Milan, that’s actually a good catch and probably the best counterpoint on this thread.
What I should have said is “perhaps considering to search events that say masters”. Unfortunately bodies decline - whether it’s lions on the Serengeti or guys riding bikes. We try to hold it off as long as possible, but it’s inevitable. Explosiveness is tougher to keep than aerobic endurance, which we can see from power profiles.
I’m not far off that number myself. And, as this forum shows (and which was my point), there’s two kinds of 50+ riders, those who could always hang, and know as physique declines they cherish each year they still can, and those that have no idea and come to a forum to complain racing is broken.
IRL I’m not arrogant - I’m bottom tier of many of the things I do, and I get there by relentless hard work, not any particular talent - those aren’t really the ingredients for arrogance. I am however pragmatic and don’t sugar coat things. I will never win an A race, and hanging in a lead group on a drafting race to the finish to be blown out on a sprint is a massive achievement. I’m not here to complain that on other races A+ racers blow us up, that’s ridiculous. They are doing what they have the gift to do, which isn’t something to complain about.
For Dave and Mark - I worked my ass off to trim weight once my engine stopped improving much. I’m a bottom of A though a lot of personal dedication, and no, I’ve never raced a down cat race (other than open E’s, or one strangely categorized British TT where D was proper one). Go find my profile instead of taking pot shots, evidence is there. Regardless, the points here are about racing, not ad hominem attacking.
Having weight classes as boundaries for cycling in not the way to go but that is what we are stuck with, I hope that will change some day. I do wish Zwift will at least make this w/kg system better in placing the correct riders in the correct starting pen.
We are not asking to win every race, we only want to know that we have a fair change in competing with those around us.
As we all said before this problem gets less evident in the higher cat races. I went all the way from D to B and I can tell you racing in B is a lot more fun than in C. But we still have those that don’t want to race A the spoil the fun.
There are very few masters races and those are a bigger mess because people don’t read the instructions and just enter thinking this is a normal scratch race. I spend a few years working on the ranking system for ZRL masters and I can tell you it is no easy task.
FWIW I didn’t accuse you of racing in the wrong category. The fact is, as a Cat A racer you literally never have to deal with such people so you’re not really in the best position to comment on how it affects others’ experiences of racing on the platform. Your posts imply everyone below Cat A simply needs to try harder, as hard as you perhaps. It’s not uncommon.
I do agree this is just a tool, I don’t gauge my fitness or performance on where I place, I purely do racing for fun, but the fun is spoiled by not implementing rules that 90% of us try to obey.
But if racing is not fun we might as well just do only training programs and if we only use training programs then we can use any program many free. I can do training using my Garmin cycling computer with the plans from my coach.
Sorry to have to ask a pretty simple question @j_ust_sufferin but whats your point ?
Rather than endlessly posting fairly long counters trying to refute what appears to be an otherwise pretty unanimous consensus perhaps just state your view point maybe ( despute quite a lot of input I have to say I am not entirely sure what your view or opinion actually is) .
Everyone else seems to be pretty clear and in agreement , that things have room to improve and change , with a strong message to do 2 things at least ; .
1, Enforce Categorisation (very high if not near universal agreement on this )
2. Categorise by results rather than stats (to improve competition and quality of racing , and not just exposing the limitations and gaming elements as it does now) - I beleive this is very highly supported but without taking a vote couldnt quantify that .
On the subject of 2 the rationale is quite clear , those of us who advocate do so for 3 basic reasons .
Its pretty much unversally the way sport works . You get promoted for doing well and relegated for not, The only situation where anything sport related would attempt to do otherwise is probably “top trumps” I know the kind of competition I want to participant in but each to there own . .
Categorisatoin by results reduces the gaming element . I wont go into detail as its been covered to death if you search the forums ( search “cruising” but you can game the system to cruise around to then win events wiithout getting promoted and similarly you can not game and get promoted . I am guessing your viewpoint is , its a game play it . I appreciate that option is what some might want , which is why I personally anyway suggest best solution delegates categorisastion to event owners , not the owner of the platform ( Zwift) . But zwift currently anyway are not interested in community created content and want to control everything. I think that will ultimately fail but time will tell ( if they do , or if they change of heart and open up the platform more ) .
It removes a LOT of the currently much debated and argued over issues around performance stats and if they truly simulate accurately , weight versus power and having to try and do the math on that . Results are black and white .
I’m sorry to highlight this, but the way Zwift Power defines “the wrong category” in the Giant Crit Crushers is different to the Zwift event description, which states:
“All races are grouped by how many watts/kilogram (w/kg) Zwifters can average for the duration.Newbies should probably start out at group D (1 - 2.4 w/kg). The fastest of the fast should register for group A (4+ w/kg). If you’ve raced before, you probably know your category, but there’s more info here.”
Why the event description doesn’t line up with Zwift Power:
“Newbie” is a subjective term. If you consider yourself a newbie, Zwift is saying group D is where you “probably” should race. So those people in D who’ve never raced before, and those in only their second or third race, are exactly where Zwift tells them they should be.
It doesn’t say “you can calculate the right category for you by dividing your FTP by your weight in kg.”
It says “for the duration”, yet these races are so short, people are likely to put out figures higher than what would usually be accepted in your usual Zwift Power category.
It doesn’t recommend or enforce people to ride in a certain category, based on previous data Zwift holds.
I think inconsistency between what we’re told from one part of Zwift and another - along with the lack of enforcement outside Zwift Power - is a key reason some people don’t like using w/kg as a category determinant.
While I understand the dissatisfaction with W/KG over 20 minutes as the category determinant, we can all agree that changing that within the realm of Zwift is going to take a very long time. Like, Zoon. I believe the corporate definition of “Zoon” is about 4 years.
So instead of trying to get the big ship Zwift to make the turn to ELO, Matchmaking or Knitting, let’s see if we can all band together and start with a small course correction: ENFORCE RACE CATEGORY ENTRIES! We know The Good Ship Zwift can implement this easily since they’ve done it with the Women’s races and there have been instances of category enforcement in some rare cases. It will make a HUGE difference for the lower category races and will yield much more engaging events.
Actually I take a little different view from Auto-assign. I would prefer no down category entries. If a C rider wants to mix it up with the A’s and see just how much difference there is between 3.1w/kg and 4.5w/kg they should have that opportunity. Even if the experience is only going to last for a coupla minutes.
What should not be allowed is a bunch of A’s and B’s infesting a C cat race/event. It’s even stupider when this kind of crap goes on during the marquee events like Tour de Zwift and the like. Makes no sense whatsoever. If a USA Cycling Cat 1 racer jumped into Cat 3 race they would be suspended from racing. Why Zwift allows these miscreants to foul up the racing experience for so many participants is beyond my comprehension.
How many years has this been going on? I’ve come to the conclusion that Zwift thinks this is perfectly fine and a good experience for their paying customers.
Years. It got worse with the huge influx during the past year with the Covid Shelter in Place business.
Many people have been pounding this drum consistently with ABSOLUTELY NO RESPONSE FROM ZWIFT HQ. None whatsoever. Very, very frustrating because we’re pretty sure this would be a fairly simple change but if it’s not, how about 'splaining it to the unwashed masses…
This discussion started with a great post. In my opinion, this is physics. Watts/Kg determine speed of climb. On a hilly terrain with high vertical, riders with similar watts/kg will climb at a similar rate. On flat terrain, in it primarily Watts. Consequently, heavier riders do better on the flats (due to their higher power, for the same watts/kg) but suffer on climbs. Lighter riders suffer on the flats, but excel on climbs. There is no such thing as “riders in a similar category being able to get to the finish in about the same time”. It heavily depends on terrain.
Watts/kg is a strong stimulus to both, improve power and lose weight. At least, for recreational riders who usually have room for both. When I know that my watts/kg play a major role, it motivates me stronger than anything else.
I know the kind of competition I want to participant in but each to there own . .
