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Yes, the bike is selected for you but any wheels you like
Hope you're all feeling better soon mate
mjd1988
Guru
Cheers. Think I'm okay now just deconditioned. Kind of got sick twice, raced about a week and a half ago and felt okay but then immediately sick again. Hopefully that's the end of the back to school sicknesses...some hope
Went with all rounder, stayed with front for one lap, but was always getting dropped. Then picked up by another rider and we played hide the draft until he attacked early and I caught and sprinted for 3rd last or whatever haha.
steverob
Guru
- Location
- Buckinghamshire
Well I've signed up for Cyclopathon tomorrow evening in E - likely to get my arse handed to me, given the 350 point max this month and a lumpy course with an uphill start, but I'm not going to improve unless I push myself. Plus I'm not able to do any other Tuesday Zwift rides until mid-October given current work schedules, so it's not like the results really matter in terms of leagues or anything to me.
On another note, I like the fact that Zwift have made pace partners now available in all worlds, not just Watopia and Makuri. Did a few laps of Innsbruckring and Richmond Flats yesterday with two different pacers and it made the experience more worthwhile than plowing round on your own.
On another note, I like the fact that Zwift have made pace partners now available in all worlds, not just Watopia and Makuri. Did a few laps of Innsbruckring and Richmond Flats yesterday with two different pacers and it made the experience more worthwhile than plowing round on your own.
mjd1988
Guru
I think I've missed a lot of the discourse around the new scoring system. Is there anyway to stop people from deliberately trying to lower their score? Just looking at the guy who came last in my race, max heart rate was lower in this race than his average HR for previous race and power very low, clearly zone 2'd the ride (could have been injured to be fair). So his score goes down? Could someone not just do that fairly consistently, do a zone 2 ride or workout and basically ignore the race?
Scores aren't decreasing much so yes, it is possible to game it and try to lower the score but I've found it's only dropping 6-10 points even if you're beaten by riders who are ranked significantly lower.
I'm getting trounced by anyone with a score over 300, my score was just over 400, but even though lower ranked riders are beating me and I'm bottom 3rd in all races (110 out of 116 today) my score is only creeping down.
The guy in your ride may have been dropped early on, realised he couldn't chase back on, so did a Z2 ride I guess. I know as soon as I was dropped today I just sat up and rolled around until the next riders caught me. Had I been last I'd have just rolled around too. Doesn't look like he's on ZP either as the guy last on ZP seemed to have come in with other riders.
steverob
Guru
- Location
- Buckinghamshire
There is also a floor value which you cannot drop below which is based on your 30 second and 10 minute power figures, so no matter how much you try to game the system, you're never going to be able to race massively below your true abilities.
Having mainly done TTs and steady pace efforts since I got back on Zwift last month, I did some pratice sprinting at the weekend and set some new 30 second power PRs. Even though it wasn't in a race, that increased my racing score from 230-something to 280, showing that your last 90 day figures still do make a large difference to your score.
This is where I'm still confused - I thought the new ranking was based on results, but it's still based on power and it seems power numbers are still the dominant statistic. I can't think of any real world sport where power is used to rank, it's always on results (and I assume online gaming is the same).
I don't understand the 'floor' concept, that seems flawed to me (pun intended) as it's using short term power to fix someone in a category. In a race of 40 mins surely the 30-40 minute average power is a better estimate of where someone will finish? If in C someone can hold 3.4 w/kg for 20 mins, and 3.2 w/kg for 45 mins, they are more likely to get to the finish line ahead of someone who can only hold 2.6 w/kg for the race even if that person does have a big sprint?
All this will do again is make encourage people to watch their numbers and not push as hard as they can or race for every position, which is a shame.
One day I'm sure someone will come up with a good way to look at the 'quality' of the riders in a race and rank the results accordingly. Ignore power numbers, rank on results against those in the race.
This stage is in NY, not my favourite courses but at least doesn't go on those horrible glass roads. Didn't have any legs today, was dropped by lead group within 90 seconds. Lots of moaning in C race that many riders were above cat numbers and cheating - no idea if they were, I was about 2 miles back
Despite being beaten by lots of riders with a lower ZRS score than me (some in the 200s, I only had my score reduced by 6 points which seems odd. I may need to do a lot more races to get my score to the correct level
That race you did last night wasn't a ZRS race so unless I'm missing something it wouldn't have had any affect on yours (or anyone else's) ZRS score would it?
That's right. It's only the Zwift Labs ZRS races that affect your ZRS score while ZRS is in the test phase.
The only other factor is the seed score, where any race or ride can push up your seed score based on 30s and 10m efforts. There's been a number of people complaining about seed score, similar to the comments from @Whorty above.
I disagree with this. There's been a long history of sandbagging with the CE system in Zwift, where people have controlled their average power and unleashed a big sprint to win or podium. To be fair, there's a weight issue at play here as well, which pulls their w/kg down below a cat boundary. The same issue works against people like me, whose lighter weight gets them propelled up a category, even when they weren't winning at the lower category.
The winners under CE will claim this is race craft. That's fair enough the way CE works, but it doesn't make it a fair contest for all.
ZRS tries to place riders initially where their power figures suggest they should be. Recent replies from Zwift indicate they are going to take a wider set of figures from rider's power curves to place riders more fairly. There may also be more weight given to race power figures, rather than power figures from all rides, where it may be possible to sprint harder at the end of a group ride than you could in a race. I've got some sympathy with this complaint.
But the key point is that the seed is where you START. Once you're racing it's your finishing position relative to others that will determine how you move within the system and the effect of seed should be less relevant. In fact it should only be relevant to stop riders who try to game ZRS. The overall purpose of ZRS is trying to match riders of similar ability.
Of course there will still be those who try. No system in a game like Zwift can be foolproof. And the test phase has shown that there are some issues that need to be addressed. But that's the point of a test phase.
All I can say is that I've found the racing infinitely better in ZRS, than getting my arse kicked regularly in CE. Take a look at the results from Cyclopathy Round 1. The results across all 5 pens suggest the system is actually working pretty well at matching riders.
alex_cycles
Veteran
- Location
- Oxfordshire
No I don't think there are any anti-tanking mechanisms yet but it is being thought about
What a bizarre race. Only two of us in my pen . The other rider didn't really try.
I had a 2 min lead on lap 1
The lead kept growing, until when I think he realised I would lap him with about 1.5 laps to go. That's when he actually started to make some effort on the climbs. Nearly caught him , missed by around 100 metres before I finished the event
Stupid thing, my race score has jumped 24 points because of the win. But it wasn't a race by any measures. I'm now on 448
So RS doesn't take into consideration the quality of opposition
View: https://youtu.be/wodSHm66DrI?si=2dpS9prWcLSC84Rl
I had a 2 min lead on lap 1
The lead kept growing, until when I think he realised I would lap him with about 1.5 laps to go. That's when he actually started to make some effort on the climbs. Nearly caught him , missed by around 100 metres before I finished the event
Stupid thing, my race score has jumped 24 points because of the win. But it wasn't a race by any measures. I'm now on 448
So RS doesn't take into consideration the quality of opposition
View: https://youtu.be/wodSHm66DrI?si=2dpS9prWcLSC84Rl
