Since Slowtwitch is the online epicenter of all things endurance and cycling related, I felt this would be the best forum to post this. And maybe Jordan can chime in.
Dr Mr. Eric Min,
Congratulations on the Series C, 450 million dollar financing and unicorn status. Now can we please fix the Zwift racing platform!?
I’ve been a Zwift customer for several years and I’ve notched 132 Zwift races. I love Zwift racing. However, of the 132 races only a single percent have included a leaderboard of racers that all belonged in their proper category. The vast majority of races I participate in the race dynamics are absolutely ruined by cyclists racing well outside their w/kg category. It’s extremely frustrating and I’m sure there are thousands of other Zwift customers that experience this frustration as well.
With the pandemic lockdowns and lack of real-life racing, the Zwift racing platform has been a very important outlet for me and other Zwift racers. How can we bring true integrity to the Zwift Racing platform? I’m glad there is the website ZwiftPower.com which DQ’s riders racing above the designated w/kg, but many Zwift customers are not signed up for this site and riders that can hang on a little longer, drafting off the cyclists racing out of their category get an unfair advantage.
For a specific example, I’ve been enjoying the USA Cycling Race League Series by Indoor Specialist. My average weight is around 83kg and my FTP hovers around 245, so I’m a C Rider with an FTP of 2.95 w/kg. As you know anything above 3.19 w/kg is a B rider. Today’s race the leaders of C group avg’d 3.5 to 3.9 w/kg for a 45 minute effort. Yes these riders were DQ’d by ZwiftPower but they appear on the regular Zwift standings, and it led to me and other riders riding above 3.2 w/kg and getting dropped from the main front group at just shy of the 10 minute mark. This shouldn’t be if riders were racing in their proper category. And this race is less offensive then most other C races where the leaders often average over 4.0 w/kg!
I enjoy following the Z-Pro Triathlete and other Zwift Invitational races and know those races have rules such as dual-recording power, transparency of weight via recorded weigh-in’s on Facebook, etc. How do we bring this integrity to the regular Zwift racing platform for all customers to enjoy?
I’ve done the ZHQ Crit Beta races and they’re excellent! I love when riders riding out of category get coned and disappear. Can we please implement this on ALL Zwift races? Can we please properly integrate the ZwiftPower platform into the regular Zwift standings so ALL Riders riding outside their designated w/kg do not show in the standings? Can we please being integrity to the Zwift Racing platform outside of the professional races. I can’t express how frustrating this is as a Zwift customer who really enjoys the Zwift racing experience and is passionate about the Zwift platform as a whole.
Breaking zwift results up by w/kg is stupid IMO. The two races I did, I had no idea what my 20 min w/kg would be, that was part of why I did the race. Especially with the introduction of steering to bring more skill into the game, they should do away with w/kg and introduct a category system based on race results.
You would think it would be easy to force racers into the correct category based on their FTP and weight entered. Yes, you can go in and manually adjust it, but maybe the algo can store demonstrated FTP and not let a racer sign up for a C race when last week he demonstrated an FTP at 3.5w/kg on the platform.
There would still be ways to cheat the algorithm but sandbagging for a period of time and then dropping the hammer in a race, but I agree, there must be some way to utilize the data that is there to corral people correctly.
I don’t race much, because of just this phenomenon, no matter how fresh I am and how hard I go out of the gate, I cannot hold the front group for more than 5-10 min, then it’s just a normal day on zwift riding around. I’d rather do a workout.
Breaking zwift results up by w/kg is stupid IMO. The two races I did, I had no idea what my 20 min w/kg would be, that was part of why I did the race. Especially with the introduction of steering to bring more skill into the game, they should do away with w/kg and introduct a category system based on race results.
This would be cool, finish in top 5% of races for a period, auto bumped to the next category, and that is all you can enter. No choosing to be a “B” today, and a “D” tomorrow.
Are you aware that ZP is now owned/managed by Zwift? That means the Zwift results should soon match ZP and people should no longer have to sign up for ZP. I have heard they are working on that integration, but who knows when we’ll actually see it.
Are you aware that ZP is now owned/managed by Zwift? That means the Zwift results should soon match ZP and people should no longer have to sign up for ZP. I have heard they are working on that integration, but who knows when we’ll actually see it.
Hi There! Yes, fully aware. I follow Eric Schlange’s site www.zwiftinsider.com. Eric posted an article about Zwift HQ taking over the reigns of ZwiftPower and in his article he states:* Reading between the lines, I’d say Zwift has no clear goals/vision for further development of ZwiftPower’s features at this point. Instead, they plan to keep the site maintained and functional while developing more “native†race features – effectively replicating some of ZwiftPower’s functionality on Zwift. source: *https://zwiftinsider.com/zwiftpower-transition-2/
Personally that doesn’t give me the warm and fuzzies that “real change” is coming any time soon. I do hope I’m wrong.
Breaking zwift results up by w/kg is stupid IMO. The two races I did, I had no idea what my 20 min w/kg would be, that was part of why I did the race. Especially with the introduction of steering to bring more skill into the game, they should do away with w/kg and introduct a category system based on race results.
This would be cool, finish in top 5% of races for a period, auto bumped to the next category, and that is all you can enter. No choosing to be a “B” today, and a “D” tomorrow.
I agree with this. Just like earning drops and XP, you also go up racing categories.
And just like real racing, noobs with cat 2 power are going to destroy everyone in cat 5 until they move up.
What a neat topic! I have only done 2 formal races on Zwift and they were laughable because of this and the under-reporting of watts by my trainer (Tacx Bushido - but that’s another issue).
If would be very cool if those sandbaggers could be captured, sorted, and placed where they belong, and folks of close ability could have the opportunity to race each other fairly.
Once again - thanks for shining the light on something that I had long given up on.
Breaking zwift results up by w/kg is stupid IMO. The two races I did, I had no idea what my 20 min w/kg would be, that was part of why I did the race. Especially with the introduction of steering to bring more skill into the game, they should do away with w/kg and introduct a category system based on race results.
This would be cool, finish in top 5% of races for a period, auto bumped to the next category, and that is all you can enter. No choosing to be a “B” today, and a “D” tomorrow.
I agree with this. Just like earning drops and XP, you also go up racing categories.
And just like real racing, noobs with cat 2 power are going to destroy everyone in cat 5 until they move up.
Yep, the untested talent will eventually rise in category, but the majority of the cheating that goes on now is deliberate. Since the information is actually in the system, I do wish they would use it to enforce the rules and get rid of the overt cheating.
You know, I agree with you Bobby. The problem is that w/kg is here for now so that will be used rather than categories, but you could at least put cones on the cheaters. During the race, you would know those are the dopers and don’t try to hang with them in the beginning.
The problem is that w/kg is here for now so that will be used rather than categories, but you could at least put cones on the cheaters.
They’re still trying to figure out how to do that well.
I had saw a comical situation in a B race where a Zwift developer I know who’s absolutely a legit B got cone-of-shamed halfway through the race. He wasn’t happy.
Instead of w/kg, why not just a global ranking system and divide people by ranking? No need to even publish everyone’s rank, just assign people into Gold, Silver, Bronze, etc. Categories. There are plenty of mathematicians who could design an appropriate ranking system. Sure, you could game the system by purposefully losing, but a big win will increase your ranking quickly and the system should know how good you really are.
Plus, if Zwift is really serious (which they are) about eRacing, then you can easily create a league of only the top 1000 racers (or however many you want) and promote the top riders. “Pro league” or something, and have distinct racing seasons.
If you want people to be able to take a night off, simply have ranked and unranked races.
I love the idea of a proper results-based ranking system. Have for some time. Probably with a bit of a built level up based on fitness. There’s no risk of crashing people out like in road racing, so you don’t need to start at Cat5. I can say that such a proposal is actively being discussed, but no development work as of right now on this. But absolutely this is where I hope we go - and where I think we will go.
I know features here can’t come fast enough for the folks who have been struggling with this for some time. All I can say is that I hear you, and yes absolutely there are plans to use some of that money to improve core racing functionality.
I also sent your message to Eric, who really will read every reply.
Agree on the w/kg dilemma. My race experience has been that front group C will ride right at 3.2 (so, most likely B capable riders) w/ sprint finishes hoping they don’t get popped by zwiftpower. Same for B group races - front rides near 3.9 w/ sprint finishes. Everyone is playing the game.
Unfortunately for me I’m in the no man’s land of C being too easy and B being too hard in terms of front group/podium finishes.
Don’t think it’s near as bad in B as C and D. I’ve done a ton of B races, and sure you get the odd guy going off at 4.5+, but no one will follow them. The odd person riding in the 4.3-4.4 range isn’t going to have much of an impact on the race dynamics, the front of pack in the high 3’s FTP will easily match any pace they can put out.
But every race when I scan through the C andD results, yeah there is always a bunch of sand baggers, and they 100% destroy the race dynamic by forcing people too far into the red too soon in the race. Or by forcing a split at just the wrong time for some cycling back through the pack. I don’t know how it’s possible to have any type of proper race play out the way the C and D categories the way things are right now.
I feel kinda fortunate that B category generally works pretty well. But zwift racing is probably the number one reason i switched over from TR, and can’t help but wonder how Zwift hasn’t gotten around to fixing this for all categories. They must know what at draw this is for customers and how much they’re pissing so many of them off.
Unfortunately for me I’m in the no man’s land of C being too easy and B being too hard in terms of front group/podium finishes.
OK, that part is just life. The vast majority of athletes in real life eventually run into some level of competition that they’ll never dominate. And when we do we have to learn to just accept learning something about ourselves vs. the tougher competition. Or dropping back down and owning the lesser competition.
I agree it is totally killing the joy for me to race.
But given you sign up by w/kg would a c race that stops at 3,19w/kg actually not be higher if the race is only 45 mins as the 3,19 is your 1 h power? That part always confuses me when signing up.
They could also add some reporting system and people could get a small ban if many people report them.