With 284 Zwift races under my belt, you could say I’m pretty experienced. What has all that experience taught me? Quite a bit, really. Mostly the same things over and over again. I’m not a climber. I’ve got a decent sprint, but can’t attack and stay away to save my life. I can dig deeper than my mind says.
But today I want to talk about one race that stands out as a wholly unique experience against the background of my other 283 races: the DADurday Chase Race of November 23, 2019.
DADurday: an Introduction
The DIRT DADurday Chase Race is one of Zwift’s most popular weekly handicap races. (Not sure what a “handicap race” is? Read the beginning of this post.) Held on Saturdays in two different time slots, these events have become legendary for pushing riders to their limit as they work with their category for most of the race, then go all-in for the finish.
See upcoming DADurday Chase Races >
Warming Up
It was Saturday, which is my long ride day, so my goal was to get a hard race effort in, followed by some additional miles on tired legs to really push the fatigue.
So I began with my typical pre-race ritual: a piece of caffeine gum and some PR lotion on the legs. Hopped on early and put in ~8 miles to warm up, then headed over to NYC for the 6:45am DADurday. Seven laps of NYC’s LaGuardia Loop–this was going to be a short race!
I checked the rider list in Zwift Companion before the race began, and noticed one name I recognized in the A group: Ben Swift. British National Road Race champion. Team Ineos rider. Yes, that Ben Swift.
We were going to have our work cut out for us in the B’s…
The Undeserving Beacon
Months ago I’d been asked by DIRT organizers if I could be a leader for the DADurday B’s on the weeks I showed up. I said yes–and promptly neglected to show up. (The problem is, I really enjoy the P Race, which begins 15 minutes after DADurday…)
I’m still on the leader list even though I’ve only raced a few DADurdays–so when I popped into the start pin, there was the leader beacon above my head. It screamed “Follow me, I’ll lead you to glory!” when in fact I had no idea if I’d even be able to hang with the front group, let alone wisely direct the group on its optimal pacing.
Oh well–it is what it is! Let’s race.
The Start
Early in every chase race, someone always asks, “What’s our target pace?”
I never know how to answer. Our goal is simple: to catch the C’s and D’s ahead of us, and stay away from the A’s behind. But the pace? I have no idea what pace is required in order to achieve that goal. Nobody does!
So I usually say something like, “4 w/kg+ if you’re on the front. Then sit in the pack to recover.” But really what that means is, go as hard as you can. Get on the front and hammer to pull the group along, then recover in the draft a bit, then hammer again. And if you really want to be a team player, use your aero powerup off the front to pull the group extra fast!
Unlike a typical Zwift race, chase races start more gently, since everyone knows the group has to stay together to stand a chance at winning. So that’s how we started–a tame but solid ramp up to race speed (~28mph), where we would sit for the rest of the event.
The Middle
Here’s the tricky thing about chase races: it’s hard to keep tabs on the other groups from within Zwift. I already talked about pacing a bit above, but here’s my more detailed pacing strategy for chase races: give only what is required to catch the riders ahead, while staying away from the chasers. Because you’ll need everything you’ve got left for the final sprint if you make it to the front pack.
With this strategy in mind, it becomes obvious that knowing the positions of the other categories is really helpful. But the only way to do that reliably is by having ZwiftPower’s Live event results up on another screen–and I hadn’t done that.
I told you I was a bad beacon!
So this is where things got messy. On a long route it’s easier to spot groups on the map and see who’s ahead and by how far. But on a 1.7 mile LaGuardia loop, things get confusing really quickly. I was leading the B riders, and while we could see some clusters of D and C riders ahead, it was hard to figure out where the front of the race was. Was that the front group? Or maybe it’s that one?
And the A’s were gaining ground, but it was hard to figure out just how quickly. I imagined Ben Swift on the front of the peloton, just smashing it.
The Case of the Missing A’s
As we entered the final lap, we passed what I thought was the leading C group. Then we passed what I thought was the lead D group.
Behind us I could see some A’s chasing. Very close. Or was it just one A? Hard to tell, but just when I thought we’d get caught by the A riders, they seemed to slow down and hang with the group behind my hard-charging B squad.
That was odd. Typically at this point in the race, the B’s are tired and the A’s have the stamina to blow through the pack and keep charging.
To this day, I’m still not sure what happened to those A riders. But I have a theory: I think Ben was pulling a small group of A’s, but he didn’t want to contend for the overall win. That’s a non-uncommon pro move in low-level Zwift and outdoor races, because a pro rider basically has two options in these situations:
- Fight for the win and possibly lose. Losing looks really bad if you’re the only pro on course. And sometimes, winning against a bunch of amateurs looks worse!
- Sit up at the end and let others fight it out. You get a good workout, and everyone knows you weren’t really trying to win, so your reputation doesn’t suffer in any way.
It’s also possible that he and/or some of the other A’s, unlike myself, realized the A’s didn’t stand a chance of being in the mix for the overall podium, so they all sat up.
The Finish
Whatever the reason, in the end it was my pack of 18 B’s (we started with 49) going all-out up the final kicker and into the downhill sprint finish. Every man for himself!
The powerup gods had smiled upon me with an aero helmet, so I popped that and gave it all I had. Which wasn’t much. But it was enough for 3rd place in the B’s:
The Hammer Drops
I headed over to ZwiftPower to check results, and that’s where I got the bad news: we never caught the front of the race.
Oops. Who gave this guy the leader beacon, anyway?
Yes, according to ZwiftPower, 12 D’s and 7 C’s had finished ahead of our B group. Well ahead, in fact: David Ramsey, a D who took the overall first place, finished 3 minutes and 37 seconds ahead!
Sandbagging Handicaps
Without attacking anyone personally, I want to discuss how this race perfectly spotlights the way sandbaggers (riders who race in a lower category than they should) have made a shambles of chase race results on Zwift.
For chase races to work, categories must be separated by time gaps which allow the categories to come together near the very end of the race, so everyone is sprinting together for the win. It doesn’t always work out perfectly (setting those gaps can be a challenge!), but experienced race organizers have it figured out pretty well at this point.
In our case, the B’s started 8 minutes behind the D group and 3 minutes behind the C group. In the end, ZwiftPower shows the front D’s finishing 3:37 ahead of us, while the front C’s finished 1:17 ahead.
But ZwiftPower doesn’t tell the whole story.
A look at the results in Zwift Companion shows that the C and D groups were stuffed full of sandbaggers. Here are screenshots of the top finishers in each category, with names crossed out if the rider was DQ’d or not signed up for ZwiftPower (remember, I said no personal attacks).
(The red X denotes obvious sandbaggers–those who exceeded category limits by 0.3w/kg or more.)
Crazy, right? 5 of the top 10 C’s were sandbagging. And 8 of the top 10 D’s!
What this means is, the C and D groups were pulled along at much higher speeds than they should have been, because riders in those groups were putting out efforts above C and D levels. This basically made it impossible for the B and A riders to catch the front of the race.
The solution to this problem is for Zwift to figure out a workable system that places riders in the correct category when signing up. I’ve written more about this in my “Enforcing Race Categories” series.
Obviously this doesn’t diminish the results of the legit C’s and D’s who took the win. I say chapeau to them! Again, I just think it’s worth highlighting how sandbagging affects chase races.
Interestingly, the B’s had no obvious sandbaggers in the group. And the A’s? Well… look who took the win:
Nice work, Mr. Swift! In the end, Ben completed the race 26 seconds faster than me. But since the A’s started 1 minute after the B’s, we finished ahead of him.
So that’s a win, right? 😉
Takeaways
My main takeaway for this race is simply that I need to use ZwiftPower’s live feed in future chase races, especially those on smaller loops, and especially DADurday races where I’ve got the leader beacon.
This will let me easily see where the other categories are in relation to mine, so I can decide if I want to go faster, or conserve energy for the finish.
Your Thoughts
Ever beat a pro in a Zwift race? Enjoyed a solid DADurday, ZHR, or Lamb Chop chase effort? Share your thoughts below!
As a legit C, I have enjoyed being passed by you and your fearless Bs a few times over the past six months or so of racing the DADurday race. Within the C group we often are pulled by sandbaggers for the first half of the race, but then they rocket off the front never to be seen again.
Would be really nice if Zwift just put the riders in their categories based on FTP. Though I guess riders would change their FTP too?
Does the ZP Live Feed actually work pretty good at showing you where everyone is? most times I’ve looked at it, it seems kinda wanky…
It’s worked decently when I’ve used it in the past. But I haven’t used it much!
I was in the C class (legit) for this race. What I remember about it was going extra deep for half an hour (183 bpm) and being thrilled with the result, even though I finished off the podium. I’m as irritated as anyone about the sandbagging that happens and supportive of Eric’s effort to get a system in place to stop that. However, this may be the one race I’ve ever done where it benefitted me to have the ‘baggers along.
Not a single one of those 14 c group folks belonged in that class. Not one! I wish a penalty, maybe a short term sin bin, like a 2 week racing ban could be assessed for the kind of shenanigans you’re describing. No need for permanent bans or sanctions, no reporting, you just have to sit a couple of weeks
Well, to give them the benefit of the doubt, this could have been a breakaway performance for some or all of them. All the C riders I didn’t black out were in the final ZwiftPower results, which means they were C category riders according to ZP. I think they’re probably all “on the edge” and will get upgraded (or already have been).
I’ll be sure to check in with David before I enter my next race despite what my class on Zwift Power says.
Remember that the categories are generally based on FTP (maximal 60-minute effort) while the figures in the results are (I presume) for the duration of the race (30 mins or so), which will be somewhat more than FTP. Keeping in mind the 95% factor commonly used for getting FTP out of 20-minute power, the factor here would probably be something around 96 to 97%. Of course there are individual differences, but certainly all the 3.2 W/kg Cs and probably most of the 3.3 W/kg Cs are still in the correct category.
That’s a good point regarding race length. Most people will be able to post a higher 20-minute power during a 30 minute race than they will in a race of an hour or more. As an upper-end B rider, I can usually post 20-min figures of 3.8 or 3.9 in a half-hour race, but if the race is an hour or more, I’m usually at more like 3.4 or 3.5. The Crit City races are an extreme example of this — many of them are eight laps, which come in at just over 20 minutes, and result in 20-minute power numbers that are considerably higher than what most people would post in a longer race.
I’ve found that no matter the race length in and around an hour the first 20 minutes is basically all out and no difference in 20 minute power, the course profile and size of field is usually what determines the group power output. IMHO this is what determines the peak 20 minute power.
@guest_29328 — good point. Yes, the figures shown in Companion are just average power for the event. I’d still say the ones with the red X’s are sandbaggers, but it’s worth noting that they’re not as far out of category as it may seem!
Hi Eric, can you describe what you mean by sandbaggers and do the sandbaggers” take on different forms. From my race experience on Zwift which is similar to yours I think I’ve seen similar events happens . A group of riders will be pushing the pace extremely hard and without fail a few riders will always have the extra gear and somehow be able to ride away and stay away from a solid drafting group. Personally i feel these types of riders have an immediate effect during the race and also on the results. It would seem to me Zwiftpower would be able to highlight these extreme efforts by these riders during races.
@guest_29337 — when I say sandbagging I mean racing in a category below where you should actually be racing.
I’m not talking about taking it easy and sitting in the pack so you have energy left at the end–that’s just race strategy (and smart race strategy, oftentimes!) I’m talking about the cheating sort of sandbagging, where the race says “B category is for 3.2-4w/kg” and you know you can do 3.5w/kg but you enter as a C.
Also, to add to the general confusion about categories, sometimes, in the event description, they will suggest you choose based on your X minute W/kg. However, not everyone reads this!
With all of this sandbagging, I just feel sorry for the poor A’s who can never win now. It’s just sad for those 5w/kg guys 😉
Worth noting Russ Downing in the A cat too – rode for sky for a couple of seasons 2010-11 ish and many years on the domestic British scene.
My perspective might be different being only a mid Cat D racer, but I don’t understand the psychology behind sandbagging. How can a rider get satisfaction from an effort when he/she has effectively cheated? As you explained in your story, it just ruins it for the honest racers. 😡
Apparently it is more satisfying to sandbag in C than to race in B. This is an Quote form a Rider on Strava “The start was fast and there were a bunch attacks over the first 2/3’s of the race…fortunately it slowed down a bit so I could back under the power cap…if I chased the last attack I would have been over.”
Another great and incisive article. You have highlighted the major problem with ‘sandbaggers’ in how they disrupt the dynamics of any race (which as you say is more noticeable in this type of race). Zwiftpower does an admirable job of DQ offenders, but because it is after the fact, it has no effect on this problem. For a while some race organisers, such as ZHR, combatted this by only publishing its results on Zwiftpower. It infuriates me that now Zwift produces their own leaderboard on the companion app for every event which basically legitimises all this cheating! You have written two in depth articles on how to circumvent this, but still no response from Zwift, who are continually happy to take our money each month, whilst on one hand are trying to legitimise Esports, but on other clearly don’t want to expel anyone from races as this may lead to a loss of revenue. As you have mentioned previously everyday new members complain about cheating in racing. Is it time we that we stopped complaining to each other on Facebook pages such as Zwift riders and used a more direct approach with a co-ordinated effort of complaining to Zwift? I believe there is a way we can ask Zwift for improvements – Category enforcement would be top of my list, before any extra worlds or bikes!
I was in that race and I think I was the lead sandbagger in the D’s! That was the first Dadurday race for me this season and I chose the wrong group–should have been in the C’s. So blame dopes like me!
Wow, I’m internet famous. David Ramsey here, the “winner” of this particular race. I felt like I was sandbagging since I was keeping up, and I certainly race C now. I was coming back to racing after some poor training and injury. I agree that Chase races are a blast and more can be done to boost this from a programing level. From my IRL racing background, I know I will not win the sprints but I will go all out to help a team leader.
Well done, David!
See how you like it in the A’s when someone posts >400w or >5.5w/kg for an hour. Then we can talk about whether you think these people are cheering or not. From experience there seem to be quite a few anorexic <60kg midget 5w/kg ftp out there.
It destroys the racing. Legitimate riders cannot get away. They make breakaways impossible. Then you get spat out the back on long climbs. Hilariously though they don’t always win, because better racers keep their efforts metered, then have enough at the end. But it still messes with the racing.
The problem is getting worse as well. I give it a year and zwift racing won’t be enjoyable any more.
Must we always gravitate to the sandbagging topic. Let’s keep things in perspective. Is it tragic that the star C rider who has an FTP/kg of 2.99, who would otherwise bask in the glory of victory, lose to a back of the pack B rider who has an FTP/kg of 3.01? Or put another way, should someone who had the great fortune to be born with body that can only put out 2.99 watts per kg loath the poor bastard who can put out 3.01, failed in the B’s, so snuck into the C’s? I guess that the A-D categories exist to encourage and motivate people (which is laudable) and I am all for everyone following the rules, but I must confess that I am tiring of every topic morphing into a topic on sandbagging.
A simple sandbagging solution… Create a function that returns a users highest 20 minute w/kg in the last 90 days. The function can be run when looking for races as well as when they sign up. If someone does really well, they basically get “upgraded” to higher category in the future. There would be no need for in race checking. Even if a user hasn’t raced in a long while or is coming from their off season, they can work their way back up the racing category latter. Zwift already does this in the app for “All time best” so it might not be a major coding effort.
Thoughts?
https://forums.zwift.com/t/simple-sandbagging-solution/211909