It’s the likelihood of having a rider next to you. Increase the number of riders increase the odds of that. But there is also a diminishing effect. Can smaller group breakaway? You fit 1000 riders in 1 pen, that won’t ever happen.
We’ve complained about too many events for years…
Nothing will change until someone at ZHQ starts cutting out the fat of these rides / races that pull in < 10 people; which said 10 people could be in other events, potentially attracting more racers.
It’s over-saturation, and an argument towards Zwift’s events for an incredibly long time now.
If people want to do something, generally speaking they’ll make time for it and adjust their schedule; instead, we’re stuck with Zwift offering an excess of options, splitting the population all over the place.
I continue to laugh at you guys getting sad that each pen is pulling 10 people… Americas times we’re lucky to get 10 people across the entire event because of this issue.
You want a fun test; do an Everyone pen, and split the field by ZRS at the end.
See which is more attractive; split field at the pen / entrance, or full everyone field with split results.
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yours might be skewed because you’ve never done a zwift race. miss me with that
Sandbaggers may conceal their true skill level using the cat method; however, this is not possible with the score method without actually losing a race on purpose. 
Absolutely correct! I recall Zwift’s commitment to phase out events with low participation… the anticipation continues.
And losing a race on purpose is a barrier?
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A brief overview of the Pinarello Race Stage 2, which took place on Monday, September 9. This event presents an opportunity to compare the CE and ZRS options directly, allowing for an apple to apple assessment, albeit not perfect. All information has been sourced from Zwiftpower.
Total races: 26 (19 CE, 7 ZRS)
Total participants: 2236 (1660 CE, 576 ZRS)
Although the number of ZRS races is relatively limited, they are scheduled during prime time slots, allowing racers to target them specifically if desired. This preference is particularly evident among E pen racers, who tend to favor ZRS events over CE races.
This is a closer look at the first prime time slot, which features two ZRS races interspersed with four CE races (441 CE, 220 ZRS).
Another closer look at the second prime time slot, this time featuring four ZRS races and two CE races (502 CE, 295 ZRS).
An intriguing aspect observed across all charts is the consistent presence of the same regression curve, regardless of whether one considers the total values or the prime times.
@James_Zwift , @Tom_Collens
E cat riders do not favor ZRS over CE. E cat riders only exist in ZRS. The only people who can enter cat E in CE are unranked riders (ie people who haven’t raced in the last 3 months) so not surprisingly it has very few entrants.
You can’t make an apple to apple comparison of categories between between CE and ZRS because one has 4 ranked categories while the other has 5.
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Don’t think interest isn’t there. In my case I didn’t see them because ZRS events were apparently filtered out by default…
Now that will affect your signups.
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thanks for making the graphs, even though i disagree with the opinion
[quote=“Tom, post:26, topic:634702, full:true, username:Tom_Collens”]
And losing a race on purpose is a barrier
It defeats the purpose -no e-egobooter!
In the cat system, you can win race after race, and as long as you stay within the category parameters, you’ll never be forced to move up… there are quite a few of those lurking in there;
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People would lose a random 5km race any day of the week to stay competitive in a ZRL race format if ZRL used ZRS.
Be interesting to see, CE vs ZRS same prime time time slots, same race and see which riders select.
Simple; whichever has more signups.
the big grow bigger, and the small won’t change.
It really doesn’t matter all that much, the point remains; people want to race against more people, not less people. Massively split cat groups some may argue are great to keep competition tight; but when the competition is only a handful of people, it doesn’t matter how tight it is… it’s generally “objectively” worse.
Which is more fun, a race that starts with 50 people and may end with 10 people, or a race with 10 people ending in 5?
I understand what you are saying. But a race does need a range limit for number of participants. Too many it sucks, too little it sucks.
Yes, it’s stupid to do an itt for a podium race with no one in it.
Those 1000 rider races are equally as dumb.
That’s what I mean though; assuming it’s attractive enough, it will grow more interest. If numbers remain low, it’s likely to remain low.
I disagree with others that there’s an argument to be had about CE vs ZRS and why anyone would pick one over the other; but, at least from my point of view, IF I was even given the option, I would go with whatever has more people to race against.
Unfortunately this isn’t the case with the Americas time races… finally I got to do a race with 20 people which was awesome last night.
I just don’t believe it’s an argument over which system is better or more attractive. I [personally] believe people just want to do races against more people.
Which, is why so many people will “race” the big Tour of Watopia and the like events; because they’re huge events, and always someone to push against.
At the end of the day, they aren’t races… but people still like to push against such huge crowds.
It’s a fair assessment, that why Zwift own race dominated club organized races. Not because it is better but have more riders.
But I see ZRS failing more so than CE because the outliers would be more extreme for the lower rank. You will encounter random B riders racing with D riders.
The changes we have just made to score ranges should largely mitigate this (not that I am saying that it definitely won’t happen.
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