Couple points from someone who has been riding zwift from early Beta and leads some of the rides and races being spoken about here.
- I think if you ask the Zwift team they didnt target racing in the beginning. That was an outgrowth of the community. In the early days we met at the start/finish line, rode behind a specific rider for a few KMs and then that rider gave the go signal and away the riders went. Racing is for the most part completely community driven aspect of zwift.
- Zwift eventually came out with the event module which allowed rides and races to always begin with everyone at the same point. This solved the problem with people jumping the gun.
- It created another situation with riders really pushing their watts in the starting pen to shoot out of the pen at the start of the race.
- Some rides still exist that incorporate longer warmups into the ride. The TeamODZ Coffee rides are an example. I lead the Wednesday morning one regularly and we do about 40 minutes at a set w/kg and then race for about 20 minutes. All riders must be behind the leader to count in results. generally everyone gets the parameters and it goes well. I also led the Castelli Thursday Night rides that were done similar...3 km WU or so followed by 60ish minute race.
- Some of the London courses have the WU section of roads because the laps dont start for a handful of kms. But everyone is right - many of those races start right from the gun.
- Finally, i think its up to the event is they only see riders in the event or all riders on zwift. And, I think if you are not in the event you always see all riders on zwift - including those in an event. On these last points I am a bit more uncertain.
http://www.teamodz.com http://www.endurancelab.fit