I for one enjoy the Zwift races and I often substitute a hard training session for a race. I do chuckle to myself at times when you see some of the numbers people apparently make…just look at the Strava KOMs as an example.
Create a ZwiftPower account. Log into your Zwift account and opt-in to ZP. They’ll need permission to access you Zwift events. I think that’s it.
Did a Crit Race today, category D. This has been covered already but it was a good example of how racing in the lower divisions is frustrating.
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Averaged 241 W, 2.5 W/kg. Went full gas for most of the race and did my best to stay in or near the lead group. Worked the draft and used every tactic I know to stay with the leaders. Got dropped a couple times and could not find an extra fear to close the gap. Even forgot I had a water bottle like a real Crit.
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Finished 20th out of 62. Respectable. But wait, 15 of top 20 averaged 3.0W/kg or more. Two people averaged >4.0W/kg. Winner at 4.6W/kg and no HR data. No one above me averaged less than 2.8W/kg and I finished with those racers. I know there would be a couple people in the wrong category but I did not expect it to be 1/3 of the race.
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Checked Zwift Power. First. Gold medal. Yeah. But it didn’t feel like a win, even a virtual win. It would have been much more enjoyable to race only people in the same category and use tactics and fitness. What it almost felt like was a 20 minute FTP test.
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Solution - keep using TR, get faster and race in higher divisions with less sandbagging. Or Zwift can turn on a switch and only allow you to enter races in your category or above. On to Antelope tomorrow.
- Unless you plan to live and race in the A group, you may want to change that assumption.
As a 3.8+ w/kg rider (256w FTP @ 66kg) theoretically towards the top half of the B group rating, I get destroyed by “B” riders and a disappointing number of “C” riders that catch up to or exceed what I do in the races. I’ve been in the top half of the B standings in the end, when more than one group of “C” riders closed a several minute start stagger, or worse when I get dropped from an even start setup where "C"s hang with the A’s for the deciding splits.
I do have the issue of having a decent w/kg, but low pure power compared to larger riders, so I suffer more on the flatter and even rolling events. It takes the climbs up the KOM’s before I can really hang where it might seem I should be in the category.
Point being, that you can expect to get schooled by many riders from any and all categories no matter where you are… unless you occupy the rare air of the “real A” riders. Those people have different conditions with no real sand bagging possible since they are in the top rung (ignoring pros and the like).
There has been enough chatter on this issue, and with Zwift’s clear intentions to make racing a priority (counter to how they handled it for the for the first 3 years… ignoring it and leaving it to groups like ZwiftPower to regulate). They have LOTS to fix, but I can’t see them ignoring this for much longer considering their clear aspirations.
You’re proving the point that Zwiftpower, while being a nice endeavor, is not what’s needed. Its like a nice cowboys club in the Wild West.
My twin!!!
Your point about Zwift getting forced into fixing this issue is excellent…they got a crapload of VC money for the eSport division. The financial reality is that they HAVE to fix this issue now.
As I said above I was on zwift for about 2 years and in the end it was this issue that made me quit zwift (about 2 years ago I think - about a month after alpe de zwift was launched). If zwift will actually take the issue seriously and try to solve/fix this issue then I’d certainly consider trying zwift again as i did enjoy it.
Some serious posts in this thread. Racing in Zwift is akin to war in Call of Duty, it’s not real, treat it as a fun workout and you won’t be upset. If you want to really see how you stack up against your cycling peers, enter a real race/event outdoors.
When I play Call of Duty I expect the PlayStation Network to keep hackers out, anyone using a mouse and keyboard, etc. and to have a level playing field.
Money talks…SMH.
I think I might have mentioned above and elsewhere, and I stand by this: this handwaving done by a lot of folks is kind of a cop out to improve the racing system. I don’t disagree that it’s a fun workout, I did a race this morning while doing 4x20’s (of course I know I get dropped during rest intervals, no big deal lol). But as long as there are folks who want to compete with zwift for whatever reason, we owe it to them to make the system more fair.
I thought of a good analogy this morning. Back in elementary school we used to play football (american football) at recess. And there were a couple of classmates who would always stack their team with the better players. It was all a game at recess, but it still sucked to have peers make it anti-competitive. Zwift racing is the same, it’s all a game but the sandbagging makes it less fun for all.
When you have Dave Towle commentating on a Zwift race, it’s certainly going in the right direction. No sandbagging here, and the efforts were certainly very real🤮
At least if there was automatic results-based categorization, the cheaters would end up racing against other cheaters, and leave us honest low-performers flounder together in the lower cats.
That was a fun one @AndyGajda I didn’t realize there was commentary.
I was cooked going into that one from a morning SS workout. Tough right from the start. I ended up capping it at threshold and letting the leaders go when they punched it on the climb. I wish I’d known about it ahead of time and I might have switched around a workout to have a chance at mixing it up. Nice thing with zwift, there’s always another race tomorrow… or in 15min 
I agree with Bbt67. Aside from the issues with e-doping or sanbagging, if this was a 25 minute race, you should expect that people are going to be able to ride higher than their FTP. You should be able to hold your FTP for longer than 25mins. Of course, this doesn’t consider that if you draft a lot than you will be going faster than if you rode solo at your FTP.
I’m doing my first race on there - a TT on Zwift tomorrow, part of the Tri Academy thing.
Any tips? There’s no drafting (I assume that means you just don’t get the benefit, rather than you have to keep your distance), and I don’t much care about the result.
I knew I’d have no chance on the climb so went for TV time on the flat, then got gracefully dropped!! I wish I had gone a little deeper on the hill though as I could have picked up a few more places!!
Not much to do in a TT besides get a good warm up and measure your effort just like IRL. The drafting and pack physics in zwift is where the game comes into play and experience can beat strength more times than not.
How do you know which races are being streamed?
You can check the Zwift Community Live Facebook/website/twitch and it’ll usually tell you when they are going live👍