Your wkg numbers are actually not too far off mine. Same on 1min, beat me on 5 min, I’m 0.1 higher than you on 20 min. I’m also in B. I haven’t had the ability to do one of the cat races yet (training plan is killing my legs), but I’m expecting they will be pretty rough for me. That said, I’ve been putting a lot of effort the last few months to push up my FTP, so hopefully next time I do a personal best in a race it will be a slight bit higher.
With only 4 cats the back of the pack can definitely be far from the front of the pack. Hopefully at some point they allow for shifting cat boundaries.
Just had a look at your zp power profile, as I struggled with Monday’s B test event and my attempts on each subsequent day have got worse (I quit Three Villages after 2 laps today, having been dropped on the first incline on lap1), as I’m not used to racing for 35min+ since early '21.
Like me, your 90 day power drops under 3.2W/Kg at 44mins.
Your power drop is much more consistant than mine after 44mins, but then I’ve only done ~5/6 events past that duration in the last 90 days.
I’m at least a couple of years younger than you at 48, but could our age compared to youngsters not fit the new model so well?
I went from 3.16W/Kg for 36mins climbing the real Denbigh B4501 ~6.9 mile climb (named after a well know Chris Rea song) in early October '21 to feeling like death doing 2.32W/Kg for 31mins in Zwift Oh Crit early November after proper flu and it’s been quite a struggle since trying to find old form on top of my physical job. My old 20min power ballpark has come back (albeit a lower W/Kg than it used to be), but rapidly tapers in races longer than ~30mins.
I see I can’t fill out the feedback after my second experience, maybe a good thing as it was worse than the shitty first one. How can I reach someone with Zwift directly?
Even if this is rolled out wider, I am pretty sure they won’t be the only option for you. And they are still tweaking the formula. Maybe don’t need to leave the platform just yet.
I’ll wait to see what zp looks like once your zp file is processed but it looks like your short power 15 second to 1 minute was about as low as you have done this year which unfortunately as you are right at the bottom of a category will make for a very hard start unless you are fresh for a race.
Maybe worth giving some of the community events a go next week or just hang off and see it the formals get any more tweaks before testing again. That or if organisers get access to set boundaries would be good as well.
When did you join the event?
It seems, though not a lot of discussion, that apparently the algo was changed last night so some riders are getting different cat eligibility than they would have seen yesterday.
You will have no chance in B without structured training, recovery and warm-up. You are some years younger than me, you cannot just race each day.
Looked at your activities at Zwift and profile at Zwiftpower, don’t want to make the details public - IMO you are not legit C, sorry.
I’m nowhere near the rest of the B’s with the new math. Dead last today by a long stretch and I had really high numbers for me at the start. Still got blasted. As I’ve said, my range has really dropped over the last few years. to maintain 2.9 - 3.0 is hard, but not super difficult. 3.1-3.2 and the fuse gets real short these day’s. I’m getting blown off the back so bad it’s not even funny.
Where are you seeing that you had really high numbers as your power curve for every metric up to 15 minutes is significantly below your best which given your cat is worked out from your best performance this seems the logical reason why the race seemed so unfair.
"really high " is your phrase, I think I said good. either way it was at the top end of my abilities and I still got slapped. No fun, an there is zero way for the base to grow. Compare my numbers to my previous rides.
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Dead last today by a long stretch and I had really high numbers for me at the start
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Not trying to argue just looking at the facts if you compare your numbers you did in the category enforcement races they are significantly below the top end of your abilities combine that with being at the bottom end of a category seems clear to me why you found the race hard.
As for the base to grow while I know it’s going to annoy those that were consistently at the top of a cat and always in winning contention but I think it will improve the experience massively for those that found themselves smashed by sandbaggers week after week.
It will be interesting to see how some
Community events go this week
I would recommend you wait.
So far, you have only used the new system in test races.
This week has been a weird week of racing.
New system
using new system on different courses
the population of racers are different.
many people raced an accelerated racing schedule to test the system several times.
The new system may require individual racers to tweak their race strategy.
We won’t know the true effects until we have a chance to race under the new rules in our usual races following our usual training practices and racing against our usual foes.
Then and only then, you can identify weakness of physical performance and strategy and correct them.
This takes time.
Racing in the correct category for you based on your #s has shone a light on a weakness that was not apparent when you dominated in C.
If it were me I would spend a bit of time focusing on short duration power. Based on your 1 min power #s relative to your 20 min #s, I might suspect there is room for growth in this area. This is also the same for me and I know it’s my glaring weakness with respect to Zwift Racing. At this point in my training cycle I’m not ready to address it, so I have to take my lumps when racing.
I think we know pretty well already what the model has in store for us for the next X years.
It is clear when you go through the test race results that certain rider types come out ahead. I’ll give you one such example:
Imagine you are a heavier-than-average guy with a great sprint and a bit of overcapacity. That’s one way of ensuring success. The new model doesn’t seem very sensitive to sprint power so you can really step on it near the finish and still not risk an upgrade to a higher cat (one where you will get spat out the back in the first km’s). Since you are heavy your 20 min avg W/kg, which still seems to matter a lot, will be relatively low, low enough so that your final sprint doesn’t accidentally bump the average through the ceiling to the next cat. With a bit of overcapacity on top of that you make sure you can stay with the front group all the race and still have a sprint in you as you approach the finish line. You will be able to place well in your races and you can keep doing it indefinitely. It will be hard to knock you off the throne even once. This is perhaps the ideal rider in the new model. If you want to perfect your Zwift racing, then become him.
Is this test race ideal any different from today’s ideal? No, not really. It’s pretty much the same except in certain scenarios you can’t overdo things like in the past. A bit more moderation is called for, otherwise the same.
There is a great example in the test races, a guy who fits the description very nicely, who has been on the podium in 101 of his 129 races over the last year (78% podium rate), with 56 of those podiums being wins (43% win rate). He keeps doing well in the test races too, not surprising.
Become him. If you find it hard due to differences in physiology (would be for me), then I suggest a training regimen consisting of lots of cake and steroids to gain weight and, above all, muscle volume. The rest will probably sort itself out with a little exercise.