Seen a few conflicting messages / answers out there.
My question is: if I partake in a group ride or time trial event and achieve my best will it count towards category calculation or is it exclusive to races only?
Old forum had: Your category is calculated by taking an average of your best 3 FTPs in completed races and group rides in the last 90 days.
New forum FAQ same as above but only mentions races.
Actually, there is a reason to ask this.
If the FTP result in question was obtained on a miscalibrated trainer.
Of course, don’t use an uncalibrated trainer.
I do.
For example right now I am trying to do multiple TOW rides per day. I frequently get out of bed or home from work and immediately jump on my trainer to catch a ride. My trainer is usually not calibrated for these rides. These rides however are usually zone 2 rides so I’m not anywhere close to my ftp…
I think every ride should count as a FTP input unless flagged by the user.
I am seeing efforts from group rides used in my category calculation. I haven’t raced in 90 days but do see 20min efforts from Tour of Watopia and group rides / fundos. Time trials are races and would also count towards category calculation.
I recall in the past that only group start races and time trials were used, but that changed at some point. Probably a good thing to categorize riders based on all performances not just races / time trials.