Lately been either podium finishes or getting destroyed once I move out of the 0-180, lets hope this stops eventually.
Can I ask as I am practicing TT position and got a Felt in Zwift now which is best course to use it? Thank you.
but were is the fun in that, some time your hammer, sometime your Can meat.
Not much fun to go from hero to zero but that is the faith when your ability lies right on the cusp between two race scores I guess. Before I do my next race, get my numbers up and pick a course that works well for me which is 20-30 miles, rollers or maybe one - two big climbs. First get to a point where I am doing 2.5 watts regularly, long distances and on my rides and SST workouts. This will take time to get back to my yesteryear numbers.
#349 point club me.
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Sorry I do not understand what you mean? I am a bit new to Zwift.
Ok I made a club MBNJ and can not invite cause can not figure out how to invite you, want to join it is there,
It depends.
How are you defining “losing”?
You may not be on the podium but is there a group of riders around you?
You’re not going to be on the podium but there should be a group of similar riders around you.
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I see your point. Maybe it is frustration or just the system where I seem to be on the cusp, where when my score goes down to 180 I clean up but than when I go above like I have 194 now I finish somewhere bottom half but my score keeps yo yo between the two scores so I either clean up or loose.
I think the answer may be to wait, train more and get above 2.5 average all day riding and than as I approach a 3 give another race a try so even if I do not do that well I will not fall back into the 0-180.
Thoughts?
New score pen ranges that alternate every hour begin tomorrow for the Zmonthly Januuary races.
I usually do not race this often but I did today the Stage 1: Flat is Fast - Tempus Fugit and the score was 0-210 so I wanted to see how my 194 would do and I held really well even though was not exactly race ready and I am not a crit guy, my races when I did race were 20-30 mile sometime hilly with rollers and a hill finish. I was not a great sprinter at the end of a crit while I could pretty much hang on till the end and I did again till last 500 feet and I got my ass handed to me in good measure.
I was disappointed in myself as I really just gave up (spolied brat out) and rolled across the line about 400 feet out, I had another match to burn, I could have finished maybe 5-8 spots higher but I did not. My score went up to 195. I actually enjoyed this race more in just I was with a pack the whole race and even brought someone who tried to split the group back into the group. I even really needed a fan on my face but I did not have it. I will next time!
Finished 19 in E so not bad but very much competitive.
When I’m not confident due to the flat route profile and my wobbly sprint, I assume my best finishing position will either be from splitting the field, or sitting in and letting other people close all the gaps. Question is whether you gained anything from closing down gaps and helping the sprinty people. I make them do that work and live with the consequences when it doesn’t work out.
Well said, other than feeling good about myself and a few ride on, just burned a match I did not need to. I see your point if the group would have split I probably had a better chance finishing higher or least let the others work harder.
I do not have that big watt 30 sec or less output in general so this course and distance just not well suited for me. It was why IRL I got my ass handed to me in Prospect Park over and over again till I stopped doing crits.
I hope we’re all aligned on how ZRS sets each rider’s starting score: 5 mins power raw watts and WPK with some adjustments due to weight. Now: 5 mins power gives you an indication on what is the maximum anaerobic capacity and the aerobic lactacid capacity of a rider. It means it totally forget about the aerobic capacity of a rider and that, except for top level riders or all-rounders, an individual is gifted with a good aerobic OR anaerobic system. So it means that your ZRS floor score is reliable as a starting point for very short races, but it could be totally misleading for races that last more than 15 mins, and this depends on your phenotype (aerobic/anaerobic). Usually cycling people is better at aerobic than at anaerobic skills since outdoor cycling is an endurance sport, so the largest part of Zwifters will have worst anaerobic skills and better aerobic ones. It means, 5 mins power more aligned to their aerobic plateau. It means, ZRS will put them on a range, for most of Zwift races that are usually longer than 20 mins, where they could be competitive on their aerobic range. Then if you’re lucky to be an “average outdoor cyclist” you’ll be in the right range for races where anaerobic phenotypes are not the favorite ones (so races that ends in less than 15 mins), so the most common type of races on Zwift. But if you’re an anaerobic phenotype (pure sprinter or “velodrome guy”), then you’ll be put too high for races where the aerobic skills matter more than the anaerobic ones, and so you’ll be put in races where you’ll definitely challenge Cs or Bs even if your aerobic skills are definitely D. Unfortunately, I’m in this exact position. My ZRS is 334, but this is a good score for me for races with a duration lower than 15 mins. So I’m racing only short/very short crits, or Tiny Races where they’re flat (so I don’t have to recover too much in the very short amount of time between the races). Previously I was racing a lot of D races where I won easily (I’m currently 47th in cat D individual and 32nd in cat D ZPoints, but I’ve been top10 for some time) because of my sprinting skills, because the full race was not exhausting me since I could stay lower than Z4 and then push it all at the final sprint. It’s just a matter of knowing who you are and what is your skills, then to understand what is the good type of races where your score allows you to compete to your maximum level. Personally, I’ll stop racing more-than-20 mins races and just focus on the sprint ones. For aerobic training, I’ll look for rides with a sustainable pace or I’ll go with individual trainings.
Now to make ZRS work for all type of races, you should have a ZRS score for each type of race, at least from the expected duration of the race standpoint. As an example, picking up my values from Zwift profile:
5 mins: 293
20 mins: 240
30 mins: 231
40 mins: 212
Given that Zwift is absolutely capable of calculating the expected total time for a route given a specific power, it’d be just a matter of setting ZRS for time frames based on raw watts or WPKs and then have people put in pens using those values. Plain, simple. And given that is perfectly known where raw watts or WPK are decisive (it’s all written in Zwift dynamic model to calculate how to make your avatar behave in a specific scenario), it should not be an issue to know what type of ZRS (raw or WPK) to apply on a specific race. I don’t really know why they’re not doing so, but this should work and reduce a lot the corner cases.
Not to burst your bubble, but you were in the race I was in yesterday…
I won it, I held 5w more than you for the entire race on a pan flat course. It was only .4wkg more than you held in wkg terms.
Given that info and you want for closer grouping there would not be a whole lot of change there based on those differences in numbers?
You held 2.8 wpks AVG the full race, I was able to hold 2.4 wpks, this is not negligible (20%). Your NP is 257, mine is 233. It means my AVG was really flat and I was all out (or not pushing at all, but it was not that way), yours was not (it means you drafted a lot and just had to use your full power to do some chases or final sprint). Then look at your stats:
5 mins: 311 (3.83 wpk)
20 mins: 265 (3.27 wpk)
I can’t see your Zwift values for 30 and 40 mins but will be similar to the 20 mins, given your 15 secs power is 795W and mine is 883. Our power curves are not comparable, that’s why you were able to stay in the front pack and I was not (and your wpks on the 5 and 20 are well above my values).
And you can easily see my 225 AVG were comparable to my 30 mins max value (231), and my 233 NP too, while your 230 AVG were probably well below your 30 mins max value (that could be 250 or similar, usually there’s a 5% decay wrt 20 mins values, as your NP of 257 can show). It means I was pushing it all to go my way, you were not (hence the margin to do the 257 NP).
So your numbers tell I’m right. And on a very short race, I could compete with you and maybe win, because my numbers on the short time frame are similar (on the 1 min) or better than yours, even if you’re a stronger endurance rider.
…and, just to close the analysis between me and you, our power curves (left me, right you):
This should easily tell you physiologically we work in a very different way. Remember that time scale is logarithmic so it could seem our curves are comparable but that’s definitely not the case: transfer it to linear scale and you’ll see the anaerobic (1s-2mins) and aerobic (2mins-60 mins) work capabilities are definitely not comparable. Anaerobic: mine is comparable to yours if not slightly better. Aerobic: no need to tell anything, I am AVG 50W lower. This is what matters.