Changes to Advanced / Epic Races from 3/31 onwards

Racing
1

Hi Folks,

I’ve been taking note of the feedback that you have been giving me in terms of the scheduling of our Advanced racing events for those of you with scores of over 650.

Previously, I changed the Zwift Games schedule to enable these events to take place every other hour, with the times alternating daily. I will continue to do this with future zRacing programmes to ensure that there are a sufficient number of events for you to take part in.

The other main piece of feedback I was given was that a large number of you feel that the zRacing events are too short for your preferred amount of time to race. Whilst I won’t be making further changes to zRacing - this has a really clear concept that are designed to allow for warm up, race and cool down within an hour - I will be extending the Zwift Epic Races (which currently only run at the weekends) to Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

This will begin on March 31st.

For more information about Zwift Epic Races, please see this Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/450038860751600
I’ve also been asked to revert the Zwift Epic Races from just being a single category mass start event. Whilst this will remain mass start, I’ll be making these A-E races following this scoring range:

A: 690-1000
B: 520-690
C: 350-520
D: 180-350
E: 0-180

They will initially (this may change based on demand) be run 5 times a day on Monday, Wednesday and Friday at the following times

0930 UTC (19:30 Sydney/Melbourne, 17:30 Perth)
1730 UTC (18:30 UK, 19:30 CEST)
1830 UTC (19:30 UK, 20:30 CEST)
2330 UTC (19:30 ET, 16:30 PT)
0130 UTC (18:30 PT, 19:30 MT)

To make it easy to see who you are racing against, each rider will be wearing a jersey that shows their category (the zRacing A-E ones).

I’ll be aiming for routes in the region of 50km. If any of you have specific requests for routes (whilst bearing in mind this is an A-E race) please feel free to share them in the group, which I’ll consider for May onwards).

Many thanks,
James

17 Likes
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thank you @James_Zwift helps out with longer weekday’s, races,i am looking to get back into doing longer races now.

if you can dont put the C behide A/B in the Pen. if you C would to yolo the start they may get free ride if it flat start, i dont know what C rider would do that but you know.

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Will you set the event up so that people can only race in their designated pen?

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Good to see the changes being applied based on user feedback.

Can you lend your eyes & ears to the ZRS team so they can follow the same path please.

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They’ll be able to race up if they want to, but not down.

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I don’t really understand what you’re asking me here.

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@James_Zwift

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May I suggest limiting how much up they can race? Like only up one pen, or needing to be within 100 points of the recommended range.

People are abusing the ability to enter higher pens as guaranteed losses to keep their own score down for the races they’re targeting.

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9

The racing scores are basically set up so that your racing score has to be below a certain level to enter a category.

Limiting whether or not people are able to race up or not, I don’t think is a big concern at this stage and yours is the first comment about this that I’ve heard.

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I’m not really sure what the question, but for mass start events I put everyone in the same pen, so no category gets an advantage / disadvantage based on which pen they start from.

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Same pen works Great. thanks

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12

It can be used to tank\reduce score whilst still getting a good race.

For example, a racer who should be in Pen D
Enter Pen A, finish towards the bottom of Pen A but actually near the top of the Pen D racers and you do well in the race whilst manipulating your ZRS score downwards.

Dont get me wrong, ZRS scoring is broken and needs to be fixed, but this is how it is abused.

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13

In events that are mass start, single pen, all categories visible, that is exactly the tactic that a good C racer will use for a good result. Maybe not hanging with the As for very long, but definitely with some Bs as long as possible without risking a nuclear meltdown. I don’t object to this, it’s just a different kind of race.

5 Likes
14

Are the colored dots on the map and on the rider nearby list not enough? I’d rather see normal kits. If there’s any confusion the rule should be “race everyone around you all the time”

Love having more longer races coming. Epic series is the best ZHQ has on rotation, thanks for increasing frequency

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For a while early in ZRS you couldn’t race up too far, I guess that’s gone away?

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Noted, thank you. I’ll see what I can do.

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I don’t think that riders are able to see the dots of other categories when in a ZRS race that shows all categories, otherwise I wouldn’t be fussed about the kits.

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18

I don’t think this was ever the case with the exception of when I was trialling 10 category races and you couldn’t enter one of the high end ones if your score was a low end (really just to stop people entering the high end ones by mistake).

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19

It occurs to me based on these times that you think people prefer to race at 6-8pm in their local time. Can you share what this assumption is based on?

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Can you share those settings with other mass start event leaders. Depending on pen assignments it’s quite common to see odd combos like A and C starting in one pen and B and D starting in a different one. Makes for some spicy starts but doesn’t seem to be what the organizer intends.

It may vary by which start pen is used (map location) and several settings.

2 Likes