Isn’t ZRS supposed to get rid of the people who sit at the top of the category? Win enough and you should get bumped up. That’s the whole point of a results based category system. There shouldn’t be a need for moving cat limits if the system is doing what it is supposed to do.
Otherwise, if you want moveable cat boundaries then don’t fiddle around at the edges. Go all in. If C cat one month is 350-520 then next month it should be 435-605. Split it down the middle. One month your in the top half of a Cat, then next month you will be in the bottom half (of either the same cat or the next one up). Although I’m sure that will piss off a fair number of people but if you want moveable cat limits then it’s the only fair way to do things.
That can be offset by someone losing enough to move back down. Or pre-emptively losing an unimportant race so that the important win doesn’t push them up. There’d be ways to protect the system against such things, but it’s all extra development effort when moving the boundaries solves most of the problems.
This is how I hope they would do it, even having the zRacing series use one and Crit Club etc using the other. And encouraging community organisers to try different things too, particularly during peak times when there are plenty of options to find a race that suits.
Yeah, I totally understand. For new users you have no data so that case needs to be handled separately. For the others: An injury can happen at any time (not just at the start of a season, but halfway through a season too). Significant drop in fitness can happen, but a person can also gain fitness over the summer, so you just don’t know one way or the other, but, if you just take the first 3 10min+ activities, and if that person knows this is the thing gaiting their ability to race and determining their seed, I would expect you won’t see that many max efforts in those 3 first activities - so these might be less useful for seeding than their last season’s data with a decay factor to account for reasonable possible fitness loss instead.
For me, my first 3 activities for the year for instance were two pace partner Z2 rides and a threshold workout that was not a max effort, and definitely nowhere close to max for 30s efforts etc.. This puts my race score (and zFTP) pretty low, and I would hazard to guess that not many folks come back into the season with full-on max 30s and 10min efforts in their first 3 rides if their fitness dropped a ton over the summer. They might ease back into training with some lower intensity stuff, but then might jump in D cat and blow up a race afterwards as the start to their higher intensity work.
And that is simply fixed by having a 90 day limit on downgrades. If you get upgraded then it’s a minimum of 90 days before you can be downgraded. Real world cycling organisations figured that out years ago (but their downgrade limit is usually at least 12 months).
Exactly this. Constantly shifting boundaries usually indicate that the system is poorly designed. Nevertheless, even with stable boundaries, the inherent volatility of ZRS raises questions about the management of more sophisticated race formats and leagues. There has been limited discussion on this matter to date.
If they finally do this, does this also open the door to possibly using the rider data of the joiners to determine where the pen boundaries will be at time of race start? In other words, you signup for a race, but you wouldn’t need to select your pen.
How does the system handle or prevent (or maybe it wouldn’t) Yo-yo-ing from top of one cat to bottom of next cat, back to top of original cat, and so on back n’forth?
I think it might be better if we forget about that whole sandbagging discussion since it will not be fixed.
People will always play the system
Every system can be played
And a lot of riders wont see or feel the difference anyway since they will probably never win a race to begin with.
I have been looking and experimenting with the ZRS system and can tell you all that it is just as easy to manipulate than the old CE system was. Won’t got into details but it is no trouble at all to stay in your wanted cat. I have been traching the ZRS score since week 1 for the club I am in, and that is about 35 members, and we have talked about it lots. That with my own observations, this new system doesnt solve the sandbagging at all. I know a lot hope that or want that, but it is not your holy grail. Perhaps some others, but the same people will still dominate the cats and the same people will still be mid to bottem in the cats. It is no miracle system where everyone can now win a race.
A friend of mine was doing the Tiny Races on Saturday and I was watching his stream but he was sick the days before so his heartrate went skyhigh after a few kilometers in the race. He took it a bit more easy that race and finished in the back. Heartrate dropped quickly between race 1 and 2 so he tried again. Went skyrocket mode again so he zone’d 2 the race. Same with race 3. He skipped race 4 since it had no point to do anymore.
Due to these 3 races he dropped 50 points in ZRS.
We talked about that and I tried it also so it wont be an accident. Stayed with the group till just before the finish and let myself drop, so I would have the effort done but not the high finish spot. I lost 60 points. ( this also worsk great for zracing.app by the way, since they look at percentage of effort done)
That is 60 points lost in 1 hour. And I did have some wins om in a normal race in the last weeks and never gained more than 10 to 12 points a race.
So for every Tiny race 1 hour effort I do I can race all week in the Cat I choose.
And there are plenty of other things riders can do to effectively keep there scores at the level they want.
I started the ZRS with a 614 seed score, which was way too high) but have made myself dropped to 496 at the moment and I havent become a different rider. I just started to do things different or not anymore at all (like sprinting in group rides or free rides).
I’ve not thought this idea through, but it has just popped in my head while reading your post, to help reduce purposeful score “tanking…”
Only give score changes for the top “x” % of the pen racers.
Top ~50%?
I’d guess a lot of Tiny Races have roughly the top 33% in pen E at least in the lead group, the racers really trying to win or get a good position finish.
I guess it’s essentially a twist on the ranking points given for races at Zwiftracingapp, where you only earn points if you finish within ~110% of the finish time of the pen winner.
So for example https://www.zwiftracing.app/events/4496690 pen E, 35th and below of 64 starters didn’t score points because they finished too late after the winner.
This idea is simply replacing the cut off time with a finish position in the full field.
Maybe for these quirks of Tiny Race format, these should be pushed back to being CE only. Or in general, ZRS algos maybe should only run against race results in events longer 15km+ in distance.
oh, i think that can be addressed. i saw for myself a couple weeks ago. there are a few ways to limit or prohibit that kind of thing (without necessarily assuming intent either), i think
Though, as there is a point reset coming in the next few weeks, its a bold move to announce how you gamed the system to lower your score. If you end up back where you started you can probably revisit that post as to why it happened.
Problem is it is very hard or even impossible to be able to tell if it is done on purpose or not.
My friend who was sick and had a heartrate problem still that day didnt do it on purpose, but a computer cant tell the difference between him and someone doing that on purpose.
And having everyone who feels badly treated by the system contact support isnt an option also, since than everone will do that and that is way too cost expensive and time consuming.
In a system where numbers and rises/dropps happen for everyone there are always ways to play the system if you really want.
doesnt have to be… one simple and effective way is simply what @Wannie suggested - moving omnium races to an alternative cat system, of which there are many (and should be imo, as there are a lot of race formats out there. one size fits all is probably not the answer to begin with)
you could also limit velo gain/loss due to results to one movement every one or two hours, to stop people shipping a ton of rating in a short period of time
minimum effort thresholds are also an idea … i wouldnt consider that an effective solution personally though. but if it’s possible to do that and do it well then it’s something
It wont go back to the 614 I started with. I am pretty sure about that.
And yes, I doubted if I should give examples in my first port but didnt cause I didnt want to put people on a road to do the same. But since SA asked I gave one example. But be sure I know of a few more that would help tank the score. Not saying I will do it again after the reset. I am fine in a cat where I meet Top C and B riders. I dont have to ride with mid to low C’s or even D’s. But since this was a testing envirement I did just test it.
Be in the front till the last 500 meters before the finish and let your bike role over the finishline and finishing 25th with a lot of riders with a lower score finishing before you.
You will get that treshold effort easily but your score will drop and those who finish before you will rise.