Originally Posted by
spelger
might try a race again. i did one and was honest with my category and i think that was a mistake. i was dropped so early by all others in my category that it left a sour taste in my mouth. just didn't want to do that again. i think my take away from that is to pick a level or two below honest. i don't mind getting dusted, i'm not a great rider, but it just seems strange that i was getting dusted by almost all of those in the next cat down.
i am finding the events to be fun. rode another last night that was essentially a threshold ride for me.
i did an event last week, something about chasing a group of riders or being chansed wiht a 10 min lead for the chasees. i decided to be a chaser. wow was that hard. i was the last A rider but not the last rider. my goal was to reach the end before the first C rider. i read the description incorrectly and there were three laps before the last chase up one of the hills in Austria. i thought there was supposed to be only one lap and i was so darn tired. was fun though becasue i pushed myself pretty hard that day and did a vo2 max the previous day.
I've seen a couple videos by former pros and current Cat1 racers about Zwift races, and uniformly they are taken by surprise by how hard Zwift races are. EVERYONE sprints out of the gate, and then because there really aren't corners you never get a break where you're not pedalling. There's also some question about how realistic the drafting is. Personally, I don't think it's cheating to race in the category where you're actually competitive, no matter what category you theoretically fit into.