I’ve been waiting for this for ever, and now it arrives and I can’t stay with anyone in my Cat. This sucks. It was/is better when people sign up in wrong Cat. (which use to drive me nuts) at least then I’m not doing a TT each time out. IMO = Fail
Seriously? You would rather As turn up in your category and destroy the race?
When are you getting dropped? At the very beginning or later on during the race?
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Under a minute in both rides, it’s nuts! I’m shocked too as it drove me nuts when people raced down and pushed the pace dressed a C. But this is not even funny how bad I’m getting my ass kicked. Either I shouldn’t be moved up, or the high and low need to be narrowed. Something! I said after the first ride I was done, but I decided to give another one a shot today, and it was worse. I’m so disappointed because I’ve been asking for this forever (people not being able to race down). Lots of folks on here think I just want to win, or place high because that is what I did in C, but that is not the case. I’d be fine just ridding with something that a group. I had hard #'s for me today and was still demolished. Sucks!
You are now in a new category like you would have been in a few months.
Once races fill up you won’t be at the back alone.
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In a dream world, we’ll see.
Thanks for you’re response. Although appreciate the feedback, my monthly dues here may be short lived. Other platforms are popping up all over the place.
I recently (again) upgraded to A. On a flat course, if I can last the first couple of minutes (probably average around FTP+50/75) I can hang in the group until it hits a climb.
Hang in there. Work on your 1 minute power (race starts will help with this!) and you’ll start to find it easier. I imagine the fast start isn’t isolated to Zwift.
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Same James. I’m a rider who is high B/low A (depending upon how much drinking I’m doing Vs training). When I’m on my game I get to the finish in an A race, when in high B mode, for a course like France I get thru the cobblestone sprint and get popped about 50 metres from top of viaduct (every single time like a scene from “The edge of tomorrow”) 
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Any work planned to optimise those CP wattage thresholds? These, and the 20min equivalents, are clearly arbitrary and at levels that are still to the detriment of lighter riders being competitive (thinking of Cs and Ds mainly).
Not yet.
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Hearing good things about RGT Cycling, may be worth a try. A friend of mine has been trying to get me on it, it’s making more and more sense to check it out.
Totally get that being bottom of a category is not as fun as top of a category. In the current system there are only 4 cats, there can be a big span of power profiles between top and bottom of each.
Now, this trial just tests the category enforcements for a specific 4 ranges, but it doesn’t mean there isn’t going to be the ability to have those change in the future. With any change to the algorithm there will be new people who get moved up/down, and will have to deal with being the stronger or weaker rider in their category.
What they are doing in my opinion (as someone who is bottom of a category myself) is way better than what they had before however: where people could simply coast every race and blow out the competition whenever they want (on hills and at the final sprint) as long as they didn’t do a sustained 20 min effort that would push them out of that category.
And at the end of the day Zwift is taking the last 60 days of riding into account, so if you’ve lost the ability to push out the wattage at your current category due to an injury, or any other reason it won’t be long before those higher wattage efforts are no longer in your calculations etc, then you would be bumped down.
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I don’t mind being at the bottom of a category insomuch as being forced there by a model of my power that doesn’t reflect (very well, actually not at all well) my ability to do well in the category I’m being moved out of and is absurd for the category I’m being moved into.
Results count. Models suck. Move people that do well up. Move people that do poorly down. It really is that simple.
If you are worried about people with no history, have them start in a mass start (e.g. E) type race.
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I don’t think it’s that simple at all. It only takes a few folks to completely change the dynamic of a race. I don’t believe putting everyone who doesn’t have enough racing background to be in their correct rank in “E” is an acceptable solution. Therefore you need some way to initially put people in the correct “ballpark”. Which is what they are trying to do.
Ranking systems do work well for the folks who are racing all the time, and always pushing to bump up their rank. It doesn’t really work well for the general population of zwift who might not all be racing enough to keep their rank accurate.
So, my belief is it would be good to have a ranking system, but you cannot just throw a ranking system down, wipe your hands, and expect that to be the solution for all races for all Zwifters. I think what they are doing now will apply more broadly to the general Zwift base, but that ranking is probably a great next step.
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So, my belief is it would be good to have a ranking system, but you cannot just throw a ranking system down, wipe your hands, and expect that to be the solution for all races for all Zwifters. I think what they are doing now will apply more broadly to the general Zwift base, but that ranking is probably a great next step
Because the current W/kg model has worked so well over five years that there is really no reason to change it at all right? No complaints, or minimal complaints that can be ironed out with minimal tweaks to the model being used.
But sure, without actually having tried a ranked result system you can condemn that and simply wave your hands and say it won’t work.
Sigh… OK, maybe I am biased. 1200 races in on Zwift. But I also organized and acted as Race Director for more than 500 races IRL. And was on the BoD for our local velodrome for 10 years where we ran a few hundred races every year (including some 6-day events). And was on the BoD for the local club for 10 years that ran those 500 or so races. And was on the BoD for our local Provincial Cycling Authority for four years (in Canada we do UCI based on Provincial Orgs.) I have spent a fair amount of time and energy doing this since 2008.
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Yes, that might be the issue. You’re probably seeing this through the eyes of someone that races a ton, where zwift is trying to build a system that works for people who have a wide variety of racing experience.
My guess is you are in the top 1% in terms of number of races on zwift. If what zwift is trying to do is make racing more approachable and fun for the vast majority of their users, they will need more than just slapping down a ranking system. I am very confident your racing experience would be better with a ranking system since you have way more than enough races to keep your rank up to date.
It works fine for those who race consistently, and it doesn’t have to be weekly. The rank is relative, and that’s the key — any race they do will automatically be weighted by the races they didn’t do because other riders did and their ranks are influenced by those races, which in turn are influenced by other racers in other races, which in turn… etc.
Seeding is a different problem; if you have folks who have never raced or whose rank has degraded over a few months, you have several options for suggesting a bracket (including using historical data from highest attained rank to — gasp — even a power curve estimate).
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IRL most local racers may get 5-10 road races, and a dozen half hour crits per year. And don’t have any problem getting advanced from Cat 4 to 3 to 2 etc and maintaining that from year to year. Or if they take a few years off, dropping down and racing there until and unless they get pushed back up.
And as an IRL organizer, we (within the bounds of safety) will push people up or down if necessary.
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IRL racing also doesn’t have a lot of cruisers who are trying to stay in a lower category which mess with the experience of other races correct?
Zwift’s solution to racing has to be a bit different than IRL because there are a few keys differences in Zwift. One is many people (sandbaggers and cruisers) don’t actually want to go up a rank in Zwift (there’s a ~4000 post thread discussing this). The other is not everyone on Zwift use Zwift specifically for racing… some are on Zwift to do workouts, some just do the odd route now and again, and in a “season” of Zwift a lot likely don’t do 10 actual races, my guess (I don’t know this, but it seems rational) is Zwift is actually trying to provide a system to make racing more approachable for that set of folks too.
Another thing that is different in Zwift vs. IRL is a lot of the races have much fewer people than IRL races (looking at the list of races going on many have like under 6 people per category making ranking algos hard to pin down in the same number of races as they would IRL. If you start by putting unranked races in an “E” category, getting to a ranking would also probably take longer etc… And the system needs some form of degredation in it too, so they have to keep up ‘some’ level of racing activity.
So, again, I do think ranking should be implemented… Absolutely. I do not think you can use ranking as the only model without any seeding based on other activities given the differences between Zwift and IRL racing. The issue in Zwift is… It only takes a couple of people to really change the dynamic of a race, so that “initial seeding” is not a small problem for the lower ranks. I don’t think you can gloss over how you do initial ranking in Zwift and keep a great user experience for people dipping their toes into racing in Zwift as a result.
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Well put I agree - well almost !
Those with no race experience need, where at all possible, to be placed in a group which best suits their ability. Give beginners/first time racers a good experience, don’t drive them away after their first race. I would rather a first time racer raced a category down than a category up. I wonder how many first time racers have found these test races a pleasant experience - I hope Zwift is getting their feedback.
Thanks for posting on the race ranking thread.
If anyone else supports a results based system (not necessarily instead of but as well as) please post your thoughts on how it might work on Race ranking discussion
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If not already requested can we please have a filter option on Zwiftpower, if not on the Companion app too, for events using the in progress category enforecement signup process?
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