When I checked sign ups when I signed up it was about 20 riders, but there were 90 in the pen so lots joined after me. I didn’t check again as I’m not really that bothered who’s there. So there may have been multiple or none, I only quoted what was mentioned in the pens. Hope that clarifies for you 🙄
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When I checked sign ups when I signed up it was about 20 riders, but there were 90 in the pen so lots joined after me. I didn’t check again as I’m not really that bothered who’s there. So there may have been multiple or none, I only quoted what was mentioned in the pens. Hope that clarifies for you 🙄
No, this started because you stated as fact there were A's (plural) in the race to make a point about how flawed ZRS is. Then when I pointed out that wasn't the case you then mentioned what was said in the pen.
I suppose it's possible there were a load of cat A's signed up for the race who didn't actually end up racing in it for some reason. But without knowing who they were or if they existed at all we can't really look to see whether them being there is a ZRS problem or just something like a lack of data problem like that one Cat A guy who is in the ZP results
IRL (mainly) It is results based. In British Cycling Races you start in Cat 4 whatever your standard. You have to gain 12 points in a season to go up to Cat 3 etc etc. In Cat 1 and 2 you have to score a certain number of points to stay in that Cat or else you drop down. So theoretically you could game the system, but I've never seen anyone doing it. That would be like Doncaster Rovers losing all their games one season so that they get relegated and will have an easier season the following year.
Masters is different in that the cats are just Age based, so I race ex-pros and ex-elite as well as newby racers. Hard to fake your age
Hmmm, I see your confusion. I did say As, Bs etc because I’m on my phone and too lazy to write … an A, multiple Bs and Cs and a D
You’re picking holes in semantics to defend your biased view of the new scoring rather than looking at the facts that the 350-520 pen has a spread of riders from A to D which, as I and others keep saying, is farcical.
I get it if someone is a B rider now allowed to ride with much weaker riders and drop them within minutes but that doesn’t make it an enjoyable experience for those incorrectly added to that pen.
There are also honest riders who think the scoring is pants. One A on Eric’s post says his initial seed was 5nn (can’t recall exactly so not going to guess as you’ll get fixated on that number). Anyway, every race he did he increased his score as he was destroying the field. His score finally went above 700 where it felt right, only for Zwift to reseed him back to the 600s. He thinks it’s a joke too.
I’m sorry you can’t see how flawed this is. Zwift have been working on this for 2 years and this is the best they can do, and we wonder why they need to increase the subs so much.
IRL (mainly) It is results based. In British Cycling Races you start in Cat 4 whatever your standard. You have to gain 12 points in a season to go up to Cat 3 etc etc. In Cat 1 and 2 you have to score a certain number of points to stay in that Cat or else you drop down. So theoretically you could game the system, but I've never seen anyone doing it. That would be like Doncaster Rovers losing all their games one season so that they get relegated and will have an easier season the following year.
Masters is different in that the cats are just Age based, so I race ex-pros and ex-elite as well as newby racers. Hard to fake your age
Thanks Martin 👍
Simple, makes sense, used the world over, easy to understand. We were already in our cats from A to D on Zwift, all they needed to do was introduced a way to promote winners, and relegate those always towards the bottom.
Swift could have even split each cat into 2, A1, A2, B1, etc and then allow race organisers to chose which cats race, thus allowing B2 to race C1 every now and then if the course suited.
I'm not overly familiar with outdoor crit racing. I've never entered but have been to set up events with my former club and been to watch a couple of events. There is no hiding place from what i can see from the efforts being put out.
Example, my son in law, young man, fairly decent cat 4 rider when trained up, entered a crit at Lincoln but was cat 3, why I don't know. He was fairly untrained at the time, I knew the circuit around a school perimeter fields. I told him to stay in the pack as it was open fields, exposed to wind and losing the draft would see him spat out. He didn't listen or couldn't keep up on the first lap and was blown out of the back door on lap 2. He looked liked a spanked donkey at the end
Example, my son in law, young man, fairly decent cat 4 rider when trained up, entered a crit at Lincoln but was cat 3, why I don't know. He was fairly untrained at the time, I knew the circuit around a school perimeter fields. I told him to stay in the pack as it was open fields, exposed to wind and losing the draft would see him spat out. He didn't listen or couldn't keep up on the first lap and was blown out of the back door on lap 2. He looked liked a spanked donkey at the end
mjd1988
Guru
Not heard of that one. Sounds intriguing though
Yes, people cheat by staying out of the saddle the whole race as if they have neglected the Chamois cream...
Had a fun hare and hounds race! Small B numbers and 2 As tearing it up behind, myself and another guy made the jump (we talked about it for ages not sure why the others didn't) he dropped off after a while, I stayed and we collected 2 c riders for a while, and I think we blasted past the Ds but results not up yet.
It was interesting as zwiftpower live was down so we didn't know about gaps. The A riders put out really steady 4 plus watts but couldn't see their numbers on screen so had to pay a lot of attention. Realised they also couldn't see my numbers so I attacked a bit early and won the sprint after not pulling at all. Hate the player not the game!
You could have just said that when I first replied instead of doubling down and then we wouldn't have to keep going back and forth on it.
I'm not confused either - I've been consistent since you made that first statement.
OK so when you say something factually false I should just let it go because pointing out that it's false is "semantics"? Sorry, I actually think words, facts and accuracy matter, otherwise any discussion is pointless because we can all just say whatever nonsense we like whether it's true or not and that gets us nowhere. Sounds like we may have to agree to disagree on that approach though.
How do I have a "biased view"? I genuinely don't understand what you mean?
I'm not a fan-boy of ZRS at all - it only seems like that because I keep disagreeing with your criticisms of it! But that's more about the nature of your criticisms, or innacuracies (or "semanitcs" if you prefer) - than my love of or bias towards ZRS. I do like the principle of it - some kind of results based system has been requested for ages and I think that's a good thing - whether ZRS works well to improve things still remains to be seen, and I'm sure it will never be 100% perfect and loved by everyone whatever they do.
If you have a valid criticism of how it's working that's fine and I'll probably agree with you. Criticism is good - it can highlight areas for improvement that can be fed back to Zwift as it's in all our interest that it does ultimately work well.
But just saying it's bad for reasons that aren't actually anything to do with ZRS - which you keep doing by the way - doesn't get us anywhere, which is why I keep responding when you do that.
Well this is the thing - it might be farcical, it might not. Just saying that and leaving it there doesn't make it true - especially when you back it up with false info ("semantics").
Take your last example: the truth was there was one Cat A (possibly not even a Cat A at the start of the race) who was in there because he'd only done 1 race since December 2023 so there's no way Zwift could have categorised him correctly with ZRS or any other system. And there was a "poor cat D" who just joined the wrong pen. If you can't see that examples like this tell us absolutely nothing about ZRS being good or bad I don't know what else to say to you!
I'm very happy to discuss genuine issues with ZRS though as I'd like it to work if it can.
Getting dropped by stronger riders doesn't mean you're in the wrong pen (it MIGHT mean that but not automatically). I've been dropped by stronger riders in races more times than I'd like to remember but it doesn't necessarily mean I'm mis-categorised, it may just mean there's stronger riders than me in that race.
You can't take thousands of riders, split them into 4 or 5 groups and everyone in those groups be clones of each other with identical ability. And some, by definition, will be at the bottom of that group, and others at the top - that's the way it works in Zwift and in every sport - virtual or real world. We can have a discussion about whether ZRS has it right and look at the data, but again, just saying what you've said doesn't make it right or tell us anything useful
You probably don't mean this quite how it comes out but that is a bit funny
Thanks for the anecdote - can't really add anything as there's no details to go on.
If you post something saying it proves a flaw with ZRS when it doesn't, then I might just reply to say that. It doesn't mean I can't see flaws, it means what you said isn't a flaw.
I can and have seen flaws with it - I've lost count of the number of times I've said it's not perfect.
Without going over old ground all over again, the bottom line is you (and all of us) need to chill out and give this new system a few weeks to settle in. It's literally just been rolled out - and just after the summer months when many riders are returning to zwift racing with no data or bad data to start with. For this reason, and because of literally the way its designed to work, with results based changes, it will inevitably take some time before we can properly judge if it's working.
And when we do that, simply the fact that someone who is at the very bottom of their category is coming towards the back of races in their category isn't proof it's not working - just to cover that one off in advance!
OK now we're getting somewhere! So you also agree the fundamental concept of ZRS (a base seeding, then results based movement) is good, just that instead of re-seeding everyone based on 30 second and 10 minute power, they should have given us a seed score based on the pre-existing power metrics of Zftp/Zmap?
That's actually a fair point. But you do need to remember that just as many people felt mis-categorised under that old system as do in the new one (currently, before its been given time to settle in). So a bit of swings and roundabouts really - some will feel immediately hard done by if different power numbers are used as it won't suit them as much, and others will love it because it will.
The main thing I like about ZRS is the same thing you like - the results based movement. Whether they have the power metrics right I don't know - that's the bit that will take some time to properly know. But they have apparently done a lot of maths and model testing to come up with the method they have so we maybe need to give it a chance to bed in at least.
That's pretty much exactly what allowing race organisers to move the ZRS category boundaries does isn't it?
alex_cycles
Veteran
- Location
- Oxfordshire
The way it works on ZR.app is if you don't put in a minimum X% of your best power for a specified duration. (It's designed to target zone 2)
Most likely it will be similar to that (or made more complex
)I know we disagree on a lot WRT ZRS, but I find it impossible to argue with that statement
The way it works on ZR.app is if you don't put in a minimum X% of your best power for a specified duration. (It's designed to target zone 2)
Most likely it will be similar to that (or made more complex
I know we disagree on a lot WRT ZRS, but I find it impossible to argue with that statement
Not sure if anyone knows the answer, but what do they consider as 'best power'? Is it the last 90 days, the last 12 months, the best ever? They've not been very clear re their model as they reference 90 days, but also reference data going back further. For me, I'm riding 100% of my current best every race (I'm pretty consistent around my 1, 5, 10, 20 minute figures), but I'm nowhere near my best the past few years on Zwift because a) I'm not as fit and b) since the trainer was serviced I've lost the magic dust it was giving me.
The general noise as I see it, is it's predominantly C and D riders who are complaining as they are now in pens racing with B riders ( and some As, both singular and plural) who are dropping the Cs and Ds within a few minutes. Not noticed a single B rider complain about ZRS, but then they probably wouldn't as they are now either still racing the same as before, or chewing up D and C riders.
The only A I've seen comment so far has said his ZRS is far too low and unrealistic and he's pitched against much weaker riders.
On Eric's Zwift Insider post there are more responses criticizing ZRS than supporting it. Now that could be partly because those unhappy are most likely to voice their opinion, but still, it doesn't look good. It's not great that the weaker, lower cat'd riders are the ones that seem to be worse off with ZRS.
It really is a shame that Zwift have forced an implementation of something that feels to a significant number of their customers as incorrect. The old cat system wasn't incorrect, it mostly had the right riders competing, it just needed a tweak to promote riders and relegate riders (as per how Martin said real life racing cats are managed). Such a shame.
alex_cycles
Veteran
- Location
- Oxfordshire
It was a complete shite-show if you were 67kg with a 3.4 for 20. It's just a different set of people screwed over now.
Anyway I'm bored of all the whinging. Not going to talk about ZRS any more.
