I was informed by Tim that “five races” is not a thing. It adjusts with every event. That matches my experience as I have not done five yet but have seen some adjustments unrelated to seeding.
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statistically speaking, using stats that aren’t mine but i believe them, what they usually actually do is never race again. it’s pretty important to make those early races relatively interesting and fun to do so that people actually want to do them. so it’s never really as easy as just “throw them in the snake pit and see who survives”, at least not if you want people to race against
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The seed score could be based on the current CE metrics e.g this points spread:
- zMAP (W/kg): 0-400 points
- zFTP (W/kg): 0-400 points
- zFTP (watts): 0-200 points
Calculation method:
- zMAP (W/kg):
- <3.2 W/kg: 0-100 points
- 3.2-4.0 W/kg: 100-200 points
- 4.1-5.0 W/kg: 200-300 points
- 5.1+ W/kg: 300-400 points
- zFTP (W/kg):
- <2.63 W/kg: 0-100 points
- 2.63-3.35 W/kg: 100-200 points
- 3.36-4.1 W/kg: 200-300 points
- 4.2+ W/kg: 300-400 points
- zFTP (watts):
- <150W: 0-50 points
- 150-199W: 50-100 points
- 200-249W: 100-150 points
- 250W+: 150-200 points
The idea is that riders begin with a score that matches the category they are in within the CE system. Although this isn’t how it currently operates, I believe that the 30-second and 10-minute metrics are not enough to accurately assess a rider’s overall level across different race types.
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It’s more to do with the extra time it requires to hit that level. Your probably looking around 20 hours a week min to be a cat 2, the move up to cat one is almost a full time job…
right, the point is, i think there’s a point in there somewhere anyway, that an amateur racer gets to their level and settles there for one reason or another, or several, it doesn’t matter. so people very much do choose their categories IRL
They don’t have a choice. You race and you place. If you win a lot, you move up. If you don’t you remain in the same category unless you are racing based on age category or you have proven to be stronger. You can always request a downgrade but you certainly have to prove why. And if you want to move up a category before you are ready, you must also provide documentation of based on your race history for the advancement. If you remain a forever Cat 4 it’s because you are not meeting a threshold of points /placings. However, if one chooses to remain in their category it’s because they are not consistently winning or not placing high enough to get promoted. In the Zwift land of make believe with so called statistics, racers are making claims about who is gaming who and this power output versus that power output…snooze.They want to stay in their category and consistently win - anything that suggests another way of measuring success or category assignment is rubbish to them. Zwifty racers are a special breed. Conserve energy in a race and your sandbagging. Get beat at a sprint and the event favors heavy racers. Learn how to climb a hill fast and overcome a weakness in a Zwift race and you’re weight doping. But, all I hear is keep power-based data for initial seeding. How about hard work and persistence. Learning hot to race just like every other successful endurance sports athlete. Can’t do away with these “holy” statistics is the issue that many in this community are clinging to. Just keep formulating the same calculations and give it a new name. I’m sure racing will be fair. Maybe do something different and see how it plays out with no “power-based” beginnings. If you have a problem for every solution than what’s the point. Keep your Zwift racing status quo and spend your days looking at power numbers whilst questioning the validity of those same racers that keep nipping your expected successes. Don’t lecture me on how “first time racers will be defeated” by having to test their ability to race one event and not automatically win it. I see plenty of riders on Zwift riding the tron bike, myself included. I’m pretty sure that I didn’t do one little climb in order to achieve that reward on Zwift. It requires persistence and dedication. Why must the system be expected to reward first time racer with a win or something very close? My proposals in previous posts suggest a “one time” race event designed specifically to identify an initial seeding for first time racers. Essentially, an initial classification based on a result. If they fail miserably, they would be given a realistic race report and and an appropriate category placement for their next race, no matter what their 20 min, 10 min 15 sec power or whatever the Zwity racers dream as the holy grail of racing was produced during the “prologue” event. A well rounded Watopia circuit with all of the challenges, primes, hills, rollers, flats that many races offer would be the best test. Who cares what their wattage is. They would just race the event without that construct of w/kg and all the other power metric shite that tends to rule the day in the Zwift land of make believe. Race your bike and see where you are placed for your next event - no matter the course no matter your power for a sustained or brief burst of time.
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no disrespect but tldr man. i don’t make the category rules or have one strong opinion or another on them, i just ruthlessly follow them. the term “sandbagging” didn’t originate on zwift though, it originated in IRL sport.
i will say one thing though which is that i personally only have a lot of sympathy for casual and newer racers, not active ones. it’s kinda mutual though, i think. if you’re a D cat or a C cat or at the bottom of a category then i have all the time in the world to help you find your place in this hobby. i understand one thing after 1500+ zwift races and it’s simple: you can’t race if there’s nobody around to race
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only 1,500 races so small , me at 1826 races lol i joke @S_A_ccc hi my friend.
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haha maybe after 1826 more i’ll understand two things. i learned how to draft from a guy who has prolly almost 5000 races now. i won’t put his name out there because he seems like a quiet dude and i don’t know him personally but i bet he’s seen everything
you feel the same way? since we’re active it doesn’t really matter what the rules are, we’ll turn up since we already know how to have fun. better to think about the new guys imo
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Yep it all about fun for me, winning is not big deal to me.
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The last time I gave zwift racing an opportunity it was a total snooze fest. Doing zone 1 power until the hill starts and all the people who should have been upgraded just rode with all the people in the cat above anyways. (That would never fly IRL) I’ve been on zwift for 7 years and had almost 2,000 races and just stopped racing. After seeing the same people race after race it’s just mind blowing that they wouldn’t want to step up to the next class after winning consistently.
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so was it too easy or too hard? if was too easy you could have rode up yourself. you made it sound easy, since you said it was a snooze fest. regardless of that, there’s a whole bunch of race formats out there. i appreciate that some races take some finding but no matter what you personally think racing “should” be like i guarantee there’s a popular series or league or even an entire format of racing out there ran and attended by people who probably agree
it never has to be one way or the other from the start, so let’s go with that first. you did 2000 races and then stopped? without finding anything to like about it in the process? it’s just to me that sounds like one of these steam reviews:
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[quote=“Mr.Ferdinand, post:233, topic:632148, full:true, username:Mr.Ferdinand”]
I don’t understand why zwift couldn’t put people who race infrequently into say pen E … IRL, you have to enter as a cat 5, you can not enter anything else if you haven’t raced before (this is mainly due to bike skills and safety)[/quote]
I feel like you have answered your own question there. We dont’ need to check anyone is riding safely in Zwift. So they can do something far better.
I think you’re often right in individual events, although you do have people who just try and put the hurt on others whilst racing, and would rather give themselves the chance of a win rather than just sit in and grab yet another 12th place.
I do find it weird though because those same people who are not willing to work to try and break the sprinters ARE willing to sit on the front and pull back a breakaway!
It’s far better when you have races series with teams where people are willing to take on domestique roles. I was lucky enough to have such a team in DRS last season, and a couple of people absolutely killed themselves in order to deliver me to a win or two. I crossed the line first, but it was their racecraft that deserved all the plaudits. I just turned up and got carried there, I’d never have won on my own.
Should our Racing Score updates by zwifthq be limited to no more frequent than once per day?
Let’s say a racer does well in Tiny Races 1 and it tips their score just over the 225 limit for pen E. They see this change after saving the race and now sandbag the remaining Tiny Races to try and get their score back under 225.
A similar question. If you sign up for all 4 tiny races (or any other races), can your rating change between races thus possibly putting you in the wrong pen for the following races? Not that it would ever happen to me, mind you…
Yep, happened to winner of pen E race one this morning. Zwiftracing app flagged their low effort for last two races I think.
Happened under Category Enforcement too.
As long as you meet the criteria if a pen when you sign up, the current system unfortunately allows you to join that pen, even if you have exceeded the threshold in the meantime.
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This is a by-product of the idea that “an event” has to cater for the full range of Zwifters.
But there’s no reason that has to be the case, This can be addressed by what they’ve done with some of the test races. There could be a series where the bands are only 50 wide for example, just targeted at “C” riders.
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HerD Beginner Races are testing Racing Score where max is 550. Pen ranges are 200/100/75/75/100 points.
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Yeah, same as the “Low” group when they split the Zwift races to Low and High groups (and had effectively 10 pens). However, that first/lowest pen in these races is too broad – seeing racers with ftps of ~100w against racers of ~200w.
I’d suggest these pens change to below. Top score of 400 should be high enough to capture ‘beginner’ racers?
0-125, 125-200, 200-275, 275-350, and 350-400
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