Yes all interesting points - this part is really important. If clubs goes live to the world the majority of meetups become club events, that is a load on ZP of a significant factor.
What is really good about this is that Zwift can remove A LOT of events from the global calendar. Zwifters become responsible for the marketing of their events. If they are good enough, Zwift can add them to the global calendar.
I can see a 3rd party quite quickly establishing a calendar of club run events, where you simply share the details and the shareable URL.
Next steps is then giving the organisers the tools to come up with interesting formats (club workouts, races, different race types, customisable pen assignment, results logic, etc)
Are dirt not already somewhat split into sub racing teams?
Iām sure they donāt want to deal with 50 -100 racing teams but i think it would be a positive step to improve racing to restrict race team sizes to keep it more competitive. There was some zrl races this morning where i saw 2/3 of the race from one team.
I believe so for ZRL races, isnāt there a limit for team size already? Looks like there are about 65 teams affiliated with Dirt for the ZRL, each one has about 10 members.
As a kiwi, I find bugger all events that suit my timezone or event style requirement (ādo I race or grp ride, long or short ā¦ā). Finding a balance so public events dont disappear for masses that want choice could be a challenge.
Having said that, every dayās schedule is littered low to no participation events so event tidy-up and motivation and tools for clubs/organisers (active fence, anti-sandbagging etc) to make attractive events needs to go hand-in-hand with clubs strategy.
That all reads as very promising developments! For me this will be by far the best new functionality since I started on the platform, hands down. Thanks for sharing the outlook. It all sounds like a very versatile addition to the platform and of benefit to many.
Whilst limiting club size might go some way to roll back the problems created by the previous engagement approach around clubs , e.g. only supporting a few bigger clubs and excluding everyone else . I am not sure it is really something that can be so fixed without itself leading to problems . What would be more acceptable is to make the new focus firmly on generating smaller club size as the norm . Starting off with not making it limited to a select few but open to all equally on launch. If there is to be a beta phase it has to be short and focused , no more that a single release cycle . Please no more having release notes publishing updates to features that are closed to some users !
Bias would suggest priority is given if anything to actual registered cycle clubs properly affiliated to national cycling authorities.
I run events for both an e-team and an IRL club, but I donāt agree with this at all. Surely the joy of zwift is that a team can be created from nothing and be attractive for riders to join for unique reasons (DiRT is Dads inside Riding Trainers - the club for fathers who need to be flexible with their training. Others have focussed on building an enjoyable racing environment for women, others have nailed the marketing side) as opposed to IRL affiliated clubs who tend to be very traditional.
I get that some clubs are huge, but so what. If you want your club to be bigger, find a unique approach to growing it.
I donāt see why there should be any preference given to properly affiliated clubs. Of course they should be welcomed as well but Zwift is an online platform and number one priority would be to cater for your customer whether they be affiliated or not. Putting up barrier to entry is exactly the problem created with the first clubs beta.
Itās not an issue of finding a unique approach to growing, i could easily get more members and grow the club if i wanted. Just thinking whatās best in terms of a competitive racing scene then i believe more smaller race clubs is the better option.
Does this assume clubs can race against other clubs in a private event? If not, then why is numerous small clubs an advantage? Once you are out of your club events itās no different than it is today, right?
Yes I have no problem with that . However I am saying that was where bias was (still is currently) so clubs who didnāt want to become massive diverse social blobs were penalized . re-dress that .
Yes and also it plays back into a narrative that Zwift is more than just a virtual cycling game , it is aligned with Cycling in a more fundamental way ( if they wanted to exploit that ) . If they just want to attract the casual user maybe it is not important.
We get mixed messages on this . Support for Elite level , but not grass roots which is the foundation of the Elite Level.
Iām a bit lost. Thereās nothing stopping IRL clubs using Zwift Clubs, and it will be a great asset for them. It makes sense to roll the functionality out gradually, we have already highlighted some risks around ZP capacity.
When itās released everyone will get to enjoy it. (I appreciate that isnāt the case with Clubs to this point, but what it has provided to this point has been very limited anyway if you donāt have events on the public calendar).