What tests best on the general population might not be the best to reduce sandbagging. So I don’t doubt that 10min power works great for seeding for the vast majority of folks who are not managing their power. The issue with zwift is it does not take that many folks to wreck a race, so they need to find a good seeding algo that is hard to sandbag… or… they could use more variable cats so sandbaggers don’t have a clear target to shoot for of course.
5 Likes
Are you a betting man?
I expect the Cat Bs currently in Cat D to still be there as they will be unaffected by removing 30 second power as they are there because they can’t or don’t sprint, I expect the Cat Ds who ended up with a seed score above 350 but dropped down to their floor and below 350 into Cat D to also still be in Cat D.
Hopefully I am wrong, am guessing and the information given by Zwift is vague so we might get surprised.
i think read , some were that they redo Reset to small number of zwifter sound like it to me. but not full reset. that may have old post.
1 Like
What Zwift should have done, is tell all of us that they’re going to be using 10m power, but really used 8m power.
3 Likes
It’s not unreasonable IMO to expect that Racing Score…
Pen E will only contain ex- Category Enforcement (CE) Ds
Pen D will contain ex- CE strong Ds and weakest Cs
Pen C will contain ex- CE good Cs, maybe the very weakest Bs
Pen B will contain ex- CE strong Cs and good Bs
Pen A will contain ex- CE strong Bs and As
Right now, before we see what seed v2 brings, that simply isn’t the case.
There are plenty of riders who are being placed up to two pens lower or higher in a five pen Racing Score system that the pen they were allocated to in a four pen Category Enforcement system.
And some of those over-seeded racers would be locked into that excessively high pen regardless of bad results, due to the 85% seed score floor.
While those under-seeded, often lighter riders with strong W/Kg, were able to repeatedly do well in races of their choosing and take an age to gain enough points beyond their seed score to get a pen promotion. And if promoted, stand a good chance in many cases of finishing badly in a few races to drop back down again.
2 Likes
Theres a huge presumption there that riders were accurately categorised in the old CE world.To many were gaming it and simply were not.
The fascination with grouping riders by 20min power needs to end.
10 Likes
That’s an over-simplified expectation that assumes that the power categories made any sense, and ignores the fact that all races done since the last reset will be re-calculated.
You should fully expect to see some old As in Pen B, some B’s as far down as Pen D., some of the old D’s up to Pen C based on the results over the past month. Especially if the anti-tanking works. It’s not clear if the anti-tanking will be implemented in the recalculation or not.
2 Likes
Category Enforcement used zFTP (predicted 60min) and zMAP (predicted 6min) to allocate racers to pens, unless their pure Watts zFTP was under 150; 200; 250 for pens C-A respectively.
I don’t get the affinity for 10 minutes other than needing to do something different from ZR.app. How many max ten minute efforts do we really see in races, or anywhere on Zwift really?
Regardless, looking forward to the new 10-minute categories and seeing how it works out.
3 Likes
Everyone doing ZRL will be doing a 10 min effort on Keith Hill next week and everyone doing the Baseline thing will be doing a 10 min effort up the Grade.
3 Likes
I am in C-pen (the Velomore-rider). Here is a zPower-screendump showing some of the riders I am racing this evening. That is ridiculous! Can you please (!) explain to me, why this line-up represents a fair competition among peers? I am going to get absolutely creamed - as I have been this entire autumn season - by avatars infinitely faster than me. Here is an idea for you: Your category is always based on your past performances (zftp) - no matter how resent or old. Why?: well, your performance characteristics do not change all that much over time, so if you were a B-rider last winter season, you probably still are this winter season. If not, you should have to prove that first. Why you (Zwift) have decided that it should be the other way around and effectively decided to ‘reset’ all riders from season to season, just does not make sense. My C-races are completely ruined and probably will continue to be well into January, when everybody will be back in their old categories. An avatar’s zftp indicates its physical ability and so should determine its category. If you are tactically inept and have difficulty adapting to the Zwift algorithm (=low race score) and the way Zwift-races are won, you can learn. You cannot learn to beat 4.0-avatars as a 3.0-avatar. That will always be an impossible challenge. So, why is it good and fair for me to be given this impossible task all through autumn and early winter? I am a paying customer just like everybody else.
4 Likes
Those are a couple good things for right now but how often do 10 minute efforts actually come up in races? 5 minutes has already proven to be super-accurate. Regardless I hope my negativity is misplaced and the new 10-only algorithm works out well.
As I state: You should have to prove that first. Do a few races in order for Zwift to record your current level. Or: Zwift could allow you to do a ftp-test. That would be the correct and fair way. Race score is pointless. A 3.0 rider with mad tactical skills and jedi-like ability to manipulate the Zwifth algorithm to its fullest potential, still could not beat a 4.0 rider. Just does not happen.
3 Likes
depends on weight and course, if you can maintain staying in the draft and know when to put the power down you can stay with the front, I did the volcano crit a few weeks ago, winner did 3.8wkg, I was 2nd with 3.1wkg and 3rd and 4th both had 3.6wkg and the top 3 were within just over 1s of each other
B-riders (zftp) should not be allowed in CE’d C-pens (zftp). That is the point I am trying to communicate. We even get A-riders in the C-pen these days. It is ridiculous.
4 Likes
there is no such thing as CE now, its racing score range pens
I know! That is the problem!!!
Presumably ZHQ settled on 10m + 30s as best then realized the guy telling them 30s was a bad idea was right and were too far down the rabbit hole to start from scratch and so just ditched the worse metric of the two
2 Likes
10 min “max” effort in a 50+ min hard race is better than nothing, but still not quite the same as a fresh, just warmed up, exact 10 min paced max effort. Also the Grade takes much longer than 10 min for most riders.
But maybe it’s all good anyway: Aalmost no one optimizes their 10 min max power, so almost everyone is leveled down by a similar extent; while when the categories were (indirectly) dictated by 20 min power, who was ever doing a 20 min FTP test was punished hard in comparison to their peers with similar FTP that only cruised in the bunch to get fresh at the final sprint.