Definitely rename them. They have nothing to do with Critical Power. The OP describing this section is also incorrect.
BTW. Thanks so much for sharing this before it was put live.
4 Likes
Noted, thanks. Iâll put in a request to get those changes updated.
3 Likes
Ok - good that the progress means that itâs becoming visible to riders. But as James says - transparency is the key. Not just to individuals but across the community.
Iâm sure you know that eSports rely on a degree of trust which is why itâs a shame that Zwift makes that harder to build up by hiding key data on racers especially data currently used to allocate racer categories.
Hope you can open it up as soon as possible after this initial launch. 
Thank you for the efforts to improve the Zwift racing experience and updating the community with the info. As we are invited to give feedback and ask questions:
-
Top of my list - not a surprise if youâve seen my previous forum activity - please can you add this âPower informationâ to the list of the future Developer API data (as I understood from Mark Cote this is in serious consideration), so event organizers can check Zwift riders on this type of info: Request to release Zwift semi-public API
-
I think itâs really good that you are including ALL activities: the problem with the Zwiftpower FTP calculation is that it isnât using all activities (sometimes TTTâs are used for FTP calculation, sometimes they donât). Using all activities makes things really clear, and thereâs no way back (not even deleting or exiting without saving the activity) when a sandbagger has accidently crossed a category limit in his race. Positive feedback on that one
-
Another problem with the Zwiftpower algorithm is itâs not actually calculating the best absolute power efforts: itâs calculating the best w/kg power efforts and then saving the absolute power for the events with the highest w/kg effort. Due to changing weights this might not be the best effort in absolute power (e.g. if effort 1 was 300 Watts with 79kg (3,80 w/kg) and effort 2 is 290 Watts with 76 kg (3.82 w/kg); it should show 300 Watts, where ZP would show 290 Watts). So my question: is âthe best absolute power effort in the last 60 daysâ really compared and stored in absolute watts?
-
And finally one more question: could you clarify whether the âWatt floorsâ have disappeared? I see a lot of people assuming itâs still in there, or has it been removed from the âsuggested categoryâ calculation. Could you please clarify this?
5 Likes
It would be nice if the critical metric(s) for the proposed category could be highlighted in some way. A â*â by the number perhaps?
1 Like
This is one of the reasons it would be nice to have (some of) the information on ZP; to help with community âpolicingâ.
Also (not an after-thought), just like to thank you for this work.
2 Likes
That is the information we have been waiting for! Thanks!!
Our riders do not understand the up-and-down of their Category and have no tool to understand why.
It would be essential to open the information for ZP!! Leaving it personal on Zwift is ok but in Zwiftpower it should be published immediately for transparency reasons. It is also important for Team Managers to have that information accessible for planning Team Events using CE.
3 Likes
-
Itâs something to take into consideration. While I do understand the need of event organisers to âpoliceâ their participants, this enters the realm of private information so Iâm not sure if weâll get blocked by that.
-
Glad to hear that. The goal is to move away from ZwiftPower and transfer all itâs features to the Zwift stack. Itâs a long process unfortunately.
-
We store absolute watts and watts/kg separate, so no, we donât do it like ZwiftPower does.
-
No, watts floors have not disappeared. The rules have been untouched for months.
2 Likes
Is the ZP site going to retain the old âminimum categoryâ value (90 day best-of-3-FTP average) on the riderâs profile, or will this be removed and replaced by their CE cat?
If the former, the new CE categorization could be displayed alongside the current ZP one (it wouldnât necessarily need to be linked to the riderâs actual performance data on their ZC/Zwift profiles) e.g. âZP Minimum Categoryâ = C, CE Category = C.
Is the goal of ZHQ to completely replace events which use the current ZP cat system (e.g. WTRL ZRL and TTT) with the new CE system?
2 Likes
This is probably a good time to revisit the rules. Thereâs a possibility that a short hard 3min effort can move you down a cat, so changing the formula a bit now can fix that.
I see that showing these numbers will make sandbagging so much easier, especially since weight change will directly change the category. Is there a way to lock a category upgrade for 60days?
2 Likes
The horse has bolted on that, they are already pulling the info and zwift staff are fully aware the API is being used by non-authorised users.
2 Likes
ZwiftPower will not be changed. Like I said, the goal is to move away from ZwiftPower and in order to do that we canât invest time and effort into in adding features or change things there.
We fully understand the importance it has for the racing community and thatâs why we invested considerable effort into keeping it running stable. Unfortunately, ZwiftPower was not built to be scalable or even changed properly. Thatâs the hard truth 
I can only say we are working hard to move everything to new systems.
3 Likes
So, will CE completely replace the current ZP cat model for all future Zwift events?
We are currently building towards a rank based category system, so that should be the default in the future.
There are a few possibilities. Rank based, Power profile based (the current CE system), Hybrid, etc. There could be a future where the organiser chooses between the category system he/she wants.
11 Likes
Youâre already divulging far more information about individual racers on Zwiftpower, so that can hardly be such a big deal (except for data protection administrivia considerations). The easiest way forward would be to rephrase the ZP consent so that it covers racing result and integrity platforms regardless of implementation (of course youâll probably have to bother existing users once more but thatâs hardly a big deal). If the goal is to move away from ZP, youâll have to do something like that at some point anyway. (Personally I would like to see that kind of consent to take the form as something of a âZwift racing licenceâ, meaning that it would simply be a prerequisite for signing up to any (public?) event categorized as a race.)
2 Likes
Iâm most interested in the word âdetermineâ which I, possibly in error, take to mean calculate.
Is there any chance you could tell me how you determine your best estimations of
zFTP
zMAP
VO2max (I wonder whether for consistency this should be zVO2max ?)
1 Like
1 Like
BTW, appreciate I was quite challenging yesterday, but itâs important to get the messaging right. I should add, itâs great that this is being added to a Zwifterâs profile, and generally it feels like racing is heading in the right direction - Pack Dynamics and giving race organisers configuration tools being the two key elements.
The one big enhancement to this would be using Compound Score instead of W/Kg so the constant complaints about have to manage weight differentials can be a thing of the past.
4 Likes
Thatâs unlikely. If you do a hard 3min. effort it will likely bump up your zMAP being âcaughtâ there.
Off course then comes the possible limits that are or not crossed. But what is the right limit 5.4 or 5.3, 4.1 or 4.2, etc⊠?
But we are open for improvement suggestions. If itâs not a massive change we might improve it. Just tell us your solution.
1 Like
@Gerrie_Delport_ODZ is right, I improved power through 2-10mins in a race and this then opened up the cat below for me.
@S_A_Cestria_CC can give much better examples of this being used as he understands this specific quirk quite well.
1 Like