Well I’m glad that made more sense.
Maybe some folks jumped in at the start of maybe I just remembered how many were on Zwift power.
It’s still not easy to review all race results and I don’t care for the flow of the results on the ZCA.
The idea is meant to be that the power gives you a starting point and the results move you up from there. It shouldn’t matter if people are managing their 5 minute power as their results should get them to same place anyway.
In practice it’s not working out like this. It’s far too easy to give yourself a lower score if you want it.
I just went back and reviewed the results.
I finished 30th out of 56 finishers but 61 started the race.
So, scores seem to be affected by DNF and I assume that riders that were deemed “sandbagging” also affect other’s score but not their own.
Not quite shining with polish yet.
did the flat is fast race the other day in the 510-650 category, finished 21/38 with only 31 finishers, dropped 1 point
What I read here is that most of the people is realizing that a single ZRS score base on 5 mins power will never work decently for all the different type of races and riders. This can be accurate as a starting point just for very short races or assuming all the riders have the same physiology (same decay ratio in W or WPK over time), and excluding who is deliberately generating low 5 mins WPKs values to be low-seeded. The adjustment due to results is too slow and this is causing the intermediate ZRS fields being full of underrated people, and this is demonstrated by data (there’s a bunch of interesting posts on Facebook Zwift Racing group).
Now ZHQ is probably trying to fix that stuff breaking the pens of ZRacing events with 2 different pens distribution, but to me it’ll not fix things because the problem is not pens scores but how the system should work.
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I’ve been doing more racing lately. Mostly looking for 30+km races (so all Zwift stuff automatically drops out) to make it worth my while. Those races are often poor attended. This caused my ZRS to increase… a lot. Can’t see the history but it’s from mid 500s to mid 600s now. I’m in the ‘former’ B category but nearing the top category at this rate.
On the other hand, ZwiftRacing.app (ZRA) has my score quite constant in the low 1700s. One of the races only had six people. Race was won by a - old categorization - A+ rider, second was an A rider and then I was third. Exactly the place ZRA had put me so it did not change my score. ZRS went up quite a bit. Same with a race where only two people finished (6 people started). ZRA was unimpressed but ZRS gave quite a large boost.
It’s a repetition of statements posted here throughout months. ELO is much better suited as it judges ones level much quicker (the A+ people shouldn’t have been in the B category) but also doesn’t keep increasing when performing as expected. Furthermore, poorly attended races have a much larger impact on ZRS score than it should. ZRS is also much more impactful for people that race often than those that do few. Again, linked to previous points that ELO is much better to quickly assess level.
One positive thing though (but ZRA already had it, just very few races that ran it): Mixing up the field has been quite interesting. I’m still conditioned by the old categorization whereby in B no one could break away as power difference was small. Now there are some high wattage monsters in B but with low peak power. Hence, they can be caught (or dropped) on efforts of a few minutes. Which is better than the old power categorization but honestly I’d still prefer the ZP 20m categorization but then with category enforcement over ZRS currently.
Side question: Is it me or have racing numbers dropped (significantly)? The zRacing events seem quite popular but rest is all quite poorly attended compared to two years ago. Seems that those short races of just 20km have cannibalized everything else giving us a very monotone racing calendar and as a result dropping numbers overall.
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I think the Zracing series has swallowed up so many of the racers available, that the already low numbers in community events drops even lower as people dont really want to race against very small numbers.
There is also a thing where numbers are probably down in Zwift with the rise of TPV & MW but racing wise, the zRaces are seeing back to back races with over a 100 in a single pen. Perhaps 3 races with 30+ plus in a pen on different courses would provide alternatives for others, but the C & D pens currently are stacked with users.
Edit - I mentioned above perhaps an hour long race series would help give alternatives, but currently the Zwift events dominate the calendar and there are few community events that stand out.
FRR is currently kicking off with 2000 riders signed up, so there are racers out there and not many of those will show up on the calendar as they are all private events.
Sounds quite sensible, especially as your ZRS isn’t much above the pen minimum?
Movements are getting smaller as the number of races done increases. Its just a shame they started people off with such low scores far from the true 5min compound seed
Could do with more things inbetween Zracing (boring) and FFR (hideously complex). ZRL does this pretty well i guess, and ladder but that’s quite different.
Event organisers, what are the default pen ranges now?
Is ZwiftHQ making their races more appealing by still using the old default pen ranges for community events, drawing racers like me to the “range 2” Zmonthly races (which more correctly IMO put me in the weakest pen)?
but I am in a far higher pen when they recalculated the seed score and then put race results from a lower pen onto an already inflated seed
Man, a quick look at the stats of those profiles tells me 1 thing: how can a B rider have a ZRS lower than mine (real D racer with damn bad aerobic skills despite training and very good anaerobic skills)? So that we’re paired in the same pen and I’ll definitely not be able to stay in the draft for more than 5 mins? (This is because my power decays quickly and his does not). Then if things were working after a single race I should be dropped a lot or he should be pushed so high I cannot compete with him anymore. And this is definitely not happening, my ZRS keep increasing or stay stable and I’m forced to join races with people I cannot keep in their draft. Again: the pens should be formed based on the best AVG power of a rider on the expected time to complete the race for that AVG power. It’s the only thing that makes sense.
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There appears to be a split between those that didn’t like CE and love ZRS and those with the opposite view
( and another group who like neither and want yet another system)
but I imagine what is seen on the forums is the loud voices of a minority of racers, I wonder what the whole Zwift community thinks?
how about this test
half the daily races use ZRS and half use category enforcement - as they are both still operating-
let Zwift users vote with their attendance.
they are already kind of doing it with the dual range ZRS events on the monthly race series.
which would get greater attendances?
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I think your problem is more that you’ve raced plenty so you’re more or less at your settled score, whereas others are still working their way up towards that point.
It was unhelpful that they kept the race movements under the old seed, but it should work itself out…
Obvs these flat courses in zracing aren’t exactly accelerating things…
It depends if the racer is racing allround or is just polarized on a type of races (tiny races, long races, short crits, TTs, TTTs…).
When you’re racing just a single type of racing, your ZRS will just move depending on your 5 mins W changes (and this happens veeeeery slowly IF it happens) or on your results. Let’s assume that an anaerobically fit guy goes for just short races. Or viceversa an aerobically fit guy goes just for very long races. The first time the racer will go for a different type of race where it’s not so skilled, the system will put it into a pen that’s definitely not fitting for its skills. It will be a very frustrating experience (being dropped after a bunch of pedal strokes) and the rider will not be encouraged to go again in the same situation because of that (and given the fact the ZRS will adapt very slowly next experience will be similar to that one).
What I’m saying is: the ZRS of a racer will fit for the most practiced type of races, and whatever other races in between will just lower the accuracy of the ZRS for the most practiced type of races while not adjusting it enough to give the best experience in the other race types.
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One of the features I like about vELO is how it assesses expected finishing position based on vELO score adjusted for terrain. (I don’t know how this adjustment is made, but it feels intuitively right to apply such a mechanism.)
Ideally, vELO would adjust for distance too. (Maybe it does and I haven’t noticed!) I am much better relatively over short races than long ones as my ageing lower back slowly seizes up on longer rides.
The 5 min wpk only affects you if you are finishing poor and are already at your score floor
If your score is above the floor, 5 min power has no bearing on the movement of your score.
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Unless it changes a lot and is used to reseed you (I think this should happen periodically…). But we’re aligned, it’s unlikely that your improvements from the power profile standpoint will affect your ZRS after your first seed.
vELO is not adjusted per distance (so per time), and in fact this ZRS stuff is screwing my vELO each time I do a long race because ZRA expects I’m top rider while I’m definitely not (too many Bs and Cs in the pen!). Until CE was ongoing, I was easily gold. Now I’m struggling between silver and bronze, and maybe this is my real place…but I have very different results when doing very short or short races or something longer than 20 mins, and this makes me think my ZRS fits well just for short races (where I have my best performance) while for the long races it’s completely wrong.
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For what it’s worth, my zwiftracingapp vELO has dropped like an anvil, especially since doing more races under seed score v3. My 90-day is 799, but I’m now 568.
Part of it I’ve steadily got less fit over the last ~10 months while gaining unwanted fatty weight, I’ve started racing more again since November and I’m usually being placed with a higher ability than the old Category Enforcement pen D (with the possible exception of the “range 2” Zmonthly, but even then there are Racing Score 180-210 racers who are far stronger than I).
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