I don’t think well attended community organized rides/races need to be the ones to get the ax. Maybe just don’t run several ZHQ races AND community races AND TdZ at the same time. Like does anyone need a Crit City race (here I mean the generic one that isn’t part of any series and is clearly just added by ZHQ) AND an anti-sandbagging crit city race AND KISS to run all at 8pm at the same time as a TdZ? Seems like you could just run the KISS race and forget the random one-offs. The community members will still be happy, and they’ll have a better race because random joiners like me will be funneled to the community race rather than dispersed.
On the other hand, if there are 3 different community races each with less than 5 people in them at the same time, then maybe those community races need to be run a little less often.
Sorry but I need to disagree here. I know that for many the TTTs are a Zwift highlight of the week, precisely because it is so different from any other race. It’s only hosted once a week. The team aspect is greater than for ZRL or any other scratch race, and for once you don’t need to sit at the top of a category and have the best punch in town to be useful for the team. Nor would (some) genuine racers need to accept being dropped within 10 minutes in a race (yes, this problem remains also in cat-enforced races). Let’s at least just value and promote an offering of different disciplines, and I’d argue we would need more variety rather than less. I, for one, would not participate in another race on Thursdays if the TTTs were cut.
I am not saying to get rid of these big events. They are a lot of fun and they are great for the community. But it won’t hurt to break it up a bit. The TTT got a bit stale for me after 50+ races. I would probably enjoy it more if it was run in seasons.
I am all for that, that is why I argue to give more organizers these tools. There used to be age base racing leagues and weight based races. The community can get very creative with access to the tools.
I would never have thought that I would argue for less racing. But I do notice that the smaller events are shrinking and disappearing.
Calling for 24 instead of 52 races per year sounds pretty much like getting rid of the format to me. The fact that it is hosted weekly does not mean you need to ride it weekly. Everyone is welcome to skip races for whichever the reason as they are all individual events. By all means participate in 4 seasons of 6 weeks if you want. But I fail to see how it would be a good idea to force that onto everyone.
The OP has it right; reconsider parallel events that offer the same experience (eg when 3 crit-style races are offered at the same time, support the community driven one). And as you say, support organizers wanting to offer something different. The Pen enforcement sounds promising and I hope that gets followed through. If the race experience is enhanced then perhaps more people are willing to enter in race events in the first place, rather than being chased far away from it after a nth bad experience. But that part is covered by a different thread.
I think there’s a lot we can think about in terms of what happens when, what is public and what is private and this actually (as if I’m actually talking about something that actually is) is in my job description.
FWIW I’ve flagged this feedback over to the person in our marketing team who is responsible for TDZ and we’re going to have a chat about it in our next team meeting.
Elaborate on this a touch. Are you talking setting start times manually for each rider, or setting launch times per category? So by the latter I mean that the earliest D leaves at 1800 and the earliest C leaves at 1805?
Ideally, individually. However, I realise that would mean a lot of work at your end (and mine) to program an interface that would allow me to set start times based on certain criteria, e.g., course PBs. Saying that, it would be easier than Autocat if Zwift keeps a record of a rider’s best time on any given course - final start times would depend on the slowest rider that joined the race
As an interim measure, this could be done in groups based on ability - I did something similar for riders without a handicap, which also led me to create the Hare & Hounds chase races. All manually, which required me to stay on the start line and set off riders.
Either type of automation would be a g0dsend and allow to bring back what was the toughest but most satisfying racing on Zwift - no problems with sandbagging or cheating, as handicaps are based on a rider’s PB, whether real or not
Not during TdZ specifically, I sometimes wish there were fewer events overall.
Everyone seems to want their own particular event, even if it’s not that different from others around the same time. Sometimes I’ll look for something and there are 3 or 4 similar things with low attendance. Sometimes even single figures. I prefer larger events, and often wish those events were merged into one larger one.
Of course, there are others who’ll prefer those much smaller events I guess.
I saw some when I was checking yesterday. Obviously it depends on day of week, type of event and time of day, but I can see several in the next 12 hours for example. They’re not as numerous at peak EU times, naturally.
Mind you, I’m going by what Companion says. I’ve noticed that sometimes it shows one number, but if you select the event it shows more people. Thing is, if the number is low I seldom bother to investigate further.
I’ve no doubt some of those smaller events are great and well liked by those who attend them though, and I’m not suggesting some sort of overt cull. It’s just a personal preference (maybe the Companion could have an option to hide events with low numbers - and a text filter to boot; that would be a huge help when searching for a specific event).
I think a good way to work it or start to cull the public calendar would be based on popularity and community engagement.
For for every timed segment/slot (maybe every 15/30min) there should be a single type of event.
Group ride varied wkg pens
Group ride sub 3.5
Group ride sub 3.0
Group ride sub 2.5
Group ride sub 2.0
Group ride sub 1.5
(Cull the above over time based on popularity)
Group Workout
Mass start scratch race Hilly
Mass start scratch race Flat
Staggered start scratch race Hilly
Staggered start scratch race Flat
Chase style race
Individual Time Trial
That’s still a lot of events but think caters for a broad spectrum of zwifters.
Maybe trial a community feedback survey after the ride, quick pop up did you enjoy the ride click thumbs up. Then the onus shifts to the community organiser to ensure the community are giving good feedback and attending said events to they meet the popularity score that gets them onto the public calendar.
I’m sure Charlie and the ZRL team do this or the TDz for that matter, when big events like the TDZ, TOW, TTT, ZRL etc are on that when their times overlap that they’re not in the same world i.e ZRL is in New York this coming Tuesday, ensure the TDz is not in New York also.
well developed filter system would be advantageous, being able to filter by club in game/companion similar to what Jesper has done in Zwift Hacks. The ability to find series etc.
I’m sure all this and more is being discussed, but the events calendar for sure needs culled, clubs is a great initiative to help. It’s just the mechanism to get events onto the public calendar in a fair way that helps all communities and spreading the features / tools would help here too i.e cat enforcement, greater editing and autonomy of events. I think fully fledged clubs will be the of community engagement if we have access to the entire toolkit. Can’t wait to see what our community comes up with.
I’ve had more thoughts but forgot to write them down.
In real life, sports calendars tend to get built around the biggest events first, and then everything else fits around them, so clubs can choose to avoid - or try and capitalise on - other big events.
So how far in advance can clubs get told the date of upcoming big Zwift events?
For example, in the next 13 months, I assume Zwift will probably have:
The Tour of Watopia
Some big rides around Le Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift
The Zwift Academy
The 2023 Tour de Zwift.
The ZRL (a few times).
Other promoted events.
The sooner the dates are revealed, the fewer grumbles there should be.
