I tried racing in the C Category for the first time after almost a year off racing and I get dropped. I have been finishing top 5-10 before in the past 10 races.
The weird thing is I have been doing base for 4 months and I have been on my best fitness which have increased my ftp to 212w. Drop my weight from 82kg to 67kg! Which puts me at 3.1w/kg
Zwift has upgraded me to Cat B. Wtf? I was just getting dropped on C races and now I have to deal with the B guys. I can barely keep up the first 10 mins and I instantly blow up.
What is going on? I feel like I should be a Cat C right now.
TLDR: increased my ftp by riding outdoors, get dropped on C races, found out i got upgraded to B (because of new ftp) and ofcourse I got dropped worse.
The numbers I see for you on ZwiftPower do look like C category values, but that may not be the whole story. Take a look at my.zwift.com. On the right side if you scroll down a little there is a section labelled Fitness with a list of PRs. What do you see there? This info is considered private but if you feel like sharing it here you may get more advice about what’s going on.
A common reason why people get upgraded unnecessarily is lowering their weight (below reality) in any ride and setting a PR at that weight. zFTP W/kg is not the only way to get upgraded - you can also be upgraded by exceeding the zMAP threshold for your category (4.1W/kg zMAP would put you in B).
If you have good endurance fitness, you can also enter longer races with significant climbing and it might go better for you. Those races tend to start easier and your low weight will become an advantage on longer climbs.
Looking at your profile on zwiftracing.app, you have a fairly low vELO score (bronze rating) which also means you can enter races that use the zwiftracing.app category system and be able to race other bronze category riders. If you are interested in team racing, I suggest the 5v5 club ladder which uses zwiftracing.app to categorize teams. There are also the Sunday Showdown races (non-team events) which use the same category system, which would put you in the lowest starting pen due to your ranking.
You can write to zwiftpower@zwift.com and explain what happened, ask them to invalidate the rides on the dates you shared your account. If they agree, you would go back to C category.
If your nephew is less than 16 years old, he can have his own account for free. Or assuming he is not stronger than you, have him try the trainer with weight at 67kg.
I think I would urge people not to do this if they race or they’re in competitive group rides.
If you’ve been doing base training, your maximum aerobic power (short-duration power, you’re close to or at VO2max) is probably not well developed.
So, you know that Zwift races have harsh, cruel starts. People are riding at maximum aerobic power, maybe more, then the pace settles a bit. If I can hang on, it’s a few mins at MAP, then I’m settling down to threshold or a bit less.
As a general rule, it’ll probably help to do at least some VO2max intervals, especially towards when you start racing. Or if you just keep at racing, that should increase your MAP as well. Your MAP acts as a ceiling on your FTP, so increasing MAP will also increase FTP. I don’t know what the consensus is about how much VO2max to do during base training. Right now, I’m doing some, probably 2-4 VO2max sessions per month.
All the 10/25 and 12/11 PRs are at the low weight, so zFTP is almost certainly in B category range as well. The 10/30 PRs are at his racing weight but those won’t have much effect on the outcome.
The only way you can reset your category is to do a ride, obviously at your correct 69kg weight, and ensure that during the ride you beat your nephew’s power numbers in watts through each of the 1, 3, 5, 12, 15 and 20 minute time periods. You only need to beat them by at least 1 watt and if the system works as advertised the zFTP and zMAP calculations will then be based on your 69kg weight rather than your nephew’s 43kg weight.
He never raced at that weight. I accept these questions and explanations at face value because there are so many people who don’t understand how category enforcement works. They play with their weight for some reason that isn’t necessarily nefarious and they get upgraded. Zwift could easily deter some of these mistakes by prompting people with some information when they try to “lose” a lot of weight suddenly. If they don’t race then it’s not very important, if they do then it’s a disaster.
