riders were sims. Racing (or indeed open group rides that allow a modicum of competition) and being able to access events where you’re well matched with those around you, at whatever time of day suits you, has to be where things are headed.
For all of the reasons above I think Cat D racing is missing that beat - by the time you stumble across it you’re probably on the cusp of being bumped up to C, where the experience will be less fun and the results and rewards opaque.
Would I take a handicap to stay in D? yep no problem. Would I advocate for more people to try races? absolutely! (and so should the platform) Will I keep racing now I’m in C? Probably, but though gritted teeth. I understand the issues around sandbaggers, and the plans to move a more results based grading system too, but in the meantime it’s going to be lonely at the back of the pack…
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Totally understand! Category Enforcement made me a B before my first race. 
Thankfully the update earlier this year pushed me back into C where I will still get clobbered in the typical Zwift race. The majority of races favor a type of rider that ain’t me. I hope the future ranking-based category system will help.
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Why? Will it help? 
I’m in no way saying racing or training isn’t fun - simply trying to answer the question asked in this thread: “Why do we have so few Cat-D racers?”
What I’m positing is a lot of Cat-D riders self-select away from racing. Some will dive in, do enough volume or structured training that they’ll hop up to Cat-C in short order and that further selects them out of Cat-D races.
Bingo - yet another barrier to entry or “friction point.”
Add other: My impression is racing is largely a community organized “thing” in Zwift. You have to wade through page after page of events (where? Zwift’s site? ZwiftHacks event list? The Companion App? All seem to present different formats…), filter by time, category, distance, format etc.
Once again, I come back to Cat-D riders being more likely to be casual, recreational Zwifters so the more friction points there are, the less likely they are to engage in the process, and more likely to just hop and and say “heck with it - Pace Partner D.Bernie, let’s go…”
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I think no matter where you draw the lines with the categories you’ll have folks blobbing up around the cutoffs, but 0 - 2.5w/kg is still too big of a range. I haven’t been racing very long but when I started I was a reasonably fit person who got on the bike at least once a week. My first couple races were horrible, while my FTP at the time was around 2 w/kg I struggled to maintain even 1 w/kg after trying to keep up with the pack when they sprinted off the line. Then I did the remainder of the race by myself. It wasn’t fun and it was extremely discouraging.
In addition to a category with a lower w/kg ceiling I’d love to see a fence implemented for the lead-in, at least for low category races. The straight up sprint out the gate takes a lot of getting used to.
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Bingo indeed - racing seems to be all-stick-no-carrot. There’s no drops incentive like with a pace partner ride, less likely to get a new route badge with route XP and correct me if I’m wrong but race PB’s / KOM’s aren’t available in Holo-replay?
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maybe for D racing 2xp/2Xdrop for D racing.
on side note, how big would i have to get to back into the D Cat?
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As a newbie D grader I know I’ve chased PP rides just for the extra XP and Alpe climbs to be able to get a fancy bike/Tron asap rather than racing. If races had x2.5 XP or more I would have jumped into races much sooner. As it is I now I warm up with a PP just to get some extra XP.
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Why should there be any other incentive than trying to win when racing?
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Racing alone can be very discouraging, there are a few group rides (including those aimed at D) that have a set 1.5 to under 2 w/kg pace with a fence, but for a portion of the ride (usually at the end) the fence is removed and riders encouraged to go ‘all out’.
That’s a good question to counter that why should zwift be giving people double xp to ride with a PP encouraging them to free ride rather than do events?
Maybe zwift could have a community incentive program. certain races/events also receive double xp to encourage riders to try out a few different events.
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I’m guessing Zwift see the PP as part of their core product, racing is more community orientated and as they have said previously the number of people that race is less than 10% of their userbase, Zwift are more about looking after the majority of their userbase but there is no different to a free ride and a race with regards to XP being gained, not everyone wants to race and I understand that, for those of us that do, there shouldn’t need to be any other incentive than trying to win
the tour of watopia etc have double XP points but again this isn’t really a race, just a giant group ride
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You should try my D only races… I split the D Cat into 4 separate Divisions. Unfortunately this has to be done post race but it does mean a rider at 1.0 w/kg can still get a podium, and a nice virtual trophy.
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Try the Pack rides, especially the Tues, Thurs Fri, Sat 09;30 rides.
They keep to the 1.5W/kg, have a very good sweep support system and generally keep everybody’s happy, they also have discord open for chat along the way.
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It’s really just the lead-in that kills me, I hate the Mario Kart style start where I need to be spinning hard in the pen and then bolt across the start line.
the number of people that race is less than 10% of their userbase
That doesn’t surprise me. I’ve subscribed to Zwift on and off since 2016 and I’m just now getting seriously into racing, and the thing that got me into it was ZRL. Being on a team motivates me in a way that the individual races really didn’t, and now that I’m actively training to race I’m more middle-of-the-pack in D and the individual races are much more fun.
But getting into ZRL had a lot of barriers to entry. I saw the ads for it but then I had to find a team. I signed up with Herd and joined one of their teams, but that was also a multi-step process. I’m very glad I stuck with it but it wasn’t obvious at all. I wish I’d known about Herd’s weekly TTT teams earlier, that would have been a much gentler introduction to team racing than ZRL!
So for me the answer to “why aren’t there more D riders in races” was that the category was too broad / fast to be fun alone, and the ecosystem around Zwift racing in general is really hard to navigate when you’re new. Even once you’re in a group like Herd, who organize races at every level, the sheer volume of information can be overwhelming to sift through.
I think that cat D zwift racing could actually be really fun and popular among casual riders - just look at the Peloton subreddit for all the folks talking about their leaderboard position - it just needs to be streamlined so that it’s easier to engage with the different types of races.
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My “put off” is that I am typically last on every race I enter in D because I am WAY closer to 1.00 than 2.50 and yes, nearly everyone else that is racing is in the 2+ range.
I keep doing it to push myself and have absolutely no chance of ever being on a leader board so I can guess that there are a large number of people like me that instead of just accepting it, they just don’t ride/race.
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Alan, where are your D only races? I searched for TFC and they are all 2.0+ for cat D.
agree that the D cat power range is far too broad