SdB wrote:
I had looked at the results and avg speeds of some of the prior races and I did feel bad about putting myself in a lower group than is recommended. I didn't feel so bad after the race.
What is the best way to improve this? Maybe the top ten of cat D, C and B should all be moved up a group respectively. This may make the groups more honest than just bumping up the top rider.
Don't feel bad. It sucks to get dropped early in a race and I'm guessing that is one of the reasons people cat down. It's pretty common to read a post where someone got dropped so they are downgrading. You just have to keep in mind that everyone except the winner gets dropped (and sometimes even the eventual winner gets dropped early on). Because there's no points/series/prizes behind any of this, it might be best to just do what works best for you until Zwift creates a race module.
If I were hosting a race series, I wouldn't have any Categories but I would award points. Although a little off-topic, I'd have 2 neutral rider leaders, one you should pace off of and ideally be behind (in-game name of LEADER-LEADER-LEADER or something really obvious) and one 5 or so seconds up the road that you are DQ'd if you are ahead of when the neutral first ends (in-game name of DQ-DQ-DQ-DQ-DQ-DQ). Races starts would be communicated through TeamSpeak.
My hopes are that when a race module is introduced that there'll be official Cat's or a rating similar to ftp associated with each rider's profile that can be upgraded based on performances. Organizers could then define their categories based on this rating and even allow for overlap to account for those that want the option of riding with a slower or faster group.
Nanoo Nanoo