it can be an indication that something is not right in the same way cadence is.
If peoples are putting out stronger efforts but at reduced HR for example would raise suspicions and very few experienced racers on Zwift ride without HRM so I understand why a lot of races enforce it. Even for your own benefit i find it good to ride with HRM to understand my zones and how hard I’m pushing in a race.
Which is why I don’t enforce HRMs in my races - nobody can glean any information from a rider wearing one but plenty of fingers get pointed.
In 20 years as a coach, I’ve seen riders maxing out at 120bpm and others cruising at 200bpm. And, yes, the HRMs were working perfectly.
All it proves is the rider is alive. And, even then, it’s so easy to cheat that it’s worthless as a requirement. Likewise, cadence. It just gives the illusion that organisers are somehow “tough on cheats”…
I’d probably challenge the cadence one as when people are using sticky watts and the like the cadence is the big giveaway…
But HR provides very little information in isolation… Over a long period you might be able to spot the odd anomaly specific to a user.
It’s worth having it, but as this is a entry into racing, not sure it’s needed… pen enforcement though 
I bet they are all brand new to racing 
PS: the disqualification for HR appears before any other. 1st, 8th and 18th were all UPG as well. Oh, and two of the UPGs were B. 
It’s late I’ve got nothing else to do…
I’ve just checked the top 10 in D.
1 legit D racer - Won 5 out 6 races in D about to become a C
1 new to racing
1 with 240+ races under their belt.
All others. 10 plus races/ZP activity* (1 user appears to have reset their account after 40+ races.)
So 1 in 10 is new.
8 out of 10 are sandbagging.
This doesn’t include those not in ZP.
This is a wonderful learning experience. The first time is always the hardest.
Zwift can learn a lot from this
no surprises there then why cat d is smallest category of racers on the platform. Pen enforcement can’t come soon enough until then if I were Zwift i’d stay well clear of promoting race series for new riders as it probably does more harm than good.
It would be interesting to pull repeat rider data for this series to see if it’s all as bad as we think or if we are just the moaning minority 
This isn’t exactly their first rodeo Gerrie… some of these mistakes should not have been made and were easily predicted.
“If it’s predictable, it’s preventable”
Do you mean this form 2018:. Auto-Assign Race Categories
LoL 
I did some digging it was fun and I found this gem 
from 2016.
yes,great experience for the new zwift Racer:partying_face:
what a great Picture. 
Im on a conference call that should be an email update…
So out of the top 50 in D:
3 genuine new racers,
1 with under 5 races
3 racers with over 300 races behind them (All out of Category for this race)
I assume that you need to add the caveat of “that are on Zwiftpower”?
My Presumption is yes, but there was 2 in there with ZwiftPower accounts and the header, “user has not signed upto Zwiftpower” note.
Either way, the new user defence/cop out is becoming a little thin when you see those kind of number of new starters and sandbaggers next to each other.
When riders keeps making the same “mistakes” over and over, they’re either total idiots or they’re doing it deliberately. I always have time for those that don’t know; I have zero patience for those that don’t want to know.
I’m not making a defence, just voicing an opinion. I think we’re still allowed to do that in 2021? 
My thought is that newer users often don’t sign up for ZwiftPower because they don’t know about it and the onboarding process is a little bit tricky - we have work to do on this.
Can I just point how ridiculously convoluted the process is to sign up for ZwiftPower? Create an account on Zwift, find your user ID, add it to your username, blah blah blah. It must be quite daunting for anyone new to Zwift and Zwift racing. Surely there’s an easier way?
EDIT: See post above.
FWIW, I’ve registered for Friday’s 10am (UK) L39ION race as a C even though ZP and Autocat have me as a D. I’ll most likely be dead last. 
is there going to anything for the future where zwift users are automatically enrolled with zwiftpower?
most wont know about zwiftpower when new to racing, I certainly didn’t when I started last year but you also have those that know about it but don’t sign up, one being a well known cycling goalkeeper who loves to brag about his sandbagging all over social media
