Category enforcement problem

ARGH! :grimacing:
Maybe KMZ can fix this somehow (Flamme Rouge Racing does this relatively effectively…)

Just a thought that though controversial,* It might not be a bad idea to imagine making the Classics and other marquee racing events have men only and women’s only divisions. It seems to me that part of the reasons SHEries and HEries work (ie have greater women’s only event participation) is that they are restricted by gender.

For a variety of reasons, it seems that if there is a both a mixed and a woman’s only version of the same event (race or group ride), many women choose to participate in the mixed version. For my part, I know I sometimes do this simply because usually there are more people (both men and women) in the mixed version so it feels more robust. When I go to sign up I see that 50 people are participating in the mixed Cat C and three people are participating in the women’s only Cat C, it’s not hard for me to make up my mind of which event to go with. Then when I look at the participants list I always see that I’m not the only woman who’s done the math on this. I realize that we are contributing to the problem but it’s hard once the sign ups have moved in that direction to go against the tide.

Add that many of us are also used to riding mixed in ZRL because it is often difficult to find teams with open spots for women in the lower Cats and easier to find mixed teams. When I was looking for teams myself, I started by saying women’s only teams preferred but I couldn’t find any open spots and ended up on a mixed team. (I really enjoyed the team I found so I wouldn’t undo the experience.)

All in all, I know that this is complicated and I appreciate your efforts in supporting and improving women’s racing on Zwift. Thank you!

*Please don’t clobber me for this thought, it’s just an idle late night thought offered to broaden the discussion/possible solutions and I can see many valid arguments against it.

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I’m looking at both improvements we can make to women entering mixed races as well as improvements to women’s only, also including promotion.

Having a chat with a number of prominent women racers and working on it from there.

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Likely fixed in time for ZRL? Or are we likely going to have to suffer another year of the old sandbag friendly categories?

i believe WTRL have already said they aren’t planning on adopting it either way

[quote=“Douglas Cook [Electricspirit.co], post:44, topic:586860, full:true, username:Douglas_Cook”]
Likely fixed in time for ZRL? Or are we likely going to have to suffer another year of the old sandbag friendly categories?
[/quote]

I’m not a betting man but I very much doubt CE will be implemented for ZRL.

I wish they would, but I think there would be uproar and push-back from the general community.

If CE is definitely slated to be the new racing default, Zwift should push hard for WTRL to adopt this.

ZRL will not use category enforcement.

They have, but if legacy categories cease to exist, it doesn’t give them much choice.

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How unfortunate

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Lol, I’m sorry for the lynching. I will say mass start in E is different than different pens all taking off at the same time all being able to see each other. Then you know if you trying to hold onto an A or not.

Obviously my preference would be to use category enforcement, but as we’re not easily able to show people what category there are in (yet, we are currently working on this), it would make forming teams a bit of a nightmare, espcially for the larger groups.

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Yep, planning on having mass start, but A-D for the next monthly series in September.

Yes, you’re absolutely right. I’m just surprised at how long it’s taking to do this and your post earlier made it sound like the move to have CE categories on Zwiftpower might happen sooner rather than later, hence my question

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The team are working on a number of other things as well as category enforcement (as you’ll have seen from Flints monthly recaps) so sadly this wasn’t done sooner.

Personally, I feel WTRL lost all credibility after throwing a mulligan on the over power DQ’s on the Innsbruck climb. I’m out for a racing series based on the old categories and the WTRL ruleset. The combination of the “you can stay in your category if you race 4 races” with the team size limits have hugely incentivized and normalized sandbagging to stay in your category - it’s gotten FAR worse since ZRL season 2 (when the team size restrictions started)

I think this is a bad call and I think ZRL should be postponed until CE can be made work for it.

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I think you’re probably on to something with the separate men’s and women’s. Probably not for all events, but something like the Classics - absolutely. I’d say the way to do it would be have fewer time slots overall, and have a men’s and women’s for every time slot. There would be a few races that would be pretty lonely, but there’s a history of “If you build it, they will come”

I fully admit that I was very skeptical before season 1 ZRL, and was against the separate men’s - even as a fairly big club we were going to have trouble putting together much for women’s teams based on the number of women we had participating in our events.
It didn’t work out that way, I’d wager that Season 1 ZRL was the single greatest increase in women racing on Zwift, and a lot of amazing recruiting by a few women got us a great participation level.

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@James_Zwift Currently not being allowed to enter C races either! I don’t think I’m near the new limits, although some of the Tiny Races have pushed me!

Can you confirm if I’ve been bumped up and why? Thanks as always!

Dom

Friday, September 16, 2022 @Dominic_Oliver , just one i look at.

Seems to have resolved itself and now able to enter again!

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@James_Zwift I checked the intervals.icu and my CP looks 3.13 yet I can’t sign up for C races. On zwift power I am well below the 3.2 limit, at just below 3.0. Usually I only race on WTRL leage where I never came close to be dq-d and I am not using any software to keep my power in bay. Out of curiosity why was I upgraded? Thanks in advance.