Zwift Insider Tiny Races general discussion

Winners of pen E in zones 1 and 2 yesterday have now mysteriously got a Racing Score nearer 400 than the 295 pen limit.

A few others had similar gains.

Should be excluded from league table.

Really should be an automatic system that stops racers entering pens that they are no longer in the ability range for despite being fine at time of signup, James Bailey said it’s being looked at in Zwiftlabs Club chat in last week or so.

And have their avatar replaced by a bag of sand until they complete a quartet in the correct pen. :upside_down_face:

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@TimHanson can you shed any light on why the Tiny Races sometimes get processed out of order? Sometimes 1 and 4 get processed, then 2 and 3 an hour later. The race 4 result is the one that sticks on the profile, but it ignores any gains or losses from races 2 and 3.

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No, I can’t unfortunately. Tiny Races present challenges on ZR.app as well. It’s hard to ensure that results are always processed in order when players participate in 4 events in an hour.

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August 10th, increasingly hilly, finishing with 3.1Km of Ven Top (not long enough for a 10min+ effort for most pens, that might set a new best for the power based pen allocation seeding score).

Can’t see any mention of Racing Score ranges, so presumably as pants as the last two weeks.

August 17th, routes with short climbs.

Looks like this series is trying to appeal more to riders in the top cats by extending E, so that the others remain more tightly concentrated. They should just own this stance and make E cat defined as RS of 200-330. No point in even bringing in the unwary sub 200s who will likely finish the event after a dismal experience.

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August 24th, “newish routes” with one route making its first appearance.

And the silly pen allocation Racing Score ranges of 330; 460; 570; 680; 680+ remain, prioritising equal number of riders per pen over actual ability…

The Category Enforcement Cs being allowed to race in E must be laughing their socks off!

Maybe only for one race, because the genuine Es leave. The ‘equal numbers’ thing seems to be an illusion on only qty of signups, not how many run the full series. Below is dropout rate on just first going to 2nd race. By the 4th race, it appears about 64% of the first race entrants had disappeared.

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Love route 1
Meh for route 2
Blergh for route 3
Hate for route 4

:wink:

i feel like dropping out after race 3 most weeks even when i’m in serious shape

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A quick look at Live status on Zwiftpower, about 8 minutes into the E cat race. Top 10 vs bottom 10. So avg watts shown = current 8min power

Top10


Bottom10
Bottom10_8min

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Avg W/Kg seems to be a good indicator for finishing position in all of the 4 Tiny races, even on the flatter courses.

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Yeah, and perhaps not helping ZRS at all, most are all finished in under 10 minutes, so all those hundreds and hundreds of hard efforts aren’t used in RS calcs.

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Yeah. Too bad. I would rather see 1 min, 5 min, and 10 min W/kg as metrics used in ZRS seeding and floor calculations. 30 sec is just silly and you need something like 3-5 min to cover the important shorter bumps. 10 min is OK for endurance since many don’t have a full 20 min max.

I like the tiny races, I really do like them a lot. Its a great work out for an hour which leaves me gasping for air flat on the floor most of the times,

but … you all saw this but coming … and I hope @Eric_Schlange_ZwftIn does also :wink:

Two things I think need to be looked at and hopefully taken care of.

1 - It is a 4 part race. Not 1, 2 or 3. Why are riders allowed to race in race 2,3 or 4 when they have missed race 1 ? If you havent done them all so far, just disallow people to sign up for the later races. Fresh riders ruining the last races is not fun. Yes I know they get put out of the GC but they still are kept in the rankings for the race. Also DSQ them there would help a bit.

2 - I was watching a few friends doing the Zone 1 today and in race 1. The riders who finished in places 1 to 4 didnt do all 4 races. They just wanted a win, they did it for the easy ZP points … who knows … but they are still in the race 1 endings taking away valuable points from those ending just behind them but are doing them all 4.
The one ending up 5th should have gotten the 250 points and not the 220 he got now.
So request 2 also remove (DSQ) the ones who didnt do all 4 races from all 4 race rankings and recalculate the points.

This will probably mean the GC takes a bit longer to make, but I rather have a fair system than people breaking in and fading out and taking the wins and points …

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zwift doesn’t have the toolset available to prevent entries on that premise so not much he can do but dq people after the races

regarding point 2 though, i have something to say… it’s good that riders aren’t obligated to finish all 4. from my own history. i have a form of asthma and was under the impression that the rule was you had to finish all 4 (it wasn’t). i had an asthma attack probably during the finish of round 2 or certainly while in the pen for race 3 and not wanting to get a DQ stuck on my record i did this:

please note the average heart rates for races 3 and 4

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I have asthma as well. No one will care if you DQ/DNF.
I have noticed that the completion rate (4 races) after introducing ZRS as the grouping (compared to CE), has dropped significantly. The Tiny races can’t continue like this.

i care if i get a DQ, and nobody needs to be riding around at 160bpm at 140w avg regardless. just saying why i think it shouldnt be a rule. of course, i dont make the rules

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You might have that. But today there was one in the A race who smashed the first two races and vanished.

That also doesnt seem fair to me. It is a 4 race combo, so if you dont finish them all you should not be in the rankings imho.

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But, DQ are like Street Cred , more you have more you get noted in races.