Racing enforcement

I can’t understand why I can’t join D races
Zwift is saying I am category C which I am not .
I am trying to recover from a fractured back and not being able to race is really disappointing
Can I drop to cat D ???
Please

You can see the stats that Zwift uses to help determine your Category Enforcement category on your zwift activity feed on the web on the right hand side in the “Fitness” section. That will also show which rides set your various personal best results.

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Hi @Ian_Nicholson, welcome to the forums.

Cat enforcement uses all your power data from the past 60 days, so depending on how fresh this injury is, eventually you will be able to drop if your performance has dipped far enough down.

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There are two types of race category:

Category Enforcement
ZwiftPower

You might be Cat C under CE but you are cat D under ZP. If you want to race in D cat find ZP races which suit your strengths.

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I am not a doctor but I won’t think racing is a good idea while recovering. I would only do Z2 rides at most.

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Can’t help with the racing question but that sounds really painful - I hope the recovery is going/goes well.

If you want to post a screenshot of your Category Enforcement data from your Zwift profile, you might get more advice about what’s going on. There is no obligation to do that if you prefer to keep it private. Because the Category Enforcement system looks at all rides in the game, people sometimes end up in an unexpected category if they share their account with a stronger rider, or lower their weight in any ride in the game, or experience a problem with their trainer that causes it to report unexpectedly high power numbers. If you click on the More Info link on the profile, it will show you the dates of your best power numbers, which might help you understand which rides caused you to get upgraded.

There is no Ian Nicholson at Zwiftpower.

For some reason searching by name doesn’t always bring up a ZP account.

Try the search on zwiftracing.app if you don’t get a result on ZwiftPower. ZP search is faulty and many riders with a ZP profile do not show up in search results, but they are actually there with a profile under the same name you searched for. :man_shrugging:

Thanks, I know - I was pointing out to Milan :+1: (edit - possibly in a typically British way )

I can usually find them through the races they took part in if they are on ZP.

Hope your fractured back recovery is going well. I never fully recovered from fractured C2 over 20 years ago when I was hit by a car while cycling. (same year that Christopher Reeves suffered his fractured C2); but happy that mine wasn’t any worse.

Regarding Category-Enforced racing, If your category was a C less than 60 days ago, you’ll remain a C until the 60 days expires. I entered a too-light weight at one time and Zwift bumped me up to “B” based on w/kg. 2 months ago, I realized the ramifications of what I’d done and entered my accurate weight. After that, it took 60 days of finishing last or near the back of “B” races before Zwift felt sorry for me. I’m a “C” now, but I still finish nearer the back than the front in “C” races. However, it’s more fun when I can get in a chase group than before when I would totally blow away in the first 4 minutes of every “B” race and time trialed the rest.

Be sure your Zwift weight is accurate. Don’t do like I did. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about cheating. It’s a big deal. So I put my weight back to my actual. The punishment is being put into a higher category and it sticks out like a sore thumb in Zwift Power. I ended up dead last in the B’s in many races with no one in sight.
Don’t do that. w/kg is how Zwift categorizes riders. They don’t seem to care about performance (high placings in races). If my w/kg gets me catted back down to “D”, I’m fine with it. Just so long as there are other somewhat equally strong and fit riders around me to keep me motivated. (I’m old)

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