So, a great event, BUT ….. why are there riders racing out of category still? though the new racing score was meant to fix this?
I entered Stage 1 in the 0-100 band / category.
I averaged 2W/kg for the stage. I came 77th!!!
The person who won from our group averaged 3.4W/kg and had efforts well exceeding 5W/kg.
These are NOT 0-100 racer type efforts!
I know it’s just “fun” but this ruins the event for others. The people should be removed from the event or bumped up to higher categories.
When category is enforced, why are they even there?
Strictly they are not racing out of category in the way they used to be able to do. They started the race with an appropriate score.
ZRS is an improvement on what we had before but it could still be better:
Less or no Decay.
Looking back far more than 90 days.
Use of the MAX 30 day facility, especially for the popular Zwift operated races.
Toughening up and improvement of Minimum Effort criteria.
There are other improvements often mentioned but I believe these four would be a good start.
You probably got a little unlucky with the race you picked to enter. I was also a person that was able to enter a 160 to 270 race on 222 and exited on 286 after a 100% effort.
The problem really is race decay, I may not race again for a while, still train hard, watch that number drop knowing if I sneak in under 270 there is a reasonable odds of a win. Not been in this position before, no idea how fast it even decays but obviously its pointless racing in the next category up, you simply go from first to last place and its totally demoralising because you don’t lose by seconds you lose by minutes because you cannot stay with the main bunch, drop out the back and have nobody to draft with. The race I was in was bad enough, I totally lost the main bunch by 7 or 8 seconds as the start was what I simply deemed too fast. Perhaps I was lucky some much faster riders then tried to catch the main bunch so I drafted them and a short sprint had me back in the front pack. From there the Kaze Kicker was flat, had time for a little recovery and then I had the advantage on the downhill section and the power left to sprint finish.
This, very much this shows why we dont need decay at all. The decay ruins races for far more people than those who are really injured and out of races for a while. And it is so weird that Zwift doesnt see this.
Another issue is new users who have never had the motivation to go all out at 120%. Those new to the platform and new to racing might have extremely low seed scores and are then allowed to enter very low race score events. Then their true abilities come out and they blow up the race.
The only way to prevent this is to require some sort of zone benchmarking race prior to being allowed to enter community races, but even then people could do a minimal effort and still enter races far below their ability.
Zwift has far bigger problems than race decay. Anyone racing is going to want to limit their score to the maximum for the category. Zwiftpower can look at heart rates however and set limits on those only needing to cruise to a win and just boot them out. Zwift just needs to get smarter and a HR belt should need to be worn for all your rides then Zwift knows all your training zones. Becomes pretty obvious when you are not actually needing to even race to get the win.
Heart rates aren’t that reliable to judge from. Some folks might be older and have lower maximum heart rates.
So although they might not be at 190bpm - they may still be at their maximum. Did you consider these things?
Then you need some zone benchmarking race for the benchmarking race? It’s starting to get silly, especially given for the most part nobody is racing for money (unlike on another platform).
It needs a team of people to oversee the racing results and control category entries, much like a large forum has moderators. Yes an AI algorithm should be able to do it, but humans are better at it right away.
Heartrates are 100% if you benchmark the race against every other form of the riders data that is potentially collected over years
This is Why I stated you need to use a decent HR monitor for every single Zwift ride, even a Z1 recovery ride so that Zwift knows all your HR zones and eventually will even know exactly how long you can even stay in that zone.
Its too much data for people to sort, but its just perfect for an AI task in the future and becomes a set and forget task that needs zero human input.
The Guy that “Won” my race had an average HR of 138, I’m going to call BS on that because nobody wins a race in the category they really should be in with what is probably a Zone 2 heartrate.
I agree the current methods of DQ are probably too broad, that said an avearge HR that low coupled with a massive racing score increase will clearly get you booted out.
Its pretty obvious he should have been in the C Cat race, regardless if he was coming back from “Injury” and I guarantee he would not have been booted.
The rules are so that everyone in the right race category gets to have a fair race and a realistic chance of a trophy finish and have some fun without getting wasted by guys in the wrong catagory.
Lets take it to the limit, AI could actually run a simulation race with all entrants and predict the race finish using everyones data.
LOL I only wear a HRM so I don’t get thrown out of races. It would be madness to prevent people from doing a ride because their HRM doesn’t work. Requiring one to enter the starting pen of a race is already an option and nearly every event organizer chooses not to use that feature.
I do wear a HRM when racing, and Zwift Games events are not configured to enforce a HRM for pen entry. That is completely different from requiring a HRM to be in ZwiftPower results. The feature exists to eject riders from the event without a HRM, and Zwift chooses not to use it in most of their races.
A HRM was absolutely not a requirement for the standard Games races. I tried to point that out to you in your HUD thread.
Your race and those up to a couple of days ago:
Sorry you lost me, my race was exactly the same format as the first one you have there.
“All riders must wear a HRM”
Anyway, regardless I don’t really care the race has come and gone. Zwiftters should just be really pleased that Zwiftpower exists because without it racing in Zwift would be a total waste of time.
The race score needs some tweaking, there needs to be more categories because A to E is not enough.
Tightening up on the racing further is unlikely to happen, its costs money and doesn’t add perceived value to 90% of riders. What matters is more new routes and things people can actually see.
I used to ride with a guy who was a machine.
His HR would be at 120 while I would be suffering along at 160.
I think he said his resting HR was 41.
If I get to 172, it’s going to be a bad day for me.
The guy in first wasn’t registered with ZwiftPower. ZwiftPower doesn’t ‘boot’ him from the results because he has broken some race rules, he chooses not to appear in ZwiftPower results.
