I have not raced yet, joined Zpower which shows I am a Cat D but close C only because I almost died trying to catch up which inflated my results from my latest group ride. Now I am locked out of Cat D group races with the group I just joined and can only do C. I have only been riding for a couple weeks, doing achievements,… ideas on why it would put me in Cat C?
Zwift category enforcement will look at all your pass performance and use that to calculate your category.
So do I have to go in and lose some Cat C races then to get my ranking put lower, or am I SOL and stuck in Cat C when I haven’t even turned a wheel in a race yet? Thanks
Zwift category enforcement take your best 60 performance.
If racing doesn’t go well after 60days you will be back in D.
Once you start racing you will enjoy C category and improve quickly.
3 Likes
Thank you for the info.
If you’ve only been in the game a short time, there is a chance that the decision to put you in C was based on incomplete data. The system uses your best effort in a variety of durations. You can see that on your profile on the zwift.com website. Go to My Feed, then My Profile, then click More Info. Look at the various durations and think about whether they are accurate reflections of your abilities. Your category can be inflated if you have low values in the short duration efforts but a strong effort at the longer durations. A symptom will be that your zFTP is predicted at much higher than your actual FTP. If that’s what happened, go smash some 3-5 minute efforts and then see if the zFTP value goes down. You might drift down into D. In any case, if you’re on the edge between D and C, then it won’t be a huge surprise to end up in C. That might be where you belong.
(I feel your pain - I ended up in B for a while right after I started using Zwift, before my first race)
1 Like
Your 20min power is well inside the cat C boundary (closer to B than D actually) so I would expect C is probably the correct category.
7 Likes
I placed 3rd in my first ever race, and in Cat C today, I am thinking I am definitely in the correct category.
4 Likes
Seems I go from mid D and + times to near last place in C. I don’t think I will improve THAT much so I swallow my pride? I will be 74 years old soon. Even saw C rider ranked when I was UPG and I finished just bit behind him.