Hi all
I was hoping some Zwift brains can tell me why I am put into category BI haven’t raced for months and my fitness stats do not seem to suggest that I should be a B
Your picture is missing the most important part that shows zFTP and zMAP.
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Your 5 minute power is only 111% of your 30 minute power. You may find that firing up a free ride and knocking out a maximal 5 minute effort shifts the curve sufficiently to get you into Cat C.
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Probably something to do with the flat spots in the power curve (12 &15, 30 & 40) and low MAP numbers. It’s probably predicting that some of those numbers for longer term power are actually higher. Make a note of the zMAP and zFTP numbers, before you do what David suggested.
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Thanks for the responses. Seems crazy that you put out higher numbers and are assigned a lower racing category!
Looks like you are just over the zMAP W/kg for B category assuming 72kg, 4.19W/kg, so driving down zFTP by increasing zMAP will not change it. You are under the zFTP limit for B.
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Thanks Paul
I just can’t see how the underlying figures put me above the limit. They all look low, not d cat but not event that high c cat. But I don’t really understand any of it and thanks working it through for me.
The underlying figures are probably not showing what you can actually do. It’s fitting those numbers to a curve and effectively saying that the curve says your potential is higher at some of those durations. You might get a more accurate result with more good data, but I wouldn’t want to guess whether it would put you in a lower category. Probably not but 
For example if your 30 and 40 minute PRs are the same, that would indicate that the 30 minute PR is below what you can do. If there’s a huge drop from 1 to 3 minute power, that would indicate that the 3 minute PR is below what you can do.
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Your zMAP is about equal to your 2 minute power and it’s 50% more than your zFTP
My zMAP is about equal to my 5 minute power and it’s only 20% more than my zFTP.
Zwift won’t say exactly how they calculate zMAP but Zwift says it uses data from three to six minutes. Your zMAP is well above any data you have from three to six minutes though so that is unusual.
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The calculations they do are based on the premise that maximum efforts have been done. If maximum efforts are not being done then the calculations do not give an accurate figure.
Until a couple of days ago your last race on 20/06 produced a 5 min effort of 305w and was most likely much closer to a max effort than the training rides you have put in since. I believe when that 305 figure dropped out the recalculation (using poor data) put you in cat B cat because of zMAP, as others have mentioned above.
If you want Category (Pace Group) calculation to be correct you need to put in maximum efforts. I suggest you do a free ride warm up, do a maximum sprint, easy ride and then a 5 min max effort. Hopefully that will provide an accurate calculation of your zMAP.
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Reading elsewhere it appears that if you have poor 1-3min or 1-4min or 1-5min efforts your zMAP is likely to be based on the best short time power. Driving your short time power up to real maximum efforts generally moves your zMAP to the 6 minute power figure.
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