You have to spool it up at the start, before the pack is released. If youâre waiting to start pedaling until the countdown hits zero youâre toast. If youâre soft pedaling or just warm-up pedaling youâll get left behind too. Really spool up the power 3-4 seconds before countdown hits zero.
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The biggest thing is the draft. If youâre out of the draft youâre doing far more work. Once youâre on the road bike the differences between bikes are far lower than the differences youâre talking about.
Losing the fast group immediately is losing free speed. You need to surge to keep the group when you have to if you want good race results.
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Try to hit the hills a lot and unlock that tron bike.
And get the Canyon Aeroad when it becomes available, much better bike than default.
Eventually you want the Venge S-Works for flat rides when it becomes available.
From the start you absolutely have to go flat out before the counter stops and everyone is allowed to go then use the draft. As a light rider try not to get on the front too much, use the draft as much as possible.
Only hit the front when you want to break from everyone and know you can make it work.
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The Tron isnât that much better than the Canyon Aeroad. Itâs a great all-rounder and I use it all the time, but tends to be overrated.
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Uranium Nuclear is just as fast at a lower level unlock and fewer drops. 
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Itâs about time for a good old dose of nerfing some bikes. 
We havenât had that for a while so itâs overdue.
Tron is free, aside from having to ride up hills.
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I havenât Zwifted for a while since Iâm outside but I was using a Felt AR with 858âs.
Not sure what level it takes but Iâm level 54 with too many drops.
I wanted a white frame that showed when I was in the draft.
I hope itâs not nerfed.
Not sure how often Zwift insider does retests.
I canât image it will change a lot.
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I am a bigger fellow, 100 kg or so, and I regularly catch riders on flat road using 0.5 watts/kg less.
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Being smaller will always mean you need to put out more w/kg than a bigger rider. I ride in B, and there are some ladies under 60kg who regularly put out 4.5 w/kg to hold on. Iâm around 60kg and generally have higher w/kg than those finishing around me despite spending most of my time drafting. Most of the really successful Zwift racers are sitting in the pack until they unleash a really powerful sprint. I can generally be in contention until the last 500m, but donât have the outright power to finish on the podium.
Getting to know the courses helps, youâll find that the effort will increase even with a small incline, so you need to be prepared to push and try and draft, even if you fall a few metres behind you will need to put out higher watts. The more races you do, the better youâll understand how to race well. It takes a few attempts, and the amount of times Iâve heard of very good riders irl , who take a while to get to grips with racing on Zwift.
The most important thing is to have fun, and use it as an opportunity to improve your fitness.
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Hi everyone 
Thanks for all the replys! I didnât expect this much feedback. 
Iâm definitely going to safe up drops to get the Canyon Aeroad as soon as possible and then, work on a better power output over the span of 2-3 Minutes to hold on better at the start. Iâm sure there ar some trainings in Zwift, to exactely prepare for that. Thatâs definitely a weakness of mine. Iâm usually not to bad at endurance, but donât like to go to much where it hurts. 
Thanks also for the link to this site. zwifterbikes.web.app Seems very useful!
And other than that, Iâm going to keep trying in the races. So far, I still find it difficult to ride at a regular pace and to keep as much as possible the same place in a group.
And if the weight deficit gets to be too much for me, I just switch to courses with a little more elevation. Then even the heavier guys and gals have to do a little more.
If you want you can check some of my race streams iâm often at the lower end of W/kg used in racesâŚremember when you are drafting you are saving watts for the attacks or climbs.
One of the best ways is to use Robopacers at your Zone 2 Level to get used to Pack Dynamics.
We are now using Custom Split-Categories Races that could fit you better.
Oh come on⌠donât sell him BS. You know better. Or should at least.
Yeah, sure, a better bike will shave a couple of seconds, but that is not what decides races.
And as for the secret masonic rocket science of Draftingâ˘âŚ it takes a minute to learn and a lifetime to âfailâ at under the current pack dynamics model. What I mean is, especially in lower categories, itâs not hard to be decent at drafting and you donât have to be a genius to understand that you should draft and how to do it. Drafting perfectly, though, is very hard if not impossible, if others in the group are either a) not as good at drafting as you, or b) not willing to pull at the front (who in his right mind is?). This is where you get the constant wave motions within a group with riders at higher speeds in the back clip straight through riders closer to the front. Hence, even as the High Priest of Drafting you have to adapt and âdodgeâ these waves constantly with comparatively high Watts, especially if youâre light, as to not hit the front or get spat out the back, which in turn will require even more Watts because of the massive speed loss. There is no drafting at even, conservative Watts in Zwift. Efficient? No. You just pick the lesser of two evils.
Letâs talk realities instead. As long as race categorization is based on performance measures involving weight at all (rather than past results, or pure Watts, an inferior alternative) then guys like the OP at 65kg will always be shafted in any category sub-cat A. They have to work harder than their heavier competitors just to keep up, and with the ânewâ categorization model you are allowed to do that to some extent (under the old straight W/kg model you just got DQâd if you hit the same Watts as the heavies mid-pack because your W/kg was through the ceiling, whereas theirâs werenât).
So the heavies can, all else equal, conserve energy for short climbs or pushes, whereas the grasshoppers are on the limit throughout the race. And it doesnât end there. Then, provided you as a light rider can stick with them until the finish at all, you will, all else equal, get severely outsprinted since the heavier riders have a bigger muscle volume in absolute terms. All else equal, equal W/kg, equal HR zones etc, you have no way to win as a lighter rider.
The only realistic solutions is to let these heavier winners move up a category, for winning too much. You canât beat them, but you could get rid of them at least by not letting them easy-mode chained wins perpetually. Itâs a nobrainer.
Guys, we have been through this so many times over the last 3-4 years. I have shown you the statistics from races already, more than once. Letâs not do this again.
@Mattias_Schnell Put your faith in Zwiftâs promise to deliver a results-based categorization zoon. That will solve the problem. For now, just accept the fact that you canât beat the heavies unless your physiological profile is deviant somehow. Like someone said, just focus on yourself for now. Because chances are that winning right now would require you to be so fit that you can cruise the major part of the race below your actual level so that you are even more rested than the heavies once that hill comes and you drop them. I.e. you would have to be so fit that you actually belong to the category above, and then some. And there would still be a risk that you got upgraded but not them if you donât play it right. Thatâs no way to race.
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The best thing the lighter riders can learn is to attack. And this isnât something only upper Cats can do, anyone can attack, and said attacks serve a purpose; sure if youâre the one attacking, itâs going to hurt, a lot.
But over my two years of cycling / Zwift and racing and growth, and being that lightweight, itâs to make everyone else sweat too (metaphorically, but also physically).
If a race turns into people sitting in the draft the whole time (as they do), grow your VO2 efforts and put in some attacks on any inclines. Make everyone else feel the pressure; otherwise theyâll just sit there âbeing lazy,â on the heels of whoever isnât in the draft, and just wait it out.
Nobody here is saying any of this is easy, but each and every attack that can be put in, means the pack gets a little more tired; with an ultimate goal of losing a few off the back.
When you see people falling out of the draft of the group, means the attack was worth it; and the more that can be put in, and the more that fall off, means you have that fewer people to contend with at the line.
And thatâs not something to ignore.
Of course youâll have to learn your limits of what attack is too much so you donât blow up; but nobody else can help with that.
Iâll agree with everyone else here though; Zwift races are short and punchy, sub 10 minute power is absolutely by far the most important thing; putting in attacks and being able to recover is the ultimate key to racing in Zwift.
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I agree with what you say, in principle. There are actually studies on RL climbers showing that being small and light is not enough in itself to beat the heavies uphill. It doesnât provide enough of an advantage. Itâs being light in combination with excellent recovery, a certain profile, that is the key. They donât just grind it out against the heavies in a climb, they torture them with tempo changes, accelerations, until the heavies canât take it anymore.
But then you need to have excellent recovery to do what they (or you) are doing in the races and that doesnât fall under âall else equalâ. That falls under âdeviant physiological profileâ, to quote myself. Given an equal or similar fitness profile, the heavies will either hang in there or, more likely, you will be way too much on the limit to go for a push, let alone several.
Everyone knows it is more the 5 min performance that matters rather than the 20 min. Everyone who races frequently shift towards a punchier profile, if nothing else, if not intentionally, then by just racing. So getting better at recovery than the heavies is no easy thing. Iâm convinced most people who say thatâs what they did actually got a little genetic headstart. Because all else equal, the heavies will be just as good at recovery as you. Why wouldnât they? Because of their weight? No.
But then there are these deviants, and maybe you are one. There is another light deviant in here, a rather vocal one, you know who, who mostly denies any disadvantage against heavies, or did so in the past anyway. Because he sprints the hell out of them. Light riders do have a faster acceleration, but then you need to back it up with raw Watts towards the latter part of the sprint or you will lack the terminal velocity for a win. But he can pull that off. He really can. Most light riders in Zwift wonât be able to, though, not even if they switch training regimen. All else equal you donât easily outsprint a guy with thighs twice the size of yours, thereâs just too much muscle to fight.
Now, you typically âsenseâ the competitorsâ weights in a race, and a light rider will try to gauge the weights around them early in the race. Although this little in-race weigh-in also gets blurred by some people using some rather cheap and dodgy smart trainers, making their physics behave differently and a bit deceiving. But otherwise the heavies are usually a little⌠heavy⌠in the small climbs (the climbs are generally small as we all know). And then they instead overtake you at the far foot of the hill, coming out of the descent like a cannonball, so the light rider canât really rest downhill as much as others. But itâs kind of natural to a light rider to just keep going about as hard in the climb as on the flat right before, and that alone will strain the group a little, or at least it looks like it. Hah, you might think, get some! But part of it is just Newtonian physics. The heavies accelerate slower uphill. So itâs easy to fool yourself into thinking youâre doing damage. But then a few clicks before the finish comes the proverbial tempo increase. The heavies, especially the ones who donât like to go orange throughout a race, the ones who race at a cozy pace, might not be anywhere near as exhausted as you might think. And thatâs where the light rider gets dropped.
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Thanks for taking the time to write all that. 
Fortunately, I donât care too much about the race results, nor will racing ever be the main thing I do on this app.
Iâm going to try my best with the 65kgs. 
Since everyone is offering their knowledge. Can I ask another question?
Iâve read about âsticky wattsâ. Iâve read some articles about it, but Iâm still not to sure about it.
I ride on my stages bike. Since I have only those 65kgs to work with, I have to fight to stay in a group relatively hard at times when others donât have to do as much. So I tend to accelerate from time to time and then relax a bit, without stopping pedalling completely, but reducing my the cadence considerably. Often after losing my position in the field or when starting a climb.
My wattage is extremely unbalanced and I am now working on pedalling more regularly. Also because over time it becomes extremely exhausting to keep accelerating.
Would âsticky wattsâ be theoretically possible with the stages bike? I donât think my watts stay up for three seconds every time I decrease the cadence. But Iâm still not entirely sure that Iâm not doing anything wrong that falsifies the performance.
Recommendation is to pair the power meters directly and not pair to the bike
And Calibrate PM before every Ride/Race it takes you less than a minute for that.
Itâs worth checking but my experience is that the PM calibration is completely stable. Basically nothing happens unless the trainer is faulty. If it hasnât been calibrated frequently a few times itâs worth seeing if itâs out of spec or unstable.
Is that connecting PM directely to Zwift?
Yes you can pair the left side power meter to Zwift as the power source. Do not pair the right side power meter to Zwift - the left side will transmit for both sides. You have to wake up the power meter first, which isnât necessary when you are pairing to the bike.