Totally this ... as I said earlier I think, there are some C riders (and I'm sure B too) that win every race they enter and yet stay firmly in the C boundary limit. They cruise for 99% of the race, then outsprint everyone with 15 w/kg sprints lol They tend to pick flatter courses so (and I could be wrong) I think they will still be able to game the system as they don't work that hard in races.
It will be much harder to game the new system without using multiple Zwift IDs though, as this encompasses all Zwift activity barring workouts. And once you start going to that sort of length to win, you might as well use a drill or an ANT+ simulator and not bother doing any work at all (in my opinion).
It wouldn't be very hard to auto-detect all the teams that churn out exactly Cat limit figures every race and promote them. They probably should.
It's all evolving though and that has got to be good for racing on Zwift ... cat enforcement has to be a good thing.
I agree - and it's very hard to get right and not hurt specific groups with each change made.
My first ever race was a crit city smash. I was in C, 8th place and absolutely bust myself to hang on. Being at the light end of the scale (66.0 kg at the time) it was exactly enough to get me 3.4 W/kg and stuffed straight into B. Did I mention I came 8th?
In my next race, a B race, I was lapped on Volcano circuit (5 laps, I think?), but at least that allowed me back into C - didn't enjoy it at all though. 😢 After that I decided to focus on short races, which I thoroughly enjoy and seem to suit my strengths.
No question in my mind that a results-based Cat system will be fairer/better and it looks to me like with Zwift's acquisition of ZP, incorporation of such a system is likely. But until then we have a movable feast of numbers to play with.
I try to pick 3R races where I can as all cats are visible ... so whilst I'm in 'C' I'm racing everyone so pushing as hard as I can from the off.
I like these too as, if you can hang on with the As or Bs you get to kick the arses of the Cs who can't
Mountain Massifs are similar, but even better in that the C pens are in front of the A & B so you don't have to kill yourself to catch them at the start
