Have completed just workouts 1 and 2 of ZA in a group workout and at the same time as a friend. Despite being regular (and fair) racers and workout attendees we were both upgraded a category I discovered today.
Not very convenient as I am managing a ZRL racing team and now can’t race for my own team 
Before anyone asks - no I am not a sandbagger and always give 100% to the ZRL races. I never finish higher than mid pack in my C cat races but now I’m officially a Cat B.
Strangely though another couple of members of teams my club runs in ZRL have also been cat’d up after doing ZA workouts.
I’m tempted to suggest there might be something odd going on here. Its not like I am putting in a fantastic effort in the workouts in fact find them challenging but less hard than ZRL racing. Has anyone else noticed the same?
Have you all perhaps had marginal zMAP promotions, having done the workouts on fresher legs than normal?
It’s one thing doing say 4.4W/Kg 5mins on fresh legs right at the start of a session, compared to doing that sort of effort after racing hard for say 30mins.
Might also be possible that some of you haven’t done a turbo calibration recently in your respective turbo manufacturer apps.
I rarely calibrate my Saris H3 and I’m dubious my zMAP promotion almost three months ago wasn’t inflated. Calibrated since and done nothing close to those 5min numbers that caused the promotion.
You can probably get more insight into what got you promoted if you look at your zwift.com profile in the “Fitness” tab and check out what your best 5min and 12 min power are. Those might lend insight into why you were upgraded.
In a race there are all sorts of reasons you won’t be seeing a max 5 or 12 min effort etc (i.e. the big effort often is spread over a full race rather than on fresh legs, or is not exactly the right length of time etc.), so I can totally see how you might have exceeded either the zMAP or something like that in a workout testing for those specific things but not gotten it in a race.
This is just telling you that you hadn’t done 100% on one of the CE metrics when you were racing. It’s not that unusual especially when the upgrade comes from a zMAP effort which is less likely to happen during a race. If you want to see the limits, they’re on the table in this document:
https://support.zwift.com/category-enforcement-faq-rJ5CQrpvc
I have a Tacx Neo - no calibration option. When compared with power meter in the past only sub 2% differences seen at some points on the graphs. So don’t think it’s the trainer.
Have you identified if you have been upgraded on zFTP or on zMAP?
ZA workout 2 called for an all out effort of 8 minutes so there is a small chance that might have changed your zMAP or even zFTP.
Well it seems my ZMAP based on a 5 minute effort is 3.8W/Kg at 229W and my ZFTP based on a 20minute effort is 3.4W/Kg at 205W and that puts me squarely in Cat B so far as I can see.
The observation that even in Cat C races I was getting rinsed by 50% of the field I think just reflects my light weight (I do a bit better on a hilly course with a looong climb). Didn’t ZwifIinsider recently publish a nice study showing that on the flat a heavy rider putting out nW/Kg will always go faster than a lighter rider doing the same w/Kg? That would explain my mid pack position in most races since they tend to have quite a lot of flat kms and the climbs are short.
Thanks that’s quite insightful
You don’t need a study to show that it is basic physics. 100kg @ 3w/kg =300w and 50kg @ 3w/kg = 150w
Your ZMAP actually falls in Cat C since your w/kg is not over 4.1.
ZFTP is not based on a 20 minute duration effort, it is a sorta approximation of what Zwift feels you could maintain for a period of 40 minutes or greater.