In the HISP League Tour (13 consecutive days of racing) with Category Enforcement activated, one light racer (not competitive) was promoted yesterday to B by Category Enforcement. He can’t write well in english so he asked me to write in his name.
He is desolated, it’s an amazing event for our team and these are his numbers:
Now in B cat, he doesn’t even stand a chance and the increase in length of races (for A and B) make it even harder. In yesterday’s race he lost 1 minute from the first group in the last climb (ZwiftPower - Login).
Could Category Enforcement be used to promote non-competitive light racers? His place is C, not B. C is dominated by heavier racers just because maths for w/kg play in their favour.
Now that this light racer have a chance to be competitive against heavier racers in climb courses (and force them to reach CAT C limits) he is out and the usual dominators of the C category, remain comfortably at 2.9w/kg on average with no risk of being promoted to B.
I know you guys are doing you best and it is very difficult, not a critic in any way! ride on!
If he is at the bottom of the category he isn’t going to stand a chance. Some people have to come last, whilst a power profile is used to separate categories there is always going to be users at the bottom end.
Im presuming your fix is to encourage everyone to manage their output and stay within the boundaries?
Yes everyone wants a results based system, we don’t have it… the question is how does everyone play fair with what we have… sandbag or every one races hard and committed and end up in the category as per their power profile?
While I get bottom of the category is never easy I’d been keen to see a stream of the start of the race. Looking at the picture above he backed off pace even earlier that shown possibly around a minute in even.
His 1 minute power is far from the best in the race but also not the worst. I’d try b again and prepare for a fast start or as other suggest eat some donuts and CE will put him back to cat C in a day or two.
This is why boundaries should vary between races and series, and not set in stone. Then there won’t be people stuck at the bottom of.a category all the time. I believe that this indeed the plan for the future, i.e…to let organisers vary things within cat enforcement.
That was the plan i believe but nothing in Zwift development is quick so i’m not sure we will see it this race season. Who knows people keep mentioning big things in Sep/Oct update but I’m very sceptical now.
Their update posts ZHQ said they would do monthly on clubs and racing seem to have stopped. Must be working on something but very much back to the zwift as we know it with glacial development pace.
The rights and wrongs of splitting by power can & have been discussed for eternity, but whilst we have the current boundaries that should be a B cat rider all day long.
You make it sound though like if we had results-driven Cats, there suddenly wouldn’t be anybody at the bottom end of a category? Anyone could be a winner somehow?
Someone always has to lose a race, the idea behind results driven categories is you will have more competitive races rather than the same ol as you move up & down and others also move around you. You race the people around you.
There is a question around how the pens are formed prior to the race if you are still limited to 5 pens but it should hopefully mean, some days you are the stronger rider, some days the weaker rider.
Or do a categorical system by skill and results not w/kg? It is a game after all, even if you have the power, you still have to learn the skills on how to play the game.
There are so many complaints about Riders upgrading mid series…every cat system will have this issue. The only solution is to have Private events with cat enforcement in 1 or 2 races and then turned off for the rest of the series. @Juanjo_Ferres_HISP your friends Power Curve is not for Zwift Racing and his profile says he’s +60years. Without any short term power he will be of the front in any Cat.
Thank you Dejan. I just want to point out this rider. It’s an example for fine-tune Category Enforcement. He is not even B in ZwiftPower and it is not competitive in any way. He shouldn’t have been filtered and he doesn’t stand a chance in B. Of course, he is not going to unrealistic weight gain to be in C.
Category Enforcement is the way to go until we have the ranking system. But i hope it can be configured to allow people finish the series and then promote them, or even realize that they are not competitive in any way and is better to let them in a lower CAT.
I agree with you that Alex Pages Power Curve is not for Zwift Racing, that’s why now -that the CE is still in development- i hope it can be taken in consideration.
Lee; I am all in for fair play, I even have my races, and FTP tests, uploaded to YouTube. I have two powermeters and use the one that gives me the lowest wattage. Do you want me to send you videos of my weight? I can send them to you if you want.
