It certainly would help other organizers if they reduced the frequency of ZRacing events at any time of day, but I suspect if the ZRacing series were less available during prime time hours there would be endless moaning from everyone who expects them to be available.
the moaning is always endless, but if the overall community event/race attendance numbers either stay the same or go up for that period, or even just go down very slightly but gives the community organisers a little bit of breathing room to grow, then thatâs a win for everyone else
but i donât see the numbers zhq see, so itâs just gut feeling
I have two ideas for improving variety and turnout for racing on the platform:
-
Zwift should charge nominal entry fees for its own races (USD $1-2)
-
Zwift should also allow race promoters to charge optional entry fees, in amounts of their choosing, with a revenue sharing agreement (50/50?)
Let the market do its work. With a profit motive, promoters are incentivized to put in the work to build attractive races, create campaigns around them, and learn the winning formulas through trial and error.
By charging a fee for the most popular series, Zwift also incentivizes riders to look for the best âdealâ among race options. Sometimes this will mean a free race, other times it may mean paying $5 to enter a race that is attractive to them whatever reason.
I guess IndieVelo would get a few new racers if Zwift started charging per race. Personally I wouldnât race at all if it were a fee per race on top of the monthly fee.
8 Likes
I donât want to see an extra fee to race but I wish that we would have to get a racing certificate where we agree to certain monitoring practices and our data is open for review.
1 Like
What if you could get a free race in Zwift with more entries than iV, while charging for events that get huge fields. Thatâs how I interpreted the proposal. Charging for ZRL & WTRL TTT might make more sense though.
I guess for me with the current category system I wouldnât pay extra for a race on top of the normal subscription. If there was a series with prizes etc, I could see how someone would pay for that (to fund the prizes), but given how much people bend the rules without prizes I would probably steer clear from any race with prizes 
So you could go for the free option in Zwift. This is fine, you do community events which would have increased field size due to the pricing change.
Anyway this is kind of a pointless idea because theyâll never go for it, but Iâm not against it because there would still be numerous free events that would be better attended than races in competing products.
The main thing I like about the zRacing events is that they exist outside of peak northern hemisphere times. There are spots on the schedule where there wouldnât be a race for 2+ hours without zRacing. For some people that could be their only window to ride for the day.
Yeah, they could be improved. A lot. But theyâre not always taking riders from community events.
1 Like
Iâm all in on Community to Join and yes i think there are to many races on the events Calendar that just fight with each other.
Zracing is running a series and most community races are a single day scratch races.
1 Like
If it ensures bots arenât in the races it could be useful.
But what would be the winnings? And how do you know the winner is genuine.
I was (correctly I think) blasted for suggesting membership plans based a pay per mile scenario (eg. $.05/mile).
Though this might stop the bots also.
I donât know if the Bots bother me.
If they are programmed too strong, they get moved up.
I think it can be problematic for a first time bot, hops in a race, blows the limits but quits before the finish.
A top cat robot lets sandbaggers cruise but may drag a sandbagger over the limit.
I think flexible race pens based on different criteria (organizers choice) is the way to go.
More likely they get replaced with a new free account so they can keep doing it forever.
Rather than a per-race fee, perhaps just limit race entry to people with an active subscription. No extra cost, just paying at all.
Look we turned this thread into another bot discussion 
1 Like
This is a good idea. Another âif you canât beat âem, join âemâ idea could be for a month of âZRacing withâŚâ events, so theyâd be branded as Zracing - so get high entry numbers - and different clubs would ârunâ the time slot for different events. The club would add their welcome text at the start, explaining what their club does that makes them good. And maybe theyâd add something else of value in the race, such as a bit of commentary. That could encourage people to try more things. And people who try more things, stay on Zwift longer.
1 Like
Any events with double XP attract lots of people.
Users even do the same event four or five times if they can for farming as much XP as possible.
You could give them Serpentine 8 route or Ventop and theyâd still do that.
If community or club events could have double XP the problem would be solved. Yes, club events would be used for farming but ah well, so be it.
I love this community tour idea. Whether races or group rides (or both!), it would be great for Zwift to put together one of their big tour events, but that focuses on the community run events. I donât know how they would go about choosing which communities to highlight though. No matter how they chose, all of the not-included community organizers would feel slighted. But itâs still an idea worth exploring.
1 Like
I wouldnât feel slighted, especially if they communicated some minimum criteria for inclusion to ensure quality. Part of the goal should be to achieve some balance in the selections in terms of routes and formats: a crit, a road race, a TT, a climbing event.
2 Likes
Not if they included them all! To me, if Zwift allows a community event to be on the public calendar, theyâve already endorsed it. So they could just add double XP to every community-run event for a week or a month.
Thinking about it, adding badges for:
- âComplete a community-run eventâ
- âComplete 5 community-run eventsâ and
- âComplete 25 community-run eventsâ
âŚwould probably create better positive engagement than their equivalents up Alpe du Zwift and the climb portal.
4 Likes
Yes, for the Double XP idea, they could definitely include them all.
I was thinking more about a Tour de Community.
Pick 24 different Community events: 8 Long events, 8 Medium events, 8 Shorter events, and put them together into an 8 stage Tour, just like Tour de Zwift or Tour of Watopia. Itâs a great way to introduce the community events to a larger audience. Some sort of bonus for dong all 8 stages, just like TdZ. But maybe something more for people who do all 24 community events?
Or a Race the Community event. Pick 4-5 regular community races, and do a GC competition, just like ZRacing. Maybe you pick events so that they get harder each week? Or as @Paul_Southworth said, a Crit one week, Road Race the next, then a TT, and a Climb the last. It could be a monthly (or even semi-monthly, to not cannibalize ZRacing entirely, I guess) series where the communities and their races are cycled through.
I donât know; I think there are all sorts of ways that events like that could encourage people to get more involved in Community events.
2 Likes