I think you make fair points in essence - Under wkg based ranking, heavy riders had a big advantage.
Unfortunately ZRS has gone too far the other way to make many/most heavier riders completely uncompetitive - that would be perfectly fair for hilly races (heavy riders shouldn’t be winning those IMO) but it carries through to most races on Zwift, even the flat courses. It’s a question of tuning rather than fundamentally changing the concept.
Also those heavier riders are not competitive at the top of a ZRS category and if they improve then they get upgraded to the next category to make them even less competitive.
Interested to see what V2 does but initial look at the new scores doesn’t obviously seem to have fixed things - of course, we don’t know if the category boundaries will change too as that could really change things.
I think you get the best racing between evenly matched avatars based on w/kg. Full stop. This becomes evident when I participate in private events such as the winter cup series currently organised by the Danish cycling federation. They have further narrowed the categories and I, personally, race in the 2.8-3.0 (zftp) category. That ensures close racing every time. It really is as simple as that. If I could become a race organiser, I would only organise such events. I am 100% sure, that 9/10 of all zwift racers would prefer such events.
I don’t race - but have unlocked some more power through a bike fit. My 5-10min power is up.
The saddle was too low and my legs were getting fatigued easily. Takes longer to do that now.
I also did an event the other day that had some of the usual A grade crowd in it and went with them for most of it.
Looking at the numbers for racing score this is reasonable. I don’t have a lot of maximum power so any top B probably will outsprint me but I have a chance to burn them if the hill is long enough.
The comedy aspect of my news is … my category remains unchanged for now.
To be fair, I’ve been focusing on lifting the last couple of months, so I’ve not got much recent maximal data to feed the algorithm and no racing data since early September.
some have changed quite a bit but worth waiting until they confirm the reprocessing is done as i’m still seeing riders move around so worth waiting before making judgement.
Did this change affect low-RS accounts stuck at certain scores? A quick and unscientific check of people stuck at RS 11 (or 11 + podium points like my 13), doesn’t show any change as of 13:30 CST on December 4.
The really lightweight riders who don’t have the raw power to keep up on the flats and downhills have long ago chosen not to ride in those events.
The last EDDK race you where in the lightest rider was a 36kg 11 year old. The next lightest was 70kg (who finished last). The vast majority of finishers were 80-100kg. The top 10 were all over 80kg (except for the 11 year old who finished 3rd).
If most of the racers in your event are around the same weight then it’s not surprising that they are similarly matched if they have around the same w/kg.
However, any 60-80kg riders are disadvantaged due to their lack of raw watts. So they stop showing up to races where they compete against people who weigh more and thus have more watts.
Same here. I am back at my score I had yesterday. 526 → 609 → 526 was my journey today.
I do see in past events that I have a lower floor. It was firm at 473, but now I see scores in events that reach 454 and not even hitting the floor with that.
My score hasn’t changed yet, will be interesting to see where it lands.
But let’s all take a moment to appreciate that despite @Ryy saying no reprocessing was likely, that feedback was listened to and they’re doing a full recalculation of everyone’s scores going back to the start of ZRS.
I do not follow your logic. Federation racers are typically quite fit - but simply overweight. It does not naturally follow that lighter riders should be at an disadvantage when it comes to ‘raw power’, as you call it. It is an equation: w/kg! Your avatar’s pace is determined by that - not by your absolute output. As clearly shown by the 11-year-old.
