To my surprise, that was more fun than I expected.
Also, it hurt my lungs more than I had planned for this Saturday afternoon.
But more importantly – I could actually see doing it again. Which is not something I would have said (or did say) earlier in the week on the FIT File Podcast. At the time, I figured I’d do it once and be done. But, given the right format – I could actually be suckered into doing it again. Maybe even with warming up more than the approximately 29 seconds I did today.
First however, let’s back this bike up though. Not too far though, because it’s Saturday night and I’ve got a bottle of wine to attend to.
As you may remember last Friday, Zwift officially announced their new crit course, ‘Crit City’. For those not familiar with crits, it’s short for criterium, and is when cyclists go round and round a typically very short course. There’s various formats involved, but often it’s a set time (as opposed to a set number of laps). It’s usually a very short route (1-3KM) repeated as many times as required. They also usually have a lot of sharp corners and are often designed to be technical – so you have to think about how to enter/exit turns. Also, you have to avoid crashing.
But in Zwift, none of that really applies. You just gotta have the legs and lungs to hold on for dear life, and a tiny bit of brain power leftover for race tactics, like when to attack or not…which is mostly tied back into how your legs and lungs feel.
Crit City Basics:
The first thing to know about Crit City is that it’s an event-only route. Meaning that you can’t just go ride it, you have to join an actual scheduled event on it. This weekend they’re running races roughly every couple hours at usually 30-minutes past the hour. Just scroll through the Zwift Companion app on your phone and you’ll see one sooner or later.
The route is 1.94KM long (1.2mi), plus there’s a little bit of a lead-in on the first lap from the starting corrals. The Crit City route is not within any real-world town, which is somewhat disappointing. I’d have loved to see them pick an actual city and design an actual crit map atop it (or take one of the hundreds or thousands of real-life ones that exist). Instead, after you upload your ride you’ll find it’s atop a volcano in the South Pacific, fairly close to Watopia island (but not really within ridable distance). You don’t, however, see any part of Watopia from the course.
The route goes two different directions, one called ‘The Bell Lap’, and the other called ‘Downtown Dolphin’. Same course, just different directions. You can read about both the routes in more detail from Zwift Insider linked above.
Also from Zwift Insider is this handy dandy little map leveraging VeloViewer:
What’s most notable here are the 90° turns, but also the short little hills. Not really hills per se, more like accidental speed bumps at only 7.9 meters of elevation gain per lap. Either way, you’ll briefly feel them.
Also within the course is a ‘Prime’, which is effectively enumerated as a sprint just like any other sprint to the line in Zwift. You don’t earn any sort of prime bonus best I can tell, at least on this weekend’s races. Down the road you could.
And that’s ultimately an important thing to keep in mind: The actual race organizer will set how long that given event is. All of the Crit City events this weekend are a mere 8 laps – giving you a total of 15.2KM/9.6mi.
My First Crit:
This may be the juncture where I point out that I’m ‘officially’ a triathlete (yes, I still raced at least one triathlon this year). As such, my triathlete card states that doing crits is a poor life choice. Mostly because any triathlete, handling any bike in a fast moving group of other humans, often results in less than optimal ground contact situations. As such, I’ve actually never had a good reason to do a crit, real life or otherwise.
However, I cracked open the Zwift companion app today and saw it on the list. But as you can see – things clearly aren’t fully baked yet from a Zwift perspective. For example, there’s no preview map of the race route within the companion app:
In my case, I joined with a CAT C grouping, in total about 276 people were registered for the event, with about 75 or so in my category. I usually ‘race’ in Zwift in CAT C. I use the word ‘race’ somewhat liberally, because I’m rarely competing for anything. I generally end up in the top 20-25% assuming Zwift doesn’t crash/freeze/whatever else along the way (which, happens more than it should during races or large group events).
Here’s what all of the Crit City ones this weekend look like within the app:
Two failed attempts to join earlier in the day due to technical and then toddler reasons, I found myself at 3:30PM today finally ready to roll. Well, 3:32PM actually. They staggered the group starts, though it doesn’t matter much because you only see your own group on course. With one toddler down for a nap and the other reasonably occupied for the duration of the race, I joined about 30 or so seconds before it started:
For those curious, I was rockin’ my older road bike on a Tacx NEO 1 (original baby!). Now that I’m done reviewing trainers for the year (ok, I’m actually not, but we can pretend I am) – this is the setup I have at home for weekend/night riding.
Technically I also have Vector 3 & Stages LR on the bike too, but this was a rare non-comparative ride. Watch-wise I had a Vivoactive 4 on, though I didn’t bother to start it. I used a Mio Pod optical arm strap, and then watched as it twice shut off mid-ride. Because…that’s a topic for another day.
Oh, and there was also a prototype Maelstrom ANT+ fan controller in there too. Ok, now I’m done on the tech stuff.
So, 29 seconds later and the race started. I assumed it’d be just like any other Zwift Race, which is to say – balls to the wall for the first while. I also assumed ‘while’ meant the entire race.
I was correct.
It started off the first while at 500w+, and then slowly crept down into 400’s before roughly settling in the 300’s range…for the remainder of the race. However, I actually managed to keep up quite nicely. I got into what appeared to be the lead group relatively quickly, and generally stayed within the Top 10.
I was pretty sure the first 3-4 laps that Top 10 was entirely within that lead group, but at some point along the way a rider or two snuck out somehow. Shrug, I wouldn’t be able to sprint my way for the win even with an older CycleOps Hammer trainer (yes, I know, a firmware update fixed that benefit a few months ago). I was mainly aiming for Top 10.
The course is, as the name implies, in a city. Mostly a modern city, but there are some old-world touches. Also note there’s even a giant screen that’s theoretically broadcasting the race. In practice, it’s actually just a still image (to the right of the turn):
The laps frankly blurred by. You’d feel the little speed bump (hill) each lap briefly, which spikes to 8% from what I saw on the screen. But wait, here’s a fun video of what a single lap of that blur looks like:
Here’s that cobblestone section I talked about as well, which is cool on the NEO Series trainers cause you do feel it as part of the road feel bits:
Around the 6 lap marker, my Mac started giving me a hard time. Apparently, I forgot to plug it in earlier in the day, and I started the event at 30% power. Also apparently, my MacBook Pro laptop burns battery like a blowtorch during a race. Just like me. So around the 6 lap marker when it was down to 10% power, graphics went out the window. You know how people talk FPS – frames per second? Nope, I was seconds per frame. About an update every 3 seconds. It was craptastically awesome.
(And, because some of you will say – but wait, the laptop was plugged in, in the photo earlier! Sure, it was…with a 45w non-Apple charger I grabbed last second that did approximately nothing to provide power.)
You simply can’t keep up with the race dynamics with that, and the group I was part of broke away. Heck, even my screen started virtually falling apart. This screenshot shows what I saw numerous times. Albeit this was taken just after crossing the line. But still, same-same. Again, I think this is really more my computer’s fault than Zwift’s. But it does give yet another reason why consumers just want an all-in-one ‘always works’ solution like Peloton. Display and everything built in.
In any case, I just kept on pedaling, but once you lose the group you lose the motivation to hold on.
With that pack travelling some 30MPH (~50KPH), there’s no way to hold that speed once you fall off (above is a descent at –6%, hence the speed). Still, I pedaled those last two laps in, and only managed to fall to 13th place. I’ll take it!
All in, the 8 laps took me 21mins and with an average power of 316w. I even got a new Zwift FTP update out of it:
In unrelated news, my heart rate is still higher than normal – some 7 hours later. That pretty much hurt like an FTP test did. Which, I guess it kinda was.
Wrap-Up:
Like I said earlier on, I’m reasonably impressed. I mean, it’s not like Zwift did anything terribly magical here. They just made a 1.9KM loop course and then allowed people to run events on it. Technically speaking they could have done that anywhere in their existing courses and achieved the same technical thing.
None of the corners are slowed down in the course based on what I could see. Which takes away some of the realism of a real-life crit. There’s no technical aspect to crits today, but it does sound like it’s coming. Back on the Eric Minn Thanksgiving Day Ride (he’s the CEO), he talked about the crit course a little bit in the chat. One of the things he noted was that some element of steering is in the cards for on-road routes (versus the steering beta they did this past fall).
That will, of course, require riders have some aspect of additional hardware. Whether it be a phone mount for their handlebars as the beta was, or a steering device from Elite or JetBlack (or one of the smart bikes that has steering potential). That would add to the realism. And then, in a galaxy far far away, as CVRCade would say – so would crashes. That’s obviously a controversial topic on Zwift, but there is a reality to that. Just like mountain biking, one key aspect that separates virtual riding of crits to real-world riding is the crash-avoidance piece. How they could down the road implement that in a way that isn’t frustrating is the question (and a really tough question). Personally I like it without crashes, but, I’m also open to some magical implementation beyond anything I’ve seen to date.
Still, much to my surprise I think I’d actually be game for doing more of these. I’d probably prefer the shorter ones over longer times. Perhaps up to 30 minutes or so for my enjoyment factor. I don’t think you’d see me doing an hour one anytime soon, but hey, maybe I’ll change my mind…again. We’ll see.
With that – go forth and have a good weekend!
(P.S. – In case you didn’t know, or don’t have a new smart trainer, there’s a new sale that started this weekend with 20% off KICKR/KICKR CORE/Saris H3, and a few others including the rarely discounted Favero Assioma power meter pedals. Full details of that and more items than your wallet wants here.)
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Makes me want to get zwift again? Currently on trainerroad.
Again! (Can’t edit comments).
I just don’t get the steering aspect. Most of my outdoor steering isn’t done with the handlebars.
Do you just trash a lot of tour testing rides? How can you only be a lvl 18 zwifter! LOL!
I throw away a lot of random rides that aren’t legit rides.
But more importantly I use a pile of different apps. So perhaps on average only one ride a week is on Zwift, if that. I can go weeks without riding it at all, especially if it’s nicer weather or if I’m doing more running instead. If I wasn’t in this line of work, I’d probably be a problem user for Zwift in that sense – as eventually I’d just stop paying for it for months at a time.
Looks fun. I’d like to see a max speed in corners – in real life you can’t do a right angle turn at 60kph – force the pack to slow and the surge back out. I think it would give a more realistic feel
Also restrict how many riders can go into a turn abreast at once (can’t go round a 90 degree turn at speed more than 3 wide, for example) forcing the accordion effect, giving more reason to move up the pack or risk having to surge harder and get caught behind splits. That would add FAAAAR more realism than steering
I am not into Crit races and guess I came for just some pictures.
And then I saw the picture I got just excited about: the Maelstrom!
I would be curious if it works with 2 such fans (don’t now if it is the Honeywell fan I have too).
This is fore sure one project I like to fund if he ever does something like that for European certification.
I just have a generic Honeywell fan. Like, I bought it off of Amazon Germany for $20 – nothing special at all. Actually, a bought a pile of them for a project I might eventually finish some day.
For safety reasons it’s not recommended to run two fans with the controller at the same time. Most of the North American rules limit such a device to a 3A fault condition. Putting multiple fans in parallel has a much higher potential to blow the fuse during startup as a result.
Was there anything in particular that made this race more fun than other short, flat races on Zwift, or is it just this type of race that you like best, regardless of the map?
I think it’s more the wrapper of it all. Meaning, there’s other short flat races, but finding them and such is more of a pain. In this case, if I see crit city, I know what to expect.
This is an area where if Zwift had ways to filter events, it’d go a long way. Similar to TrainerRoad’s workout filtering concept.
Finding races is easy if you use zwiftpower.com
Crit “like” races include: Laguardia, Richmond Flat, Classique and Volcano CCW.
I expect that the new Crit City and Dolphin courses will be the most popular as they are the shortest.
I find Zwift racing a bit pointless. It’s essentially a FTP test rather than a race as all skill, tactics and judgement removed to be replaced with a lung busting, leg withering effort for however long the duration of the race is. Much prefer bunch rides or group workouts where I can just enjoy the ride rather than be irritated but the limitations of Zwift racing. I cannot imagine why the UCI or anyone else would want to take Zwift races seriously.
For most people, Zwift racing isn’t an alternative to a group ride or workout – it’s an alternative to a boring interval workout. Any race that is set to Doubledraft ends up having at least the tactical components that come from real-world drafting effects. It’s pretty easy to sit in for extended periods of time.
Yup, I agree – I don’t do a Zwift race because I care to race and win. I do it simply as something slightly more entertaining than not doing it and doing something else. I also know it’s usually a VO2Max effort.
And sometimes, I’ll just do it for a set period of time too if the only race that fits my time-slot is far longer than I want.
Zwift racing doesn’t have as much racecraft as IRL racing. But it does have more than you think.
Of course, if you approach it thinking that it is just an FTP test then you are unlikely to find out how you can win against people with a higher FTP (W/kg) than you have.
Much like IRL there are ways to get to the end and beat people that are stronger than you are.
What disappoints me in Zwift races is the group selection.
You said you took Group C which is 2,5 to 3,1 W/kg and you were pushing 318W on average which gives (using some numbers from the screenshots) 3,8-3,9 W/kg on average. And the whole group was pushing this much. Someone who was 3,0 FTP/kg would have been dropped like a stone several minutes in the race…
Another thing which I don’t like about Zwift racing is like others mentioned – the lack of tactics, handling – basically nothing else than cardio + muscle test. It’s like a Strongman for cyclists. For me – cycle races are so much more. Sure it can be fun, but it’s pedal to the metal from start to finish.
I might be complaining I don’t know 😉
Yeah, I guess the problem is that this was the rare example where I actually did half-way well by most metrics.
The challenge is that I know very well that while I managed 318w for that 20mins, I was done. Heck, one can roughly see that there. This is a good example of a 20 min FTP test versus an hour FTP. I certainly don’t have the fitness today to hold anywhere near that 318w for an hour, not even 300w or 290w. My guess is probably 270w give or take. Just not that kind of athlete right.
I was thinking the exact same thing. It appears to me that everyone is racing “their_group – 1”.. When I saw that Ray was racing group C I thought “he’s way faster then that” and sure enough ! Zwift needs to do something about that.. They need to implement the same rules as are used in standard racing in the US. Finish a race above the w/kg for that group and you get bumped up..
The problem is, again, how do you define that? Zwift’s tiers, as defined here* are based on FTP (roughly 1hr power), not based on 20-minute power. As I just noted below, if you compare that to running, that’s like comparing a 10-mile pace to a 5KM (3.1mi) pace). It’s just not the same.
So my CAT for an hour race is C range, albeit it at the upper end (a touch over 3.00). However, I don’t disagree with you. The problem is that there’s zero point in me racing as a B – I’m going to finish dead last every single time. One might argue that’s the point of moving up – but I don’t really think that’s the case.
But let’s take that that assumption of using USA Cycling CAT upgrade system. By that standard**, I’m well stuck in the C’s for a long time. It requires a number of Top-10 finishes. This is actually the closest I’ve ever come to a Top 10 finish (except events with like 10 people). Most of the time I’m top 20-30%, assuming I don’t have a technical issue.
I would assume the general goal (written aspects aside) of moving up is that you actually achieve some ‘success’ in your current category first. I would think that’s pretty clearly be defined as at least once getting on a podium (hasn’t happened for me yet), but here it’s defined as Top 10 for 10 races (out of 25). I’m not even sure I’ve even done 10 races on Zwift.
Anyway, food for thought.
*https://zwift.com/news/12012-zwift-how-to-choose-your-cycling-race-category/
** link to active.com
By definition, the current categories are based on FTP. FTP is what you can do for one hour.
And we know that for intervals less than one hour we can do higher numbers. The shorter the interval the higher the number.
That is also why if you are doing a 20 minute FTP test, you take 95% as your estimated FTP.
Again, zwiftpower.com does all the work for DQ’ing people based on their 20 minute FTP estimate. So 5% over in a 20 minute race won’t get you a DQ.
Only came here for the ‘You raced in Cat C’ comments!
I think one of the problems with Zwift is that people take it too seriously. It’s too easy to cheat anyway so I use it to improve myself which doesn’t require comparison with anyone else. The racing is fun and there’s always someone slower / faster than you.
I race C too and was chuffed that I hit 3.2 w/kg for first time. Will I be moving up to B? No way! Can’t remember what position I finished in, somewhere in the middle I think. Zwiftpower will boot off the bigger ‘cheats’ so use that if you want a fairer race.
With all due respect what you just said is incorrect.
There is no such thing as a 20 minute FTP. There are 20 minute FTP tests, and they work by taking your 20 minute power output and 95% of that is your estimated FTP. Very few people actually take 1 hour FTP tests.
All FTP tests, whether the two 8 minute efforts, 20 minutes or 1 hour are intended to be the same measurement.
You are racing in the wrong category. If you don’t believe me, ask someone you trust.
On ZwiftPower, they take the average of 3 races, and once you are above 3.2 w/kg you are bumped in the B cats, and if you race as a C, the result is thrown out. You can go up to 3.4 w/kg for an individual race, this is to allow for one to exceed their ftp without being penalized.
But suffice to say, there is no theory by which you are a Cat C….on Zwift you are just allowed to sign up for the wrong category.
The cat upgrade system will be changed. New rules are to be announced, shortly. Previously, a good rider would be upgraded by the local association regardless of the specific rules. If they showed power, then they were upgraded. They didn’t wait for 10 finishes.
I’ve seen several cat 5 fellows win a race and receive an upgrade. Their wins were a spectacle. One became a world champion. After his first win he was upgraded to 4. After another win he was upgraded to 3.
“But suffice to say, there is no theory by which you are a Cat C….on Zwift you are just allowed to sign up for the wrong category.”
Well, that seems like an awfully strange way to set distinctions then – given that I’ve yet to ever break Top 10 in a race, and this is the closest I’ve ever come to a race.
Most people mix things up and are overlooking things.
20 min P as such is different from the same in a test. Cause then it’s measured using a protocol. Next is the 95 (90?)%.
Then P values should be in W/kg.
Flat versus mountains: interesting what the algorithms do……
What’s the problem with racing in a lower category? Your placing will be relative. Who cares? There’s no price money…. And if you’re making it too furry (this is Google translation) you’ll be thrown out/moved to the proper category.
Many ways of cheating to make everything even more complicated!
The problem with strong people riding in the lower categories is that they are much stronger than the other people. And tend to blow the group up.
For new people (to racing) this is very discouraging. They are trying to determine their relative strengths and it becomes hard to do that.
I really enjoyed it when I tried at the weekend, the only really issue for me was that there is no control over who races in what division, e.g. I can average around 3.2 W/kg as a relatively new cyclist, but that is me going balls to the wall, so of course I chose group C (2.5-3.1) as I know I’m right at the top end. So why are 80% of the other racers in the group there, immediately I could see they went of fast which you expect, but a lap from the end of the race the lead group went past me and looking at the riders they were happily sitting at 4+ W/kg, it just completely ruined to fun of it! I know this is the same for all Zwift races but surely the system is intelligent enough to see previous rides and simply select the appropriate group to try and make it fairer for everyone who may actually want to pitch themselves against riders of a similar level!
That said I will definitely do more Crit races, and I wouldn’t change group either, I doubt it is any different going in the ‘slowest’ group as there is always someone who wants to win that badly.
300 watts and you joined the C group?
Realistically I’ve found Zwift groupings completely skew of what you think you should be in. It’s plausible I could be in CAT-B, but the general rule of thumb in Zwift seems to be take what you think you might be in, and subtract one. :-/
That map suggests there’s more than 1000 feet difference between the lowest and highest parts of the course! And who’d build a city inside a volcano?
My issue with swift races….you entered cat C, averaged cat B power and came 13th…
I’m guessing as I’m a lighter rider, pure power is more important than W\KG given the flat course?
The problem with that thinking though is that the guidelines are based on 1hr power, not 20min power. That’s like assuming I can run a 10mi race in the same pace as a 5K race (similiar timeframes here).
So while my 20-minute power was pretty good here, my 1-hr power (which is what Zwift on their support page says to use), is substantially lower.
Great job, considering the graphic issues. Zwiftpower (if you’re not on Zwiftpower, you do not exist) has you in second place: link to zwiftpower.com However, you lose a few style points for spelling Eric Min’s name incorrectly.
Second place to this guy?
link to wfmz.com
Nice job if that is true.
Thus showing perfectly why, while well intentioned, Zwift power isn’t terribly well suited for its role when only 10% of the race participants are signed up to use it.
To be clear, I think ZwiftPower as a platform is great – but the interface between Zwift and ZwiftPower is such that ultimately it just isn’t terribly useful except for tracking your personal stats on Zwift (but not even race placings).
However, one of the fascinating things it does do in this very scenario is show you how many non-Cat A riders hit maximum 90-day wattages during this race. It’s astounding, the majority of B/C/D did (including myself).
You are correct about Zwiftpower, especially when it comes to events populated by the folks who “just want to try a race”, such as the one you entered.
Zwiftpower is much more useful for the races frequented by the racing community. These events seem to have a high Zwiftpower participation rate and many of these events “require” Zwiftpower signup.
With Zwift’s recent focus on eSports, I am curious to see how they will handle event entry & DQs. Will they integrate Zwiftpower or a similar solution? I completely understand Zwift not wanting to police event entry & DQs in the past (not wanting to DQ paying customers), but things have changed. Let’s see how Zwift adapts.
10% is an understatement.
It does, of course, depend on what category in what race.
The A category in a popular race can be much much higher (70-80%).
The C and especially D categories in the numerous small races may approach 10-20%.
If you use zwiftpower’s live feature you can easily learn which riders in your group are in zwiftpower and which ones you can ignore.
“If you use zwiftpower’s live feature you can easily learn which riders in your group are in zwiftpower and which ones you can ignore.”
But that’s assuming you care about ZwiftPower. I don’t.
I don’t mean that in a negative way towards ZwiftPower, but at the end of the day that’s just a 3rd party site making up rankings that don’t apply to the actual race. The race I’m racing – the race I care about, is the one in front of screen with 100% of the riders that are real-life pedaling. We can debate all day whether those riders are cheating wilfully, cheating with bad equipment, or anything else – but those be the riders that I’m pedaling against.
I guess that’s what’s so silly about this entire Cat B/Cat C debate – it seems to be taken in this weird ZwiftPower bubble. As to say ‘Oh, but look – you would have been 2nd on ZwiftPower’. Except, that’s selectively DQ’ing 90% of the field just cause.
It sounds like the real solution is either:
A) Stop racing
B) Stop using ZwiftPower entirely, and just enter races in an appropriate category to my actual abilities until I eventually get a finish that’s at least Top 10 or podium like for any consistent manner of time
Else, anything else just puts me dead-last in every single heat, since that’s what the results would show. To which some might say ‘Well, you need to work your way up’, except that’s not true either. Because that would imply I’ve actually worked my way towards the top of Cat B, which I clearly haven’t since I’ve yet to get a single race Top 10 or a single podium. Thus, by that very definition I’ve yet to work my way to the top of Cat B.
And then someone might say ‘Well, because people can self-select everyone is in the wrong groups, ignore that and use ZwiftPower’. But again, that’s not the actual race. So I refer you back to my previous two choices. Sigh.
I’m new to Zwift and am a novice rider. (I stumbled on Zwift when agonizing over the cost of the Peloton.) Even though I get dusted in the races, I find the competition gratifying. I find people with similar ability to me (near the back, of course) and race my behind off. So, I’m surprised by the people who get frustrated at Zwift racing by the people out category.
Imho, we(I know I do)get frustrated that pedalling an ergometer is considered “racing” at all. Years ago rowing had an aphorism: put an erg in the water and it sinks. In the 80’s some winning racers were booted from US national teams because their erg numbers didn’t meet the coaches’ concept of what was required. We understand better now what numbers don’t tell us but this Zwift racing thing just brings up bad old memories.
Great motivation though, as you’ve found, if the “honest FTP” riders manage to find one another at the back.
Why are we frustrated that racing a trainer is considering racing? I’m genuinely curious.
Steering in a spinner on races and collisions is a bad idea for zwift. How to save an accident when 3000 riders start.
It is easiest if they automatically slow down the turns. There are currently no straight turns. It looks ridiculous downhill and 90km / h turn.
I will add that thanks to the race for zwift I am still there. THIS drives my flesh and mind. Zwift training doesn’t squeeze me like a race. Workouts are boring even on zwift. THIS thanks to zwift races won popularity. other applications have not seen potential in racing and in training and have fallen. I have been zwift for 3 years 🙂 mainly racing.
Once they nail down steering it would be more fun if they had a demolition derby event.
Hello Ray,
Is that a 15 or 16 inch MacBook Pro? What is the Zwift performance like when you remember to plug it in? Will it run the Ultra settings?
I raced it this a.m. for the first time. A cool little course. Like all Zwift races, start was fast/furious, but did settle down a bit, but ended up mid-pack after the 4-5 kw/g “C” racers went unseen after two minutes in. Racing is something Zwift needs to improve. Why not integrate the Zwift Power or something similar into it (I’m not currently on it). I race as a ‘C’ and often see B wattage and even sometimes A in that group. It would also be nice to see races with lead-in’s have a paced riding for a mile or two or limit wattage in that first mile or so like irl stage racing in pro tours.
My own problem is just showing up with little time to spare w/o a proper warm up. It’s all still fun, but would be nice to see the system sort it a bit more equitably. Just a few more days until more daylight…esp. us folks here in the north land.
Cheers.
I’ve done a bunch of races, and get into the front pack, only to find that the folks at the front are holding wattages that are well above the D group that I’m currently stuck in. Once I know that I won’t be able to hold them, I don’t kill myself, and I fall of their draft. At the end of the day, I look more to the zwiftpower rankings. If the other riders are sandbagging, they’ll be automatically bumped up the corresponding group. That being said, I’ve definitely gotten worse than 5th place on certain races, and I am 1st on zwiftpower. It all depends on where you think your placement matters most.
Once Zwift decides to acquire zwiftpower, then you’ll see people’s results being bumped appropriately. As it is now, if you don’t have heartrate in some of the lower groups, you can race, but you can’t podium. It all depends on how seriously you take the racing.
ALSO, the Crit race is fast, and I bumped my FTP up 6 watts. My lungs hurt for another 15 minutes afterwards.