I’ve been Zwift racing for 5+ years. It’s the best platform for racing, no question.
Yet I still can’t wrap my head around why I’m forced to join A, yet get thrashed by C riders who are clearly stronger.
I raced this today … ZwiftPower - Login … (Fuhgeddaboudit) and got beat by 5 C riders, one of which had the highest 15-second power in the entire field of racers.
So.. FEATURE REQUEST: Promote riders MID-RACE when they cross a threshold of sustained power because they are clearly in the wrong cat. In today’s race, a C rider closed a 40-second gap by holding 4+ WKG for several minutes. I don’t care about their overall average power or how they are otherwise able to join C. It’s demoralizing and makes no sense, especially when I’m forced to join A. I thought the cat racing system had been overhauled, but feels like very little has changed.
Too many people gaming the system &, you can’t use the C word apparently so I’ll just say Buster Keaton, makes the racing pointless for me so I don’t bother. That & the fact I’m absolutely useless obvs.
They just need to sort the categories out. To be honest they just need more categories and maybe just move to some age related racing as well and then you would get more people prepared to race full stop.
For example its better to be top of D Cat than it is bottom of C Cat as the spread in pace is just far too great for it to be “Fun”.
If I was Zwift I would be running far more categories with some age restricted related racing as well.
Until Zwift introduce some smarter hardware to measure your weight while riding, the whole thing is pretty much stuffed in terms of racing anyway.
I mean, I’ve come to terms with the light vs heavy rider climbing/flat dynamic. That actually feels right. I’m a light rider and tend to do well in sustained climbing races. Surprisingly (or not) few of those events, but I enjoy them when I can. I also accept that I will struggle with heavier/stronger riders on flats.
All that seems normal and consistent with IRL. What drives me crazy is watching a C rider hold 4+ WKG and ride away when I’m assigned A Cat because I did well in a climb event.
My request… Hold “Cat-above-you” power for period of time (1 minute?) and you INSTANTLY get upgraded to that Cat (where you stay for the remainder of the race regardless of your overall power).
Or just give me the ability to turn off all the Cat labels so I don’t know. Ignorance would be bliss.
In CE races there isn’t really a heavy/light balance for flats and hills, unless the light riders are light enough to be under the watt floor.
Heavy riders are faster at the same w/kg, it’s just physiologically harder for them to sustain that higher power.
ZRS seed does a good job of solving that, using a modified compound score to calculate that score. Unfortunately the rest of the ZRS scoring kind of ruins it.
The other part of CE that causes confusion is the way zFTP is calculated. It’s an estimate based on a curve, and if you have a lower 5 minute power your zFTP will be calculated higher. So the closer someone is to the zMAP limit, the higher their sustained power can be while staying under the zFTP limit.
You were in Cat B, not Cat A - as far as I can tell
If it were me, I’d be asking myself how I performed against the other riders in Cat B rather than worrying about Cat C
Well done everyone in Cat C who worked hard on the climb(s) and drafted the stronger riders around them to get good race times/results
Yes, the score decay means ZRS is screwed. Agreed.
Penalising people for good 1 minute power is a bit tough on people who have good short power to make up for not being able to, say, hold 300ish watts at 69kg all the way up Alpe du Zwift
Not really what I call an “Obvious Problem”, what you may find is quite the reverse, more people overall racing because its closer, you are more likely to stay in a pack and psychologically because you are more likely to get a top placing rather than finish last. The vast majority of people avoid racing altogether, found the same with indoor rowing, practically nobody wanted to race where there was no categories at all.
You’re exactly as likely to finish last. You’ll just be last of 15 instead of last of 30. Someone has to be last, and it’ll be the same person, logic dictates.
There’s a reason why every flattish Zwift race (ie most of them) starts hard. It’s because the people who can put down decent power for a minute or two want to split the field and then sit in until a minute or two from the end and then use that same power to place well. Anyone in the race who’s not in the front group after 2 minutes is not going to get a top placing.
Yes, I was in Cat B that race because I was B when I signed up a day or two prior. Then I “won” a 4-person race and was promoted to A where I still am today despite losing to most of the B field and several C riders yesterday.
Yes, I do well in sustained climbs and TTs. Yet when I put out the same power on a flatter course, I lose to B and C riders (but I’m still an A). It’s when the supposed C rider(s) that solo/sustain 4.3 (because their 4.3 is faster than my 4.3) to catch me and keep going, that’s when I get annoyed.
So, by definition Zwift Cats are is just weight classes. Fine. I’ll stick to climbs and try to not complain about all the flat races. So many flat races. Unfortunately, I’m too tired and lazy to do AdZ this morning at 9am or I’d grind up it again and regain some composure.
Not always, I know a rider similar weight to me (60kg) who is on the top category and can beat some of those. Most definitely not a full time athlete, just an enthusiastic weekend rider and sometimes racer.
The B and C folk would be destroyed by him. His 10 minute power is pretty high, and w/kg also big.
For the most part I agree with you, perhaps Zwift needs race courses specifically designed to have a good spread of all types of terrain so nobody gets an advantage- part of Making Racing More Exciting™.
But then race courses would be 50km or longer because they would have some HC climb somewhere on it and then a spread of other terrain types. The lightweight folk fly away on the big climb, then the bigger sprinter types have to get use their advantages elsewhere. But will people race anything like that?
Pack dynamics tweaks needed to help with that, under the same trademark call as I mentioned above?
But one question? Didn’t people want to Make Racing More Exciting™ by giving breaks a greater chance to be successful, so wouldn’t these folk be also making a breakaway? Maybe they should get pack dynamics tweaks to help them too?
You can even see the same thing in the races (oops I mean group rides) on most big Zwift events promotions. The usual folks go like mad at the start for about 2-3min, even 5 minutes from what I’ve seen then they back off to reasonable level and last 3km they go crazy again. These folks all race (at least in Zwift, don’t know about real life) so I imagine they do the same in those races.
Not great logic there I’m afraid. If you add more Categories then by definition the range of power for that Cat decreases, therefore the top or bottom or both shifts. You then have people that were coming last drop a CAT and start coming first and people that were top move up a CAT and start coming last. Obviously there is a balance because you are aiming for a decent number of entries per CAT. The other thing to consider is the spread of numbers is not even to start with (probably follows the classic “Bell Curve”) . I did a quick calculation using Robopacer riders at a given time and about 80% of ALL RIDERS are in either C or D CAT so you could easily add another CAT or power range in this area and move from 2 to 3 to close up the racing. The new CAT range would be CAT A to CAT F. Zwift has the exact numbers and power spread they could tweak the CAT system with ease.
My logic was OK, but there were two ways to interpret your statement that I quoted, and it turns out you meant one of those things and I thought you meant the other.
No biggie.
I’m still not convinced that, say, splitting Cat D in two would necessarily lead to “Better Racing”, because of the realities of bike racing.
People will always try to split the field, either at the start or at the first hill, and even with a half-depth Cat D I suspect there’s a big enough difference in abilities to make that split happens in most races. And as soon as that split happens, everyone not in the front group is now “uncompetitive” in terms of the pointy end of the race. Which for some means it’s not “fun”.
