Originally Posted by
Cypress
The physics engine in Zwift is an interesting thing. I've had to "coach" one of my friends through the Zwift racing world, even though I only have one event under my belt. He's a smaller dude and got DQ'd for having too much power in a B event, but he's never won a race against the huge guys dumping watts. At the end of the race, his average W/kg is huge compared to the guys that won and it bothers him that he's getting beaten by "weaker" "fat" riders. Now that he's getting DQ'd in the B's, he has to race in the A's where he'll get mauled.
I do think Zwift Power's category guidelines are a bit skewed. Dudes that can't crack top ten in cat 3 races or top 20 in Strava leaderboards are winning Zwift B races. Then there are guys like my friend that are routinely top 10 on Strava, and can't podium a Zwift B race to save his life, but are getting DQ'd for having too much power.
Exactly. I'm smaller also and fear after one or two races I'll get mauled being bumped up to A from B. Even if mountainous in Zwift, huge difference from a 4.0 A rider and a 4.5 or 5.0 A rider. Yuge, bigly difference.
Around town, if it's uphill, I'm top 10 leaderboard. Now, it's short 1 to 5min little hills, but it's what we have. But, just to sit in with the huge massive riders I'll be averaging a 4.0 or more at 20min at some point. I threw out 6.1w/kg for 2min the other day to tie a local hill KOM, a new PR for that time range.
I think it should be absolute power based also, not just w/kg. W/kg matters squat in the flatter lands.
But, it's a video game and I still have fun riding solo and doing group workouts or the "z1/z2 cruise but sprint the sprint KOMs".