Scotland in ZRL? Up & over the climb and then off the gas coming downhill? I think I might have set 3min PB there aswell.
Yeah, but you would think that a 3min PR would also trigger a 1m and 2m PR if you are going hard over the climb.
I can see both sides to that coin, its not a given.
I might know who you are talking about. 176.9kg? If so he told me he is using Assioma pedals. Not sure about the bike but cadence+power appear to be correlated. And he really is that big. The Watts are huge. What do you think is the effect of using power meter pedals with a spin bike? I was also curious about whether Assioma pedals can be accurate with such a big guy. I suspect that most power meters have mostly unknown performance with people that size. He basically wins any short flattish race and loses anything with a climb.
From DC Rainmaker in 2022:
Max Rider Weight:
Lastly, some pedals are limited in terms of how heavy the rider can be. Of course, thereās not truly a rider weight limit, but rather an output wattage limit. Except making that clear to consumers would be a nightmare. So instead they do math backwards a bit since in general, heavier people can output more power than lighter people with the same amount of effort.
Now thereās really two aspects at play here. First is the safety-focused aspect of the pedals breaking. But thatās not really of concern here, these pedals are pretty much fine for anybody in the ballpark of these weights. For these companies the real issue is breakage of the sensors within the pedal above a given threshold. Hereās the stated max rider weights:
Garmin Rally & Vector Series: 105 kg (231 lbs)
Favero Assioma: 120 kg (265 lbs)
SRM X-POWER: No practical limit according to SRM
Wahoo POWRLINK Zero: 113kg (250lbs)
Edit: Not clear of this means they are inaccurate over weight max.
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Iām sure he can show Pairing screen in his next stream 
But still he has no controllable trainer
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Interestingly according to one study, the higher the power output (wattage) the more the Assioma pedals are likely to underestimate power produced.
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Well over weight limit => high chance of broken sensor => inaccurate power readings.
Itās a bad situation for riders that large. I donāt think heās an intentional cheater. I think heās a sincere guy who is just out there doing his best and pushing himself through racing. Thereās basically no product he can buy that would let him compete properly.
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Do crank-based power meters not have higher weight limits than pedals? The torque is moving in a different direction relative to the axis on a crank than a pedal.
Edit - ah, itās a spin bike, so not possible to do that.
Honestly I have no idea how much a proper trainer would help to fix this. None of them are rated for a rider of this kind of mass. Maybe would help some?
Not always, Iāve done 3mins power pb without touching 1min because you know you have to go longer, an example of this would be the legsnapper roughly 48s so youāll put more of an effort in than sgurr 3min effort compared to box hill for 5min
You temper your effort to the length youāre going to do
One thing I thought of this morning that Iād really love to see.
What percentage of the population is in each category.
Like how big actually is C and B, and how small is A by comparison?
This morning I was thinking it would be interesting if all cats were split percentage wise by population; but then I realized that would end absolutely horribly and be incredibly confusing to potentially be one cat, and then another one day later with no change. Even if āthe shuffleā occurred once a month.
For grins I just looked at a large handful of Zwift Stage 2 Race the Worlds results on ZP from today so far.
Cat A averaged to maybe 4 racers.
B to high teens / 20ish
C mid 20s
D, probably less than B (which probably has its reasons.)
Iām just curious how over-inflated C and B are population wise; but it had me thinking how many people would rather ease just a little bit to be a cat lower, just to have more active and engaging races. Because I will personally admit I absolutely have dropped out of events due to lack of population / general interest to do something else instead. I have no idea if this is commonplace to have that train of thoughtā¦
However I have a feeling some people might not mind being a cat higher if that means they actually have people to race against.
(I realize there are sandbaggers and they will always work their way around the system, but just was curious about this one aspect Iāve never seen discussed beforeā¦ I donāt think.)
If you really want to try and size this, maybe visit Zwiftracing.app and go thru the ranking categories. You can at least get a fairly quick count on numbers in Platinum, Ruby, Emerald, and so onā¦
I like Zwift as it has the critical mass, & even when I canāt find a decent cat A race thereās always something to do. But A cat needs more racers. Thereās a large number of high-Bs that could comfortably beat me in a race & having them beat me make it more fun.
Zwift categories are arbitrary lines that make some at the top of their category feel good, but Iād happily struggle at the bottom of A cat if only the fields were bigger.
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Iām not quite as close to A as I thought I would be by now, but Iām not far away, and I completely agree. And again, this is where ZRL takes the cake; because it splits Cats into smaller divisions and then the racing is still fairly reasonable.
Iām just wondering if resetting the lines a few times a year (half year, quarter / season), to even out the size of the fields would be worth while.
It is a balancing act, Iām aware, and the issue still kind of remains that it would be weird for some folks who arenāt getting any stronger or weaker end up in different cats through the yearā¦
However, donāt other, smaller, real world, cycle races group Cats due to not having enough people?
It just makes some sense to me things should be shifted around seasonally, to keep the populations of the cats regulated, to keep events active.
Just to give you guys a overview from someone whoās not so familiar with all that matter and just want to race once in a while.
Iām totally confused with all this categories, race enforcement, z something, mapā¦ I just want to race against people with the same category, which havenāt been happening lately and thatās why I kind of stopped.
Iād like to select a race, enter, participate, loose, win, I donāt mind. I face races as a motivational workout. I donāt think Zwift does a good job to translate the fit on game to fit on reality, but this is my opinion and I wonāt go ahead with that discussion.
The point is, my numbers suggest Iām a lower āBā, maybe a āCā, but Iām enforced to race in āBā, where Iām always smashed by guys with āAā numbers. I donāt mind that much, and while the wheatear allows me, I ride outside. But during winter Iām back to the trainer and Zwift. So, if I was better categorized, it could be funnier takes part on races more frequently.
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We have races for Lower B riders itās PEN Cā¦so remember when Winter comes around to check them out
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Hi, I found this buried in one of their pages explaining fitness metrics not even an hour ago, and i wish iād found it a year ago because it would have saved me a lot of time. Zwift recommends testing your strongest efforts for each of these intervals:
inaccurate data can lead to inaccurate estimates. you may very well find that you are a C afterwards, though that depends on if you meet the criteria after doing the tests.
you can find more infromation in the āmore infoā link next to your fitness metrics along with some other possibly helpful info. itās a complicated system, but hopefully this helps and thanks to zwift for making this info available to people
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Iāll certainly be back as winter approaches, and Iāll give another try for races.
I read a few interesting tips and will try to race cleverly, despite the whole idea of racing for me is the increase in fitness. Iād rather keep my 69.5kg losing Zwift races but keeping in the āstrong groupā in our species Wednesday rides than winning Zwift races with 80kgs and got dropped on the road.