There are many, long winded, vociferously threads on this forum going back for many years complaining about the old category system and the CE system that replaced it. Take a look in the racing category. There were plenty of unhappy people then, there are plenty of unhappy people now.
I agree with you, results based is best. The initial seeding is complicated and needs work. My main point is that it was hardly thought of as perfect by many in the racing community before (even those who were winning).
It just seems back in my day (lol) we had all these series - Legion, USA Cycling, etc with racers people knew irl. And people were happy. The races were organized and seemed pretty fair.
Now it seems like it’s gotten way too complicated.
Results based upgrades make the most sense to me but hopefully they get the seeding right because I do love Zwift.
There are riders with 3 wkg winning Cat E, in Cat D yesterday the winner of my race did 3.9 wkg for 20 minutes of a 30 minute race, 3 races before that in ZRS Cat D the lowest of the 3 winners did 3.3 wkg for whole race, none of these riders got promoted up out the pen.
I believe the Racing League still use old CE so maybe you could try and join a team until this is sorted although I don’t think it will get sorted, it will just be watered down a bit, instead of a 1.5 wkg advantage for 20 minutes the sprinters might only need to overcome a 1 wkg advantage.
Your definition. My definition - anyone who knew their CE data understated their actual ability was sandbagging. I know i had a short period a long time ago where i was a C but my true ftp (when i got round to doing a AdZ effort) was materially over the boundaries.
I was, by my definition, sandbagging. Only a little and and for a limited time period, but sandbagging nonetheless. Recently my club had people in a race go almost .5w/kg over cat limits, i guess knowing the ZRS was here.
That depends on the definition of “large segment” and category.
I would say in the old CE D Cat ist was about 20% of riders.
I started 2018, only winter (Nov-Apr), mostly 1-2 races a week. Each year I begun in D, after some races (sometimes podium) bumped to C (zMAP), racing with no chance - aiming to finish within the first half of starters.
I’ve said it before and I’ll continue to mention: Nothing will work that well if Zwift and other community organizers continue to insist on trying to cover the entire 1-1000 ZRS spectrum in a single event. Look at any of the large-attendance community races now. Fastest to slowest across all pens is ~30 mins vs 45 minutes. Divide by 5 pens, and you’re stuck with simple math that on average, each pen will have the winners beating the last place finishers by roughly 3 minutes.
This is exactly why the Danish cycling Federation have completely different pace groups in Zwift races.
Its a closed League with 10 groups based on w/kg.
When I was in my twenties I was 66 kg, and did approx 4,5 W/kg now around 50 i am 20 kg heavier.
Doing races where there are gravel roads in Zwift is a big disadvantages for heavier riders. In a race yesterday I had to push 330 watts just to keep up on gravel but only 250 when on asphalt.
Unfortunately I don’t think this is true. Most Zwift races are fairly flat and, where they have bumps, they tend to be around 2 minutes or less so there is no significant climbing. The 20 minute watts per kilogram metric does a poor job at group being riders of different weights together and assigning them a similar race compatibility. While racing has nuances, I would encourage you to consider the times that I am attaching from best bike split below. I took both of our 20 minute watts and our weights on the course of Watopia’s Waistband, which is a race of under an hour with a little bit of rising but not much. And you would beat me by 5 minutes if we just both cruised along at our 20 minute ftp. You are the first image, I am the second one(courtesy of best bike split)
I would have to ride well above my 20-minute ftp in order to have the same time as you (which might put me closer to the old cat B). So even if I stayed with you, I would likely both get smashed in the sprint at the end and then get upgraded to a higher category while you would stand on the podium and stay in the same category. That is the experience that a lot of people had in the old system. (I know that this is not exactly apples to apples because there’s no draft and tactics involved but hopefully it is useful for you and others to see how 20 minute w/kg It’s not a particularly useful metric on its own in categorizing riders into pens.)
The idea that we would likely not to be evenly matched is also born out by the fact that you podiumed frequently in C and I never came close.
I think we do agree that a results system is the way to go, but I just wanted to try to help clear up this idea that 20 min w/kg on its own matters much on flat courses in terms of understanding how riders will match up. When the road tips up significantly for a significant portion of time then, yes, looking only at 20 minute w/kg makes a degree of sense, but that rarely happens in Zwift races. (And from my understanding if a heavier rider goes up a hill at 3.5 w/kg and I go up at my 3.5 w/kg they will still beat me to the top.)
Thats only because when you add on the weight of the bike the heavier rider is actually puting out more wkg .
From Zwift Insider,
“Suppose we have two riders, 100kg and 50kg, both riding at 3w/kg. But let’s say they’re on 9kg bikes. If you add that bike weight to the rider’s weight and calculate the true w/kg, you get this:” “100kg rider + 9kg bike @ 300 watts = 2.75w/kg 50kg rider + 9kg bike @150 watts = 2.54w/kg So even though both riders are holding 3w/kg, the heavier rider is holding a higher true w/kg.”
That’s not always high average power, they might be very light in which case they don’t have much power anyway and only have a chance in steep mountain routes, which in Zwift is extremely rare. 4w/kg at 60kg isn’t that much and in most Zwift races would be obliterated.
Much bigger riders with bigger overall power still have the advantage most of the time. Pace dynamics still favour the powerful riders too
In the old days you had the case of light riders getting smashed in a B race and way out the back then getting an upgrade to A for their efforts, while the old mates far ahead stay in B grade.
A friend of mine had that so he got fed up and left Zwift and became a well known content creator for Fulgaz.
4 w/kg at 60 kg is not much? That’s not true. In the real world that would beat 3,5 W/kg at 100 kg. and that is even the fact on flat routes (0,5 m/km) Should also be true in Zwift.
People also forget that a smaller rider have far less aerodynamic drag because of a much smaller frontal area.
My point was they are not doing the same wkg, the heavier rider is doing more, if you added the bike on to the total wkg I would guess there would be a sliding scale, as the gradient got steeper the advantage would get less to the point if you could cycle up a vertical climb it would equalize, that better?
