I think it would be interesting to know how many lightweight riders of either sex have placed top 10 in any of the ZRL races, particularly the lower cats C and D.
From my experience, there seem to be very few sub 70 kg riders even participating, never mind placing. If lightweight riders are so advantaged surely they would be strongly represented and yet the podium places are usually taken by 80+kg riders in cats C and D.
I’m guessing that many lightweight riders don’t even bother entering such races because they stand no chance against heavier riders with their high raw wattage numbers? I’m not sure what any of this means for CE, if at all?
Some arbitrary limits on light riders should be applied until the physics can be fixed.
The underlying issue is the fact that these light junior riders would never be able to keep up, let alone blow up, a race against cat C adults.
Teenage 60 kg riders absolutely can.
We have a different understanding, its all physiology based - You need to put X amount of power down regardless. The skill is when to do it & how long for but without the physical exertion you stay on the line.
Weight & power are the key components - If you have not got the power curve to match the effort required then your not part of the race from the outset.
The race isnt won in the first 2 mins, but it can be lost or up the road in this instance.
So what are you suggesting? That flatter power curves are less effective in Zwift Races?
I think we all know that. The majority of races are won in sprints, the majority of splits happen on short duration climbs, and crits are won with short duration high power repeatability along with a sprint.
People with flatter curves are better at time trials.
juniors, age depending, share many of the same shortcomings regarding anaerobic capacity compared to fully grown men that women do. there’s no denying that fully grown light guys generally just have an unfair advantage on zwift in categories below A. sorry in advance
That the CP profile used probably doesnt match the power profile needed to be a mid pack racer across the categories as we can see with a rider who doesnt have the short term power to match the initial efforts. Its generic profile used to fit a wide variety of users.
We help light weight riders (male & female), but we dont account for those who might fall below the profile in the short range efforts.
Ok, but taking Ian’s example, his profile shows his best 5 min power as 3.6wkg.
So question is whether lower than average other durations – 2 min to 5 min (if you’re saying <2 min is ignored) can factor into Not bumping someone up a cat, even if the 20min would suggest otherwise?
correct… i think the hardest start i’ve done was 5wkg for 2 minutes at the start of a zrl a1, in a field where probably 50% of the riders had a 5wkg 20min. in B, you shouldn’t need to do more than 40s at threshold at the start of any race. at least if my dual recordings from when i was actually a B (i joke about sandbagging a lot but i actually don’t intentionally do it) are anything to go by
But as I explained above, it is not really feasible to include sub 2min power in any model. There are plenty of people with a crappy sprint, if you downgrade them all you just end up with terrible race experiences in lower cats because durations of 2m plus are still critical to overall race intensity and speed.
The only way to account for things like skill and sprint ability are by splitting pens based on rankings, which we know comes with some other compromises too.
You don’t get downgraded for being rubbish at sprinting. Sorry.
I think we are over estimating the amount of effort needed to start a race. Going from one category to the next will be a bit of a shock, B and A start harder than C but it is not a sprint effort.
We were not saying all, we are saying that those with a flat profile who are unlikely to improve it - Normally that will be due to age, as in the instance we are talking about. The CP metric essentially bumps them up a cat and they will not be able to compete or be part of the race due to the way Zwift races start.
There is no doubting that with age comes physiological barriers and the flat power curve is one of them - We havent moved away from the point I made earlier, we help light weight riders, but not those with the power deficiency due to age.
(I feel like im selling all ‘old people’ short and thats really not my intention in this and people can decide if they classify themselves as old or not)
Different strokes, for different folks, some people will find it easier than others.
You know the guys who have been sandbagging for years with 5wkg FTP saying yeah its easy everyone should be able to cope probably missed the point somewhat
fundamentally it’s not really about weight… it’s about, i’d say, 20s-3min wkg. you can win any zwift race if you blow those numbers up high enough. you’re just not rewarded for having a high FTP, unless you like to TT or TTT
don’t worry about it, they’re working on it even if they aren’t telling everyone about every little change. and there is a very good reason that i will not explain as to why they should not reveal what changes they make and why too
I hate the new category enforcement. I’m a newer rider. I’ve been in group D. I never won a race. Most of the time I finished in the 30% to 50% of riders. Never in the top third. Now they force me to group C and I am finishing in the 90-100%. I can’t keep up with the peleton. This isn’t motivating, it is discouraging. Thinking of trying something different than Zwift because the races are no longer fun.
I also wish they had more wattage levels. For the new pace setters they have 1.5 and then jump up to 2.8. I ride in the 1.8 to 2.5 range.
If I’m missing something, please enlighten me. Thanks.
The Category enforcement look at your best efforts it does not average like the old ZP system. Looking at your ZP profile you had two races that put you in the bottom of the C category. So yes it will be harder but there will also me more people in the same boat once more races use category enforcement (Once WTRL ZRL and TTT start using it we will see a much different field)
