Just trying to understand results in this mornings herd race …
I’m not accusing anyone I’m trying to understand how it works when a heavier rider produces less watts but places higher than a lighter rider who produces more watts … again I’m only looking to understand , thanks
Generally they draft better.
Overall watts is what makes you faster unless it’s a super-hilly race, not w/kg.
I think you’ve misinterpreted the question - in the example, the heavier rider has done fewer watts than the lighter rider.
Were you racing in the Herd Bullseye race?
If so, that race isn’t just about who finishes the race distance fastest, it’s about all the sprint/lap segments throughout the race, points are accumilated according to your position relative to others in your pen for each timed segment.
The format for this race is relatively uncommon, I always meant to try one last year while in decent shape, but never got organised enough to join one.
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I may well have done. But I was going off the thread subejct being about “wkg”.
As Steve pointed out the Herd Bullseye race use different scoring.
If you compare your power to the top 3 C’s you will see they sprinted a lot harder. Look at the power up to 2min.
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Orjan is an absolute BEAST in the Bullseye format as well as being a master Zwift drafter.
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Sorry I’m still non the wiser , heavier riders generating less watts but smashing the field, top 4 all with less watts than me , again I’m only trying to understand
It is a points race, they smashed the sprints and got the most points and then drafted until the next sprint.
As you can see they did a LOT more power in the sprints than you.
Great that Orjan is back on form.
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It’s a race with points for sprints. The final standing is based on the points earned on the sprint banners. If a rider is drafting the whole race other than when they’re sprinting, they’re saving ~30% power based on someone riding in the wind.
Bullseye races are barely ever won by the rider with the highest average power unless they successfully break away solo or in a very small group.
I imagine normalised wkg would tell a somewhat different story …
Update: just looked. It does indeed.
OP … the winner’s NP was over 300 watts. Yours was 237. He’s only 5kg heavier.
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I understand the premise of the race , each lap is a sprint for the line then recover and in each lap there’s a short kicker . I was also drafting after each lap but I couldn’t compete with the sprint… I kept pace and rejoined but was way off .
Zwifting for years now and it still frustrates me … either not knowing or not understanding
Sprints don’t have a big impact on overall W/kg in most events, unless the route is super short. It’s what you do at all the other times that matters most. Since I don’t win a lot of races, I’m often looking for “wins” that involve me placing better than others of similar weight who did more Watts. They wasted more energy than I did. There is a lot of craft in the draft.
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It also helps to be short and fat. There’s true skill in pie-eating.
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So you’re maintaining a steadyish 230 watts while alternately falling back from and catching back up to the big boys.
The big boys are alternately doing 1000 watts for about 20 seconds and then noodling round in the draft at 165 watts for the rest of the lap.
You’ll possibly all be averaging about 230 watts, just in very different ways. This is why Normalised Power was developed as a metric, to try to reflect the impact of spiky surges.
Tbf, tall and fat works quite well too. 
Not on climbs.
We were talking about sprints!