In theory there should be less people with a negative experience because there are more bands so I dont think you can judge racing score to be better than the old CE unless you try the old CE with more bands.
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Yeah, this is a positive thing, it at least makes the bands smaller which is helpful regardless of how the classifications are seeded. For larger races there’s no reason to need massive category ranges. No matter how you split cats, if you try to bunch everyone into 4 categories the folks on the bottom (particularly those that got there based on max efforts) will really not be competitive with the folks at the top (particularly those at the top that got there without max efforts).
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In theory, yes. But only if the initial seed algorithm is set up correctly.If an A+ rider has the same ZRS as a mid to upper B…and a lower B is the same as an upper D, then there’s something fundamentally incorrect.
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Biggest flaw to the system, 30s power.
30s power are a big factor to winning position… UNDER THE CE SYSTEM!
The CE system creates a power band that allows riders to still draft and stay together. Under ZRS that is not true. If you can’t stay in the draft because the power gaps are too wide, then how do you use that 30s power that suppose to contribute to your win?
Someone with a high 5 min power can put in continuous attacks. The rider that need to use their w’bal to stay connected will continuously deplete their system while a high FTP rider would recover and recharge much faster.
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Hi!
How many races does the system need to allow to race ZRS events? I did a random long race today, got the score, but apparently still cannot race Zwift Labs events. Are 2 races enough or there are some specific kinds of race efforts needed?
I’ve been enjoying the ZRS system the last couple of weeks. I am kind of lightweight and I am a top end cat C rider in terms of w/kg, but could barely hold on to the pace on the flats in most races. Accordingly I never could really compete in C races. With the new system I have been winning races that suit me and I felt I could hold on in races that suit me less. So overall I’ve been fairly happy. Now I am close to getting bumped into the next category which means I’m probably going to have a harder time, but either I’ll do bad and drop down again or I’ll improve and be able to compete again. That is a better prospect than being stuck at the end of cat C with very low chances to win any race ever.
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An A+ CE rider should not be in B ZRS. End of.
There is an A+ rider who is in B ZRS and has done the world series race 3 times already. The changes in his score are such that it will take 2-3 more races before he cats up to A ZRS.
So 5-6 races trashed in terms of fairness. Combine this with a steady stream of such riders returning/starting on zwift and it will NEVER be resolved.
Chase races will be an absolute farce, with power profiles of the groups all over the place.
I’d say if the 30sec element of the seed score is not removed then racing is doomed on zwift.
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I think the one below that is the real interesting one, 350-520. heavy D cats and lightweight A cats in the same pen with C and B mixed in all together.
Yes quite interesting, half the watts with the same HR range. I wonder if he got a new power meter or someone showed him how to correctly set up his current one.
Ohh nice, I manged to get my ZRS drop 87 points over the weekend and am now in that cat 
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Why did losing a race drop me 38 points, but winning against essentially the same field only gain me 17 points?
Also, the Tiny Races exposed that the real time updates don’t work properly. Each race obviously used the same initial value for the scores, so we still had to wait 12 hours for the scores to be calculated correctly.
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Yep same cat as me. As a D cat I’m looking forward to getting my head kicked in 
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Here are 2 similar riders, I am the bottom one with 470 zrs, the top one is 416. Sprinters are penalized.
Real-time updates sorta worked for me on Saturday during the Tiny Races. I took screenshots of my ZP profile with updated ZRS between each race. I started at 521.8 and my snapshots immediately after the races were 518.8, 511.9, 506.6, and 491.8. Interestingly enough I checked again 10 hours after the race and my score had risen to 506.8, but by this morning it had dropped back to 489.5.
So, for me anyway, it updated my score quickly enough for me to have dropped to a lower pen if they had been using the standard boundaries. Although I suspect joining a different pen might have DQd me (not sure since these were my first Tiny Races).
It seems to have fixed the problem of DNFs skewing the results, which impacted a wider array of races. But it’s clear that each race used the same initial value, so the running total only made sense after the 12 hour recalculation
Interestingly enough - my original plan was to experiment by trying to get a good finish in the first race since my 521 was close-ish to the top end of the 430-550 pen. Then I was going to go hard but tank my finish in the second race to see how much of my first-race gain I would lose. Alas - I ended up going as hard as I could in all four races and was still absolutely destroyed, despite the first two races being ones I theoretically done well in. All told, my ZRS dropped 32 points in the four races.
Indeed. Had to wait till next day also for the correct score
Not sure. If I look at my recalculated values now in each race result (Zwift website) they are all within about 3-4 points of my screenshotted “instantaneous” results and my score currently sits about 2 points different from my instantaneous score right after the race. But I won’t dispute that others have seen different results.
They said they were going to require 3 activities (not specifically races, but any 3 activities that were of some minimum length in the last 90 days) before enabling racing, but I’m not sure if that has been implemented yet or not.
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i doubt it
i’ve been mixing it up with “A+” riders as a “B” since moses parted the seas. and i know a hundred or more other guys who do that just fine. zp legacy and CE categories never meant anything from the start. but we all knew that already, didnt we.
you should consider doing a single zwift race or even a single ride on zwift period before having a bunch of opinions on them