Tell me the secrets lol!
I enjoy the races either way and they have already started paying off with fitness gains, which is the main thing!
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Zwift has huge draft effect but because of lag between putting out power and it registering you can’t freewheel, that’s the difference.
Zwiftpower.com uses 95% of your best 20 minute power to calculate if you are over Cat limits. So it does not matter if the race is 25 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, or 4 hours. Take your best 20 minute power divided by weight times 0.95. Note Zwiftpower.com does not take into account your normal Zwift riding so they only look at the best 20 minute power during an actual race (so far as I can tell)
If you see an UPG then you exceeded OR you were previously over limits 3 times with an average that puts you in C and once classified as a C rider and joined a D race you will always get a DQ or UPG.
The opposite is almost always true as far as weight goes. For categories based on w/kg heavy riders have an advantage. Think of it this way if you are near the top of your Cat you climb just as fast as a small rider since power to weight is the same. On the flats you have more raw power where raw power counts the most. Yes you dont have as good of a cda but the raw power outweighs this. Also worth noting is that in general bigger guys have a better sprint so taking a Cat win at the line is more likely from a bigger guy and I would bet 90% of races come down to a sprint from a select group. So climbing is even, big guy is better on flats, sprints, and descending.
I just checked the top 6 C Cat racers… 98kg, 85kg, 92kg, 85kg, 85kg, 86kg. Not exactly small climbing types. Top 6 in D Cat 96kg, 97kg, 78kg, 89kg, 112kg, 121kg. Same thing. There are no 55-70kg guys in the top of the C and D Cats. Bottom line is that those guys race a lot and win a lot as big guys in both C and D Cat. It is possible to win and it is not a disadvantage being big (not the case for A Cat).
It takes time to learn how to sit in and draft well in Zwift. When you ride outside the number of visual queues you have are many and online you simply dont have that. Watch you screen and the riders in front of you but also watch their power output on the right side. You may see their power number go before you visually notice it on screen. A very slight delay and creating a small gap has a big effect on stretching the rubber band. Practice practice practice. I used to surge off the front and then drop off the back my fair share as well and still do but much less than my first 8 or 10 races.
Hope this helps.
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I agree with ucdengboss. I laugh a little when I hear larger (than me) riders complain. I’m 144lbs and finish races between 4.1 - 4.3.w/kg for anything under 1 hour. I get absolutely SMOKED on the hills. And it gets worse on the descents. It use to really frustrate me so much being a small lower end A class rider I took a long break from Zwift. I would get dropped so fast and then end up sweet spotting solo to the finish. I recently joined zwift again and have a much better attitude. I go into every race just to see how long I can hang on and when I get dropped I find a group with similar strength and we pull together, it’s actually fun again having no expectations. The truth is we nothing to lose. It’s a game… we can end it and go eat breakfast at anytime.
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Re: Zwiftpower and “real” results, I just looked at my results from yesterday’s TsZ Stage 4 ride (group ride, not the race).
I was doing the stage just to check the box, but was actually doing a TR workout (Kaweah). Needless to say, 5’ @ 95w during recovery intervals doesn’t do much for your placing. 
Anyway, I finished the stage somewhere around mid-pack…in the low 400’s and there were ~900 riders on the stage. Zwiftpower has me finishing the stage in the low-200’s.
I don’t see how anyone can view ZP results as “better” or more reflective of true results when it just erases half of the field simply because they aren’t registered on a site they likely have never heard of.
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You mean average power for the duration?
ZP is better because it has a form of enforcement that Zwift lacks. You are right though not nearly enough are registered. The real solution needs to come from Zwift. Zwift itself needs to have a Zwiftpower type of enforcement in game so we are not forced to go to a 3rd party site that many are not registered for. It really must be at the top of their list rather than expanding another patch or road onto a map. Fingers crossed.
On the good side ZP does have 100k registered users. And let’s not forget that you can always still race in game and ignore ZP if you dont mind the sandbaggers and those that accidentally register for the wrong Cat.
No I mean 95% of best 20 minutes.
I.e. my ftp (1 hour power) comes out at 294, a smidge under 3w/kg if I use the ramp test, a little lower if I use the 20 minute test. But thats because im good at going hard and deep into the well over a shorter time. My genuine best 1 hour power recorded is 255, 2.5w/kg ish. Which puts me right at the top of a cat D.
So for a 10 mile race I can hold say 290w, which gives a 95% of 275w ish and makes me look like a clear Cat C and again is why I’ve now been asked to upgrade as I mainly do the shorter races, which is fine. But If I entered a 40k+ race then my average power would drop a lot and I’d be back looking like a Cat D. I just dont fit that 95% rule of thumb ftp which is used.
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Ah I see.
That reminds me, I’m thinking of doing an hour power test, needs a new thread though.
FWIW the rule applies to everyone so don’t see how it’s an issue. It’s not rare to put out more power in a 20min race than a 60min one regardless. Not many folks with a completely flat power duration curve from 20-60min.
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Agreed 100%…this has been my position all along. ZP is, at best, a band-aid on a gushing wound. It is better than nothing, but it isn’t enough.
And while it is good that ZP has 100K users, how many total subscribers does Zwift have? You are probably talking about well less than 10% of the total subscriber base.
Another example from today…did a group ride (again using TR to control my power) so I entered the C category…ride description said C riders should finish the 60K ride in ~2:45. I was well off the back and I finished in 2:40.
The descriptions are just not even close and likely discouraging to people wanting to try racing.
Call me crazy, but I don’t mind this. ZP is managed by racers for racers. It’s a community and the people who compete regularly are involved and tend to do what they can to help keep things fair and moving in a positive direction. It’s not a huge subset of overall users, just like active racers are a minority of total cyclists IRL.
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Don’t think you’ve really read what I wrote. It’s not so much an “issue”, as they have to apply some kind of rule to group people, but I also dont want to look like im sandbagging a race when im genuinely in that category.
Of course its not rare to put out more power over 20 minutes than 60, everyone should put out more over 20; you’re doing something wrong if you arent! It’s when someone like me who’s power profile has a large drop off between say 20 and 60 minutes, which then crosses you over category boundaries, despite it being genuine.
Sorry if I misunderstood. My point was that 20min power is the determining factor for category, so you are in the correct category. If your 60min power is lower so you struggle in longer events in that category, it’s time to do some sweet spot work and focus on longer power durations in your training. I’m not sure how zp or zwift would go about leveling categories by race duration and power profile to suit everyone. It’s obviously a lively topic as most complaints on the zp and zwift forums around cat guidelines are C/D racers. With the new crit city courses primarily being used for very short events, there’s a lot of B’s upset that they were upgraded and now being destroyed in the A cat.
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Oh I agree, I think its a difficult thing for them to do. It would be nice if they could build some kind of performance based category system, which I assume is how real life bike categorisation works. The reason for my power curve is ive been training for 20k TT’s (sprint triathlons), but I have a 40k TT (olympic tri) this year, so im hoping to close the gap between 20 and 60 min power quite considerably, and would then be a legit Cat C.
I’m a larger rider and have a complaint if I’m allowed to moan 
I can find myself riding next to a lighter rider and we are going along just find, maybe I’m at 3.2w/kg and they are doing say 4.2w/kg.
The “complaint” for me is when we say catch up another rider say doing 2.5-3w/kg, we both approach them at the same speed but he flies by them and I get the sticky bike treatment.
I believe Zwift judges the difference in the riders w/kg and the sticky draft issue occurs because for me the difference is less and I fall foul of what ever algorithm Zwift uses.
The effect is I lose a load of forward momentum and the rider I was pacing with has gone flying ahead.
This is my experience so us heavier riders don’t always get the rub of the green and when we hit inclines, I guess you lighter riders don’t have your very own personal drag chute 
My best move, breaking off the back occurs there always!
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To the OP’s statement (it’s probably already mentioned here, but i’ve not read all the replies).
I don’t think as many are cheating as you think. It is simply that they have put out too much power than they hoped for regarding your category.
In the final results page on zwiftpower these riders going over the powers (w/kg) target should simply show as no position or disqualified etc.
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I will have to pay attention to this. I have not noticed this exact situation and you have me curious. I certainly notice the sticky draft solo passing so I bet this happens and I have just not payed enough attention.
I think some folk are maybe struggling with the use of the term FTP when deciding category on Zwift, and in particular Zwiftpower. How Zwiftpower designate category is your three best 95% of 20 minute efforts performed in races over the last 90 days. It really has nothing to do with your actual FTP.
I’ll use my own as an example:
Average of three best efforts performed during races (95% of 20 min effort) are currently 4.23, 4.23, 4.25, giving an average of 4.24w/kg. This puts me in A category. My actual TP as estimated by Xert is currently 4.67w/kg.
Racing in A category there is no penalty for going over cat limits, so racers aren’t really to bothered about the 20 min efforts. However in the lower cats, if you go over the cat limits in a race by a certain amount, you risk getting an upgrade or DQ, so folk will sometimes sandbag knowing they can go harder, but don’t as they don’t want to risk getting upgraded.
It’s not unusual for heavier B cat riders that put out more raw power to be able to stay with the A cat riders in a mass start flat race, but as soon as the road points upwards, or there’s longer efforts at 5+ w/kg, they either get dropped or back off to stay under the power cut off. I’ve been beaten lots by strong B’s with a big sprint that can hang at 3.8w/kg then blast by in the last few seconds!
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In A, B and maybe C, perhaps. In D, I’d say there are so many riders who are so far off that “struggling” is not the right term - “playing” would be better. While Zwiftpower registration rates for A and B is high (perhaps 70-80%), it’s dysmal in D (like 10-15%), and category adhesion is absurd (like the top 20% performing way into C category area, and the top 5% in B).
Zwift does not help, by pure laisser-faire, publishing race results that clearly demonstrate they don’t care. An amusing example: I ended 29th of the D cat in the current Tour de Zwift stage race I did this morning, out of approx 90 riders, a number that was visible throughout the race; passing the line, I get a wonderful announcement that “you have finished in the top 18% of 200 racers” - not sure where those 110 came from, they were not on the road, and are not in the results either. And of course, of the 90-ish, 17 are listed on Zwiftpower, the balance (of 90 or 200, pick your choice) being either non-existent, unregistered or disqualified.
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