Do they have skill levels though or does it just naturally happen. They’re usually split into leagues because you can’t have everyone playing everyone and then people/teams are promoted or relegated based on performance. But someone wouldn’t be banned from a league, they’d just win and move up.
Most of them have skill levels - hockey and soccer sure, anyone can go out for the bottom-level rec team - but good players don’t, both because it isn’t rewarding, and because they’re more likely to get hurt.
Speed skating, like track & field, you will often get put into a lower race with seeding at rec level. Sure, your first race you can enter anything goofy as a seed time, but most use your last race.
Curling - there are ‘club’ competitions that you aren’t allowed to enter if certain conditions are met.
Badminton, Tennis - absolutely I was forced to move up when it was time.
BMX - totally banned from entering a race below your proficiency. And if a track operator thinks that a rider deliberately avoided a win (sandbagging), they will be awarded a win towards advancement to the next category but awarded zero points.
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Rowing and chess are two activities that I’ve taken part in where participants are categorised according to performance. It helps give people interesting competition and an indication of progression.
But performance is defined by results, not effort, of course.
This is turning into one of “those” threads again 
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Time for the Lock? this one is going know were Fast.
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You like to digress from the subject.
It’s not a matter of category, it’s the influence of Zwift’s game engine.
Again, what is more exciting and competitive for riders at the bottom of the category?
Will the current system allow riders at the bottom of the category to experience the tactics you’re talking about?
Let’s hear your suggestions.
I can flip the question, what will no categories do for people at the bottom.
No matter what you do there will always be people at the bottom, and yes it is no fun being at the bottom not on Zwift and not in any sport/game.
What categories does is it give 4 groups the opportunity to be competitive, so instead of just the top 10% racing for the win you have 4 groups with each having 10% racing for the “win”.
Yes I know winning C is not WINNING but at least the C’s can try tactics.
But if you still prefer one big group then only race those events. There are many that want categories and want it to be good.
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Your comment is interesting.
First of all you didn’t answer the question.
This is a post about not having an opportunity to be competitive in a four group system. Isn’t it?
You can enjoy tactics in groups with or without categories, right?
you wrote it But what if you don’t have a group?
Want to move your annoying riders to another location?
Are you hoping that only you and some riders can enjoy the tactics?
Want to protect your competitive racing system?
what is your suggestion?
I’m at the bottom of a cat. (A cat, but that’s irrelevant). It’s demoralizing after awhile. The prospect of me getting that much stronger is pretty bleak.
More races should be mass start, but then give racers the option to switch off the cat indicators. In other words, you enter the race in your assigned cat but as soon as the race starts all cats turn off. I’ve been tempted to put a piece of tape over them so I can’t see the frustration. People can then choose to review the results or ignore them.
It’d be soooo nice if the age filter worked. That one is really astounding.
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Spot on 
that’s pretty much what it comes down to… people just want to move the goalposts. there will never be fair sport because sport is not fair. of course there have to be rules that must be followed for it to work but you can’t artificially make it more fair. i support a 4 cat system personally, i think having an upper power limit per cat makes it a useful point of training for many… where the lines are drawn to me does not really matter though, changing them won’t accomplish much.
And today’s lightweight rider who most definitely should not be in Zwiftpower and CE “B” due to low raw Watts is …
Won three of the four Zwift Insider Tiny Races that began at 1500 BST today, coming 9th in the other.
A lot of other trophy results too.
he’s only ranked 433rd in his category, so what about all the 80-90kg+ riders ranked above him? i think you would scream if you saw my profile
I vaguely recall you fluctuating around the CE A/B border, but don’t recall your Critical Power W/Kg numbers.
I’d be amazed if that rider I linked to is not higher than 4.1W/Kg Critical Power.
20 min power simply isn’t relevant, that rider wins because of his sprint.
I didn’t mention 20min power. 
after putting out 5.7 for 5 in one of those races he may well be CE A tomorrow. although you might be disappointed because i currently have 5.7 for 5 in my profile too and I am still CE B. so the CE FAQ is wrong
But doesn’t your 5.7 for 5 mins only come into the equation if you are calculated to be over 250w?
The way I see it working is that for light riders the VO2, MAP and CP are pretty irrelevant if the 150w, 200w and 250w limits are not being exceeded ?
The problem is I don’t fully understand where the w figure is coming from. If it is being calculated from a CP curve using shorter duration efforts then it might possibly take the w figure up above category limits if the rider has not made hard longer (20 minute ) efforts.
If by any chance the w figure happens to come from the old FTP calculation (as used for ZP) then is a MAP calculation going to have any bearing on your less that 250w figure?
It will be interesting to see if the young man’s 5 minute effort puts him into Cat A but I suggest his current max w figure is so far from 250 that he will remain in B.
the basic gist in layman’s terms is that the CP model assumes that the better you are at short efforts, the lower your CP has to be, because of course to achieve above average ability at short efforts, you have to practise them a lot to the detriment of your sustained ability at threshold, or TTE (time to exhaustion). if you spend 8 hours of your 12 hours a week sprinting and only 3 or 4 at tempo, then you are going to be worse at threshold than someone who trains 12 hours a week at threshold. this is probably the basic theory behind CP, someone should fact check me here though. this kid is pretty powerful for his size, so his CP will be lower than someone who could maybe do his 20 min power for 2 hours, but cannot put out the 1-3min power that he is capable of
it’s nothing really to do with his size… big riders get this same advantage too (and in zwift racing it is an advantage to be a puncheur)
and of course, it’s relative. a “bad” 20 min for someone with a 7wkg 3min could still be 4.5wkg. but he could have a lower CP than a guy with a 4.2 1 hour power. i think it’s a stupid model to base a category system on, but i guess the rules are the same for everyone so whatever.
The only reason he’s not A cat in CE is the 250W floor. While there is some truth in what you say about high short-term power dropping the CP estimate, this is quite a marginal effect and it’s not like his 20 min power is weak in W/kg terms.