4 ms·

The whole Zwift w/kg category system is inherently flawed even without cheating. If you're in a lower category and right near the w/kg limit you could be 70kg

by Lio 3y ago

The whole Zwift w/kg category system is inherently flawed even without cheating. If you're in a lower category and right near the w/kg limit you could be 70kg and racing against 100kg riders. If the cat limit was 3.2w/kg you could have 224w a maximum vs 320w for the heavier rider. On the flats they'll destroy you, in the sprints they'll destroy you and on the descents they'll destroy. On the climbs? They'll hang right with you because you both climb at 3.2w/kg. If you get fitter you'll just be bumped up to a cat with higher limits but the same issue. Unless you're an elite cat A rider, where there's no limits, you should treat the races as just a fitness activity. The heaviest fit rider will always have a massive advantage regardless of the course. So why "race" at all?

mariusor 3y ago
Isn't that very similar to how real life racing is? The light riders almost always are at a disadvantage.
- Lio 3y ago
  No not really. Categories are done on points for how you place in previous races. If you win then no matter what you weigh or how much power you put out you move up a category. Any rider with enough power to ride you off their wheel would be promoted until they couldn't do that any more. They don't get a special exemption to ride in races with weaker riders simply because they're heavy like on Zwift. It would the same issue in reverse if they simply grouped riders by absolute wattage without using weight as a component. The light riders would always win in the hilly races and hold their own on the flats. Also weird. What Zwift needs is an Elo system based on results. Just like in real life.
  - mariusor 3y ago
    The pro peloton doesn't use an ELO system. There is a points system based on races placement, but outside of the team promotion/demotion every three years it's basically useless, especially for the individual riders.
- pmontra 3y ago
  Light riders are at an advantage on climbs IRL because "a light rider doesn't need to generate as much power as his heavier competitor because he has less weight to propel up hills." [1] Things are different downhill [2] [1] https://www.cptips.com/climb.htm https://www.cptips.com/climb.htm [2] https://road.cc/content/feature/does-heavier-cyclist-descend-hills-quicker-299941 https://road.cc/content/feature/does-heavier-cyclist-descend...
  - mariusor 3y ago
    That's why I said "almost always". It's not like any branch of bicycle racing has weight classes. You always compete with people in your category no matter how much power they generate or how much they weigh.
dmoy 3y ago
I mean the same thing can be said of many sports that break amateurs into categories for subcompetition. They're all arbitrary at some point, and even if they're based on competition results, it doesn't distinguish between "took five years to reach this point" and "incidentally passing this category by on their whirlwind to XYZ much higher rank". For example I compete in high power three position. Your classification (unranked, marksman, sharpshooter, expert, master, high master) is based on whether you scored X% of points for three consecutive matches (or your first two matches for initial rank). I've shot Master scores in every single match bar one, including my first match. But in the second match, there was some confusing misfire on one string (like faulty ammo related? Still don't know to this day lol), which dropped something like 20 points, which is basically enough to kick you down. Which means for the subsequent three matches, I was effectively sandbagging in Expert, and scoring high expert, and getting some pocket change for it (like $20, a fraction of the ammo cost). But I've never pieced together three high master, and may never get there. Meanwhile, we've got a couple people in the area who are literal national champions, and they score so close to perfection every time it's untouchable for the rest of us. It's like they're competing in a much more difficult sport than we are, like smallbore (actually one of the guys went to the Olympics for air rifle so that makes sense lol, air rifle is way harder than high power, score-wise and competition-depth -wise). If one of them shows up to the match, it's a guarantee they win, even if they're massively sick during the match. In a previous life I did fencing, and had years long struggles to barely make B (sorta the equivalent of Master in high power 3p I guess). In earlier years of that life, I would get crushed beyond belief by Ds, Cs, and Bs. Eventually I got to the point where I could occasionally beat Bs, and by stringing enough tournaments in there, I got it. But I'd still usually lose to a B. And, just like in 3p above, everything we did was a joke to the serious competitors with national rankings, because they could just walk all over us. The massive gap between random A, and A who is high on the points list and seriously might make the Olympic team isn't shown by the category ratings. On paper they're the same rank as the old high master guys, but there's no real comparison. ---- But ... despite all that, breaking into subcategories is a Thing in virtually all competitions, because it encouraged more people to participate. You're less demoralized if there's something hypothetically tangible to work for. It's everywhere - we break colleges into D1-D3 schools, high schools get even more partitioned. We break kids into tiny age brackets. So you can compete in lower subcategories, but I think you're right in the back of your mind you need to remember you're doing it for fun or exercise (certainly not exercise in high power lol). That's why the people who get super worked up over scores or times or whatever at some middling amateur category look so out of place.
303uru 3y ago
Sorta, Zwift doesn't give a lot of insight into how the w/kg system is reflected in terms of in game speed, but it's not the same as outdoors. I'm 190lbs with a 342FTP and I do not pull away from light guys on the flats the way I would expect on the road. But the light guys do pull away as expected on the climbs. Seems heavily weighted toward w/kg and not pure watts.

by Lio 3y ago

mariusor 3y ago

Isn't that very similar to how real life racing is? The light riders almost always are at a disadvantage.

Lio 3y ago
No not really. Categories are done on points for how you place in previous races. If you win then no matter what you weigh or how much power you put out you move up a category. Any rider with enough power to ride you off their wheel would be promoted until they couldn't do that any more. They don't get a special exemption to ride in races with weaker riders simply because they're heavy like on Zwift. It would the same issue in reverse if they simply grouped riders by absolute wattage without using weight as a component. The light riders would always win in the hilly races and hold their own on the flats. Also weird. What Zwift needs is an Elo system based on results. Just like in real life.
- mariusor 3y ago
  The pro peloton doesn't use an ELO system. There is a points system based on races placement, but outside of the team promotion/demotion every three years it's basically useless, especially for the individual riders.
pmontra 3y ago
Light riders are at an advantage on climbs IRL because "a light rider doesn't need to generate as much power as his heavier competitor because he has less weight to propel up hills." [1] Things are different downhill [2] [1] https://www.cptips.com/climb.htm https://www.cptips.com/climb.htm [2] https://road.cc/content/feature/does-heavier-cyclist-descend-hills-quicker-299941 https://road.cc/content/feature/does-heavier-cyclist-descend...
- mariusor 3y ago
  That's why I said "almost always". It's not like any branch of bicycle racing has weight classes. You always compete with people in your category no matter how much power they generate or how much they weigh.

dmoy 3y ago

I mean the same thing can be said of many sports that break amateurs into categories for subcompetition. They're all arbitrary at some point, and even if they're based on competition results, it doesn't distinguish between "took five years to reach this point" and "incidentally passing this category by on their whirlwind to XYZ much higher rank". For example I compete in high power three position. Your classification (unranked, marksman, sharpshooter, expert, master, high master) is based on whether you scored X% of points for three consecutive matches (or your first two matches for initial rank). I've shot Master scores in every single match bar one, including my first match. But in the second match, there was some confusing misfire on one string (like faulty ammo related? Still don't know to this day lol), which dropped something like 20 points, which is basically enough to kick you down. Which means for the subsequent three matches, I was effectively sandbagging in Expert, and scoring high expert, and getting some pocket change for it (like $20, a fraction of the ammo cost). But I've never pieced together three high master, and may never get there. Meanwhile, we've got a couple people in the area who are literal national champions, and they score so close to perfection every time it's untouchable for the rest of us. It's like they're competing in a much more difficult sport than we are, like smallbore (actually one of the guys went to the Olympics for air rifle so that makes sense lol, air rifle is way harder than high power, score-wise and competition-depth -wise). If one of them shows up to the match, it's a guarantee they win, even if they're massively sick during the match. In a previous life I did fencing, and had years long struggles to barely make B (sorta the equivalent of Master in high power 3p I guess). In earlier years of that life, I would get crushed beyond belief by Ds, Cs, and Bs. Eventually I got to the point where I could occasionally beat Bs, and by stringing enough tournaments in there, I got it. But I'd still usually lose to a B. And, just like in 3p above, everything we did was a joke to the serious competitors with national rankings, because they could just walk all over us. The massive gap between random A, and A who is high on the points list and seriously might make the Olympic team isn't shown by the category ratings. On paper they're the same rank as the old high master guys, but there's no real comparison. ---- But ... despite all that, breaking into subcategories is a Thing in virtually all competitions, because it encouraged more people to participate. You're less demoralized if there's something hypothetically tangible to work for. It's everywhere - we break colleges into D1-D3 schools, high schools get even more partitioned. We break kids into tiny age brackets. So you can compete in lower subcategories, but I think you're right in the back of your mind you need to remember you're doing it for fun or exercise (certainly not exercise in high power lol). That's why the people who get super worked up over scores or times or whatever at some middling amateur category look so out of place.

303uru 3y ago

Sorta, Zwift doesn't give a lot of insight into how the w/kg system is reflected in terms of in game speed, but it's not the same as outdoors. I'm 190lbs with a 342FTP and I do not pull away from light guys on the flats the way I would expect on the road. But the light guys do pull away as expected on the climbs. Seems heavily weighted toward w/kg and not pure watts.