I rode the Stage 2 - Zwift Unlocked Category E race yesterday having a racing score of 208 - the maximum for the E category being 210.
I weigh 103.5 kg and despite averaging 265 watts (2.5 w/kg) I finished well over 2 minutes behind the category winner who until recently had been racing in Category C and even Category B races.
I was very happy with my performance, I put everything I could into it, but it seems strange, as a relatively new member to Zwift, that riders can jump up and down categories as they do.
There may be a simple explanation but if someone could enlighten me I would be very grateful.
Got to be honest at 103.5Kg Zwift pings you pretty hard. My rider weight is 95Kg and thats bad enough in D Cat. You hardly see anyone racing over 100Kg.. How much drafting time did you get and what was your time ? I managed to draft for probably 90% of the time, without that I would have been a couple of minutes slower. I averaged 246W which was the highest raw power in the race of 25 others to come 7th a whole minute behind 1st place. What setup do you ride ?
As far as I can tell neither the winner on Zwiftpower nor in the Zwift results has recently been a “Cat B” rider. I’d worry more about the riders between you and the winner than the winner, if I were you.
Hi Carl - thanks for replying, I’m still pretty new to this so still learning. I use the Zwift Bike with the Wahoo Kickr Core.
I did get some drafting but was dropped on the climbs which started about 8 km from the end so had to ride solo for about 10k - thats probably the reason!
The Zwift Unlocked races aren’t too kind to us heavier riders. They all have uphill finishes, and this week it was a long drag for the 2nd half of the race. Luckily there are plenty of flat races on Zwift that are a bit easier.
Introducing decay at the same time as 30 day max ZRS is double hit for existing users - They have their score artificially inflated and held, whilst returning users get to drop in at a nice low level and impact many races all so the marketing bods are happy.
30 day max is the way to go, but decay should never have come back in this format.
@Ryy Are you going to acknowledge the issues here, Facebook, on the platform this is causing? Or just sitting on your hands as returning customer experience is valued higher than the paying customer?
