Evening all!
A long one sorry!
I have 0 cycling experience and own only a wattbike atom (no road bike) which i use on zwift for daily workouts to improve overall fitness! Thought i would give racing a go to add some drive to my training and to possibly get a more realistic FTP.
My FTP currently is 213 and my w/kg is 3.09. Intended to enter the C category, but first time racing messed it up joined a D (didnt realise until the race finished).
Race in question is the Crit City Race, 8 laps, 16km.
So with my lack of knowledge, skill and no tactical thought what so ever I pedal max out for the entire race. I am race leader for the entirety, I get overtook a handful of times in the first couple of laps but regain lead fairly quickly and i find a really good rhythm, choosing parts of the route to pick it up and do like a high interval to extend the lead.
However obviously I am technically sand bagging in this cat, so halfway through the race I get a message telling me along the lines of… I am being too powerful and that a power limit has been applied. (I cant fully remember what it said as I was really really blowing, but it was a good paragraph). I then within 30 seconds get absolutely dropped by a group of 5 which I didnt even notice on my radar until they started quickly approaching me.Anyway I finish realize I am in cat D and zwift says I place 6th… but still pretty confused wanting to analyse my effort. Zwift power says I would have won the cat by only 4 seconds if I wasnt DQ. Strava and TP show no obvious signs of a power cap and speed kept consistent.
So my questions…
Was my power/speed limited for the entire race after I received the message or for only when the message was on the screen?
My feedback on TP and Strava dont really show an obvious power cap so does zwift just knock the speed down or give me a time penalty?
The small pack that absolutely left me for dust… Did Zwift seamlessly throw me into the correct cat race at that point (doubtful), were they bots (didnt look like bots), was it the power/speed limit or was it just i paced myself wrong in the race and they saved their tank for the final half (but then surely they would have been DQ as well)?
If I was too fast for that race then why did Zwift clock me as only coming 6th, and why is this being contradicted by Zwift Power?
Anyway if you made it to the bottom congratulations! If you can help that would be great!
Moral of the story though is dont sandbag and ensure you are in the correct cat
