Radish_legs

Who are they?

Cypress

Scottie holds the world record for Everesting, and can reportedly hold 8.1 w/kg for 4 minutes (in real life).

Radish_legs

357w = 7w/kg = 51kg wt = 112lb.

So yeah, I'm not going to be able to compete with guys who have FTP of 350+w and weigh 112lb.

furiousferret

That dude is a legend. World Champ stripes on his trainer. Kid wants a yoohoo out of the fridge? Nope, see the stripes kid, I'm a World Champ. Go get your mom to do it.

mattm

Can't you just set your weight to 60 lbs and call it good?

rubiksoval

I started the KISS Richmond race last night and got dropped on the first hill. On the first lap. Huh.

A local cat 3 kid was in there. He dropped me, too.

Guess I won't be doing that course anymore.

Ttoc6

They answered who Weiss is.. here is his bio " Past USA National Elite Road Champion, US Masters Crit National Champion and two time WMCF Masters World Champion (Road Race & Time Trial) Past Everesting World record holder. 10 years as a Pro with over 20 years of Cycling. Teams including: Zaxbys Pro Cycling, Subway Pro Cycling, West Virginia/GoMart Pro Cycling, AEG Toshiba, Toshiba, KENDA P/B Gearginder, KENDA P/B 5-Hour Energy, 5-Hour Energy. Racing: USA D1 team currently with “Support Clean Sport// Guttenplan Coaching” 2016, 2017, 2018..and for 2019. Team winning the USA Crit series in 2018. "

Casey Schumm races for the zwift allstars team and is one of the top zwift racers in the world. https://zwiftinsider.com/zwift-community-all-stars/ . This means he's racing in the KISS series with all the pros.

Hermes

Why not.

Being an engineer / finance geek, I was thinking about more subtle things. Use the lessor of ones weight in high school at age 16, ones 30 day moving average weight or the mornings naked weight.

I think the protocol for setting rider weight and the power meter is that racers have to get on a scale calibrated to the national bureau of standards THAT DAY right before the start of the race with all cycling gear on. And calibrate the power meter for zero offset and have a certificate from the PM manufacture that the PM was calibrated at the factory within the last year.

Ttoc6

Or do what happened in my race today. I was a but angry a person behind me took a kom Jersey on what appeared asppeared to be like 250 watts and 5wkg. Only to find out afterwards they're a female and probably as actually do weight 50kg lol. My 70kg ass needs to lose some weight!

Voodoo76

The only place weight is an issue is in the A races. A lot of the courses are flat and the draft model is weak. It's often Watts over Watts/Kg. So drop your weight, go over the limit (for B's 4 w/kg) get moved up. Look at the top of a lot of the B race results & you see 80+ kg riders.

echappist

i was doing a competitive ride this one time (the ADHR Saturday afternoon ride, which is a well-organized ride). It was 3 laps of the Innsbruck course, with a throw down on the last climb (about 18-19 min at my wkg). Two of the riders rode off, and I was doing my best to hold 300 W on my 70 kg fat***. On the rider list, I can see one rider steadily gaining. At first I wondered if the rider suffered a signal drop, as someone this strong shouldn't be stuck so far behind (zwift shows only w/kg, but not kg). Only later did I realize that it was a female racer; and a retired ex-pro at that. She probably had a helluva time riding in the scrum at the shallower part of the course and then just cut through the pack like knife through butter when the slope kicked up

Ttoc6

If you click over to their view you can view their watts. But rarely do I care enough?

I almost feel bad for the 4wkg people that are 50kg. Real world has got to be awful with a threshold that low. At least everywhere I've raced youd have to be very good at drafting to even compete in cat 4 on 200 watts.

Then they pass me going uphill and I dont feel as bad.

Radish_legs

No, I think the minimum is 99lb now. That's what I set it to when my son is riding. Then I change it back when he is done. I would be much more competitive with my weight at 99lb in Zwift. But that would just be cheating myself.

furiousferret

I do that ride too (if I'm working on Saturday which is most days lately).

Cypress

I was holding the KOM jersey in New York (time of 3:37) for a bit before I got passed like I was standing still by a guy holding the sprinters jersey. He was going up the hill holding a consistent 7.5 w/kg so I went to his profile and saw he was only doing about 315-320. That put his weight around 100 pounds :-/ Needless to say, I lost the jersey.

Ygduf

360w on huge-drum rollers.

the problem with zwift racing is that I have raced against many, many, great/elite dudes. I'm big and ground my molars down holding Colin Daw's wheel for 15min in a hillclimb and the lifetime-best numbers I had there wouldn't put me in the top of a casual zwift race. I lapped the (small, like ~15 riders only) field in a 1-mile circuit solo. I got on a podium at nationals for 35-39. I suck at some aspects of racing, yes, but just putting out raw power is like the thing I'm best at.

The zwift-race numbers just don't feel legit to me. In comparing it to actual bike racing, it might as well be racing rowing ergs, or racing stairmasters. Cool for what it is, sure, but not really too similar to bicycle racing.

Ttoc6

This. Double draft helped but not many races are using it anymore. And i say all this as someone who kinda enjoys zwift racing.

Radish_legs

of course it's completely different than real racing. For one, you are never free-wheeling. Relatively little draft. Breakaways are harder to accomplish. Use of power-ups changes things. The strategy is different. If the level is too high, then race down a level. I probably can't hold wheels in an A race, but I can win a B race. In the race I recently won, my avg power was 3.6 w/kg. 2nd place was 3.9 w/kg. It's not all about w/kg.

furiousferret

Descending sucks if you're really light as well; at 145 lbs I have to descend at threshold to keep up.

The more I Zwift the less I do Zwift racing; asking myself the question, 'what does this do to help me win a real race?' and the answer is not much. My power profile just doesn't lend itself to a great experience (I'm usually stuck between the A's and B's alone) and other things are more optimal (workouts). If I had a good 1-2 minute it would be different but I dont.

I do think the 100k group rides are a great workout; 2 1/2 hours at over z3 is a great workout.

Radish_legs

Someone on here said it before. A zwift race is usually a hard start followed by sweet spot, up to threshold, and then a hard finish in the last minute (if you want). It's good work for FTP building. I got out and do my hammerfest group rides, with all the traffic lights and freewheeling. My power profile looks like sawteeth. I did an xert workout yesterday on zwift. Sweetspot. 2 x 20min. But I was watching Netflix and only had zwift going in the background.

rubiksoval

Exactly what I've been saying for the last 4 years I've been racing on Zwift. Very unrealistic to real life racing. Just a good workout for me.

rubiksoval

You can win a B race, on Zwift, but not in real life?

I win multiple p/1/2 races a year, but I can't win an A race on Zwift. For that matter, the last few times I entered a race as a B I didn't win, either!

Zwift takes most of the racing out of racing. Which means a lot of it is simply about power.

UmneyDurak

and apparently tweaking stats to improve w/kg.

Radish_legs

I podiumed a couple/few times in the weekday B crit here, then did the A crit, where the best I did IIRC is 5th twice. I quit racing Bs before I actually won a B. So I would say I *can* win a B race. Someday. The zwift A races are going to take in the end of that bell curve which will include world class guys and cheaters.

rubiksoval

World class guys? No.

Maybe "regional class".