I have 77% I don’t know if thar is high or not? Im a mid B rider with perhaps 2-3 top 3 results in 200+ races… don’t feel like Im sandbagging or having good race tactics 
The one thing I don’t understand in this whole discussion is why people who have the physical capability of being in higher categories are actually proud of winning in category D. That sounds utterly ridiculous.
I will probably end up in category A soon and I fully understand, that I will never ever again win a race. I‘m not even winning races in category B, even though I am now more or less “comfortably” (as in I am confident I can hang on to the front group and then fall off my Kicke bike at the end) finishing in the first group.
Would I prefer winnings lots of Cat B races or being in Cat A? Well being in Cat a obviously.
And now you get people bragging about Cat D wins? People pouring time and effort into winning races in a category that for most other people is the starting point of their fitness journey? I‘m sorry, but that’s like going to one of those retirement home fitness classes and then bragging about being the fittest person around. Embarrassing.
Now to get this whole thing back to the point. Punch rating. Especially people saying a higher punch rating is better. In real life racing, if your “punch rating” for a particular race was higher than your competitor‘s, that actually means you are a very inefficient racer. Why would you repeatedly go into the red and then coast again, if you could just smooth out your effort, making it much easier on your body?
And if your punches don’t put you in the red, then what the hell are you doing not forcing a selection? Why wait for the final sprint where things could go wrong, if you are clearly much stronger than the rest of the field?
Just drop all the big, fast guys up the next hill, work with some of the lighter guys and put them in the red for their pulls and then win a small group sprint. Or even solo to the finish.
So yeah, this punch rating seems really weird to me…
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I’m a B (and used to be near the top of the category, but am not any more with the new category limits). I podium a lot of B races even though I generally come in with the lowest watts and lowest wkg of anyone in the top 10 (I’ve gotten very good at drafting and very good at timing sprints–won a sprint yesterday in a field of 20 and beat a guy to the line who did 2 wkg more than me in the sprint and weighed the same). The reason I don’t move up to A is because there are hardly ever any people racing A, at least at the time I race (we’ll have 20-40 Bs and something like 4-6 As).
As to your comments about punch, with the previous pack dynamics I typically had a huge punch. This is because on the flats I could easily sit in with a B field at about 3.2 wkg or below (plus B racers tend to know not to go pull hard at the front on flats). Then I’d smash it up any little kicker to try to get separation. This was leading to astronomical punch values, but wasn’t really reflective of the difficulty of the race, because if a race was near 3.9 wkg my punch would drop to 0. With the new pack dynamics, however, I’ve found the punch values to be a lot lower, at least at this point in the season, because its much harder to stay with a raging pack, and there are a lot more attacks off the front (even on flat ground) than there used to be. It’s actually been really fun–the racing is so much better than last year–but my legs are quite sore from this week :).
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The CAPABILITY of having a high punch % (without suppressing your 20min power artificially) is highly valuable in a race, as races typically have a few key points where things get much harder than the race average - and if you can’t stay with the group there, you’re dropped. For me personally, I usually have a 90-100% punch % on Zwiftpower if I’ve been racing a bit - but I do iTT’s & climbing races as well, and my in-game 90 day 20min max is usually very close to my actual capability. But I still have high punch% because of how my body works (can generally surge and recover to higher average than cycling steady)
Yes, this is changed by training to a point - but there’s an individual/genetic component as well, as this has been consistent for me for a long time relative to teammates & competition in several sports.
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Agreed, the individual/genetic element is what makes racing fun. If everybody had the same strengths it would be pretty boring.
My strength is the ability to repeat high intensity efforts in a race. E.g give me 8 laps of Glasgow Crit or Downtown Dolphin and I can wear down the endurance riders lap after lap. My ability to punch is high and I use this to my advantage based on course knowledge.
I have a lot of fun as a Puncheur. I can bridge gaps, mark breakaways, start breakaways, and help the chase group get back on.
But don’t ask me to hold FTP for 30mins in a hill climb or flat race. It hurts, is not fun, and I would rather do something else.
While I could improve my endurance, research shows it comes at a cost to explosive anaerobic power and I’m not interested in becoming an all rounder.
High punch or variability can indicate sandbagging on flat races or hill climbs since a rider should be on the limit if matched correctly vs competition.
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I would be so proud of myself just by faring well In Cat A !! I’ve started Zwifting on October 23 in Cat D, mainly doing the “Back to Fitness” workout. Then I felt confident for racing. Not even knowing the term “sandbagging”, I went all-in in all my races, increasing my ranking each time and I was proud of moving into Cat C soon enough, where I’m suck for a couple of months… I see improvement, but at a real smaller pace then Cat D… So I feel I’m actually at the right Cat. But when I’m racing, if I don’t stay 40-50 min in Z4, I’m getting dropped from the head group and I have real difficulty understanding how people can stay in front group being at Z2-z3!? I’m 181cm/78kg and race around 3,1wkg… So I guess I need a lot more training so I can lower my HR while still delivering 3,1 wkg ?? Well, my goal is to stay in shape for RL events and loose some extra weight on to way. I don’t care too much about winning but it pains me to discover here the notion of sandbagger that could ruin the statistical fun part of Zwift.
One more thing. As a Z4 racer, my Punch never went higher than 40% and frankly I never paid attention to this stat until yesterday when I saw it suddenly at 43%. This is why I came here on this post to understand the stat and what could have happened. Is it possible that non-race are also affecting the Punch?? Because yesterday I went on a Pacer-Group run with a robot pacer at 2.6 wkg, which is below my 3,1wkg capacity. I did it on purpose so I could stay with the robot and still achieving good intermediate sprints results all the way… So I guess that all those intermediate sprints that I won had an immediate effect on my Punch percentage. If it’s the case, this metric has not much value as you can be sandbagging really easily in Group Pacer as you are free to choose your Robot Pacer level…
Also, I’ve never realized that being in Cat A would result in having less contestants for races. It’s a bit sad having to restrain yourself in order to lower in Cat B, because of the current Cat mechanism…
Focus on improving short-term power, like 1-5 minutes. Keep in mind that you can approach 3.5W/kg 20 minute power and remain in C (or even more if the rider is very light weight) so riders with that capability, plus decent short-term power, will be having a much easier time given the current category system. Your ability to repeatedly do short surges will help you stay in the draft better, and do lower average power in races. Being a crafty drafter also helps in most events. If you are ever on the front of the group, ask yourself why you are there. There needs to be a reason. Do not close gaps that someone else will close for you.
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I don’t agree at all actually. I see that as one of the new myths in Zwift today (it came with CE basically). Thread after thread, people ask for help on how to stay with the front group or how to do better in races and everyone always tells them to A) draft better, and B) work on their 3 min power.
A is complete BS in my book since drafting decently isn’t hard at all and everybody is already doing that intuitively, more or less, and since drafting flawlessly is basically impossible anyway because of pack physics (no collisions etc). Let’s not spend time on it. Let’s keep it to ‘In case you for some inexplicable reason hadn’t already figured out, don’t sit at the front if you can avoid it’ (duhh…).
B, the 3 min cliché, is the interesting part. The thing is, I suspect that telling Z4 racers, struggling in some regard, to work on their 3 min could quite possibly be the worst advice you could give them.
The Z4 racers are on the limit already and the surges they need to keep up with rarely if ever require a 3 min effort. Sure, the surge may last 3 min, but that is not the same as a 3 min effort in terms of the power curve, or what you would get from doing lots of workouts targeting the 3 min. Far from. The 3 min on the power curve is an all out effort, something you can barely pull off for 3 horrible minutes. (Before getting dropped, since then you’re toast.) Every point on the power curve is an all out effort, right there in that time frame.
No, what the Z4’s need is simply an old boring higher FTP. A higher FTP means you can sit with the pack at a more leisurely effort level at march speed. That will enable you to handle the surges because now there is some leeway under the curve. Which the guy doing Z2-Z3 in the same group already has. Loads of leeway. What is he even doing there? (Well, in Patrick’s new cat there is nowhere else to go so it’s fine).
There is also another danger with the 3 min advice. Work too much on it and it might reshape your curve and not just around the 3 min mark. It might even lower your FTP, the last thing you want in that situation. You might turn punchier and as a consequence less enduring.
Recovery speed is always nice, always comes in handy. But you don’t necessarily improve that by trying to improve your 3 min. You’d need to target it specifically.
I said in the beginning ‘everyone’ is telling them to work on their 3 min. That’s probably not true. I would assume it is rather just the guys who already do fairly well in their cat (and therefore feel they can speak up and give advice) and who have no real trouble hanging in there until the finish line. And then maybe they don’t win still. From their perspective, an improved 3 min, in relative terms, might do wonders for their results. It’s all they miss, that and a better sprint. But that is from a very privileged position that doesn’t apply to someone in the low’ish end of a new cat or someone new to racing altogether. The people asking for advice don’t get that, and the ones giving the advice don’t seem to get that either, but they are all talking past each other about two different things, two completely different situations.
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Regarding FTP, I agree when the rider has bottom-of-category power but that’s not the case with Patrick. In fact it looks like he’s been doing well in C and his 20 min power is good for C category. If his 20 minute power were much better he’d be in B. Based on his results I would say he’s a bit like me and needs a route with some hills to make up for a relatively poor sprint.
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Another possibility is a lack of punch meaning that instead of a 5 second dig at 10wkg to close a gap or change position, some riders might need to do a 2 minute dig at 4wkg to achieve the same thing. The latter is so much more draining than the former.
I did notice when comparing Patrick’s ride to my own on the same course that his first 3 or 4 minutes looked much harder than mine. The races were similarly paced overall.
Yeah and exactly how people conduct themselves in the race matters a lot. The decisions they make, how alert they are, how well they modulate their power, whether they do the minimum to maintain position or if they waste effort by riding harder than the minimum but not hard enough to overtake. I see all those things done well or badly in events, and mistakes are fatal if you don’t have a surfeit of power to make up for it. I don’t think everyone is doing a pretty good job of drafting intuitively as Andreas said. People close gaps they shouldn’t close, they unnecessarily let gaps open up that they have to close, they ride on the front out of exuberance, they go flying out the front when chasing back on which often incites a surge at the front at an inopportune time. I see all of these things in races all the time. People bring their outdoor riding intuition to Zwift and have a lot of unlearning to do because of how weird it is.
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Thanks for all your replies that I find well thought, David, Paul and Andreas…
@David_Galbraith if you look at my last race, I was spinning in the warmup without looking at my screen so I missed the start and I had to sprint hard to come back at the gear group, silly me !
@Paul_Southworth Yes I think I’m faring not too bad in C thank you. That’s what is nice, there’s room for improvement in C still… In fact, I’m best on flat… When it’s getting steep for too long, I’m getting dropped. On short raises, I can manage to keep the pace by standing up for a short time while I’m passing the hill on the “same swing” Maybe that’s where I need more practice instead of 3min surge… I like also your analysis about how people manage their positioning during the race … And when I think back about my last race, I was culprit on some of the flaws of novice Zwift virtual rider. When I see big climb, I tend to time the power up to gain advantage before getting dropped, but doing so, I was urging head group to up the pace to get back to me, while my goal was not to make a gap but just prevent being dropped. You make me realize that I’m juste forcing the pace, not helping me already topped on Z4!!
@Andreas_Traff like always your comments are precise and I rely on your conclusion that working my FTP (and loosing weight!) In order to improve in my Cat. For sure, I aim at Cat B, and all your comments will help me towards that. Thanks you very much!
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The reason people say you should draft better and improve your three minute power to improve your race results is that an improved three minute power allows you to keep your avatar in those positions in the group that are the most efficient. That is is because the most efficient place to put your avatar is right at the back of the group most of the time, but back there you always have an increased chance of getting dropped if you react slowly to other riders attacks. A solid 3 min power though, allows you to react to those moves (or the natural attacks that happen on short inclines) and stay in the group.
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I already had a good three minutes one year ago but now my races are a lot easier. I improved my endurance (Xert ltp went from 200w to 227w)… and now I can use my 3 minutes power to make others suffer. Last year I couldn’t use it because I always was riding close from my treshold, so I often got exhausted before even being able to attack or do some move.
You have to build strong foundations (high ftp) and strong walls (high punch) to be able to defend yourself in a race.
It takes us back to the classics : endurance + high intensity efforts.
I don’t agree with that either. 
If you need a good 3 min max effort to hang onto the pack from the back, then it’s hardly the optimal position. Even with excellent recovery, as even an effort as possible (when you are not the scheming pace setter yourself) should always be optimal from a physiological standpoint. I prefer to be embedded and to stay away from any waists in a larger group (something you don’t always get to choose because of how Zwift shapes groups in the pack model, plus what you see on the screen isn’t always what you’re getting anyway).
Speaking of, though, I don’t like the new pack dynamics, but I’ve noticed a quirk that wasn’t there before, neither with the previous model nor with the one before that (the old rubberbandy one that the new model has partly reverted to). There is indeed something weird going on at the back of the pack. If you are riding in Z4 and are panicking/thinking hard about letting yourself drop… and you do start to drop slowly… then there is a bit of a slingshot mechanism that can be exploited. You slide through the pack towards the rear end and just when you are starting to lose contact with the group it’s like there is a suction effect just off the back that lets you reconnect more easily than it would have been to stay in the original (embedded) spot or when connecting from behind from the start. Sure, you did get a wee bit of recovery sliding back, but it can’t fully explain this effect. There is something more going on. And it sure ain’t realistic. (Peloton draft effects have been studied experimentally on models in windtunnels - with no wind the ideal spot is towards the back but fully embedded.)
That’s exactly it! You need the foundation or you can’t stay with the front group. Then you need something on top to bruise them, but that’s a different story.
But it’s almost like when people talk about the mystical 3 min that they forget that everybody has one. I mean, we do. Everyone has a 3 min. It might not be good, but it’s there. Only if you are racing in Z4 (while some others in the front group aren’t), then you do not have access to your theoretical 3 min. What you can access at that point is something lower and (in terms of Watts) closer on the curve towards e.g. your 20 min. So even if the surge doesn’t last long, your Watts could be more like your theoretical 10 min or something. And I’m not even sure literally working on your 3 min is helpful at all here. If, instead, you improve your zFTP (or whatever, something longer) to the point that you are no longer in Z4 as much, then even if your 3 min didn’t move at all as your curve got reshaped, you will still be able to draw on more of those 3 min Watts, whatever they were to begin with, during a surge than before.
So best avoid mentioning the magical 3 min unless people specifically ask for help on how to podium from a usually comfortable position in the front group. And even then it might be a bad idea. It might be far too sloggy. Isn’t it rather the sprint that is missing?
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“3 minutes” is just meathead shorthand for the type of effort around the duration where anaerobic and aerobic capacity intersect. the actual duration probably varies from person to person and the duration itself is probably even trainable to some small extent, i wouldn’t know for certain since i just skim read the papers and let other people correct me on the details
i guess if you had to pick one interval and forget every other then it’s a pretty useful one. it’s not the type of interval i would pick
[quote=“Ned Bowen [DRAFT] 
, post:73, topic:505743, username:Edward_Bowen”]
That is is because the most efficient place to put your avatar is right at the back of the group most of the time, but back there you always have an increased chance of getting dropped if you react slowly to other riders attacks.
[/quote]
I never sit in the back of the pack. I sit towards the front but not on the front. This allows me to react to surges without having to ramp up the power and I think its vastly more efficient than yo-yoing off the back.
Case in point, in my last race, which included the Volcano climb, I finished with the front A group. The lowest 5 minute power of anyone in the group was 5.0 wkg. I did 4.7 and I was not the heaviest rider so my raw watts were lower too. The lowest 20 minute power of the front group was 4.2 wkg. I did 4.0. The lowest 1-minute power was 6.0 wkg. I did 5.8. I tend to think of myself as very good at drafting (despite @Andreas_Traff saying such a thing doesn’t exist), and I have scores of races with similar values to back this up. But I never go to the back of the peloton. I always try to stay just a few wheels off the front and maintain position except when approaching any kicker or climb, in which case I briefly drop to the back of the group, then spike my power a little so that I’m moving up through the group with momentum, so I hit the base of the climb with more speed than the pack, which allows me to then do less work than the pack to get up and over the rise. (I literally did at least 4% less work than anyone else in the front group both in wkg and in raw watts, and I was only reporting the minimum values).
i sit on the back and the zgp guys i see in races, not all of them but most of them, also sit on the back. practical reasons:
- you dont have steering and want to ensure your guy isnt pushed out to the side
- you dont want to think about drafting
- you can see everyone else, but they cant see you
- it is, apparently, best by test. i wouldnt know, but i do tend to copy what the better guys are doing when i see them around, ned himself being one of those guys, zgp riders being among others etc and keep whatever works
the downside to sitting on the back is that you’re sitting on the back
incidentally, p5, who i have been trying to out draft all winter and failing every time, is consistently better than me at it. he also sits on the back, he just sits on the back better than i sit on the back
edit: p6. he doesnt do anything special, he just does everything right. there’s prolly guys out there better than him too. even when the idea is simple, actually doing it right 100% of the time isn’t
Sometimes staying at the back can be dangerous. Too riders do it because most of the time they know their power is enough to fill the gap if they need. But when you are not as good you may be better in 4th or 5th place, or in second line in big packs.
I hang out at the back in B races because I know I can fill any gap.
In A races or high level E races I don’t hang at the back because it is dangerous for me…
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that’s the downside… but over time, you learn where the right time to move up is, or when the guy in front of you is about to let the wheel go, stuff like that.
i am the same, so i still don’t mind giving up .2 or .3wkg for peace of mind sometimes, but even with probably 1300+ events of practise there’s plenty of people out there who know the game better than me, or they are braver in these situations, or they rely on their physical ability less. the other guy in my picture was a B cat last time i looked and the screenshot is from a zrl A2 race. brave guy haha
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