O yes that was implied.
If you want to set up a race based on aged you can specify that and all riders will be sorted in age classes.
Or you want a beginners race and specify that A cat is up to 20% of max points and B 15% of max.
Or if you still want to use w/kg then you should have that option.
Giving organizers more options will make racing more fun and interesting.
I’ve been off Zwift for 3 weeks due to illness and did a Crit Race today. I was under the impression that there had been changes made to flag people who were in the wrong category. So imagine my disappointment when I see the below results.
Second place with 5.45 watts/kg over 20 minutes. That’s an FTP of 5.18 w/kg. C is up to 3.1 w/kg. Changing that to a 20 minute effort with a 0.2 margain for error gives 3.5 w/kgs which should be the max of a rider in a 20 minute C race.
This means this guy is nearly 2 w/kg out of category and yet he doesn’t get flagged? What is the point of even having a system to remove sandbaggers if someone like this doesn’t get removed?
Only in the Zwift HQ Beta Crit City Races, not all races yet. It is still being tested and refined so people who are legit won’t get accidentally coned. Work in progress…
I’m also wondering why it takes Zwift so much time to change this… This is getting worse and worse…
If I’m racing in C, which goes up to 3.2 W/kg and I’m putting out 3.4 W/kg, the least they could do, is take this rider out of the results table and put those guys in a separate table, maybe called “over cat limit results”. I bet if you do that for 2 months, 95% of those guys will race in the proper category afterwards, as there is no reward for them… or at least they will stick to the category limit of 3.2 W/kg, even if they can push more, I’m fine with that…
That way at least I don’t have to chase idiots doing 4.5 W/kg in a C race…
Don’t look for complicated sandbagging measures, do this first, easy thing, I can program that in an afternoon, will solve more than 90% of the issues. Because it’s really going out of hand. There are very little C races where the winner is not above 4 W/kg, I bet none…
Can you please all vote for my “simplistic” double result table solution to this problem: the In-cat and Out-cat results:
I belive this solves more than 90% of the issues we have right now and it’s super easy to implement. What do you think?
Hi Zwift!
The problem is: I believe there is no cat D or cat C race anymore without a winner that is pushing more than 4 W/kg.
Why not split the results table in two parts:
This would have two big effects:
I believe this is a very very very easy thing to implement, way easier than the anti-sandbagging trials you are doing now. Only the result table needs to be split in two parts, the upper part for the in-cat riders, the lower part for the out-cat riders, and I believe it will solve more than 90% of the issues we have now. Also you are not disqualifying or punishing anyone badly, so no one will feel upset. They just end up in the lower table that’s all, no hard feelings, the limit was just exceeded, tough luck…
Because these days it’s literally half the group which is over category limits, so if you race on zwiftpower, you don’t have the slightest clue who you have to chase anymore… I strongly believe that this simple change will dramatically reduce the amount of people racing in the wrong category, or at least, they will try to stick to the category limit, even if they can push more, but that’s fine with me. Let them sprint to the victory in the last couple of meters, but at least I didn’t have to go over my threshold for like three quarter of the race, which is actually pretty bad for my heart… 
Of course average power isn’t the same as FTP (on which the categories are based), but a margin of something like 0.2 W/kg (possibly more in very short races) should be plenty. No good reason why this couldn’t be done asap, but I guess there must be commercial arguments to the contrary…
Yes, indeed, if the category is based on FTP, there should be a margin. Indeed 0.2 W/kg should be plenty… Or alternatively base the categories for races on hard max. average power output and keep the hard limit, not referring to FTP…
Also, if I were Zwift, I would add a 5th category:
That would make performance differences between riders in races a bit smaller, as it can be quite frustrating if you are in the bottom part of the range… But that is just secondary, the main thing is to take part of the reward away from the obvious over-cat riders…
How does your proposed splitting of the results solve this? You still will have A cats pushing the pace and no idea who is legit in your cat to race against. The cone of shame (visual cue) and artificially slowing them down should take them out of the front groups, then you know who is legit. Also, removing them completely from the results is probably one of the best ways to get them to race the correct cat. No more ego boost by getting an imaginary trophy.
Removing them in the end may stop some of them but it won’t improve the racing. The problem is if you are not a A racer you never know who you are supposed to chase or what gaps to cover.
If you are not a A racer then every race is just a FTP test, hang on as long as you can there is no strategy or tactics just a FTP test.
I disagree. Unless your FTP test strategy somehow happens to be to score as low as possible. You just have to accept that you are racing against the people around you (in your own blob and the ones right in front and behind) regardless of category.
And yeah, sure, racing in the pointy end can be fun as well.
I totally agree, if you can take them out during the race or before, that’s way better. But this is obviously not so easy and you are always going to make bad decisions, no matter what you do. Also, they try to solve this since about 1956 and nothing has happened, except for a Beta trial on the Crit City course, but it’s far from being optimal, I guess.
In the meantime, this small, like one afternoon of programming change could already solve some of the issues and convince more people to race in their cat.
I also don’t fully agree. If you have to follow someone who is just comfortably pushing 4 W/kg, yourself having an FTP of 3 W/kg, it’s something totally different as compared to following someone who has the same 3 W/kg FTP and occasionally attacks, having to sit back a bit later to recover.
Sorry to put a dampener on things, but I really don’t think Zwift will actually do anything to solve these many problems.
My reason for this thought is sideways logic, in that the fence is in my opinion not coming back, because we can all do with out it and Zwift can do without the agro of a function not working, which seemed to annoy so many Zwifters. Things seem to have calmed down about the fence now.
Therefore you have to ask yourself do they really want another problem that will surely annoy many new Zwifters? ie Zwift enforced Cat selection and being pulled from results or races. (I live in hope of a points based system)
The regulars have lived with the issues for ages and will continue to do so because we love Zwift.
Zwift won’t want to affect their new income and I can understand that, plus they have Zwiftpower to sort the carnage out.
I hope I’m wrong. . . . . . .
but how many votes has “Save a ride without logging out” got? and we are still waiting.
I don’t really get the commercial argument; surely there must be more people who get p!ssed off with this behaviour than there are sad people who want to smash a category below their ability.
I don’t get what you don’t agree with sorry.
The A racers know every one in the event is a possible winner so they need to close every gap.
If you race in b,c,d you don’t have a clue if the guy pushing the pace is a B riding in your C group, so you need to try to keep up just in case he is a true C. So if you race C you just go as hard as possible the whole race because there is always some A or B rider in C pushing the pace.
I presume racers are a small minority of all Zwift users (= revenue) and racers annoyed enough by this to quit an even smaller minority inside the first, whereas users trying out their first race and not understanding why they got disqualified and what is all this FTP business anyway (and who are not yet addicted enough that quitting is much easier) are probably a much larger group. But of course I’m just guessing. Anyway, there’s still a long way to go with e-racing as an industry in general, I think we’re relatively speaking basically still in the penny-farthing era here.
Yeah, ok, that I can agree with :-). Sorry misunderstood your answer.
If you exceed category limits you shouldn’t be included in the results at all
Imagine if you crossed the finish line and instead of race results you got a pop up that said something to the effect of " great race effort, if you want to see your results sign up for B category next time"
So infuriating when you see out of category racers complimenting each other on their 5.0 w/kg c class wins
I love the idea of penalties. This is great. Races should be disciplined prequalified, sacred environments. Group rides? Do whatever you want - sign up for any Cat and have fun. But if you sandbag a race - you should be penalized. Thanks Rick.