i like to think i say the right things at the wrong time 
Ok, I’ll give you that. 
Categorically wrong. There is scientific evidence showing that high body mass (whether it’s high body fat or high lean body mass) is negatively correlated with aerobic ability in untrained cyclists. (The Influence of Increased Body Fat or Lean Body Mass on Aerobic Performance)
There is also evidence showing that it’s not body mass, but body composition that is positively correlated with pear power (The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research).
Not sure where this “heavier riders have more power” bs comes from, but there is simply no scientific evidence supporting it, other than your “bro physics”.
Sure, Rooftop Rendezvous is basically just a hill repeat. But I don’t have many problems with Hilly KOM in the reverse direction because it has plenty of places to get in a micro-recovery on the way up. I usually can do pretty well on the Watopia Hilly Reverse route (when I’m not up against guys dropping 7W/kg on a 3-4 minute climb).
I understand what you’re actually saying here. But for me (personally) it kind of IS the big problem at the moment. I want to keep helping test out the new ZRS system to make it better, but for my personal situation it absolutely sucks to the point where I don’t want to do the races. I already know I won’t do Stage 4 of Punchy Power because there’s no point unless Zwift needs another data point showing that a “cp30-dominated” rider is going to finish DFL.
I know it’s not all about me. But if the goal is to make racing engaging for everyone, then it IS also kind of about me (and others like me). I don’t understand the hesitation of Zwift to making a few simple changes that they know they’re going to have to make. Either fix the seed score or let racing scores drop below the seed (or BOTH!). The calculation and handling of seed score doesn’t have to be perfect, but it can’t remain obviously broken for a large population of riders if Zwift wants to collect useful data.
All this talk of a system that needs to focus on the experience of the rider who racers once every 90 days.
Has anyone actually investigated why they only race once every 90 days?
Perhaps regardless of the system they will still only race once every 90 days - Does that warrant a poorer system for those who do more?
Or even, change the culture of dropping into races, if you want a good race experience encourage racers to do more races.
If a new racer blows up a race, does that improve their chances of racing again? Or if they come last does it discourage them?
If so, what’s the difference between a new rider and a poorly seeded known rider?
i don’t know if anyone has, but their feedback is probably infinitely more valuable than any of the bs we talk
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You could be 100% right but this tone is a real turnoff for people looking to have a civil discourse on the minutiae of a video game we all play in our basements and garages.
Just a thought 
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- And also creating interest for races in general.
At the end of the day, this whole thread doesn’t serve much of a purpose if less and less people want to race for any multitude of reasons.
Reality is, Zwift has a lot of control over what “we” do and how we do it; perhaps more than they think they do.
As far as what encourages me to race more; purely a series system, and it not being 90 F in my room, that’s probably the largest limiting factors. I will suffer if others are willing to suffer!
But I think just my personal take on the number of solo races I do is purely down to finding a race that has garnered interest at first and the bare minimum.
Repeatability in races IMO encourages me too. Racing against the same people (again, talking about series races), is kind of fun, you get to poke and find weaknesses of other riders… or attempt to.
At the base level it’s probably that.
Consistency in number of attendees, and consistency of the event existing.
Which I’ll give it to zMonthly, it is consistent in terms of times… pulling in riders though is a bit all over the place; and for that, I blame the quantity (NOT quality), of other events that potentially pull others away; or… shut them off entirely and end up with a Robo Partner for example again.
I think if Zwift gave people an actual reason to do more than 1 race… people would do it.
But a quick rundown of reasons not to race?
- Inconsistency of signups
- Poor scoring and post race review system (or complete lack thereof; short of visiting ZPower)
- “GC” system is a total joke, and not even part of Zwift internally
- Only way to review your standings is… ZPower (starting to see a trend here?)
- Lack of “types” of races (I applaud the attempts for things like Hill Club and TT Club, but flooding the calendar has ruined them; and see other points of lack of scoring system to know where you stand)
- Lack of a reason to race; why race vs. do a hard workout? (One of these is more consistent in terms of return)
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The issue is people who race less can still mess up a race for folks who are in lower categories and race more.
On the question of why folks might not race as much - Personally I prefer longer races, and there are fewer of those now. When events are on such as tour de Zwift, tour de wattopia etc, my one (or two) “hard races” per week ends up being an event that technically isn’t a race and won’t show up as affecting a race ranking, but would affect power based cat etc.
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When not engaged in a series I’ll occasionally feel like jumping in a race (often ZRacing due to numbers, even though they’re half as long as I generally like) but history has taught me to go check the signups first. When I see three guys with a 4.7 for 20min history signed up in B I just go do an erg workout instead.
So can anyone who is under seeded in the new world… much like returning riders can do it in CE world.
It’s very hard to get away from single racers blowing up a race. It’s either accept it and produce the best system for those who race, or chase perfection with a system that will never catch everyone.
If someone does a 2km or 10min ride and jumps in a race, regardless of system it won’t be an accurate rank - the only other option is set a minimum requirement to race criteria.
They can use whatever info they have available to do the best they can to get people into the appropriate pens. For folks without much racing this is using the power data they have. For folks with a bunch of races the results should help a ton.
Edit: I think for people who don’t race much they should go much further past 90 days of events, to the last “x” races, and the last “y” rides worth of data. This should help without digging people into a hole they can’t get out of.
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I do feel you on this. Months later and we still doing stage one Beta.
There seems to be 100s of great ideas but nothing gets translated in game.
I am just excited to see what kind of crazy score gap can ZRL produce!
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Is it me or people becoming less respective of ZRS. Turn outs seems to be getting smaller and smaller.
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well today i had 2 Bots aka human who only know how to hold FTP. in races, what was funny i did 2.4w/kg they did 3.1w/kg Smoke the bots in at the line. to me they need to learn how to race. Power seed on 30sec to 90 sec is no Good. @Andrew_Nuse all i did was Zone 2 with 1 hit of 7, did up my 30 sec power by 50 watts. it was group ride more then a Race.
Or set up recurring seeding races with one E pen. Two races required. One flat and one hilly. There will always be people gaming this, but most will give their best. It will be better than nothing.
Well sure, you can still sometimes sneak by.
But think of the number of people sitting in CE who are doing races at their true Z2/3 power, and then just doing a fat sprint at the end?
CE can’t and won’t stop those people; because it only looks at 3+ minute power… and if you’re good at sitting in the draft on races and do just that, just to dump a sprint at the end… I mean, if it’s fun for them I guess more power to them.
But it’s the fatal flaw of CE.
You can have a real FTP of say 300 watts, but sit on the wheels in Zwift for any amount of time, and after 90 days, it will say your FTP is “draft sucking quality”, at least for the sake of CE.
For people who only do group rides, or never actually do Z4 or more on Zwift; all it takes is 90 days for them to descend the ranks.
30s power is just a good catchem…
It’s hard to be that good of a draft sucker, who still really wants to win races, but not put in a 30 second sprint…
It’s like holding a cookie jar out in front of a kid; you can take the cookie, but that means you can’t have one later! Except in this case… it would be ‘more race wins’
(If CE included sprint power as well though, then I’d have no reason to be glad to see ZRS including sprints).
But “CE” is really now just a judge of what Robo Partner you should join more than anything else.
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Thanks for the conversation and feedback in this thread! A new update has just been posted and this thread will be locked down.
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