I am in total agreement. I believe training efforts outside of a racing event typically are designed to build your fitness / fatigue resistance. Racing success is not just dependent on power output, but also one’s ability to strategize and identify the demands of the event. Why must race scoring be dependent on power? I would guess that if you don’t learn how to properly dose your efforts and understand the demands of the event, your level of envisioned success will never truly be reached. Learn how to successfully race the events you enter and the points will accumulate. I have never advanced a category IRL based on my ability to maintain my 20 min power. I moved up categories because I learned how to identify my overall strengths and weaknesses along with identifying the demands of each race event. A strength and or weakness is not always power-based.
Indievelo does just that but instead simply closes signups 1 min before start time and then creates the pens.
Any idea when you will be tweaking the seed scores? My sprint (ZRS 641 lol) does not apparently equal fun racing in 550 to 750. Bloody good workout though!! I think i may still be in the same Band but i just want to see my score move either way lol.
Right now i am told i scored a down arrow and dropped to 637 … in every race, but then i remain at 641.83 haha.
What about newcomers? I’m told that in USA Cycling, everybody starts as a novice but I can’t see that working in Zwift races unless there was a separate class for them to start in. Seems to me that you’d still need a seed score or other preliminary ranking system.
From the comments over in Zwift Labs chat, I think you should roll this out soonest. You all are seeing the same thing I am and it’s, “Why, why, why,” did my score change?
This This illuminates the fact that Zwift still hasn’t sorted out training, racing and group rides.
The effort and goals of these different rides are different.
they start at the bottom like people would in IRL and then, if their power is that much greater the field they’ll soon get promoted due to winning races, the issue with that currently is how zwift allocate points on a finishing basis and that some categories require less points to get promoted out of
Not interested in starting a 0-200 ride and watching people blaze away at 500w. That was one of the problems of the Category system.
Good comment. I’ve led more than 300 group rides and my goals at least are nothing like racing. Sadly, I don’t do training workouts much anymore, hence my sorry physical state.
But that’s the nature of Zwift racing, whether your Cats are A,B,C,D or 0-200 etc… It’s simply race tactics to drop people out of the draft as quickly as possible.
As a once heavy (still fairly heavy) C rider I could usually hang on in the draft with the Bs, at least until the first climb. That put good distance between me and my C opponents that failed to commit to that early hard effort. It doesn’t last long. A minute or two then it’s typically cruising Z2/Z3. Once you hit the first climb then W/kg trump plain W and expect to be dropped, but you’ve put 30 seconds or even a minute or two of separation between you and your chase group peers e.g. on RGV or Richmond.
EDIT : Of course, 500W is not likely in the lowest Cat, but 5W/kg at the start might be a thing and it’s W/kg that get you that initial acceleration to pull away.
I’ve been racing on Zwift since late 2018 and I get the Zwift Racing start. (The YouTube of a World Tour racer getting dropped at the start of a Zwift race while his wife ragged on him was priceless.) My problem is if Zwift uses E pen for both scored 0-225s and unscored “novices”, you might well see that 500w out of the pen.
At least so far, riders in one can’t see riders in another in Lab races, so we can’t go haring off after the wrong group. That might serve as a loss of incentive but potentially it makes for more even racing. In the bottom two bands, adding 5 w/kg types would blow that up.
I have been mulling around an idea. I’ve seen a couple other posts about TTT:
Feel free to move this post but it seems at least somewhat salient here.
What if there was a race mode to auto-populate teams of riders of appropriate abilities (based on power profiles) and then designating each team with a diff color kit. These teams would do a TTT with the goal of getting their best sprinter across the line first. Drafting between riders of different teams would be disabled.
In the gaming world we often have players that get assigned to different team roles so this would be similar in that a group would be assembled with lead-out riders and pure sprinters.
The reason I bring this up here is b/c of the discussion we’ve been having here about balancing out the field to get better racing.
We would need a mechanism that would let ppl move to the back of their line (might I suggest the elbow flick).
The thing that made me think about this was the discussion in the first scroring thread about type 1 and type 2 danglers (lol)
Having an auto-created team that you could be a part of would help the type 1 danglers and could make for some exciting finishes.
Maybe, Zwift creates a “newcomers” pen to get a race score sorted which would be separate from the 0- 200 pt pen? Once the racer has completed their first race in this “newcomer’s pen”, a score can be established and the racer can wisely choose their next event using the Zwift issued score. The overall score would be initially based on their first race results competing out of “newcomer’s pen.”
Is there already known when the 2nd test will be since this topic will be closed soon.
And do you guys and girls at Zwift have an idea or date when this is thought to be implemented. I think it wont be ready before September and isnt very likely to be implemented in or between ZRL seasons, cause it will break up teams completly, so no sooner than after the ZRL Finals in 2025 ? Is that a good guess ?
Full disclosure: probably 1-2 catagories lower than I should be right now and a light rider with useless 1-5 min power compare to what might be expected for my 20 min, but observations so far is this system makes races more dynamic.
Old system. Everyone pretty much same FTP with races favouring those with punch (to break groups up over short bumps) then can sit there until sprint. Exception being rarer hilly races. Those with low 1-5 min power get dropped or stand no chance in sprint.
New system there is a mix of rider profiles in any category that means everyone can play to strengths with potential to make things a bit more dynamic.
So on the courses being used right now:
France - My profile - use longer climbs to split or apply sustained pain to numb sprinters. Don’t allow it to go to sprint. Heavier more powerful riders if you know a hill is coming, why not try and use power to create breakaway so ahead by climb?
Crit city - favours power and certainty not my profile. Short climb more punch than w/kg so rider of my profile more hanging on at threshold on flat, w/kg and endurance keeping contact on punch hill but at end of day goes to bunch sprint. I might be there at the end but will always finish at the back.
In summary potential for racing to be different- some courses you will do well on, others you won’t. Skill is maximising finishing position depending on situation vs sit and sprint
BTW - anywhere where I can see any change in my ranking race to race?
There’s a lot to be done to get the Racing Score ready for prime time before looking at the exotics. That said, a separate Racing Score table for individual time trials might make sense.
But as someone who first raced the Thursday TTT in race #7, I’m not enthusiastic. When TTT started, it was a bag of hacks that somehow turned a four-pen, mass-start race open to all into a Team Time Trial. You may not like WTRL but they worked with Zwift to innovate the RacePass, the team conveyor start and drafting TTT bikes. Again, you may not like WTRL but without them, you’d be sitting in a pen intended for Ds and Cs with a bunch of As and Bs who want to beat the teams.
‘In summary potential for racing to be different- some courses you will do well on, others you won’t.’
Arent we at a risk that even less people will sign up for races they wont do well on ? Some races already have a low amount of people signing up and the way I look at this new score that will not get any better. In the current cat system I basicly do any race there is but with the new system and the new cats I will be skipping anything with a hill in it. and when riders find out they have no chance at all and will get dropped a lot might not even enter the races anymore that dont suit them. I for one wont even try this weeks Zwift Labs Race on Casse since it is pointless for me to try.
Since already only 10 to 15% of the Zwifters race I am afraid this might even get less or a lot of the organizers only pick the same routes where everyone gets around.
Not yet, but the data is stored and they’re working on displaying it.
Hopefully it includes the degradation between races too
Genuinely, Why would you not race it?
I just raced it, got dropped on the climb as expected and came 35th - the only way il get better at racing climbs is doing it.
Seems an odd train of thought, I can’t sprint for the win so il just refuse to do it.