I’m starting to think that D should not only have a 3.3W/Kg zMAP limit, it should also have a pure Watts zMAP limit, given D covers such a huge range of ability.
Off the top of my head, maybe something like ~260W+, maybe a bit higher?
A pure Watts limit would also nicely cover the tandem issue recently discussed, along with promoting a number of big D riders that produce big Watts, to a category where they are challenged… While hopefully encouraging more modest D racers to get involved and stick around.
A quick scan through the current top ranked 50 Zwiftpower Ds (so some might not be Category Enforcement Ds) revealed that ~26 of them have a 6 minute racing best of 260W+ in the last 30 days.
If you look at the last 90 days, that number grows.
There’s a handful that have a significant drop in their pure Watts between 5mins and 6mins that takes them under 260W for 6mins, but it must be pointed out that there are very few inclines in Zwift that take approx 4-7mins for Ds to climb and those routes unsurprisingly don’t get many signups in my experience. Not to mention heavier riders in D with a relatively low W/Kg, considering their high pure Watts, have little/no racing motive to push themselves to their limits up inclines!
And there’s a small number of successful racers (winning a lot, not just getting a podium spot) that have a pure Watts for 6mins in the 250-259W range.
Promoting these D racers with pure Watts ability could significantly alter the race dynamics of Ds not affected, attract more D racers to race regularly, motivate those promoted racers to further improve and widen the range of abilities in C while reducing the range a little in D.
There’s no doubt it could be twiddled and tweaked.
I don’t think the aim is to tweak and improve Zwift Power or category enforcement though. The aim is to replace them with a results-based points system, possibly starting with CS - a bit like what’s going on over at zwiftracing.app
Apply a Watts multiplier and the same “problem” exists in many C races. As Alex has said, the ultimate aim is to move towards a results-based system. It would be nice to see some changes in the interim (if Zwift’s new points ranking is going to take eons to implement).
Personally, I like what TFC have done recently with their Mad Monday split-cat series. They have shifted their cat boundaries slightly, so that riders who were previously dominating, for example, “low” C have now been moved to “high” C (the high C’s have been shifted to low B) and the high D s promoted to low C etc.
It gives different riders a chance at being more competitive and minimises the possibility of sandbagging based on the previous series’ cat boundaries.
Sure, but then 3 months from now, someone will post something along the lines of “a quick scan through the top… reveals that X number the have a Y-minute racing best of 240W for 6 minutes…” and so on.
I think it’s probably close to as good as the present system is going to get.
Yeah, maybe a tweak or two but I wouldn’t bother with expecting major changes until we work out results.
I think pen enforcement and using the CP curve are huge improvements.
Using the CP curve gets our attention away from a single focus of 20 min power.
Now, I would like to see Zwift teach us how to take the info from the CP curve to improve the training experience.
I discovered now that each profile page in Zwiftpower seems to list “Zwift Category Enforcement” below “Zwiftpower Category” and explain very briefly the difference.
The CE item is not populated but rather a link to the Zwift feed, but I guess/hope they will fill it in…
Agreed. It would be ideal, but it might be a GDPR-type personal data protection issue since permission hasn’t been sought from the users explicitly to share this data. (Not sure. Silly if it is, but it might be.)
“For technical reasons, we have no plans to put this information in ZwiftPower or to make ZwiftPower use the same calculations to determine category, and this is unlikely to change.”
Apologies if this has been covered, but I had let my 9 year old daughter test ride one day over 2 months ago and Zwift[dot]com still appears to be using her weight when factoring my CE. I’ve contacted support and awaiting a reply after it was escalated, but no luck so far. Has anyone seen or heard of Zwift[dot]com using old weight in CE with current efforts? I get the issue with her weight, but the below is showing correct watts from more recently and still using her old weight with no line of sight for if/when it will be updated. @xflintx any guidance you can offer?
It’s not over two months, it’s less than two months (unless they are both February). 56 days. The 11/22 data should go away after 60 days so you won’t have to wait much longer!
I really cat C and really crap of racing in Zwift.
Infact so crap, I have put out high numbers to keep up been in category C group and I have put in high numbers to place 6th place and the I get ZP in Zwift power site.
Yes, 354 W / 75.2 kg = 4,71 W/kg is wrong.
But he is zwiftpower B, with 245watts /3.26wkg.
It is bottom B, I know - I have been bottom C for 3 seasons, so I can understand how it feels.
The category boundaries are here and should be respected.
Edit - I don’t understand what Matthew’s problem is - he was racing B in 2022!?!
