8 chars
My original post was about riders in Cat D putting out 400 watts at 2.7 watts/kg. Think about it. Those two numbers do not go together. Also, these riders always either have a private Strava account or no outside rides. Think about it.
I don’t have a Strava, and I only started to ride outdoors this year which were only averaged out to Z1 rides for me; what’s your point?
You can’t make the assumption that everyone has the ability to ride outdoors in the first place, let alone ride outdoors safely and be willing to put in an effort while out on the road.
Welcome to racing in Zwift; all starts are half / third sprints, and if you’re doing the Tiny races, or any of these other new series of sub 5 minute races, and expecting folks to pace themselves as if it’s a 40+ minute race, it’s time to look elsewhere…
That said if you think that’s bad, there are Cat B’s right now sitting at 4.4w/kg 20 minutes @ 350+w and 1800w sprints.
The lesson to be had is racing in Zwift is more about what you can maintain for 3-5 minutes, and how good your sprint is. “Endurance” races in Zwift are not only rare, but not interesting, and just turn into group rides that end in a sprint.
Do you even know what power numbers and fitness level it takes to win a race in a P1/2 race in a local pond? How many have you done?
Nope, and I don’t see how that relates to this discussion. Simply stating that “I didn’t win therefore everyone else is cheating” is silly.
Do people cheat on Zwift, absolutely… but not everyone!
less than 8wkg for a short period of time apparently
Solution is to make races that are 150km long and have numerous big climbs on them along with flat sections.
But for that you need more big climbs in Watopia, not just ADZ, you’d like a virtual Col du Lautaret, Galibier and Sarenne and put them all together along with the flat sections. Give everyone a chance at different things.
But ultimately I suppose people would mostly just prefer the short flat race that gives them the best chance of a win.
The problem is more that so many people don’t have time to do 150km races, even if they wanted to.
1 Like
Then what would you do for the scenario put forward by the user above?
EG, races being a 3-5min efforts and a huge sprint?
And I don’t completely buy the time argument when I see quite a lot people have time to ride with robopacer groups for 3-4 hours per day. Obviously some people have time to spare.
You can jump on with a RP at any time. How regularly would a long race have be scheduled to retain a decent sized field? You’re also assuming that all those folk trying to maximise their XP count and Strava miles at minimum effort would be interested in something more competitive. I’d rather assume that many are just spinning along whilst watching Netflix.
Sure, but how are you going to line up my available time with your race start? That’s the issue. I can find 3 hours maybe 4 times a week, but it’s a different 3 hours each time because of shift work and family stuff.
I’m not saying it’ll never work. I’m saying that you’re going to struggle to get many riders, especially in Cat C and Cat D. Maybe choose different routes based on predicted times to complete?
Something in the middle, I guess. Anything that includes the Epic KOM, Volcano, the Surrey Hills (1 or more) etc
those zwift races already exist and nobody rides them, because they’re dull as hell
I was doing KISS 100 regularly for a while and it’s a pretty good format. I wouldn’t call it popular but a few months ago we were getting 30 odd riders in C category, plus all categories are visible, and faster categories start before slower categories. So the C leader group would collect dropped Bs and we all finish together. This is a nice configuration for races like this that can otherwise end up as a 100km solo TT. Of course anyone dropped from D will get the solo TT experience. The routes are not usually super climby but occasionally something like 3 laps of Country to Coastal or 4 laps of Muckle Yin.
Contrast that to the Zwift Insider Epic race that I did with a big climb in it. All categories not visible. Smaller field despite the fine reputation and excellent marketing reach of the organizer. The field blew apart on the climb. Probably most of us did the rest of the event alone. Free riding the route would be more interesting because you would have more people to chase.
1 Like
I enjoyed a season of the ZHR masters weekenders which were ~2h long on varied courses, a few time zones on Sunday, and all cats together due to the age grouping system. They were adequately attended but the organiser gave up on them. The FRR tours seem popular and several of their series are also fairly long. Not 150km, mind.
The cat system pretty much enforces group ride and bunch sprint, it’s as much at fault as the choice of courses/times IMO.
1 Like
everyone loves the KISS 100
there are medium length races. don’t look for big hills, nobody likes racing up them, and if anyone thinks they do, it’s just because they haven’t actually done one yet.
nopinz run a 60km-ish one regularly
KISS run the sunday 100
DBR run one about 3 hrs long on a saturday morning (i think)
dzr are running some medium length ones
fusion used to run a 1:30-2hr one on a thursday evening, not sure if they still do
edit: restart racing run one on friday, it’s usually not much more than 1hr 30 though
they’re around, and seem to be coming back in fashion too since a few of those are newish
You don’t like VirtuSlo 4Endurance Split-Cats Races?
I will make some changes to the Cat limits with new year…stay tuned.
1 Like
i thought they were shorter brother. i knew i could count on you to plug them for me anyway
Purely because everyone just thinks “well why don’t I instead just do this 20-30 minute zRacing race which has 20 people signed up a full day in advance?”
The issue is there are too many choices…
Zwift just plain offers far too many options when it comes to events, and especially races.
Whoever is in charge really should be trying to stamp out weekly events that only manage to gather <10 people, so either a new format can take its place, or … even nothing takes its place, to better fill out other events instead.
Group rides, whatever (although personally I still think if a group ride can’t hold weekly riders, let alone even hold the person leading / in charge for even once a month… it straight up shouldn’t exist).
And it isn’t like this is private data; you can literally go into ZP and look at the counts of riders on every single event that’s taken place.
Reality is, this is something ZHQ just needs to do and get better at; they have to have the data, and I know they don’t just allow anyone to shove a ride into their system for the entire public.
And I will continue to argue the only reason why the zRacing series is so big is because it’s shoved in everyone’s faces on the main menu, and the same is going for the Zwift Games; they’re already calling it “the largest … ever held”, and the only reason it will be is because they’re advertising it as such and putting it in everyone’s faces.
Just to throw this into perspective, and this is not a name and shame, just numbers I saw.
3R Racing apparently has several races each day that occur at the exact same time, and sometimes pull in less than 10 people total (looking at Americas times, where rider counts are already super low).
The only way any rides and races can grow, is when less options are given that are pulling in less than a handful of folks; “stealing” them from other events, which… are very likely to be the exact same format.
And for what?
1 Like
Not sure about Zwiftpower telling you the number of riders. Picking a random just-completed event (#4047146). 68 riders show in ZP, on Zwift’s events page, supposedly 191 riders were signed up. How many actually left the starting gate, or how many eventually crossed the finish line – no idea (just another Zwift issue).