I know this subject has been beaten to death, but I am hoping that there is a solution. I just did a race today as a “D” and came in 17the (25th actually). According to ZwiftPower and Zwift, 1 person matched my 2.4 wkg. Everyone else was higher - some much higher.
Ok, I get it. They don’t use WKG to decide category enforcement. Great. Why is it that Zwift, ZwiftPower, etc. don’t show the Zftp (or whatever) that was generated for the ride? Showing WKG when that is apparently a meaningless measurement doesn’t help much.
It would be nice if the measure used for category enforcement was listed for the races and shown for each race in the results. Because it sucks to be the only 1 of 2 people in the top 20 under 2.5 in a group that is labelled 2.5 and under and still come in 17th…
Yeah, I know that we will still have sandbaggers who will do 1500 watts in a sprint and then 170 watts the rest of the ride or will suddenly gain/lose 24 kg overnight - but that’s life. But can’t we at least show the real measures that determine our category as part of the published results and our ongoing statistics for all to see?
Just to follow-up - if I want to know the FTP for my personal benefit, I can get that from any of the many sites that interface with Zwift. In a race - I want to see the values that affect my standing in the race and everyone’s category settings.
Either zwiftpower is having issue as it is showing the OP fit file as being live data whilst it has processed other riders in the same race, strangely looking at my last 2 rides on the big spin zwiftpower is showing the same, live data rather than a processed fit file
Loads of issues have been reported about FIT file uploads to ZwiftPower lately. James mentioned on Facebook a few days ago that they were investigating but I don’t know the status.
It’s also really hard to search for anything on Facebook, and the signal to noise ratio in those groups is terrible. In this case I would suggest writing to zwiftpower@zwift.com and report back whatever you hear.
Yeah, Zwift doesn’t do themselves any favors by inexplicably continuing to use the old cat definitions in their ride listing/signup pages.
Furthermore, while the ride descriptions provide plenty of embedded links to learn all about Zwiftpower results (see below example), at a minimum why can’t they also provide a link to the CE FAQ in the “How Does it Work” section? Specifically this one, as it seems there are 2 of them:
As John has mentioned the category limits are not obvious.
Cat D is <2.63 w/kg not 2.5.
This doesn’t mean you can’t exceed this limit in a race only that you must be cat D to enter the race.
Exceeding 2.63 in the race doesn’t automatically mean that the new zFTP calculation will move you out of Cat D. A power curve is produced using all best power figures over several time durations.
If you have a sensible / realistic power curve ( high at less than 30sec-1minute dropping quickly then levelling out) you may find that your zFTP could be around 5% less than your 20 minute power. [some profiles show zFTP around 10% less than 20 min power and these sort of figures generate a lot of questions on the forum]
So racing in Cat D it is not unrealistic that you could race at around 2.76 for 20 min (possibly the whole race?) and not exceed the zFTP category calculation.
I agree that all of this could be more visible in the results but IMO whilst Zwift is attempting to transition everything from ZP to Zwift game this is very unlikely to happen.
Some pointers which may encourage you a little:
Go into the ZCA results page and click on all those who did 2.8 of higher. You will probably find that they have all been promoted. (This doesn’t immediately show on ZP) One or two don’t show category as set as private, I think you have to assume they have been promoted.
Go into ZwiftPower results and set to ‘view 95%’. If the results show less than 2.63 there is a probability, not guaranteed, that rider will remain in cat D.
My take away on category system is that you can fairly accurately forecast you can actually race around 0.2w/kg higher than advertised category limits (not the very very old category limits shown on the race entry systems - why Zwift still hasn’t changed I don’t know) and still maintain a zFTP within the same category.
