Zwift Chat

[alex_cycles]

Thats just cruel, checking out his fatigue score

Actually if I'd know he was that knackered, I might have jumped on to your event Alex

LMAO - I didn't know until the pens. Race 2 was a group ride, really until Libby.

 

[Venod]

I have committed to do all 18 TDZ rides but I didn't want to do Tour of Fire and Ice as a group ride as I would probably incapacitate myself trying to keep up going up the alp, so I just rode the course this morning, was very pleased to get a PB up the Alp 53.44 and a Achievement award for getting under the hour.

 

[Whorty]

What is it about us cyclists?! That reminds me of taking over an hour to do the normally sub-30 minute Cragg Vale climb in 2012 to celebrate Wiggins winning the TDF. It turned that the chesty cough that slowed me down was caused by a life-threatening pulmonary embolism...


I'm sure that they can/will.

Warfarin did the trick for my illness - 60+ minutes climb time now down to 27!

I hope that they find the right drugs cocktail for you. Just remember to wave your TUE at the other riders as you pass them. GWS!

Think I should mention to the doc in a bit that I need something to give me a sub 60 mins on Alpe du Zwift?
Anything would be good at the moment, can't really cycle or get to the gym and do proper sessions. Very frustrating.
Fingers crossed!! Glad you got sorted, sounds like you hit a good selection of drugs to fix you

 

[alex_cycles]

I have committed to do all 18 TDZ rides but I didn't want to do Tour of Fire and Ice as a group ride as I would probably incapacitate myself trying to keep up going up the alp, so I just rode the course this morning, was very pleased to get a PB up the Alp 53.44 and a Achievement award for getting under the hour.

I don't want to do Fire and Ice at all

 

[N0bodyOfTheGoat]

Gonna have to find age category events, ZRS score is crackers.

Age is the wild wild west, there's no verifying of age and for example at 50+, you will find riders from ZRS A-E!

There's an increasing amount of races/TTs using Category Enforcement again, the old system used from Feb '22 until summer '24, besides the minimum Watt floors for pens A-C it's far better than ZRS as far as I'm concerned. I'd prefer zMAP to be actual rather than predicted 6mins ability and zFTP to be 20-40mins ability at most rather than 60mins, but these are minor issues compared to the state of the current racing system.

 

[CXRAndy]

Initially ZRS seemed to work OK for me.

But I keep seeing more riders who have low score but are way stronger than their ranking.

There was one rider of similar age to me, he was much stronger, because he does far more riding than I do- so I have no complaints. Some of the others were just too far out of my category to be there

 

[alex_cycles]

Initially ZRS seemed to work OK for me.

But I keep seeing more riders who have low score but are way stronger than their ranking.

There was one rider of similar age to me, he was much stronger, because he does far more riding than I do- so I have no complaints. Some of the others were just too far out of my category to be there

ZRS takes too many races to put you where you should be. They need to increase the "gain" on the results a bit.
Every zRacing I do now has people in who are much stronger than me but have 100-150 ZRS lower. It's ALWAYS because they haven't done many races in the last few months - usually after a break. It seems to take 20-30 races to get you to the right place, which is more than a lot of people do in a year. The system used was designed for video gaming where you can have 10 games completed in an evening. Clearly hasn't been tweaked enough for a physical "sport" type game, where you can only do a few a week.

I'm only doing about 0-1 ZRS race a week because ZRL and Friday Smash don't have ZRS enabled.

 

[steverob]

When Zwift first mooted some sort of racing score (long before ZRS actually came along) I always said the biggest problem would be riders who didn't race very often as they would be the ones who would be most at risk of breaking the system and I stand by that.

Everyone who clamoured for some sort of results based system on their forums was always someone who raced 3-4 times a week and sure, their ratings are probably quite accurate, but for someone like me who races max once a week and typically not in a race that counts for ZRS anyway (e.g. ZRL), you're relying on the power number seed doing all of the heavy lifting and if that's the case, we might as well go back to ZFTP/ZMAP category enforcement.

 

[alex_cycles]

When Zwift first mooted some sort of racing score (long before ZRS actually came along) I always said the biggest problem would be riders who didn't race very often as they would be the ones who would be most at risk of breaking the system and I stand by that.

Everyone who clamoured for some sort of results based system on their forums was always someone who raced 3-4 times a week and sure, their ratings are probably quite accurate, but for someone like me who races max once a week and typically not in a race that counts for ZRS anyway (e.g. ZRL), you're relying on the power number seed doing all of the heavy lifting and if that's the case, we might as well go back to ZFTP/ZMAP category enforcement.

vELO2 is the answer. The seeding on vELO2 is very good. Once results modification kicks in it will be excellent.

You are quite correct though that without enough data NO SYSTEM will work.

ZRL has been fun this season I have to admit. Splitting it out into dev leagues was a good idea.
It was also much nicer once the bandsaggers had been promoted out.

 

[mjd1988]

Eugh had to bail out of a race for first time in forever. Finally done down with viral illness (hopefully quite mild to be fair). Was one of those weird races were there are 4 people and everyone randomly attacks each other. Fun when fit for it

 

[VinSumRox]

Does anyone know why 1x and 2x boosts have appeared on Zwift TTs.
Also why and when they appear?

 

[alex_cycles]

Did the Zwift Epic Race this morning on Navig8. This is the first time I've done the "new" format (which is almost a year old) with different colour jerseys for each category. It's all cats together. I managed to hold the fast group for about 16 minutes, then found a group of three which later became 6, 7 then 5 towards the end. One guy kept punching ahead at every short punchy incline. I kept dragging the group back to him. He was annoying me Then I beat him by 0.02s in the sprint at the end 🖕🤣
I haven't done a long race like that for about 9 or 10 months. It was hard but I think I want to do more of them. Great for the endurance fitness...

View: https://www.youtube.com/live/HwVmPdpCdd4?si=NssBVCd2WquqVMiq&t=241

 

[Whorty]

Re ZRL , I stand by everything I said over a year ago when they implimented it, and I stand by my assertion that I can't see it ever working in it's curent format. The seeding is way off and flawed, and as noted not many people are racing ZRS points races and so if/when they do they are almost certainly in the wrong category. I was shot down in flames 12 months ago and told I was wrong and the system would 'fix itself' - I'm an ex-Statistician and mathematician, I understand (well, understood!!) mathematical modelling, so I could see what they were trying but I could see the obvious flaws. Such a shame Zwift are too stuborn to admit they haven't got it right and don't try to fix it properly.

Re viruses, I had an emergency appointment Friday with the respiritory specialist at the health centre and she was not happy with my health. I'd been having this asthma flaor up for over a week, raced on the Tuesday, and put myself in a bad situation, so bad I couldn't get enough air in my lungs to even talk. She's put me on a course of steroid tabs until Tuesday and changed my asthma meds to something much stringer as the current ones were clearly not working (I'm off ventolin, it's not a recomended drug anymore as is not as effective as others apparently).

I can do light cycling now so long as I don't push but I'll not be racing until my peak flow is back towards 800 (it was below 500 most of the week (up to 575 today) and my asthma cough has gone. Not all bad, I can focus on doing Z1/Z2 to build up the easy miles for the bike upgrades


All I'll add is, anyone with a cold type virus at the moment, don't do waht I did and try to race it off, it can get so much worse so quickly. Stick to lighter or not riding until you feel better. I was a silly boy and nearly ended up in hospital

 

[CXRAndy]

Get well soon Carl.

I had a gentle spin, and a workout. Can't walk now

 

[alex_cycles]

Re ZRL , I stand by everything I said over a year ago when they implimented it, and I stand by my assertion that I can't see it ever working in it's curent format. The seeding is way off and flawed, and as noted not many people are racing ZRS points races and so if/when they do they are almost certainly in the wrong category. I was shot down in flames 12 months ago and told I was wrong and the system would 'fix itself' - I'm an ex-Statistician and mathematician, I understand (well, understood!!) mathematical modelling, so I could see what they were trying but I could see the obvious flaws. Such a shame Zwift are too stuborn to admit they haven't got it right and don't try to fix it properly.

I thought ZRS would improve with time and tweaking. The problem is they didn't touch it for 10-11 months after that - there was NO TWEAKING - so my faith was misfounded. We're still up against the fact that only a small proportion of Zwifters race, so we're never going to be the focus of their main efforts. My ZRS is fairly stable and I have a fairly decent race in <510 or <520 these days with an occasional podium, but no wins. On those occasions when I've gone above 520 it only takes one race in 520-690 to lose about 20 points (and that's without even tanking).
So I've found a way to make it work for me for the occasional ZRS race that I do. Could it be better? Damn-right. Am I able to make it work for me? Yes. (Which is a lot more important.)

The fairest racing I've ever been in has been DRS using vELO. It will be very interesting to see how vELO2 racing shapes up.

All I'll add is, anyone with a cold type virus at the moment, don't do waht I did and try to race it off, it can get so much worse so quickly. Stick to lighter or not riding until you feel better. I was a silly boy and nearly ended up in hospital

I think these days they say that you can damage your heart if you race with a virus, so it's really best not to. Obvs - it all "depends"