I think you’re right, those times must be just the KOM segment times. On the companion app the winner in E cat has a time of 23:51 while on ZP it’s 18:36.
Meanwhile the winner in A cat has 16:55 on the CA and 11:57 on ZP.
I thought it might be that ZP wasn’t accounting for the start times but if that was the case then the A winner’s times wouldn’t be different by 5 minutes (about the time it would take to go round and descend the climb).
Having done an all out effort on that climb this morning it’s interesting to compare the results. I’m a heavy C in the old system, ZRS is 618 - B pen. My KOM time was 15:22.
One race the B pen winning time is 11:28, C pen 12:02. Another race the D pen winner went 15:14.
In the old system I would expect to win on that course, and if someone did beat me they would likely get upgraded for their effort. But that’s what you get with w/kg based categories.
What are the categories based on? Meaning, how do you move up a category? If you are new to racing, is there an entry-level category that you must compete in for any length of time and if, so can a highly successful racer who just entered that category because it was their first year racing, advance mid season? If so, what is the metric they must achieve in order to advance a category? Is it race results or is it some measured level of a power metric? Is it based on rider performance over a number of events in a season? I understand how aged-based categories are structured IRL, but how are your IRL race categories structured? Finally, requesting downgrades in IRL are also allowed based on long standing time away from competition.
not sure how it works over there but in the UK you get to either cat 3 or cat 2 and you either stay there, quit your day job, or quit racing
11 or 12 points to get out of Cat 4.
Points are based on the level of the race - For most Cat 4 it will be 10 points for the win, so they have to do 2 races as a Cat 4.
Once in cat 3, you cannot move down to Cat 4 again.
There is a 40 points(?) to move to Cat 2 from memory but the races available offer high scoring for result placing.
Then its something like 80-100 points to Cat 1
You have to score X amount of points in a season or you move back to down a category to a minimum of Cat 3.
If you elapse your membership im not sure what happens when you start back - If you can go back to Cat 4 or go back to Cat 3.
Edit - Its been ages since I needed to know or look at it, and I only raced closed road.circuit or CX.
Have the official link:
An interesting thought about flat races and heavy sprinters is how hard should they be?
It should definitely be the only races that heavy sprinters should be able to win (along with some rolling races if they have repeatability built in to their sprints), I think anyone sensible would agree with that. But how hard should they be?
I think the ideal scenario is that a sprinter has to work super hard to stick with the pack, evenon the flats. So hard in fact that their sprint is heavily diminished by the end. They can still win, but they have to hurt, and they have to use good timing and tactics, and more than just a big number after a zone 2 spin.
This also gives other types of rider a chance. Heavy riders with low sprints, classic style people, they may be able to work hard with their higher FTPs to really put the sprinters to work and maybe ride their sprint out of them. Then the classicsy type may be able to put out a long 1-2km break at the end, and suddenly the sprinters aren’t having it all their own way!
yes pack dynamics aren’t favourable to this at the moment, hopefully that changes, but even so when looking at the cat system I think it needs to be possible.
For context I’m a 96kg rider, with a 1570W top end, a 1000W 30s, and a paltry 320 / 3.35 w/kg FTP.
I just think I should be up against people who can ride that sprint out of me if they work together and play the right strategies, even on the flats. and if they play it perfectly, I should just be tipping my cap whilst coming in 10th. and if they don’t play it perfect? Well, thanks for the trophy, because you aren’t going to ride to that line faster if I get there fresh!
Totally agree with your statements. The community has been asking for racers who consistently win to be upgraded to higher categories for a few years now. If you win, your score must go up no matter who you are racing and no matter on which course either. We spend a great deal of money on power meters, trainers and steering devices to simulate IRL when we ride/race indoors. We now must adopt a categorizing system that can draw from real world racing. When I raced my IRL crit and road race events, I don’t believe any of my results posted power values. However, they did post the total amount of upgrade points I accumulated afterwards. In each one of those races, I competed against TTers, punchy, sprinters etc… Not one time after the race, did any of those lads complain that the winner’s 3 min power was better than their number. The discussions were based on tactics, technical skill, having a bad day, tough training week, dropped in peak fitness etc… I read posts and see the same individuals racing constantly during the week and winning a great deal each time. That was the original argument we were having for a change in Zwift racing. You should not be allowed to consistently beat the same level of racer every time you compete either IRL or in an e-sport environment, especially if you are doing it multiple times during one week, month, yearly. If you do, obviously you need to move up a category and compete against other racers on equal footing. I believe race results point classification needs to drive the bus here. No matter the level of fellow competitors in your race event, if you are gaming the system and trying to stay in the same category forever, the system will eventually and should, add-up your points so you are forced upwards. Leaving Zwift for extended periods of time should have no influence on your accumulated points. If you decide to leave for six months having accumulated 400pts and decide to come back, you return with 400pts. Asking for a legitimate down grade should only be awarded to the racer with a reduction in five points - maybe ten points at the most. If the returning racer is highly successful, the reduction must be small enough in order to quickly return the racer back to their realistic pen.
Im in agreement, but you say obviously - there are far to many on Zwift and showing themselves in this thread that think they should be able to do that each race.
The attitude from some is, someone has to come in the bottom half as long as its not them, and things should always be stacked to ensure that.
Pack dynamics - this is an element that goes in parallel that should not be ignored.
New category system closer to IRL in that you now have a range of rider profiles in a race, allowing course, individual strength/weakness and race raft to influence.
What’s missing is the IRL pack dynamics to really let this play out. Improvements are continuing to be made, but imagine if zwift nailed it to be loser to IRL, then the new tactical race element brought by different profiles coming together can truly play out
Then why are zwift reinventing wheel? Why not just implement UCI points system or something heavily based on it?
I believe that they feel as if they don’t listen to the “power-based” camp that they are neglecting their voice in the process. However, that system is severely flawed in my opinion. Race and let it sort it out in the wash. If I am doing poorly in my events and not moving up in my placings, I need to evaluate my training. Again, I cannot stress enough this simple fact, “it’s the ability of the racer and the demands of the event” that will make or break your race outcome. If I am not building up my race fatigue, I am never going to show improvement over the course I fancy. If I master that and I show over and over that I am beating my assigned fields, I need to move up now! Zwift does not need build these complicated formulas to suit those who want to game this landscape. If you like winning - great, but you need to move up and see if you can do it on another level. If they think that’s too much for their delicate ego, well, sod off then.
You’re really missing the ‘why’.
zr.app is power based. ZRS is power based. That’s by design, because it’s the only sensible way to approach the challenge.
Sure, if you could ring fence all the zwifters that race multiple times per week, a purely results based system would work fine. However race participants are far too variable. You would end up with every race being blown apart by strong racers with poor race scores, and even fewer riders in the top division (in fact the top division would be made up of frequent winners of average ability).
Sorting riders by capability (the only way that can be done is by power data, whichever formula you want to use) and then moving riders up that get good results (or down that don’t) is the logical way of doing things to ensure fair and variable racing.
It wouldn’t be suitable.
In Zwift people come and go.
They can create new profiles to keep starting from the bottom and winning easy races (this is a problem in every online game where you start from the bottom).
The honest average Zwifter is far more casual than the average at your local crit. So it requires a different approach. i.e. a power based element to sort people as well as possible from their first race.
They aren’t reinventing the wheel, they are working with a different landscape.
you take the current categories,
D:0-250
C:250-500
B:500-750
A: 750-1000
and then you let go up and down
Careful, you’ll get yourself flagged 
But i agree 100%, although seed needs to be calculated from something to get riders close to start with.
FAQ has been updated. Red text removed, green text added.
(EDIT: note this is just the changed portions, see the entire FAQ for the full details)
Fair points and yes you are right. Maybe the thing to take though is quicker movement up. Rather than just relative vs field winning (or top 10) has a standard base movement up
Yes I agree, I think the volatility in score movement does need to be looked at (and I believe it has been confirmed that that is one area they are looking at).
Particularly for people who only race once every couple of weeks, it may take a long time for them to get to the right place when taking only 5-10 points at a time.
Even a D rider should be able to hold a B riders wheel in the flats. Not saying the B rider won’t be able to drop them but they won’t want to push that level of effort. Like your 330 watts in the draft would require someone to sustain 500 watts out of draft for 20 mins to drop you.
I may have been sounding like I’m in the “power-based” camp, but I’m really not. I think this results-based system is going to work pretty well and make for more interesting racing.
But I’ve been harping on the seed score formula because it’s the mostly-unchangeable starting point and floor for every racer. For anyone who is either fairly seeded OR underseeded, the system will work well because actual race results will move people to where they belong. But for the overseeded, the promise of race results placing where you should be racing can never happen because you can never drop below your seed score.
So it’s not that I want to continue using power-based categorization/seeding. Actually kind of the opposite - I don’t want anyone to be permanently stuck in higher categories than they should be because of a seed score formula that can’t possibly address every rider.
But I think there is a solution - don’t make the seed score a hard floor for the Racing Score. If a rider’s calculated seed score is higher than it should be and their race results demonstrate that, then let their racing score sink below their seed score. Maybe limit it to a 25% drop from seed score to prevent people from “just riding around” to drop their score. But removing that hard floor of the seed score would go a long ways to fixing the problem.
