Pffff this discussion is getting killed about minor details for a possible solution.
Point is, it not fun to race with 8 people in A.
There are/were a lot of successful racing series where all cats started together. If there are more to the calendar, or that it is displayed more clearly in the discription this helps a lot. The B who believes he only join races so that he can be first across the line should be in A or can sandbag in another event. (In cycling you lose 99% of the time)
Let’s start with a small solution, if everything has to be perfect for everybody, we have this discussion next year as well.
If we wait for Zwift’s solution we wait till another platform has set the pace. So the best we can do now is asking race organizers to have more start together events.
Okay, it’s not fun for the 8 catA riders. But what about the bottom half of the field in catB (often quite a bit larger groups)? Should all of them suddenly accept having their race torn apart by the catA-crew towing along the strong half of the field?
Exactly my point. It’s not about “only joining races so you can be first across the line”, it’s about racing with others who are near your capabilities. The cat system is already tough for bottom-of-cat people. And there are a lot of people seemingly unwilling to accept the possibility that what will make the A cats happier might end up just shifting the burden of unhappiness to other people. “I’m unhappy, so the solution is to make me happy at the expense of these other people.”
Might some people enjoy combined cat racing? Sure, so set up races like that from the start, see what you get. But on-the-spot dumping of higher cat races into lower cats because the higher cats have a small field that day? Completely different story.
What about having the lower cat riders vote to accept the higher cat riders in that race? A popup on their screens: “Cat A only has 4 riders, your Cat has 20. Would you like to allow Cat A to race with your Cat? Yes / No” And then let them in with 100% Yes votes.
The 100% requirement would be keeping in mind that someone’s plan that day was to race a Cat B race, that’s what they signed up for and that’s what they’re expecting, and defaulting to what people planned for is a good idea.
Again, not all races, there are successful examples today as well. It is a proven concept.
Like everything, if you don’t like it then don’t join.
FRR is with combined categories and I’m willing to argue that it is a better racing experience then WTRL.
And when A’s are joining B’s it is no different then Low B’s to high B’s, or a high (heavy) B on a climbing race or a light A on a flat sprint race.
This is starting to look like the discussion of the teleport function (lines are not pretty on Strava) or the coffeebreak discussion (how about average power or free distance)
The point is, currently a lot of races are under populated, even at the popular 2000 CET time, so something have to be change. Fastest solution is more mass start racing.
Why do you think you see so much complaining about coffee breaks in the TdZ rides, because people treat them as races because other events are to low populated. And the “winner” in the TdZ is 99% of the time a miscalibrated zpower rider, and I see far less complaints about that then the coffee break.
I agree that it’s not different in kind–but it’s piling on.
As I said, it’s already difficult for low B’s. Bringing in the A’s is ‘more of the same’. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t make it worse for the low B’s. That’s like asking someone to carry 50lbs on their back for a race, and then adding another 50lbs and saying “it’s no different than the first 50lbs.”
This sort of thing is another idea that could work for it’s own kind of race, yeah. There could be races like this (don’t some groups define their own cats already?), there could be mass start races.
The formats just shouldn’t be switched right before the start after people signed up for a different format.
Not sure, as I said, I’m no racer!
these wouldn’t be predetermined though but fluid and matched to the people who have signed up.
should mean everyone is around the same ability and there would be equal amounts in each group
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking too. The cats would be fluid until signup is ended (I’d think would have to be well before the race starts to get things setup). But the format would be determined and announced when the event is created and publicized. That’s the key.
I’m in here objecting to the “Surprise! This is now an A cat race!” idea.
As someone in B who gets dropped in almost every B race I can say from my experience the bottom of B cat will already be dropped by the top of B cat in most races regardless if there are some from A that move down, some of the top of B cat probably should be A anyhow.
I would imagine the people who would notice this change the most is the folks who in general do not get dropped, and that is the folks who are at the pointy end of the B races, not the folks bottom of the cat who tend to get dropped in the vast majority of races they race.
Personally I think Zwift should normalize different cat boundaries in some way, could be having some of their actual race events using different splits, dynamic splits, etc, any idea that mixes things up a bit so a “top B” can’t just always be assured they are going to be there at the sprint at the end.
The Cats are already really mixed ability and having fixed cutoffs is not great for competitive balance. For me, I am getting near the top of Cat C and the races aren’t the same workout as they were when I was starting in Cat C. This morning, I spent most of my time in the Cat C peloton on the border between z2/z3, going up higher for any climbs. For a 25m race this is easy. But, my sprint is weak so my zMap is firmly in the middle of Cat C and my zFTP is still under by a decent amount as well. I’m a savvy racer and can often finish higher than my power curve would suggest. I would love to be able to race with the lower cat Bs sometimes to increase the competitiveness.
A dynamic pen would mean that my power curve will rank very differently in every race I enter based on the size of the field. That would make racing way more interesting, imo.
At least for a non-A rider you have the option to race up a category if you wish. Also you can have a good zMAP and a terrible sprint (ask me how I know).