I have been enjoying this months ZRacing Crit Series but one thing I feel can be improved on is the way that these series calculate points.
At the moment if you want to come in the top of your Cat you need to race in Prime Time. If you do not race in Prime Time then you do not have the big numbers and unable to place high in the rankings.
This is something that is not really great for racing at all. It would be beneficial to have more points allocated not just on the time and speed of a race but also heavily on the finishing position of riders.
At the moment leading rankings are riders who in some podium positions have not even come in the top 3 in any of the 4 races but others in other timezones have won all their races and are no where to be seen.
Zwift needs to encourage riders to spread around and try and make racing competitive in multiple time periods not just Prime Time. If placing points weigh more heavily on the overall results we might just see people think twice and start to look at other opportunities where the numbers are allow to try and push for a win.
Not everyone can race PrimeTime and just because more people are able to race at that time and make the speeds fasters based on numbers does not mean they should automatically receive more points.
Maybe a another number needs to be considered in the calculation and that is the amount of riders in the event. The more riders should mean a % decrease to cater for the increased speed those numbers make
Definitely a few options that could be considered to give everyone regardless where they live in the world and what races they can do but a fair shot of overall victory
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Iāve been thinking about posting something about this topic for a few weeks, not that Iāve raced the monthly ZwiftHQ races much. Itās been a bit different during May, with three Bank Holidays this month, but to be in the hunt for timed based GC you need to usually race Mondays at 1710 BST (when the field sizes are bigger).
GC could use actual race positions instead, but then you may well have a number of riders with the same race record,
Field quality seems more important to me than the number of riders or speed of the group. If you beat the best that should count for something.
Races are run at regular times which therefore includes as many riders as possible. Great, Iām sure we all agree on that.
To alter a rider performance in a race (to decrease it) by a mathematical ābest guessā of what it would have been in another race is fundamentally wrong. I get the intention, but the rider could say āwell, had I been in that slower race Iād have broken awayā or āhad I been in the slower race Iād have taken the lead and dragged others along so it would have been quickerā.
The only true way to resolve it (imo) would be to have a league where thereās just one race per week. Great - one race, one chance, everyone equal. But will then exclude those who canāt make that time (but thatās just tough).
Might be interesting for Zwift to try a UK Single Race League where race is 7pm Thursday. Be there or not 
One race per week would definitely not solve it and would just be allowing only certain riders the opportunity to compete which is not very inclusive at all.
My thinking is how do you encourage riders to race in the other time periods that are quieter rather than everyone trying to race in 1 particular race per week because it has the most riders and therefore the quickest times as its their only chance of getting high up the rankings.
Maybe there needs to be 3 or 4 different timezone leagues so it isnt all together. The points are based on 6hr timeblocks so lets say
League 1 12am-6am GMT
League 2 6am- 12pm GMT
League 3 12pm - 6pm GMT
League 4 6pm - 12am GMT
This then would allow people roughly 3 different races per time period to race in so you still get plenty of chances.
This would then potentially open up an opportunity to allow for League winner races at the end to crown the best of the best for that series. Could be the top 10 from each League races in the finale race
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Personally I think it should be points based on finishing position and then the decider is time.
An example from this week, I won one crit club with a time of 22:56 (normalised watts 352) and came 11th in another with a time of 21:06 (321 normalised).
Companion app had them at 36 and 73 starters respectively.
It seems wrong that by far my worst performance of the 2 is a significantly better result in the GC, simply because there was a bigger pack dragging the group around quicker.
The bigger field race was also a lot less dynamic and fun, nobody tried to break away or drop anyone, it was more or less a fast paced group ride with a sprint at the end.
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Paul that is a pretty good example of what I was saying.
You would expect the race where you won and worked harder should be scored higher than the race you finished lower and the effort was easier but only quicker because of volume of riders.
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@Matthew_H i would have to race all 4 time slotās then. think about my legs.
Haha you already race in all time slots!
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There is no perfect solution for this time of series, without meaning that I have to manage approx 105 leagues weekly - thus forcing a) me into an early grave and b) forcing people to race at a very specific time each week, which isnāt what the series is about.
The current system is designed as a bit of fun for riders to try to compare against others in their category. It isnāt perfect because of the fact that different races are at different speeds. I already have to update it over weekends/holidays otherwise I get moaned at 
@James_Zwift ZwiftPower -Ā Login be at 5 or 4 still for Events?
I have no idea what your question means.
we are on stage 5 now, you did update, 4 Events not 5 āi thinkā.
Thank you for illustrating my point perfectly.
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Think this is an area that would be great to some how get a bit more automated to take that need away from a person needing to do it and more a person sweeping over the top to check
I have enjoyed it though
Definitely not climb to climb though haha
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Yep, itās definitely something that would help in the future.
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I have been writing a small app to try and make Zwift league racing more competitive for me. Not to even up the scoring as per this thread, but rather increase the motivation / competition for current standings.
The basic (and very simple idea) is to show me who is close to me in the current standings within the race Iāve joined. who are my true opponents in this race?
By way of example (albeit race has ended), here is a rider (S Garland). This person is in 157th position in the standings.
He can see that in his current, live race, thereās Daniele who is just 4 positions higher and only 3 seconds infront.
He also seeās Richard who is 23 seconds from him.
For S Garland itās very clear that his direct opponents for today are Daniele and Richard. Without this info, Garland is just in a race against strangers. With the app, a couple of those āstrangersā are now clear targets.
Note that during a live race, the race section will update every 30 seconds to show current position and gap in mins:secs.
Hey Karl
This app is brilliant.
Right now trying to sort through Zwiftpower overall results is terrible as you can not easily even filter a Cat
At the moment in Cat C I have had 4 wins but due to racing in the AU timezone even though we have about 40 odd riders i a race they are not as quick as prime time so I am all the way down in the 400s
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I think there are two ways to look at / sort the results:
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Using the 2023 Crit Club tab when looking at a race result. This option shows you all results but doesnāt allow you to filter by category.
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If you use the āLeaguesā tab ( you donāt have to be looking at a race result) and then select 2023 Crit Club option (11th one down) this method does allow you to sort by category.
