Who is this making the Yahoo article for a Slowtwitch forum topic?
Zwift C isn’t THAT hard. I’m a 4/5 and B feels about right for me. And 5w/kg isn’t pie, but it isn’t THAT much either.
https://www.yahoo.com/…-road-205400224.html
I did a Crit City race a couple of days ago, finished 8th out of 14 in the "C"s. 3.1 w/kg (I’m too heavy…) C’s is supposed to be 2.5 to 3.1 w/kg
the 7 guys who finished ahead of me (I assume they’re guys) were: 3.8, 3.4, 3.4, 3.9, 4.0, 4.2, and 3.2. It was a 24 min race, so I can see people being a bit over that 3.1 w/kg upper bound, but 3.8+ is a little ridiculous.
i have never been in a C event where 2.5w/kg was even remotely adhered to, but that’s usually over 45min to an hour. well, you can adhere to it, but you won’t be around long. i think 2.5 is mid-front D. i think zwift has aced itself out of a large group of folks by having E be structured training. there needs to be a slower-than-D group.
Most group rides I’ve done at C level have been at a C pace, even as a 63kg guy who’d expect to have to do a slightly higher w/kg to stay with the group. lots of people who aren’t C do these rides (I’m A cat for example) but still ride at the set pace. I can’t talk for normal C races as I haven’t raced in C, but I know that the ZRL is way ahead of anything else in fair racing, where cats are adhered to (bar those that have just upgraded through the series to the next cat but are allowed to finish the series in their league). I get in ordinary races sandbagging is an issue, and means true C’s may often be dropped, but hopefully the ZRL is paving the way for this to become much less of an issue.
I agree that D cat covers a very large area, but its difficult… at what point are there too many categories and not enough riders? even with only the four pens there are often tiny fields (at least in A cat)
I think when it comes to zwift racing the cats themselves don’t work anyway; **90% of zwift races are about 1-5 minute power… at least in A races its not the strongest rider that wins very often but the punchy guy who has drafted the hell out of everyone until it becomes time to make a difference. **saw an interesting post about using the zwiftpower race ranking system to divide entrants into groups based on those with similar race rankings… that has a lot of merits in my opinion.
Overwhelming majority of amateur road races are about 3-8 minute power, and the guy with the biggest diesel engine rarely wins. That aspect of road racing doesn’t change appreciably, IRL or otherwise.
What changes is that there’s a lot less incentive for people to attack in Zwift, b/c of the large aero penalty imposed on smaller groups (CdA ~0.25 for group <5 people, CdA ~0.17 for group >10)