I checked the results of my last race. I came 23rd in the results. Of the 22 who beat me, 19 have a lower ranking. I can’t get anywhere near them in a race, but now have to race in a higher category.
One example is a guy in the last race who came 4th. He puts out more W and W/kg than I do, has had top 7 placing in all 6 of his races last month, is old cat “C” and yet has a lower ranking than I do.
I’m old cat “D” and have not done better than 10th in 10 races over 3 months. It makes no sense. The algorithm is just plain wrong.
It’s just completely messed up.
I don’t mind racing mid bunch for 30th place, it’s still racing, but riding up a category and just hanging on the back end for grim death is not racing.
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The anti tanking measures are not robust and there is no incentive not to tank .
If each level had a prize that could be shown, some kind of arm stripes like prior national champs, may make people want to increase their score.
Stop score changes when racing out of category.
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If Racing Score was a half decent vELO ranking system, racing in higher pens wouldn’t tank your score, because you would be expected to finish near or at the back.
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True
Dispite the complaints, Zwift has been tweaking the system on a monthly basis
I think the last tweak was James scheduling a 750-1000 race every 2 hours and alternating even/off hours every other day.
The next easiest improvement is, well there are 2.
- Seed score = floor.
- No score changes out of cat.
Eventually, address score change in small race vs large race and Tiny Races.
I’m not sure where I’d place them, but I’d urgently also add…
No score changes when less than five finishes in a pen (currently at least two can give changes, possibly even one if claims are to be believed).
Smaller fields giving bigger changes than larger fields (currently opposite is true).
The number of signups, who don’t even need to turn a pedal outside of the start pen, need to stop affecting score change values.
Isn’t tanking now part of the game and fun? Much like late joins for big spin?
It seems like it. Gaming the system to get ahead.
i am down 60 points ZRS james keeps on put hills in my way. 
last 2 weeks have all been hills.
Racing is Zwift’s USP. It’s why I subscribe.
After 7 years of enjoying Zwift racing, they’ve finally managed to mess the system up enough to stop the fun, so I think I’ll unsubscribe and try other things. Maybe I’ll be back in September with a clean slate and see if they’ve managed to fix the system.
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It’s funny - for me (ZRS 248, CE Cat. C) is it much better now (6th winter zwifting). I believe if you ask enough users you’ll get about 50 hate/50 like score.
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Your last race was in the “Range 2” series, but I think if you tried Cat D in a Range1 race (160-269), you’ll find yourself fairly close to the middle
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Can ZRS be improved on?
How can ZRS be improved on?
Are changes coming fast enough for ZRS?
Does ZRS address issues CE faced?
Is the racing population growing or shrinking after ZRS?
Can ZRS be improved on?
Yes.
How can ZRS be improved on?
Easiest improvement is seed = floor. Reasoning is that the current seed formula doesn’t have the potential to overrate sprinters the way V1 did, so dropping below seed isn’t necessary. Floor should slowly decay from when that 5min PB was set to account for potential loss of fitness, but you would need to lose races for the score to drop with it.
2nd thing - and this is an educated guess - is to include a terrain modifier which would allow the minimum uncertainty to be reduced. The score is a number which represents a point on a probability curve, but the whole curve is used in the calculation. I believe the curves will always be too flat without terrain modifiers as there are riders who are very good on the flat but bad at climbing, and vice versa.
This is not the end of potential improvements in both ZRS and the races using it, but I think it’d be a good start.
Are changes coming fast enough for ZRS?
No.
Does ZRS address issues CE faced?
CE was based on w/kg with a watt floor, so was biased in favour of heavy and very light riders. ZRS seed formula is a compound score. Issue addressed.
CE had fixed levels between categories, and big jumps between them. ZRS makes it easier to vary the boundaries. Issues addressed.
CE encouraged sandbagging due to the fixed levels, both by people deliberately managing their output to avoid going over the limit, and because the races very rarely required the top performers to push those limits.
ZRS encourages sandbagging as new racers start 15% below their seed score so others feel the need to keep their score suppressed in response.
If you initially only race on one type of terrain ZRS will raise your score to the point where you struggle to compete on that terrain. Assuming you’ve been racing on your preferred terrain, you will get to a point where you’ve raised your score well beyond your ability on non-preferred terrain. So you will need to ensure you’re losing races to keep your score in check if you want to keep up on unfavourable terrain.
And the hardest part of tanking seems to be actually losing to the other people trying to do the same thing.
Sandbagging hasn’t been fixed, it’s just different now. Issue not addressed.
CE often saw the same people winner over and over without getting promoted. ZRS can see the same situation happening as the points gained for winning in big races is a much lower scale than the 15% difference between seed and floor, and it’s not particularly difficult for people to tank away their gains if they want to. Issue not addressed.
The CE issues that have been addressed were done with the seed score. The ZRS score movement should be making it better but to me the cons outweigh the pros in the current state.
Is the racing population growing or shrinking after ZRS?
That’s a question for ZHQ. And you’d have to dig out the noise of entering races to get a route badge. Some number of people have made extra accounts as their score has put them in a place where there were no races available.
Hard to get a feel for it as an individual doing races, maybe my race has low numbers but a different category has high numbers.
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I agree heavier riders at a huge disadvantage. At 65kg on a climbing course the score of 282 is faster than riders doing 700.
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Actually, no what you’ve got there isn’t proof of anything other than the fact that ZRS still needs work, Ben. I’m 67kg with a ZRS of 442, a 4.3w/kg 5 minute, a 5.4 1 minute and a 7.4 15 second. So I’m a Diesel with virtually no sprint or short game. I get my ass handed to me regularly on short punchy climbs by rider weighing 25kg more than me and longer climbs by riders 10kg more than me.
You’re just not properly classified yet or you’re really good at sandbagging. There was a guy who won the C pen Tiny Race series a few weeks ago with a ZRS of 394 in a pen of 370-510 racers. He managed his efforts such that he could bring it out once in while and win a few races then go back to cruising. Literally, he had a 3.5 5 minute and a 12.6 15 second. His one minute power was more than my 15 second. Made no sense for him to be in the C pen but that’s where his ZRS put him.
So no, big heavy riders can still bring it on flat courses and short punchy stuff. Maybe ZG25 levels it out but I still got my ass kicked on that by riders much bigger than me.
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That looks like an interesting anomaly.
But in real life too light riders have a big advantage over the heavier ones on hilly courses. I would regularly drop a heavier rider (who is much better than me on flat courses) any time there were hills, I’d just ride away, but downhill I’d have to chase like mad and on the flat work very hard and corner like a demon to hold on.
I’d still get outsprinted - even before my accident. I could wind up to 61km/h on an outdoor track on fixed gear track bike, but I was usually outgunned.
Post accident I’m more of a diesel engine than I was because half my sprint power is gone. I’m 59kg with 562 score.
The ZG25 Queen stage is not really a proper queen stage and isn’t very mountainous. A real Queen Stage would be 140km and 4500m elevation gain.
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They don’t, riders with the best w/kg have the advantage regardless of weight, with ZRS the lighter rider on the W/kg limit of a pen has a huge advantage over heavier rider on the W/kg limit because that W/kg limit is lower the heavier you are.
[barfing emoti]
An hour and a half race on Zwift is about the limit for most of us and so ZG25 is probably appropriate as a Queen Stage. I don’t recall ever seeing a 140km race on Zwift but I imagine there’ve been a few…
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Any race like what Chris described would be empty pens. I like “long” races but I don’t think I’ve done any over 3 hours. ZG25 was about 90 minutes for me and that was quite nice. If it had been 2 hours I would have had no complaints since it tends to flatten the power graph even more. I got to the end feeling like I could have gone longer but no harder on the hard parts.
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I did it in 91 minutes and was thankful the finish was at the top of the hill. I had absolutely nothing left. The last kilometer was at my FTP. There was no sprint…
This afternoon I did an outdoor eMTB ride of ~28 miles and ~2200 feet, where I did the three categorised climbs at threshold totalling ~24mins and the rest of the route in z2, for a ride duration of almost two hours.
So less climbing than ZG25, which Zwift predicts would take me 3 hours. I’ve done two outdoor rides of longer duration than that since my long covid began in October '22, the one not on an ebike left me dead for days.
Total weight of me and eMTB ~125Kg.
I feel absolutely wrecked this evening.
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