Hi all,
after this first round of ZRL semi-finals I have noticed something very strange on a lot of top competitors in my CE (D). I also hit into “D” people in standard races with abnormal power rates that keeps the D status after performing as Cs or even Bs.
Some examples can be easily found in the top 10 of this event “ZRL Finals 2024/25 - Open EMEAE Division 1 Cup Semi-Final - Pool 2” ZwiftPower - Login
Those guys have avg 20’ over 2.6 wpk, avg 5’ over 3.2 wpk but the zFTP/weight seems to be always below 2.6 threshold. And the same should be for the zMAP (even if we have no zMAP available in ZP), but given those values for the 20’ and 5’ effort it seems really strange to me that zMAP/weight ratio is below the 3.2 threshold.
So I was wondering if Zwift has changed something in the CE calculation (even suspending it).
Any ideas? To me, this is completely messing the ZRL field…franlky speaking, after 40 mins of racing at avg 2.4wpk, to see people going away with over 1’ effort at >5wpk it’s a bit weird…
Have you raised this with WTRL?
Nothing has changed with the algorithm. It’s still the same model with a predicted curve based on various intervals.
The main thing to remember is that having a higher ~5 minute power will lower your zFTP. So if someone is close to the zMAP limit they can have higher sustained power while keeping their zFTP below the threshold.
Not really, why should WTRL be concerned about that? They’re having their own internal rules for DQ (and it’s just about not going over some AVG wpks on the full race) and the field is based on CE, which is calculated by Zwift…so WTRL is not really doing anything wrong.
So how is it possible that zMAP is not over 3.2 wpk threshold if they have >3.2wpk on the 5’ repeatedly in the last races?
The people at the top of that leaderboard look like normal top of category D riders to me. zFTP is usually considerably less than the 20 min PR. There is exactly one rider above 3.2W/kg 5 min, and you don’t know if they got a category upgrade because their profile is private and ZwiftPower is often out of date on their category so you can’t trust it to tell you that. They may be in C now. I don’t think the numbers are suspicious.
Some screenshots from ZP profiles:
I’d not call them AVG D riders…
5 min power is usually a bit more than zMAP
zMAP as per Zwift definition should be power for 4’-6’ efforts. So 5’ should be exactly in the middle. Unless it’s something different and the real formula is something else.
Yes they are not average, they are top of D, almost C. The one with the 3.4W/kg 5 min looks like a possible upgrade to C. The others do not. They are well below the zMAP limit, but zMAP is high enough that it will push down their zFTP. I have seen C category riders with 20 min > 3.5W/kg who remain under the 3.36W/kg zFTP limit. I have personally done 3.48W/kg 20 min and ended up with 3.35W/kg zFTP because of how it works. Ultimately you cannot tell from ZwiftPower unless they are further over the limit you would need access to their private PR data.
In my experience zMAP is more like 5.5 min power but it does vary a bit.
If this is so (and don’t really understand why a higher zMAP should push down the zFTP, but anyway…), then to me the CE pooling has completely lost the meaning to be used for racing: having top cat racers that perform better than poor racers in the next cat is senseless.
It is working as designed. It was never good. Top racers in D don’t have to work nearly as hard as bottom racers in C. Many of them probably have the same capabilities as people who went .01W/kg over the arbitrary category threshold and entered a world of pain. There is nothing new about any of this.
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It happened to me once. But at least it was clear: I exceeded once the 5’ wpk in one race, and I was moved. Then I was bounced back because I was not able to do again the same performance even within C races 
Now it’s not really clear why this is happening, and it often ends up in “is this working? How is this possible?” state of mind. Or simply you give up, stop questioning and lose interest into racing. 
With access to the private data, it’s usually easy to see why a rider was upgraded. You are not intended to be able to understand why a rider is in a certain category - Zwift treats that as private and “trust us”. That is annoying, but your other option is to stop questioning and just race. I have reviewed the private data (voluntarily shared with me) of scores of racers who wanted to know why they were upgraded or downgraded, and I can assert that it nearly always makes a decision based on correct math. Weird outcomes are usually caused by the system having limited data. I can do that for you if you want, and you will see that it requires more data than you can get from ZwiftPower.
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That’s exactly what I’m doing, but I’ll probably quit racing whatever race system that uses CE. I think ZRS has a model that doesn’t fit for Zwift racing, but at least it’s predictable that whatever race you’ll join, you could be the top one of the race even with a lower score or you could be the worst in the field even if you have the top score for the range. So basically ZRS ranges don’t make any sense, and I just manage it as “just joining a random race and hope the field is compatible with me”. Or just go Ladder racing with my team and enjoy 5vs5 battles that usually end up with 1vs1 matchups
ZRL doesn’t use CE, WTRL have been clear about that from when CE was first rolled out.
The first sentence on the Rules page is “Zwift Racing League will use standard Pace Group Category boundaries.” That is CE.
They didn’t when CE was first rolled out. They have for the last 2 years.
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Did CE change those boundaries? I thought it just enforced them so people couldn’t drop down a category and sandbag. What did CE change from the original pace group w/kg limits?
It’s not CE. “Standard Pace Groups” was 95% of 20min power only, but WTRL reserve the right to do whatever the heck they want. But they won’t DQ more than a couple of riders in a race, don’t worry about it.
We watched a guy leave early on TTT and wait halfway for his team, I’d streamed it and sent them both a description and link, but nothing.
