I don’t know why a new 90-day best 5mins isn’t moving everyone to 100% of their new seed score, if their ZRS is below that new seed score.
That’s my issue.
My new ZRS of 268 isn’t my 100% seed score, ~282 is, unless something has changed.
At 93Kg, a 100% seed score of 268 would be 5mins at ~289W. I did 296W.
So I just did the Yorkshire Four by Four race.
We started with 7 people, but we had one guy average 384w @ 4.9w/kg for 30 minutes.
… Everyone abandoned except two of us.
Yet I lost 8 ZRS?
for what???
I should net zero if a race goes from 7 to 3…
I think you get credit for beating those who dropped out, offset by a bonus drop for being the last finisher.
Makes no sense that it should work like that, but it seems to match the evidence.
Stuff like that I feel like still needs major clarification as to what exactly is happening on Zwift’s side.
From the end user perspective, I just see a net loss; but knowing I was “mid-field” had everyone finished… The guy behind me was in the 900+ range.
Genuinely I’d argue nobody’s ZRS should move when the field gets that low.
But we also need something in-game declaring “ZRS will no longer change due to field size,” however I suspect this will never happen because Zwift doesn’t seem too focused on racing side.
But some explanation as to why I would’ve been beating a 900 racer but my score go down … is where I’m at a loss.
Sadly I can’t look any of those people up because I don’t think I have a screenshot of the users; most of the time I look my competition up on ZRacing or ZP as well but… go figure most of the people in the Advanced range are hidden (probably because they have broken trainers)
Does your Companion app record of race show 3rd of 7 (albeit when you look at results, there are less than 7 riders, because I presume 7 racers signed up but some either never turned up at all or remained in the pen area)?
ZwiftRacingApp only shows 4 racers on the official course after leaving the race pen area, one of which quit early…
https://www.zwiftracing.app/events/5565131
If there were 7 signups at race start time, I’d expect your ZRS to barely change and slightly increase, because you finished in top half of total signups.
Or did your 90-day best 5mins drop since your previous ZRS race, causing a bigger ZRS drop than the points you got for finishing third in ths race?
Two weeks on, I’m still waiting for an explanation for my recent ZRS changes, that in my eyes currently make no sense.
ZRS is certainly weird and/or broken.
Screenshot evidence from 4 minutes into the race suggests that 6 riders started the race. It could of course be 7 if one dropped out very early.
I believe you advocate the half up and half down from those signed up to the race - I wonder whether this, coming 3rd of 7 and losing largish points, might make you reconsider ? Possibly not based on evidence of just one race !
I have always felt that the ZRS system is closer to top 2/3rds go up and bottom 1/3rd go down ( with some minor amendments to cover unusual finishing positions ). From the little I have read around Open Skill I’m wondering whether the uncertainty factor changing after each race is more likely to increase the ZRS of quite a lot more than 50% of racers in each race.
I wonder whether non starters and non finishers have no bearing whatsoever within the ZRS system.
I looked that up a few months after the last big change and back than it was 61% goes up in points and 39% goes down.
Sure there were some exceptions, but mostly it were those numbers. I think I looked at about 400 races.
I believe I noticed someone exit the pens in the final minute (guessing from a small grid).
Personally being in Advanced… I rarely see races with 10 people anyways.
But also frustrating to see so many abandon the race; and also [at least personally] feeling punished ZRS wise for sticking around.
Would my ZRS have remained if I also abandoned?
I just find this weird and almost a great way to really sandbag numbers if you can get people to force abandon. (Imagine if teams did this to sandbag ZRS scoring prior to ZRL for example.)
For the record I only bring this stuff up as a casual end-user. I don’t follow the ZRS stuff and I find it confusing all the time to be honest; I don’t race that often and stay away from the Tiny Races and like that really break the system. But some things I struggle to grasp.
I still personally prefer ZRS over CE; it’s not common I find myself ahead of someone 100+ above me for example while being weary of anyone within the -/+100 range from my score, and thus have a decent judgement of my competition.
I don’t dislike ZRS, the opposite. I just find it… poorly documented.
On Feb 18 of this year, I had a major cardiac event that kept me in the hospital for a coupla weeks and since then I’ve been on a bit of a short leash so no racing. I haven’t done a race since the Feb 16 with no riding into Z5 at all. One would think that with over 90 days in the Base-ment (almost all of my rides would considered Base Miles) my ZRS would be declining but no, I’m still at 449.
One would think there would be some kind of ZRS decline after 90 days in purgatory. I suppose it has something to do with my seed score and phases of Pluto…
This…
That part is actually in the FAQ!
Am I penalized for quitting a race early?
No. Leaving a race early doesn’t affect your Racing Score.
It’s been proposed that leaving early should be automatic ZRS increase of 3-5 points.
But Shirley if you left a ZRS race/TT early, after setting a new 5min 90-day best, your ZRS seed score would increase? So your ZRS is affected.
The context was a question of whether a score would drop because of leaving a race early. A 5 minute PB can’t make a score drop.
Yes, a PB can make a score go up, and you don’t need to finish a race for that to happen.
shame on me for not looking at the FAQ lol!
But I also wanted to respond to @Mark_Crane_TOG_G_65y because I was in a similar situation.
Up until April, I hadn’t taken part in a race affected by ZRS (ZRL though), since September of last year; however, I never once saw it move the entire time.
The same thing I had mentioned to the owner of ZRacingApp, where my vELO would get stuck if I even so much as attended anything considered a race; what was happening was my vELO was stuck at a specific number from doing WTRL TTT events, and thus was affecting my ranking for FRR.
I’ve no idea if ZRS is experiencing the same kind of things, but… same experience.
This is confirmed by the /racing/me web view that from 9/11/25 to 4/9/26 my ZRS did not change.
It’s a double edged sword though; ZRS goes down, people will sandbag like they did with CE.
As far as abandons go… IMO it should go up!!
If you’re gonna quit a race, punishment comes in the form of having to race against people you’ll never beat; and you have to waste your time trying to get it back down 
My experience with doing the stage of in Yorkshire.. Started with a score of 270 and enter (maybe by mistake in hindsight), range 1, so 270-390 which was Zwift’s recommendation. Most of us were complaining as w though it was suppose to be 210-270. Anyway, this was the “winning” effect.. My score went down by 5, the “winner” with NO HRM went up by 155??? Something clearly wrong if no HRM allowed winning
The winner probably set a new 5 minute PB so the seed score went way up. No HRM is a totally different issue…
It’s not unreasonable to wish that HRMs were required in ZRacing which I assume is what you are talking about. It’s not required, and in any case racing score doesn’t depend on HRM data. The rider absolutely should be ranked up regardless of whether they have a HRM or not. If that didn’t happen, they could keep finishing first in events by simply not turning on their HRM.
Anyway if you want to race events that require a HRM to enter, you’ll have to pick from more limited options but they are available. That wouldn’t include any events put on by Zwift HQ unless you end up in the Advanced category, but other community events do use that feature.
I have not done a race in a while.
Sometime around mid-May, my ZRS started going down, shown on the after ride summary screen.
That’s fine. I don’t do a lot of racing, so I didn’t mind much.
I watched it go down a point or two every time I finished a ride.
On 1 June, it dropped 2 more points, to 275.
Today, I finished a Zwift workout and it’s back up to 304.
Curious.
Its based on 90 day best power, so look on your zwift.com profile not the end of ride screen.
