Is it me or does, anyone else believe there are too many races for the dwindling number who want to race … There is a saturation of races where each has one or two competitors. Surely it would be better to reduce them to alow better fields.
I would dearly like to race, but its hardly a, race with one other, or is there better or worse days to decide to do so?
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Numbers will usually be low for the next 3-4 months.
Zwift Insider Tiny Races quartets for three different time zones (1000, 1600 and 2200 BST I think) are relatively well populated on Saturdays.
Depends on the category you’re in. There are also some very well attended private races you can get into, but not all are on the public calendar. I’m doing mostly 5v5 club ladder team races so there’s typically 10 and a lot of fun tactics. SISU Pinkki is still on tomorrow as well. More than 100 riders in the one that’s on right now. Get creative if you want to do off-season races.
Baloney, those events are not secret, most are accessible to anyone, and they are generally more fair than any race you might randomly choose from the public calendar. There is a long list of things Zwift could do to improve fairness in races, but getting rid of races that require registration is nowhere on the list.
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This isn’t really accurate. All you have to do is register with the club who is organizing the race such as WTRL or ECRO and since these are team based races you need to be on a team (and its quite easy to find teams looking for racers). These don’t cost anything extra other than a little time and effort on your part.
These “private” races can offer a far better experience than the “public” races and monthly ZHQ sponsored races where there is little effort to enforce rules or fairness.
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Zwift doesn’t manage or run these race series, the clubs do.
Zwift could do more to promote team races other than ZRL and that would be good, but most of the barriers aside from marketing are there for a reason. Nearly all of these events require being in a team, which is an intentional barrier if you like. Teams require using Discord or something else to communicate. It wouldn’t make anything better if Zwift waved a wand and got rid of the barriers other than marketing. The organizers of those events want to control who can enter and that has good effects on the race experience. The barriers are not very significant IMO. Anyway I think we have wandered away from the too many races topic, which mainly applies to people who don’t want to race on a team.
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Just curious though, could in theory Zwift somehow make a view available of all of the club/team events going on so in theory the masses can find out what’s out there, which teams/clubs they may want to join, etc etc?
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I would like this.
In season, I generally do a weekly Zracing series but just because the races are consistent and easy to find.
Would entertain alternatives but don’t want to search too hard or have extreme limitations on time slots.
Joining a team also entails certain obligations.
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Yep they could, but unfortunately Facebook is where that happens. The most flexible format for team racing with low obligation is 5v5 club ladder since race times are negotiated and squads are up to 15 riders with only 5 racing in a given event.
I looked for a race to do Yesterday (Sunday) there were loads, but again each had an entry of between 2 and 4 people, I then looked at doing a TT but same again , so in the end gave up , hopefully I’ll find something today (Monday) with a bigger field
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What is your preferred race time, timezone, racing score, and category?
@Paul_Southworth i like doing midnight/1am
In what time zone?
Not too much depending on the team. I know I’ve seen some teams with a significant “rider agreement” they ask for, but I know others have absolutely no obligation. If you’re signing on to a ladder or ZRL team I think you should probably plan on racing that format every other week or so, but I wouldn’t call it an obligation. Certainly not for Herd, at least.
I can’t find the number right now or remember exactly where I got it, but some ridiculous majority of riders join events in the last 30 min or less and won’t show up when you’re looking for races. Even if they’ve scheduled around a race they won’t have entered it.
You’ve identified the wrong flaw.
We need to run private events to be able to exclude the 1-2% of people who choose to attend only to troll or cheat so blatantly that they ruin the experience for others.
We’ve had riders who have been flagged out of events every week for half a year, but there is no system in place to stop them from entering.
With those folks racing… the ranking systems are essentially pointless, and will continue to be regardless of how open the racing is.
If you want access to a specific closed event… just post here or on facebook what you are trying to join and ask for a team based on your power/cat and time. Some may ask you to verify some weight/power or ask you to race on a smart trainer.
I still like the idea of creating an “arcade mode” server where people can pick whatever power they want to ride at and go wild, leaving the rest on a “Simulation mode” server where we can race on our actual power. (This is what private events are in most cases working towards).
I agree with the OP, the race/event scheduling is way less than optimal. Having the Zwift sponsored races going off every hour of every day dilutes the fields. I would suggest having them every three hours and alternate the start times from day to day. For instance, those of us on US west coast (me) would have a start time on Monday at 5am, then on Tuesday at 6am followed by Wednesday at 7am. The races would be every three hours and you could fit the race into your morning (that’s when I ride Zwift) schedule depending on when you want to ride. Bigger fields and more flexibility.
And for those of us who don’t want to get pulled into The Book of Faces quagmire, the choices are limited too. It’s stupid, IMHO for Zwift to not use the current resources available that are focused on ZWIFT events like Zwifthacks for Zwiftpower. Having events only available to people who are on FB makes no sense. Sort of like this forum; we talk and talk here but nothing gets fixed because it’s the same 20 guys yelling into the wind. ZHQ rarely sees this stuff and is unaware of these issues. Until that changes, nothing will…
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[quote=“Chubby, post:4, topic:653457, username:Chubby_King”]
Zwift’s handling of race organization reveals a significant systemic flaw: the prevalence of well-attended races being hidden as private events.[/quote]
I agree with you to a certain extent.
I fully agree that the quality of public-calendar events needs to be a consideration. I disagree that the existence of the closed races is a bad thing, or that performance is dictated by “insider access”
Ladder, ZRL and TTT are always going to be closed-event to an extent, just because they are team-based and having random riders join the events kind of ruins them. And there is a decent subset of engaged racers who do those events and not many other races. For good reason, as they are among the best racing experiences on Zwift.
ECRO - I’m not sure how I feel about it. Actually, I’ll say I don’t like it overall, even if the races look great. It’s putting things behind not only a knowledge gap, but behind a paywall.
Ladder has stopped counting towards vELO because they don’t do results on ZwiftPower anymore, ZRL doesn’t count towards vELO because they don’t put their points format into ZwiftPower, ZRS is even worse because it doesn’t do points races at all…
I think getting some good racing on the public calendar is important - there will always be user attrition, and we won’t get any replacement racers if there aren’t any races that lead people into the racing community.
the paywall only limits your inclusion in GC results, you can still race with a free account
But also, known cheaters are in the ECRO races and the organizer doesn’t seem to mind…
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