Will it not depend if the grade was done at fastest pace.
Loads of people won’t know if what there actual 5 min power is unless in a situation to find it. Clinging on to a group or trying to get back on to a group can bring out stuff that a bumble up the grade won’t do.
If you’re doing ZRS events then pace group is irrelevant. If you wanted to know how close you are to pace group A, I could give you a pretty good guess if you provided more profile data (3, 5, 12, 20 min PRs with Watts and W/kg, plus zFTP and zMAP) but that has no bearing on your ability to do ZRS events or where you belong in the ZRS category system. All that matters for ZRS seeding is 5 min Watts and W/kg.
There are still some events on the calendar that use category enforcement which you could race in B, and there are vELO events like Club Ladder which don’t use ZRS or category enforcement. Let me know if you want more details about those things.
I brought up the cat enforcement thing just as an aside given the power seemed to indicate an issue with his profile not refreshing. So it’s my fault category enforcement was brought up 
Edit: As mentioned previously the ZRS score movement is likely due to a seed change due to 400W for 5mins at his weight.
I didn’t kill myself on the grade - just focussed on rhythm and gradually upping the result on each section until I go to the top. I did it as part of the Camp Build challenge. There is something about racing that “makes” me ride harder though and I did have a 10 second gap to make up. Still feels dodgy to me though!
Cheers. I’ll find my way through I guess. I’ll give the new category a go because i really enjoy racing but my hopes are not high. Thanks very much for taking the time to give such a lot of information and analysis! Appreciated.
That may well have been the case!
As an actual C Grade rider …
… let me just take a moment …
… 400 watts for 5 minutes!?!?!
Loooooooooooll
what trainer are you on now?
Checked this morning and my FTP is now showing as 346w. I guess it just took a while to catch up.
Yeah, that number makes a LOT more sense based on just that one effort alone. Guess it really is slow to update sometimes - though ZP still shows you as B cat, which surprises me (though yes that is tangential to the ZRS discussion). But yeah, with your 5min power you definitely would get a high ZRS score because 400W for 5 mins is strong at your weight. Also, with an FTP of almost 350W you have a huge engine to help you keep up with very strong riders.
Now, it could be if the most recent efforts felt easier than they should.. that perhaps the trainer was not 100% calibrated properly. To put those numbers in perspective: 400W for 5 mins is somewhere between the top 10-15% of what cyclinganalytics.com calls “serious riders” that are male, and a 350W FTP is almost top 5% of “serious riders” that are male (as per cyclinganalytics.com a 356W FTP is top 5% - again, not of cyclists in general, but of “serious riders”).
If you don’t see yourself as top 5% of serious male cyclists out there from a pure power perspective (from a w/kg perspective it’s more like top 20%), or if that one effort was way easier than normal, then there’s a chance there was a trainer calibration issue with that one ride, or possibly other rides etc. But it’s really hard to know unless you’ve got another power meter to compare with etc. It could be totally accurate.
still waiting to hear what equipment he is currently using
One thing I just now clued into is the exactly 400W 5min power could easily be due to the 400W limit on an unlisted trainer. Is that still a thing?
Edit: No the efforts below 5mins are higher than 400W so that doesn’t make sense. The trainer is not limited to 400W.
Thanks very much for your input (one and all) but I think i’ve got to the bottom of it. As you may have suspected it’s my current set up but in combination with an increase in fitness. I’m currently using an Echelon Ex3 trainer and using the QZ app to link to Zwift. After a good bit of web searching I’ve found a couple of people using the same set up that had the same problem.
It seems that the Ex3 does indeed boost the output to Zwift. It appears that at lower outputs this is about 10% higher, mid levels are 20% higher and upper levels are 30% higher. At the very highest output strangely they actually start to match up quite nicely simply because you are approaching the limits of the Ex3 output wise.
So the faster I went (as in my most recent race) the more distorted my output became! Hence my recent result.
I’ve also discovered that in the QZ app it’s possible to reduce the out put to zwift so where the ratio was 1 to 1 I’ve now changed it 1 level of output power from the Ex3 will only be read by Zwift as 0.8 This should mean my readings are more representative of my actual power output.
I’m going to test this out tomorrow by rerunning the grade and seeing how I do this time around. I’m expecting to suffer!
I won’t be taking part in any more races for a while and I expect it’s going to take several weeks before my scores come down to a more rational level. I think this change should make my performances more representative but really if I’m going to race (and it’s the element I actually enjoy the most) I need a more accurate set up so definitely heading down to Zwift ride and Wahoo kickr route.
I’ll feedback how I do with the new settings. I just knew that my performance couldn’t have been that good! Thanks again!
Your best option would be to buy a normal smart trainer like a Kickr Core, and afterwards contact Zwift support and ask them to reset your power data and racing score. It’s far better to be racing with the normal humans in C category than in A category with an inflated power profile. It’s really much more enjoyable to have plenty of people in every race even if it’s a little community event.
You should note that the race you were in, with your finishing time you would have won the A category (ID# 5230107 )
I wouldn’t classify that as a trainer… it’s a spin bike.
Yeah, if you do really enjoy indoor training or indoor bike racing, I would definitely echo Paul’s suggestion and go for a direct drive trainer (like a kickr core etc.). Those set-ups can be not too expensive to set up, and provide a much better (and more accurate) experience than a spin bike. You can think of it as an early christmas present to yourself
