Zmonthly January starts next week, another case of Zmonthly beginning in the month before, just like Zmonthly December that finishes this week.
Under normal circumstances, “Fast is flat” would be starting on January 6th '25.
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The 6th is when Tour de Zwift starts. Skip the ZRacing series and do the Ultimate Challenge. Sounds perfect for @Peter_Twigt
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Without even reminding myself of what the Tour De Zwift Routes are, I would almost certainly have preferred the January Zmonthly to have been race stages of TDZ routes, using short routes for weaker pens and long routes for stronger pens.
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That one is on the to do list indeed 
Much rather do that than a month of flat races.
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Yea it’s fine that this is terrible in Jan because we have something else to do. The issue is they tend to take us avoiding them as the wrong feedback.
Not fine, but I’m happy there’s something fun to do, since the feedback about January will have no effect now that it’s all set up. Thinking about it charitably you could call these beginner races.
Or better yet, mass start races and pick which race length you want to do.
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I haven’t done anything with ZRS, though not entirely sure if it’s been affected by ZRL or FRR (I’m told it shouldn’t? [although ZRL very much should affect vELO and ZRS]).
My point is that while my ZRS is high, I’m still pinned against literal professional racers, and the same is true with Cat A; it’s a losing battle on both ends, and why A numbers continue to be low; also… probably like what Matt said.
Flat or not though, the reality stands that us lightweights are genuinely suffering when we’re being pitted with professional athletes, which I got to experience again this time in ZRL; where the gap is… gross; and this is down to the ZRS seeding and scoring, still imbalancing weight; where ZHQ continues to feed extremely flat, or at least high speed, races.
I realize this is more of a fault of ZRS and things in general, just my 2c of why I, and others like me, continue to not bother looking at these events.
TLDR: Another month of no interest in touching this series, because my ZRS has me included in guys with 20-60 minute w/kg higher than my 5 minute w/kg.
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Same for me…. I would be ready to accept racing with some people who really have this power, if at least there was some kind of control over that (at least dual recording)…
beginner races with an elite only category 
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Am I right in thinking with ZRS the top half of the field get awarded the same amount of points as bottom half get deducted unless riders in the bottom half are on their floor.
Because of the riders on their floor will this not cause the average of riders scores in total to always rise without any new 5 minute PR.
I mean if you are adding 80 points on average to riders every race but only taking away 60 points will this not be problematic?
I think Zwift is head down the wrong direction here and making things in necessarily complicated.
Zwift should keep to one set of racing pen ranges.
They should allow the community race organizers to develop alternative races and cats to appeal to those racers that are unhappy with the Zwift races.
Zwift should focus on a specific product, make it as good as possible and give community racing their niche.
Tiny Races are a good example.
Zwift still has not worked out how to adjust scores in tiny Races or different sized fields.
This parallel cat scheme seems wonky.
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I really like the idea of alternating staggered ranges. I think that’s a good move to help ZRS function correctly.
Will any one time slot always be the same range? Or will the range schedule be swapped daily / weekly / monthly?
Are the ranges, and the cut-off for the advanced event, set permanently or will they be revised every month or two? There are plenty of riders above 700 who shouldn’t be considered so elite that they can only access a limited schedule.
I think I would have preferred shifting cat ranges every other month.
I think what they did will prove popular after everyone figures it out. You never have to enter a race where your score puts you in the bottom half of your category’s pen.
The alternating category ranges seem like a great thing to try out, glad to see it, and hopefully they show up in other Zwift racing events in the future!
That said - I probably won’t be doing these specific races, mainly because they are all so short (I can motivate myself to start a longer race, but find it hard to motivate myself to race two short races back to back, or continue riding hard after a short race for some reason). I think I’m in the minority there however.
I guess its TDZ, ZRL starting mid Jan. The Zracing series are never going to be the main attraction for experienced racers.
Although…i remember doing a “zwift classics” series back in 2020 and if was ace. Whatever happened to that…
Does races still using the old CE system affect your ZRS Score? or just the ones using ZRS ranges?
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Have Zwift HQ quietly introduced pre pen join checks today, so you can’t join a race pen you signed up for but now have a Racing Score above the pen range? 
Just tried to join pen E for Zmonthly race at 1710 GMT, signed up for weeks ago when I was under 180, but text on join screen says " change category" in blue at bottom right of screen. 
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shhhhhhhhh we dont talk about that lol
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