I’m in the “meh” category as far as caring about accurate grouping of racers on Zwift. It’s nothing like real life racing. Typically I judge my results just by my own power numbers and the volume of sweat on the mat below me. That’s all I can really control.
yeah, it’s pretty clear to 95% of the people at least I bet, but everyone always tries to paint it with a benefit of the doubt brush, because no one wants to just come out and say that a big part of the user base are pricks.
I really like these changes, and it’s about time they do something. I’m to the point where I only go by zwift power and don’t even care about the actual results on zwift, but it still tilts my inner justice censor when I scroll past a dozen C’s putting out 3.7+ w/kg in a field of 40, to get to my name and what was actually a 2nd place finish.
The other thing they really need to do is stop mass starting everyone. It really sucks for the C’s and D’s because every race is exactly the same. Go all out for the first couple minutes to get on and stay with the A/Bs, then stick as long as possible, finish solo or with 1 or 2 people, then check zwift power to see if you won. The races where they don’t mass start everyone are so much more fun.
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I’m gonna date myself and admit to a nerdy past, but the Halo 2 matchmaking system from like 2007 or whatever, applied to Zwift, would be incredible. No more self catagorization; you’re always placed against people who would provide you a challenge.
EDIT: I think another problem is that, well what is ‘fair?’ Is an A group ‘fair’ to you if you’re at 4.3w/kg against people at 4.9? Well you’re probably always going to lose, but you’re in the ‘correct’ category. That makes the ‘fair’ discussion quite tricky. Let alone the fact that lower FTP riders can and do win against higher FTP riders ‘in the real world,’ and high FTP riders can absolutely use their fitness (fairly) to counter some weaknesses in efficiency.
I don’t put too much stock in Zwift racing, especially when trying to compare it to IRL racing. It’s fun for what it is, but take it too seriously and be dissapointed.
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While there is certainly cheating in forms of power manipulation, racing down category, weight doping, etc., I think people need to recognize that some of it is honest lack of knowledge. This group is at the upper end of users, since we sweat stupid power differences to the watt. But you must realize we are at the fringe.
Many people who are stepping into Zwift with Virtual Power, a smart trainer and rarely a power meter don’t even really understand “what power is” beyond the most basic level. I predict that there are many more people that don’t even realize that smart trainers need calibration to make them accurate. I know lots of local riders that have never calibrated, let alone know that there are potential firmware updates for their devices.
They also don’t have a real frame of reference to know the difference between 100, 200, 500 watt efforts. The dunce alerts in Zwift can help, but they really have little clue that their efforts may be artificially inflated.
The most recent explosion of new users who are likely even more removed from this power world only makes the “innocent victim” issue worse. I just caution against painting “cheaters” with the same brush, since it is likely a range of reasons and backgrounds that lead to these results.
To that end, education is also a key aspect that could be worth time, at least for the people you can influence, to try and improve the whole racing experience.
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Yeah I totally agree. To me it’s just kinda curious that they spend so much time and money on marketing specifically on the racing, but seemingly can’t be arsed to come up with a better concept in the actual product.
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I’m gonna call myself out here, but could see many, especially new racers falling into this category. I have never raced on zwift until about 2 weeks ago. I’m level 37, so I’ve logged over 8200 miles. Like outdoor racing, I chose to start at a lower cat to see how to do it. I joined a C race during the Tour of Watopia and averaged 3.7 w/kg. At the time I did it, I didn’t see anything wrong with it, particularly because I came in 9th. However, after getting dq’ed by zwift power and noticing that the bottom 15-50 people were over 3 minutes behind positions 1-15, I realized this wasn’t right. However, the racing of the top 15 was in that event was good, so I can see how folks might want to continue ignoring the frustration of the positions 15-50, especially if they aren’t signed up for zwift power and don’t know they are being dq’ed. I think this change is necessary to keep people honest.
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This brings up a major issue. Anyone racing bikes IRL knows that the vast majority of cyclists will never, ever win a race. Even as they move up through categories many will never take the top step.
Unfortunately, I don’t think this logic translates to the general public when played out in what is essentially a video game. Many feel that they should have a “fair” shot at winning and that they’re due a win at some point. These people will likely never be happy with the categories and will be the first to complain about cheats.
FWIW I think zwiftpower and the racing community do a pretty good job of keeping things fun and “fair” for what they have to work with. And kudos to all of the entry level A cat racers. Those guys have it by far the worst and I can see the draw of sandbagging in the Bs being strong 
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This 
For me this is the main point to remember. It’s just a video game. Real riding doesn’t have power-ups and other things like that. This is despite it being a very good / fun / enjoyable / entertaining / rewarding experience for a lot of people. I observe that in most things in life, the majority play fair and behave reasonably, whereas conversely, a minority take things too seriously / too far and end up spoiling the fun for everyone else … which then leads to more rules, more process and that just sucks the fun out of it even more.
Not to split hairs, but I think those are rides, not races. Are there people trying to make it a race? Sure. Are big group rides a total s show? Always (real life and zwift). Winning a zwift ride is like winning the weekend group ride.
I’m not saying it’s not fun to treat a Zwift ride or outdoor “Charity” ride as a race and smash it. I just don’t think it’s reasonable to tightly police these kind of events. Particularly in Zwift where you have zpower and different equipment, etc., it’s just going to ruin the fun for the masses if you start adding complexity and rules.
I think they should just focus on policing the actual races. ZwiftPower has done a decent job of that and the big missing piece was kicking people out mid-race when they are violating their category. Sounds like Zwift is going down that path, so maybe the 2 of these together will work.
I personally find zwift racing to have way less sand bagging than real life racing (at least for the B category).
I don’t see why they don’t adopt a real world system where people progress up to the next category by gaining points over a season. Once you reach X points you are automatically moved to the next category, and can’t choose a lower one.
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- For this most recent ToW, there were both.
- They had “rides” that were not scored, like all the prior tours.
- But they also had official “races” that were scored.
Tour of Watopia had both Group ride and Race options. They were distinct, with different distances for Races.
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yea a typical ladder system w/ seasons would be freakin sweet and may make me more likely to re-sign up on zwift at come point in the future… just like in so many other online games that have pvp capabilities…
I’d imagine it’s because they want users to be able to jump right in on day one and enjoy their race. I started last year and hopped right in an A race which was where I should be.
With no bike handling involved and minimal drafting effect vs IRL, racing is all about fitness so fitness works pretty well to determine where you should race. Lower category racing wouldn’t be much fun with the volume of users constantly starting up on zwift and destroying legitimate C or D cat racers who likely won’t progress.
IRL racing this works because the volume of participants is nowhere near comparable.
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The weakness here for Zwift events is that you need a pretty substantial pool of competitors at the same time in order to make reasonably-balanced matches. This would be doable for some of the super popular Zwift races that have hundreds of participants, but hard for smaller events.
This certainly seems like the sort of thing they could implement and a good solution, though potentially less appealing to casual participants.
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The whole thing is tricky. For instance, I raced my first race a few days back after a few weeks off the bike. I worked hard, took 7th out of about 45 in the C group, and apparently averaged a 3.2w/kh. Zwift power has me at a B. I’ll do B from now on, but I will not be competitive. In the C group, I made the break, but then got dropped out of it.
Anyway, I guess point being: if I do further racing in Zwift, I will be on the tail end of the field. I don’t have a solution for this, but it’s not super fun just knowing, “Oh, you’re a little too good for this, so now you need to lose over here forever.”
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I often wonder if drafting in zwift is too effective. You get dropped off the front group to never have a chance of getting back. There is really little chance of bridging groups if you missed a break.
My bad, I didn’t realize they started including races in those events. Are they like the rides with hundreds of racers or more like the typical non-zwift races?
Filtered list of “tour of watopia 2020 race”, sorted by most to least
Here are the first two pages, many with hundreds of racers each.
One of the biggest issues (other than miscalibrated trainers) is ZPower. Take a look at Vegan Cyclist’s livestream with Jeff from NorCal Racing. These races are basically motor paced! You can’t attack because the people on speed sensors and dumb trainers will stay in front of the group at 6.5 or 7WKG without breaking a sweat while they pace the group up to you.
This completely kills strategy games and forces you to stay behing these motorcycles until the sprint… no long bombs allowed.
This may be OT, but Zwift is trying to give everyone a fair shot to compete with similarly fit Zwifters, it is only fair that people with real power don’t race with people that supposedly have a 550W FTP while riding on dumb trainers.
I mean… kudos to everyone that rides indoor… but come on! Don’t mix apple and oranges!
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