Haven’t done one this year yet, but usually when I do the Gorby I usually do 320W 5-min intervals, and that didn’t push my seed up last year. I think my peak last year was somewhere around 345W for 5mins (ish).
So I ‘think’ either there was a change to how seed works, or something went odd in my calculation to have gone from 399→445 here. I could see my score going up a bunch if they also took a 10-20min effort into account because my solo TT was an all-out 20min effort (ish) vs. my current 5min which I could easily beat any day of the week.
But what is your max 5 min power from your first climb portal ride on 9th July. You averaged 319 for just over 7 minutes and looks like your last 5 minutes was better. That might have a bearing on your ZRS but now doesn’t show on your 90 day 5 min power.
Are you sure last year you were at seed and not at floor which may have been around 15% below seed.
If your 9th July 5 min power was your max at the time this might or should have given you a seed of around 454 but with decay you might have dropped to 390 ?
Looks like Zwift may have been re-running the ZRS calculations and your new ZRS, on 3rd October, was as a result of your 5 min PB from 9th July.
[fairly easy to make figures say what you want but if Intervals figure of 325 is actually only 324 on Zwift and you plug that into the ZRS calculator above with your weight at the time of 77kg you end up with 454]
Are you going to go through the FAQ and remove the incorrect information?
“Pro Tip: A higher finish against stronger competitors in a larger field will increase your score more significantly.” - This is demonstrably incorrect. ZRS would be much better if it were true.
“Q: How can I make sure my initial racing score (seed score) is as accurate as possible?
A: … ensure you’re participating in activities that last longer than 10 minutes and include a mix of efforts, both longer power durations and maximal power shorter sprints… “ - This is not correct, other sections have been updated to reflect the change to 5 minute power but not this one.
“Q: Can my Racing Score decrease?
A: Yes. You might see noticeable changes if you don’t race frequently, as older results are no longer included… “ - Older results are never no longer included.
“Q: Will events always use the five standard racing categories?
A: We’ll use the standard five categories for most Zwift-owned events. In certain instances, for example, when racing volumes increase significantly, we’ll schedule events with ten categories to provide a more fair and better-matched racing experience.” - This hasn’t been true for a long time.
There are also a number of other parts that could be changed to improve clarity.
Well, I guess the reason I believe I was not at floor was that when they set the seed my 5min was above 325W, and after racing my score only went up to 399.
That said, if the 325W at 5mins would be what put me where I am, then 1) Why was it 390 on Friday, and 345W on Monday, and 2) Why would the 325W not still show up on the Zwift.com profile, right now the highest 5min power showing is 298W.
Honestly I don’t mind where it is, I am just trying to figure out why it changed upwards from Friday to Monday with no new PB efforts
5 min PB only used to move your score if your new floor was above your previous score.
They recently changed it to move your score to your new seed if that was above the previous score.
It seems they’ve applied the change retroactively, quite possibly all the way back to October last year when ZRS was introduced. If they’ve done that they would need to reprocess all scores and result movements which would take some time.
That reprocessing seems to have hit your race over the weekend.
Yeah that could be, I guess the thing I’m still not sure about is why the initial seed was not higher, as I’m pretty sure back then (when ZRS released) the 5min power was higher than 325W though I’m not sure how to confirm that.
which then had 3 iterations (10min effort then something else then the 5 min effort) before settling on what we have now as my score went from being in a C cat range to B cat range after they adjusted the 90 day window on the 5 min power and then recalculated my results based on a lower pen than I should have been in initially
It definitely seems like whatever changes they made to how your ZRS is calculated were enacted retroactively. Here are some results from a Zwift unlocked race I did yesterday in the E pool 0-210. Notice the massive drops in ZRS (column 3) after the race even though they placed in the top 20 for a 50 person group. Still don’t understand why they were dropped down from the D pool where they started into the E pool in the results page. Seems like it muddies the water, why not leave them in the D pool since that’s who they raced with and just change their recommended pool for their next race??
Implenting ZRS decay when a rider hasn’t raced a ZRS race in the last 30 days, but they’ve done other Zwift activities, is positively mental.
For every rider that might be encouraged to race again because their ZRS has now dropped like a lead weight, you will discourage multiple riders to not bother racing again, because their pen has now been invaded by a rider who has proven power data history that they have no business being allowed to enter that weaker pen.
Like all recent ZwiftHQ monthly ZRS races for months, depending on the “range” number, the maximum value is either 160 or 210.
So why the heck are riders with much higher ZRS score than that being placed in the pen E leaderboard (I’m presume it applies to pens B-D inclusive too), for October’s “Zwift Unlocked” table?
At the time of writing this post, the first racer listed under pen E with a ZRS under 210 appears to be in 17th place, 46secs slower than the racer currently shown as the pen E leader.
How is this going to encourage legitimate pen E riders to race in the weakest pens?
There’s an existing rating/ranking system that works really well. It’s maintained, reasonably well understood by the community, and you’ve already adopted its seed score.
There’s no reason OpenSkill shouldn’t be able to work for this once configured correctly - but vELO has already been heavily adapted for use, and given the observed pace of development of the OpenSkill ZRS so far I don’t know that it will ever catch up to where vELO is right now. Are there issues? Yes. Biggest one is ZRL not configuring the points in ZwiftPower. Other big one is not everyone has to register / opt-in to ZwiftPower, and that’s where vELO gets results. But it counts points races, it deals well with single-category races (ie. everyone ranked together) that ZRS seems to choke on currently.
Totally agree, I usually do a ladder race once a week or the ZRL when it’s on. My ZRS dropped by over 120 a few weeks ago. I can now sandbag a ranked race if I wanted.
If I’m not doing ranked races but are doing some form of racing, then my ZRS should at least stay the same I think…
Imagine vELO getting results directly from zwift.com and include everyone in results. I guess even points races could be implemented directly to zr.app.
show after another.