As is usual, Jesper from Zwift Hacks is way ahead of Zwift. Under the ‘Rules’ tab you can find events with ‘Category enforcement’.
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The chase races with category enforcement do still show the traditional wpg categories in the race metdata it seems, so that will probably confuse people who are entering that can’t join a category due to their MAP/CP values being too high.
They are WTRL events so public cant join via Zwift/CA anyway. I am surprised in the Andreas length description accompanying those that they a) dont mention WTRL, and b) dont say how to join - not good PR for people that dont know.
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Even if you do know it seems to be broken.
Clicking on the + icon next to the race just displays a busy icon and nothing happens.
It also seems pointless to have category enforcement for the Herd Individual Time Trial races. I guess it’s not bad but what’s the point? Sandbagging doesn’t really affect how a TT is raced, only the end results which ZwiftPower should clean up anyway.
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How can I find events with category events after the trial? Not really interested in racing events without it turned on, outside of ZRL for the time being.
The category enforcement itself won’t impact on an iTT but the redefined category limits will.
This should work:
These results are done by WTRL (they show up in ZP but the series standings are done on WTRL), but you can still see the categories of the racers around you anyway, so could lead to confusion if people had entered the wrong categories.
I know all this (and there’s also post hoc cleanup by WTRL) but I got far more irrationally annoyed than I should have seeing sandbaggers in the TTs I did before Xmas, especially C and D. We had racers call out sandbaggers in-race as well!
For me it’s probably because I can’t understand why someone would want to sandbag in a TT it makes no sense.
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I have some feedback to two different things: The category enforcement and a different category calculation system (still based on known, to zwift, power).
Category enforcement is a very good thing. It should have been there a long time ago. My only comment is that an organiser should be able to override it to accommodate for different use of categories, e.g. FRR racing different categories, getting someone upgrading in the middle of a running series etc.
Regarding the method of categorisation:
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I am in favour of transparency. People will tend to figure out a “secret” sooner or later and then it will become common knowledge for a few but not all. Also, transparency allows scrutiny, critique and improvement.
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New category calculation does not make much difference. Some people will change category but in principle the system is similar. It suffers from the same problems like the FTP system: Some people get very lucky by being at the top of their category and then they are discouraged from improvement as it would push them to the next. For them it encourages sandbagging and not racing fully. Maybe the new system is a bit harder to game but not so much. Some others are doomed to stay at the bottom of a category, guaranteed a forever bad race experience. With the exception of newbies with lots of gains and very young. Or maybe a vet waiting for their performance to drop.
Some options?
- Offer 8 categories (high/low) like some series. If not many riders in a race, the high and low can be combined but with sufficient sign ups, it makes far more interesting racing
- Move the category boundaries from race to race or rotate them around the year. Instead of having fixed boundaries you can rotate them and thus making sure there are races where someone can be good at.
In any case, this is definitely progress.
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These are good suggestions. I’m afraid that the rotation of the category boundaries will be a bit confusing IMO. I also like the races with 8 categories. It should be enough for most to be within reach of the top of their category for some races and that is all we can expect.
I think there are too many races within the same timeframe in the calendar right now. We would get enough entrants to have 8 categories more often if the number was reduced.
If the race organizers got the opportunity to choose between enforced normal and high/low categories as a start, it would be a good step forward. More customization may come later. Many small steps 
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Agree!
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- More Cats;
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- reduce (different to eliminate) the overloading of the schedule;
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- small steps;
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- listen to the constructive feedback from the community
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Automatic number of categories would be nice. But it really needs to be done with a formula that has two constants, minimum number of people per category, and maximum number of categories.
The people per category probably needs to vary depending on the category. Something like A-20, B 15, C-10, D-8 (scale if more than four).
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Would it be possible to use the category enforcement on events like the Crit City races(or at least bring back the Futureworks Anti Sandbagging ones but change it to cat enforcement)? Very frustrating to get a cone of shame right before finishing the race. Like in this video, I think I could have gotten third if it weren’t for the cone slowing me down…
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That’s one of the aspects Zwift misses in their gamification of racing on the platform. Our results are what validate our efforts on Zwift. Getting coned, DQ’d after the race for having a career day or losing the event data are all things that make the experience less than optimal.
I put in a blow my guts out effort in one of the Cancellara TT’s last year and the effort got lost for some reason between Zwift and Zwiftpower. They lost about 20% of the competitors and we got, “Too bad, so sad” from ZHQ. I’ve tried to communicate how important it is to protect this data but this kind of sh*t still happens. I don’t know if it’s spaghetti code or just data management fcuk ups. It’s something they need to pay attention to.
In the case of getting coned or DQ’d, they can fix that with simple changes to the game, IMHO. Sometimes it seems they just don’t care.
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James cares
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Request here to bring back the Crit city races.
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Yes, James I know you care. It’s obvious in your interactions here with us on the forum and in the events we’ve ridden together. This is more of a corporate thing. I’m not sure ZHQ knows how to manage some of these issues. Hopefully guys like you, Flint and the other employees who are passionate about the platform can get something going. There has been progress in the last few months. It just seem glacial at at times…
Thank you for your efforts, @James_Zwift
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In terms of coning, with the removal of the anti-sanbagging events, that shouldn’t happen anymore.
Really sorry to hear about the Chasing Cancellara event last year. That sounds pretty harsh, but sadly I don’t think we would have been able to do anything to make you event have appeared in Zwiftpower, although I don’t know how the event was set up.
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I use the Companion App and I enter the race of interest and see if some cats are closed to me.
It would be nice if there was a big red check mark or something similar on the race logo.
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