When comparing ZRS style races with CE, the turnout shows lack of interest.
I don’t think it necessarily shows that. It may show that given the choice between the usual GC (which is a GC that works with more flexible race times) and a much smaller or nonexistent GC, people choose the former. It may also show that people are change-resistant and picking the event where they already understand what the experience will be like, or that given the choice between a harder event and an easier one they pick the easier one. The people who’ve had a poor experience in CE races and tuned out of those events may need time to come back to the idea of racing at all. I don’t think the labs events are much of an indicator of what participation will look like when the CE races go away, and if it means that community CE races get more participation once the ZRS ZRacing events are all there is, that is not all bad either. I’m trying to express my uncertainty more than any prediction here.
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It’s might also show a poor adoption rate. Good news, it takes up some prime slots. So people might migrate and try other events.
They’re an hour apart off the bat; and fields are split and smaller.
If ZHQ removed the CE races, it would be fine.
It’s forced split, and people are reaching for the larger fields, plain and simple.
Paul also mentions GC listings; which, may impact a handful of people as well, hard to say, but it’s indeed a worthwhile mention.
From my point of view, holy crap, I would love to get to do races with that many people… it must be nice.
Prime time Americas doesn’t even get the Labs race, but instead has 5 normal zMonthly Stage 2 races… but all 5 of those as it stands only add up to 45 across all categories across all 5 races ranging from 7pm to 11pm EST.
it’s zrl… if the race isn’t a thursday TTT, another established series that people like to ride, or on the sugar cookie course, then it probably isn’t where the party is, this week.
I made a similar post a few weeks ago, and there has been no change. The hard data clearly shows that participants tend to prefer the CE race over the ZRS race. I contend that the primary issue is the motobike gang effect that ZRS has introduced, which has shifted the dynamics of racing. The motobike gang effect refers to the arrival of racers with a very high endurance in pens where the average endurance level is significantly lower. It is not a rarity to see guys with 4.6 W/kg in the pen where the rest of the field is at 3.4 W/kg.
I have seen this in some races where a solo rider finish over a min ahead of everyone else.
that’s life. did you see it in any of your races that you did? i saw the opposite in most of mine, personally. and i do mean “most”, as in pretty much all of them
edit: all 23 of them
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Results might differ from point range, but I guessing you are in the 600+ bracket? Surprise you even get more than 10 people.
only one of those 23 had less than 10 people finish in my category. one thing you should learn about people who complain about zwift racing, this is something i learned myself probably 3 years ago: a lot of them just assume the two people other who agree with them are some sort of majority. aint none of them actually doing any racing
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He almost had a good point. You are a 650+ rider, you are a top end B who would be an A without the watt floor. You’re someone who is perfectly capable of racing A grade and being very competitive there. Any change in how riders are split into pens won’t suddenly bring in new riders to the top of your race because it’s the same people.
It’s the lower categories where this issue will be seen, where the strong TT riders are being placed against those who don’t have the ability to keep up, and they are getting clear and winning by minutes. They’re also not having to set power records to do so, so it’s only the race results that slowly push their score up, partly offset by the score decay.
I suspect this is partly due to how the testing is being run, with limited races and, until recently, restricted results based movement to test the seed algorithm. Also due to the influx of riders at this time of year who don’t have recent data to feed the system. Hopefully in the next month or two these issues will largely disappear as ZRS gets a wider rollout.
If you win a race by .6wkg more than the others & 30 seconds in a 4minute race that is ok? But a longer race being won by someone with more power is not ok?
Feels a bit double standards here, help me out.
maybe… i don’t look at facebook or any of that so i’ve only seen like two examples, maybe there a few more out there. but either way i think the only people who might be too concerned about that scenario are p2 and possibly p3
a good 75% of the rest of the peloton in most races are just there for the race, for them an enjoyable race must mean something entirely different. i made that statistic up, but i’m probably being conservative
I find this statement largely flawed.
For August:
- Racing Score events had an average attendance of 84.5
- Non Racing Score events had an average attendance of 87.5
When you consider the fact that this does not take into account the high/low events at 1810/1910 BST, so the racing score events are all off-peak, I feel that this implies either there is no difference, or racing score event slightly outperform non scored events.
I also don’t know whic time zone you’re in so I can’t really comment but under the assumption that it was before 0910 for you at the time, then it is perfectly normal for events over an hour out to have a markedly different number of people signed up as most sign up inside the last hour.
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OTOH, your examples actually seem to show that ZRS seems to be doing pretty well with the E Cats (vs CE D). Those LOW END E numbers likely contain many riders who typically don’t race.
CE will continue to draw numbers, from especially those who know that they fall in the upper 25% of their Cat. ZRS is more variable and new, and entrants aren’t quite as certain as to how they’ll perform relatively in their assigned ZRS Cat.
Has there been a call as yet for ZP to add a column to show ZRS? We can sort entrants by w/kg, but it would interesting to see the rankings and numbers by ZRS.
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The race you are refering to is the Rooftop KQOM. It is the race where just the KOM segment is measured. I won my heat but the time and power in the heat are completely irrelevant. What really matters is the comparison of times after one week from all heats (Zwift Hill Climb Series 14 Week 1). I did not even win and my time and power is not different from anyone in the top ten. Please stop this ad hominem attacks at me and rather focus on the topic. It is not the first time you tried and failed. If you have not noticed yourself, then a little hint: I am not criticising ZRS to get a personal gain. I finished 9th and 12th in tough ZRS races with B/A/A+ guys. ZRS is not a personal problem for me. I am pointing at flaws of ZRS simply because this system is not designed well.
It depends what we compare here. There are plenty of races you do not have a choice. Tiny races are all ZRS, there is no CE option. This factor will boost ZRS numbers. What is the isolated statistics for Pinarello Stage 1 week?
Yes, it is not a big surprise. But they still complain about motobike gang effect on various forums.
Your perspective might be skewed because you are at the upper end. You probably won’t get dropped in a 30 min race even against world tour guys. It’s unlikely you run into a rider cranking out 6 w/kg, and even then at 33% watts saving you might hold their draft.
You might need to remove the double pens after Wednesday when demand drop. It’s not fun in a 5 riders per pen race.
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“Fun” might be hard to quantify. Is it really more fun if single 5-pen system means that the same people would be likely breaking into more separate groups which ride apart from one another anyway? Even if there were double the starters at the beginning of the race?