Hello Friends!
It’s been a little while since I’ve updated you all here about the goings on with the ZwiftRacing.app project and, as Season 3 at ZR has just begun, it feels like the right time to catch everyone up!
If you don’t know, ZwiftRacing.app is a result-based categorization project that has been going since last Fall bringing a new approach to how to provide the most fun and fair racing on the Zwift platform. Rather than 4 broad categories based on a single power-based value, riders are assigned a rating in one of 10 categories based on a modified version of Compound Score and then, after every race, a system called vELO adjusts your rating up or down depending on how you performed relative to expectation. This project is not affiliated with Zwift or any plans they may have.
So, what is new with Season 3?
Ranking Points
Prior to now, your ranking was determined solely by your vELO rating (the number that adjusts with every race). Starting with Season 3, you will now be ranked amongst the riders in your category by a new points framework that awards points to finishers of all races depending on: the strength of the field, the route that was raced and how long it took. The points system has been designed thoughtfully to encourage people to race up rather than “sandbag” by generally offering more points for finishing mid-pack of a pen B race as opposed to winning the pen C in the same event.
New Categories
With 6-8 months of experience under our belts, myself and the other ZR contributors set about re-defining the category ranges to: reduce the total categories to 10 to fit them all into 2 events and try evening out the rider populations.
NOTE: Even if your assigned category changed as a result of the above, your rating did not (unless it met the below criteria)
vELO Rating Adjustments
Some people may see that their vELO rating to start Season 3 doesn’t match what it was at the end of Season 2. Ratings were adjusted for riders who fit into these 2 scenarios:
vELO rating less than zrCS (our modified compound score algorithm)
Riders here have had their vELO updated to match their current zrCS. We’ve made a change to how vELO reacts to a new zrCS value (result of a new 5m PB) so this will sync these riders with that change.
vELO rating greater than 300 above zrCS
A small minority of riders have had their rating decreased to zrCS+300. These were people who won races very frequently (and gained podium bonus rating as a result) and, since that podium bonus has been removed for riders with a vELO rating more than 300 above zrCS, we made the decision to move these riders rating down to match. The hope is that it puts these riders in a category they can reasonably be competitive with.
If you’d like to try a race using the ZR vELO platform, go to the website and you’ll see events listed on the right side of the homepage. DRS is running a summer series in the Atlantic and EMEA time zones.
The site can be found at: zwiftracing.app
Race On,
Tim