Category Enforcement - How is my category calculated? [February 2022]

This is a great summary. Thank you for creating this. This should be pinned at the top of the forums.

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I would add it to the first post but I can’t edit it any more, and I don’t want to start ANOTHER CE thread

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You are on 3:18… remember it’s a three race average…
image

For Cat Enforcement?
Edit: Added Indoor curve from Intervals. Main reason I’m asking is many teammates are being Cat Enforced into B with similar or lower powers and W/kg. No obvious reason why I can ride C but they can’t

This category thing is a mess.

ZwiftPower says I’m ā€œC, almost Bā€ just like Sam. My FTP on ZwiftPower is 3.329, which is over the B limit. Same FTP in Zwift.

ZRL still says I’m C, although in yesterday’s ZRL race I was first marked as DQ (code 7) for having an FTP of 3.321.

Category enforcement races won’t let me join cat C.

So what’s my category?

As I was saying… :rofl:

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Cat enforcement does not use a 3-race average. It uses your best performance values.

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I’m comfortable with my zwiftpower saying C and then being Cat Enforced into B, I just want to know why I’m not forced into B at the moment when others in my team are.

I like the concept, I understand the concept, but that’s just making it more confusing why I’m not ending up where I think I should be!

0.95 x 3.329 is 3.16, which is less than 3.2.

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FTP is already 95% from the Max Effort

There is MAP/Vo2Max to consider…they can have 5 to 8min power higher.
On the other hand if the Power Curve is flatter you will also upgrade faster as CP is higher.

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If you are cat C for CE events, I think you can still ride with your team mates in cat B if you’re that way inclined (it just means you can’t enter CE D-cat races).

I understand that. I’m more wondering why I’m not being forced into B when teammates with lower absolute power, lower 20min and similar 5 min power are forced into B. Its more the slight inconsistency which is getting to me more than anything.
Also I want to get forced into B so that I’m less tempted to keep racing C when given the option. Will need to do another KOM race to get the upgrade in the historic categories.

That’s the only conclusion I have come up with so far. Going to do some shorter efforts and see if that moves me up

When did you do the effort that you think should have pushed you over? I think it gets calculated daily.

About 24 hours ago and I’ve just checked again and I’m now forced in to Cat B :joy: I wasn’t being a few hours ago so must have worked its way through

Maybe I was a little. Impatient.

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Congrats on being the first to be impatient about getting upgraded! :laughing:

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I think the daily data processing at ZwiftHQ for Category Enforcement happens 1400-1500ish BST.

That Intervals.icu graph isn’t the one we think gives the best match to the ZwiftHQ secret formula, it’s the 2 parameter CP model you want to pick, for me at least the 2 model gives a higher CP value.

Interestingly the 2 parameter gives me a lower CP, 302 (3.34), but it is more aligned with the figures I get from the highnorth critical Power excel sheet which for my 5, 6.5 and 8min powers gives me a CP of 300.

Now I’m being forced into the B pen it aligns with my expectations so that glad that’s sorted!

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I wanted to take some time and explain my thoughts about Zwift’s various categorization systems…

For full transparency I am a Zwiftpower (ZP) Category C rider with many C wins but yoyo between B/C. I have recently been upgraded in Category Enforcement (C.E.) rules to B (I remain category C in Zwiftpower world). Not new to Zwift by any measure, I’ve been on Zwift since 2015 and at lvl 50 for years with >20,000 miles logged. I am admittedly what some pejoratively call a sandbagger or cruiser.

…After reading much of this thread my big take away is many who are pushing the new C.E. miss the forest for the trees. Many are bogged down into details about C.P and W/Zmap and various Band-Aids to power-based cat. systems. Adding another system, albeit slightly more granular and fine-tuned, only adds to the confusion and frustration so many who race on zwift are feeling. C.E. will still be gamed and does far too little to make the categories inclusively competitive. Instead of expending energy chastising people for wanting to be competitive (which many in this thread have been doing), I think everyone would all be better served thinking of ways of incentivizing racers to cat. up and advocate for a system that is foundationally sound.

Here are few very humble suggestions…

1. Utilize the very well-done points-based systems found already on Zwiftpower such as Zpoints and race rankings. These data points could be weighted together to incorporate race performance/raw ability together. Unlike C.E. this would be transparent and impossible to game if your goal is to place well in a race. In a points system successful racing equals promotion, it’s that simple. Furthermore, A transparent system that can be observed by everyone is a basic requirement for buy-in and trust, otherwise people will complain about not understanding the rules and consider it arbitrary. This is one of the core failings of C.E.

2. Make categories narrow enough to be an opportunity for growth. Unless you are young or new to cycling there is little chance a rider will go from being competitive in one cat to another, even with increased training. I would suggest 6 demographically equally sized categories - based on historical data. This way you do not see race series with under-participation in categories A and D or end up with wide range of abilities within the categories.

3. Provide incentives to encourage riders to move up in category. Make each category more inclusively competitive by using the gamification features to give those at the back end a boost and challenge those at the front. One suggestion for this could be change the duration of powerups based on quartiles within each category. For example – those in bottom 25% of a cat could have powerup duration doubled, 3rd quartile could be 1.5, 2nd – 1.0 and those in the top 25% would have powerup duration halved. The incentive should not be enough to overcome rider strength but be enough to encourage those new to the category that they can contribute to the race dynamics.

**I want to one more time emphasize that name-calling, publicly flogging, or dismissing individuals for trying to remain in the category that they are competitive does NOTHING to help improve the platform. The problem lies with an already faulty system being replaced with one that is further opaque and arbitrary.

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