On December 7, Zwift’s James Bailey announced in the Zwift Riders Facebook Group that Zwift would begin working in January to clean up the platform’s race calendar. Zwift believes that larger racing fields make for a better race experience, so they are looking to remove low-participation events from the public calendar (the calendar you can easily browse in Zwift Companion or at zwift.com/events).
Let’s dive into how this will work… and where things might go in the longer term.
Why Is Culling Needed?
James’ post says, “larger racing fields provide a better racing experience and therefore we are now seeking to increase minimum race fields on the public calendar.” Digging into the specifics a bit more, he says:
Detailed analysis of all racing events demonstrates a very clear correlation between the number of participants in an event/subgroup and the percentage of starters that go on to complete the race – (finishing %s are one of our clearest measures of race quality) -. This correlation is not surprising – we know that in smaller races and/or subgroups it’s more likely that you’ll end up alone and you’ll be less likely to finish the race. This is also supported by a range of qualitative feedback we receive.
My guess is most Zwift racers would agree with what James says. It’s really not much fun to race against 5-10 riders. I’ve found that a group of 30+ is about the minimum if I want a good race experience. And the longer the race, the more starters you need, as attrition continues while the race is underway.
How Will Culling Work?
James explains how Zwift will cull races:
- From January 4th onwards, we will review existing racing events on the public calendar
- Races with an average attendance of under 50 over the previous 4 weeks will be transitioned to shareable Club events.
- These races will not be on the public calendar, but they will be available to all members of the club, as well as anyone that the event is shared with.
- When a race is removed from the Public Calendar, the organiser will be contacted to let them know that it has happened, why it has happened and the criteria for the event to be readded to the Public Calendar.
This seems sensible enough, although there are three “gotchas” which Zwift will need to look at closely.
#1: Low-Traffic Time Slots
Zwift traffic varies widely based on time of day, and race participation varies accordingly. Requiring 50 participants during high-traffic times may be perfectly sensible, but during low-traffic times it may wipe out every race on the calendar!
The solution? Zwift will have to pay attention to the density of race events, not just the number of participants in specific races. The good news is, James says, “I’m not going to allow a situation where there are no races to choose from.”
#2: Women-Only Races
While Zwift has always done a good job of supporting women’s racing, participation in women-only races is still much lower than mixed/open events. Simply put, a 50-participant requirement would mean that most women’s races would be removed from the public calendar.
James says Zwift is looking at a threshold of 25 participants for women-only races. That may or may not be the right number, but Zwift has the data. I’m sure they’ll run the numbers and make sure whatever threshold they set doesn’t erase women’s racing from the calendar.
#3: Seasonality
Zwifters know that numbers swell during the Northern Hemisphere winters, specifically from around mid-November to the end of February. I would say traffic during these times is 3-4x what we see during the summer months.
Does a year-round 50-participant requirement make sense when traffic is so seasonal? Probably not. If the 50-participant requirement stays in place during the summer, we may see a very sparse race calendar June thru August.
Converting Club Events to ZwiftPower Races
One reason Club organizers don’t like the idea of their races being “privatized” is that Club events don’t show up on ZwiftPower. But James mentioned in the Facebook thread that “Club events can be added to ZwiftPower,” and this is an intriguing proposition.
Additionally, Club owners can’t just create race events. All Club events are automatically defined as group rides or group workouts, and can only be changed by Zwift staff intervention.
If Zwift is going to get more picky about races on the public calendar, they should feed the race ecosystem by giving Club organizers tools to create great races via their Club, so those events can grow in popularity and eventually be upgraded to public races.
Auto-Upgrading
This leads me to another thought. If Zwift is going to set requirements for races on the public calendar, they should have a process in place whereby popular Club events can be “upgraded” to the public calendar.
James says that’s the plan: “Race organisers will need to provide evidence that the event is achieving attendances of over 50 people for the last two weeks, as a club event.”
Easy enough. But I think this process should be automated, so organizers of big one-off events can blast the event out to their networks, get enough signups for the event to go public, then watch it explode in popularity. Everyone wins in this scenario: the organizers get more event participation, and Zwift gets more engagement.
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What About New Events?
James says race organizers new and old will still be able to ask Zwift to put a new event on the public calendar:
- These will initially be on a 4-week trial period to ensure that attendance reaches desired levels.
- We will, however, expect the Club of the group requesting an event to be placed on the Public Calendar to have at least 100 members.
Automation
Overall, it sounds like Zwift has put some good thought into the process of culling the race calendar. I, for one, fully support this initiative. It’s a topic I’ve bugged Zwift about for a year or more because I agree that too many races within a timeslot just thins the competition and reduces the quality of the race experience.
While Zwift’s initial culling looks to be a rather manual process, I’m hoping they will automate this in the future. Participant thresholds should automatically fluctuate along with overall Zwift traffic, races should be automatically culled based on set criteria, and race organizers should be automatically contacted when any changes are made to their events.
Additionally, organizers should be encouraged to publicize their events well, boosting participation so they can be automatically moved from the Club-only calendar to the public calendar (assuming that’s what the race organizer wants).
All of this could be automated to work efficiently and effectively with very little ongoing input from ZHQ. We have the technology. Make it happen, Zwift!
Your Thoughts
Do you agree that the race calendar needs some cleanup? Got any concerns? Share below!
Zwift was already sparse in some time zones. This seems to be creating two different experiences. One with loads of choices from TT to Crits to Hill Climbs during your prime workout time and another with a single race depending on whether you live in the UK or not.
Surely this effort could be better put trying to give every time zone better experiences and draw more people in rather than taking away.
I would love to see a on the hour start of one of the following for each time zone:
Crit or road race
Time trial
Hill climb
Sprinter points race/omnium of some kind
I also fear for not just unpopular time slots but also less popular race formats, as an example of the 131 TT in the next 7 days showing on zwift power only 3 had over 50 people last week.
TTs are a bit of an odd one in the Zwift racing world. Unlike normal races you don’t have draft or sprint finishes or the like that ruin the experience when only a few people join. I wonder if there’s something to be said for having long duration events (e.g. 24 hours) where you can join any time and run your TT and then see best scores at the end of the event. That would negate the need for a firm schedule at all.
We already have that, it’s called the Zwift TT club and you have all week to do the course and they keep a GC table up to date for each week and across the whole series
I think that this user is suggesting that rather than having events throughout every day of the week, just have an all day event that riders can join at any time during the day to complete the time trial. This limits the number of individual events spread across the calendar. So more of a challenge thing I guess – could be similar to what RGT does with their challenges.
Where can I find the TTClub!? I didn’t know about this!
Yeah, there definitely seems like TTs could be displayed/joined/reported differently to improve the overall feel of each TT “event”. So instead of having multiple Time Zone ‘rac slots’ for the same TT event they could simply allow for TT events to be created with an Availability Length (or whatever) where organizers can set it to be any length from 1-day to 7-days, and then allow riders to pick a start date and time (to say within a 20-min window to allow for staggers) and display all TT events at the top of the Companion App entries for the day and the top of the current available events on ZP with the rider numbers shown being the Total number who have signed up in any day or time and have the ZP results show all those riders in 1 overall results list.
That would mean less time slot ‘competition’ with other events, but would also increase the competitiveness of TT events since you’d be up against anyone in any time zone across the 1-7day running of that TT.
Could be a nice improvement while at the same time removing multiple “smaller looking” TT events from loads of time slots making the PvP Races stand out more in their fixed time slots
i like this idea- kind of like an “ongoing” event
where you can join literally any time and the pen just sends you after a 30 second countdown or something
Theres something to be said for making small races have “start together” enabled too. I know some people don’t like racing with other categories but I’d rather be out there with 30 people than 3 even if they are all better than me. Great for training to keep up with the higher cats!
This future stuff sounds nice but not feeling very hopeful about the timing. I imagine there will be the mass deletion first and not much else beyond that in the short term given software development lead time. Losing Zwiftpower when they convert to club races is brutal.
Maybe Zwift should change the UI to let you easily identify the other riders’ categories. Maybe colored number plates under the seat so you can see the category but still see the team jersey.
I’ve left Zwift completely over this. I wasn’t really riding enough to justify continuing with Zwift, but was having fun organizing.
I don’t find it fun to be under a constant threat of events being deleted from the calendar, so cancelled my subscription.
sure you did
Not sure why you don’t believe it.
I’ll ride outside and use my garmin to do workouts on the trainer.
I’m not sure about that. I wouldn’t be in a club if I hadn’t joined some of the small races and got to know people who turned up at that same race. I guess group rides would serve the same purpose and I assume they aren’t touching those at this stage.
Insane idea. Strava-level problem solving. “Just push everything out of sight”. Instead of improving the calendar UI (e.g. give us more filtering), they water down their own product and – effectively – kill off smaller groups.
I wonder if consideration will be given to race types.
Some of my first Zwift races were in age category and mountain goat races. I don’t think the fields ever hit 50 in those races, but eliminating such races from the public calendar would leave us with pretty much nothing but flat races with a sprint finish. Some variety in types of races should be encouraged.
This is my concern also. There is already a strong convergence around short, flat races on zwift. There are not many longer, hilly, or even age group races, especially with the loss of ZHR races. I’m thinking of events like the weekly 3R Lutscher CCW which does not see big numbers but offers a very different race from the usual Zwift race. Hiding these kind of races just ensures even fewer participants. Popularity should not be the only criteria!
Race difficulty should also be accounted for. Some races like the Vaca smackdown on Saturdays are very difficult and attract few racers due to both the distance and elevation. Races over 50 miles should be public.
I like the occasional small race. They are usually raced in a very different way. Rather than just a sub threshold effort desperately trying to hold onto the blob, the rolling pace is usually much slower, and the chance of a breakaway succeeding is much higher.
I’m not sure I’ve ever managed to successfully breakaway in a group of 50. But in a group of 15, I’d stand a chance.
Thats a total of 50 between all divisions in the race, which therefore would hopefully have 10-20 per divison.
I hope duathlon races are exempt from this.
Smaller races (10-20 people) can actually be better IF the field is somewhat level in ability. People will try to break away, and the field will have to chase to catch. Zwift even demonstrated that with the new “premier league” formats.
That’s a good call Mikkel … the Zwift Grand Prix race formats are much more fun to watch than waiting 60 minutes in a big blob for one final “Sprint Royale”. Smaller packs bring much more tactical options !!!
On the flipside, there is one big reason which makes the ZGP so interesting : the riders have some more short races one after the other where you have to qualify for the next round, so they have many deciding/thrilling moments in around 60-90 minutes. I think, this is not easy to install/transport for community events 🤷🏻♂️. Eric’s Tiny Races come close to this and that’s why they win in popularity very fast.
Mikkel nailed it with cats being a big issue for quality racing. If we continue to only have 4 cats (A, B, C, D) to classify racers then the race quality will suffer as the rider ability varies greatly within these 4 cat definitions. I’m a huge fan of the work that @Tim Hanson is doing at zwiftracing.app to provide an alternative categorization system. This will lead to smaller (but more equal) fields and higher quality racing. I’m not at all clear that increasing the field size without addressing the category issue will improve race quality.
So, the only thought I have is west coast evening racing in the pacific time zone traditionally has small fields – it would suck if there are just no races in that time slot
This is absolutely the case for me. Most of my rides start at 830-9pst. If I’m in race of a dozen or more I was happy to do it. This seems like it will likely eliminate racing or perhaps provide one race with little variety as my only option.
I think the idea has merit, but the threshold seems a bit high to start.
I agree. Living in the Pacific time zone, I can rarely find races in the evening. By the time I get the kids to bed and I’m ready to jump on Zwift, the world has gone to bed. I Zwift because I like the racing. If I can’t find races, I’m more likely to skip Zwift altogether and put on a show and just ride my trainer.
The threshold is too high in my opinion, but we will see. I’m a bit concerned about unpopular race formats.
West coast North America is hard enough to find decent events to do at early evening 6pm-10pm pst til when the other side of the Pacfic starts getting on zwift for rides. Can be pushed out to 5pm to 11pm in summers. Even free riding is low amount of people around on popluar maps during thoes hours. So hoping zwift takes that in to account when critquing events.
Menos opciones donde elegir no es peor??? Leyendo el artículo parece que todo lo contrario…
Chances of “club level” events growing seems pretty remote. I agree with Jonas, that this seems counter productive to improving the overall Zwift experience (and is more about making the programmers jobs easier). We see this all the time at work where the IT departments suggestions for “improvements” are more related to making their job easier than actually improving the service.
How does culling race events make the programmers’ jobs easier?
Definitely less races will have a positive impact on the load of Zwift servers hence less operational issues and management/ staff & less hardware, software, network connectivity etc. required. Leads to the question whether the main driver actually is improved user experience or maybe a cost saving operation like with Strava removing all those user created Zwift segments some time ago….
Zwift culling low-attendance races is nothing like Strava privatizing Zwift segments. Because riders will still be on Zwift, using resources, whether they’re in an event or not. But Strava making segments private actually reduces processing load.
This isn’t a move to reduce programmer work or server usage. It’s actually, in the end, a move to INCREASE the usage of the platform.
How can year round occasional riders like me find out about smaller club rides and races with these proposed changes? I like the ability to join events at the last minute as my workout plans change, if all these events are pushed down to the club level, I’ll never see them which really reduces my options.
You are correct. I don’t know what makes programmers jobs easier or not. I am familiar with IT doing things that make things easier for them without regard to the end users. Not sure how clearing out low attendance rides helps or hurts IT, but I don’t see any benefit for the end users. Just feels like fewer options…..
There are a lot of poorly attended races on the calendar (Zwift adding a couple of monthly race series that have occurrences multiple times a day through out the week in the last few months doesn’t help with that). As another North American racer and parent whose race times are pretty much limited to between when my kids go to be and not too late because I have to get up to work the next morning (and weekend mornings before my kids get up) I also worry about losing access to races in my time zone (most of which are well below the 50 racer threshold).
Agreed! Same situation, im up around 4am to have a quality ride (race) before the day starts and it is already extremely limited choices. Mostly just boring 3R flat races, its been the same for years! Zzzzz.. and something happened during the past year, i am pretty sure i found at least a few funnier races this time in the morning before, now it is almost dead, im fearing this will not make it better! :-\
There go most of my wins.
Not everyone lives in the northern hemisphere – so our prime months for Zwifting are your summer. I’d suggest treading very carefully with this one.
Also, please don’t assume that club members are all in the same timezone or hemisphere – some are global, and that is part of the attraction.
Is the 50 threshold for all categories or for each category?
Once things go down to club level events, then they’re not very likely to get back up over 50.
Of all the problems with zwift racing, this is so far down on the list to solve. Work on developing better categories that are consistent across racing first.
In terms of the size of the field, it’s not the deciding factor of interesting races. I’ve been in races with 15-20 that have been far more fun than races with 80 or more.
50 for all categories.
50 seems way too high, not many regular races qualify. Why not start trialing with minimum 10 or so
Disagree, Sverweij. Most races have over 50 total signups.
ok yes, I have read this incorrectly, meant to say min 10 PER category
I would like ~25, perhaps the A race might not have enough, but C race might have a decent 12 person field. Not a reason to make them suffer.
Whatever the motivation for the change it was definitely not for the users’ benefit. For example I don’t see many comments here praising the idea.
They realize with large fields still only three people will be on the podium. Everyone wants to win. Every sport out there is increasing the size of their playoffs to get more people to feel like winners. Zwift is doing the opposite. And who wants to race in a blob of a couple hundred riders where you just sit in and draft? You sure won’t be able to break away from that size of pack!
Won’t this just lead to all race organizers selecting flat courses in prime time slots? Personally, I was just starting to branch out and try different courses as I’m getting a better idea of the type of rider I am. I don’t mind racing the crits, but I’m never going to win a bunch sprint.
Also, I would imagine that this will push riders at the bottom of their categories out of racing…and maybe Zwift altogether? Maybe I’m wrong, but I’d imagine that lower-end C or B riders would select smaller field races to have a shot at a podium. Now that will be taken away. I’m typically in the lead group at the end of races, but it’s still pretty rare for me to finish in the top 3. I’d probably stop racing on Zwift altogether if I was always getting stomped.
Just my $.02…
As a lower-end C rider, I prefer a bigger field not because I could get a podium but because it means I can find someone to pace with even when the lead group inevitably drops me. Some of the most exhilirating race endings I’ve had on Zwift were a 3 or 4 person battle for 30th place. A small field might mean a chance for a podium but I doubt it would actually help me improve my riding as much.
Your comment here has really made me stop and think. I was initially in the “I don’t like this,” camp. But admittedly I think some of that was just a resistance to change. But you’re right, sometimes, it’s about that smaller battle, way down the finishers list.
A small group well back starts to come together. Over time, you sweep up some of the fliers who couldn’t hang on to the faster groups anymore. Some of them grab your wheel, others continue to fall behind. Your little group grows bit by bit, and you start planning the end. You’re not trying to get an overall podium, but you’re still fighting. And you get clipped right at the line by some person you’ve never actually met before, but were riding with for the past hour. Probably deserves a Follow on both Zwift and Strava!
That sort of thing is less likely with the smaller fields. I’ve definitely been in those events where I end up riding it pretty much by myself, and those are certainly less interesting.
Lots of people have brought up great points that Zwift needs to keep in mind (time zones, event size vs overall usage at a given time, event size vs other events around that time, length of the event, etc) to determine if 50 is really the always right number.
And admittedly I don’t know if this will make me branch out from the 8 – 10 lap crits that I’ve gotten comfortable with, or if it will turn me away from racing (if those crits went away). We’ll see. But I’m not as negative about it as I was. So thank you!
Re: low participation times
this is easy math to auto-cull but not kill all races by looking backwards over a rolling period at any given time and having the program keep the top XX% races. Shouldn’t even be a thought.
With the data zwift has, they should be able to pull a “trial” period data set offline and figure it out over a couple of days. I mean like intern level data analysis.
same with race types / distance / etc. separate from time.
This is certain death for almost all ultra distance events.
I actually prefer the smaller races. I like that in a smaller field I can start to Sus out each individual rider during the race, impossible in a blob of 50. I’m very disappointed by this news.
Keep in mind it’s 50 total signups, not 50 per category. A race with 50 signups might have around 20 B’s, for instance…
I do not like this change. I love it when you could hop on to a race on any given point. I really don’t plan my zwift rides and just fit it in,in my day.
Like said before me, this is not good for the longer races and climbing races.
I also feel this is a change to reduce the workload of Zwift HQ, and not to improve the expierence. Marketing all around.
Great to see James and Zwift team look at racing – I’ve felt for a while that Zwift live off the racing heritage PR whilst doing very little themselves to listen to the racing community and improve stuff (took ‘just’ two years for TTT launch, now we need dropping bikes from garage please!)
What needs recognising is that Zwift (and Zwift Insider) publicised events are much more highly subscribed than anything else. “If you market it, they will come”. This strips out participants from other events, which then fall below the 50 threshold, but imagine if that publicity highlighted other organisers events too? The DRS chaps have done amazingly to get that series off the ground – but anything else new that clashes with Zwift sanctioned events will get crushed.
I get little choice in when I train, and already find it hard to find something to join for the timeslot I have available. I fear this will make it worse.
I think this is a bad idea, but hopefully the impact is limited. I rather be racing the type of race I want with a limited amount of people, instead of a 25k-ish mostly flat race with a lot of people (bunch ride with a sprint at the finish). Zwift planning it’s own race every hour is also not helping.
A large and varied racing calender is what keeps me on Zwift. Usually, I have a very limitted time window in which I can Zwift. If the right races (for me) are too far apart, it is time to check out the competition.
A cleanup of dead wood is needed but I can’t help but feel there should be a bit more nuance to it than a pure participation rate.
A well run event from an active organiser that gets 30-40 riders is surely adding more to the calendar than one that’s left to run with no organiser involvement but gets enough riders due to being in a high demand time slot.
Your peak v non peak point is also very valid @Eric Schlange , there were different success criteria for peak v off peak events previously
Until that moment, I was convinced that playing sports, fitness and communication with like-minded people is the most important advantage of Zwift. It seems that the event constraint path is not the best choice.
Instead of removing the visibility of smaller races, it might be worth adding filters such that smaller (or larger) fields can be hidden based on user preference. Also, if the problem with small fields is the number of people leaving, maybe Zwift needs to incentivize finishing. For example a reward system where leaving is penalized (based on history, to allow for dropouts, injury, unexpected irl events) and finishing is rewarded. Such a reward system could also be used to reward better finishing position, race on more varied courses, or penalize unsportsmanlike behavior. Rewards could be things like lightning coming from your wheels, to unlocking new areas, displayable titles, bike color schemes.
All they need to do is implement a results-based ranking system and give your ranking negative points for regularly DNF-ing (allow 1 or 2 for dropouts/tech issues). Problem solved.
They want more people to enjoy the races. Forcing people to finish a race that they don’t enjoy is not a desirable outcome.
How can culling all races with less than 50 participants allow more people to enjoy racing? Genuine Question!
Zwift explains it in the post above. They believe when races get too small, enjoyment goes down for participants.
Culling small races will both eliminate these small events, and drive people to participate in the larger events, which should be a more satisfying experience.
I don’t think there is a problem here that needs fixing. Give people the option to race low participation events. I’m a long time racer and I think the large group events are not as fun, one big blob nulling the competition and individuality. I think more time invested in better filtering on the companion app would be ideal! I personally prefer to race my CAT only, I think it’s a fairer race but if I want to be involved with others then chase races are perfect. Make these easily identifiable and don’t reduce the availability. Club events should be mainly publicly available and easy to find!
“It’s really not much fun to race against 5-10 riders.” -not fun for you.
Well, according to Zwift, statistically not fun for more than just me…
Could it be Zwift have misinterpreted their stats?
Holy Molly. Please work on pack dynamics, draft improvements, no-joke category enforcement, race radios and messaging, innovative race formats. Not on this. Zwift is broken on many levels and you spend time to solve nonexistent problems.
So true.
You do realize there isn’t just one employee at Zwift, right? They work on multiple things in parallel…
To me it looks like Zwift has completely dissolved its programming team. Even simple bugs like 9200 Dura Ace groupset problem that impacted lots of new frames took months to fix up. Apart from adding new worlds there is no single significant innovation in racing since 2018. Not even one. Zwift has lost lots of users which was attributed to the end of covid lockdowns but I believe apparent stagnation also has its lion’s share.
Do you have any proof of that? Zwift seems to offer up substantial evidence that their entire team is one unpaid intern coding after classes.
YES! 4 out of 5 of those items should be top of their fix list!!!!!!!
Not everyone likes big blob group riding or racing. If some people like riding in smaller fields where you can relate to the other riders where is the harm. I don’t think the measure of the experience is the size of the group. Not everyone likes to ride there bike or socialize in massive crowds. One of the virtues of Zwift is the choice and variety. I think thinning out events will reduce this and make Zwift less attractive. Don’t kill off the ability for your participants to choose. I think Zwift should focus on creating the environment, being a good host and let the group riding evolve naturally via its participants and willing organisers.
I’ve done a lot of age related races over the years with less than 50 riders, and they have been the most exciting races I’ve competed in on Zwift. As someone else has pointed out, there is limited fun in racing in a big blob of riders to the end of a race, just to sprint the last 100-200 metres and finish in a position of 150th, (as an example) or further down the field! Yes I have raced in much smaller races and been on my own for some of the race, but if you really want to improve as a cycle racer (indoors or out) it takes hard work, and trying to hold with a small group of 4 or 5 for example. If you stick at it, it comes in the end and gives so much more of a sense of achievement if you can get to the end with them, than finishing in a big group of 100 plus!
50 is the cap for the ENTIRE EVENT, not the category. So this will still allow plenty of races with, say 20 B riders signed up.
This isn’t going to result in only big blob events.
Eric, there are definitely lots of good races on zwift that do not get 50 total riders! They are just not the ones on your radar. People who like to race longer, or hillier, or age group races know this. When you start getting rid of these races, it could very well create a popularity contest to attract the most participants in order to keep a time slot on the calendar.
I think everybody gets that there is no point in polluting the calendar with events that have no riders. The issue is making it only about numbers and not taking into account how similar each event is to every other event, i.e. whether an event adds diversity to the experience regardless of popularity.
Since I know James worked hard to keep things interesting and diverse with Herd races, I am hopeful this will be taken into account.
I hope this won’t affect the non-race events that show up in the feed. Often I use Zwift when outdoor exercise options are poor. Zwift is not my number one exercise option, since I have road, gravel, mountain bikes, and in the winter, fat biking, plus cross-country skiing. When the weather changes I will often join a group training ride at the last minute. I will always ride outside when Zi can. If all the group events are removed it will give riders like me fewer options.
It’s only races Zwift is culling…
For now… I wonder how long before they look to cull smaller group rides?
Is Category Enforcement an available option in a non-race event? Just set up a ride, put “race” in the title of the event, and add CE. Easy Peezy
This will surely discourage weaker riders in each group as fewer races mean that the winners will almost always be the ones that are at the top of that categories power bands. A weak C cat at 2.5 will next normally fare well against riders of almost 3.2. Thus will just make Zwift elites rather than inclusive if you follow the rules. Perhaps we need more categories to encourage the less able to take part more, along with category enforcement on all events, Zwift have the data to do it, it should be mandatory.
Still can only have 3 spots to get a placing of any meaning, else you might as well just go ride with a pace partner a notch above your level and try to maintain a breakaway distance. Just really useless morale-wise to attend a race event with hundreds of riders as if you’re a weaker rider you have zero chance of making top 3.
I used to race the Frenchy Fuzion Ladies Race on friday night, when they did the race on the same parcours as the ZRL the next tuesday. I stumbled on the Frenchy Fuzion Ladies Race by accident, when scrolling on ZwiftPower for a race on the ZRL parcours.
Great way to do a recon of that ZRL race in race tempo, even though the turnout could be very low some times (3-5 in my cat was very normal).
I miss that race and the ability to do a recon in such a (high speed) way and hope this change will not reduce the possibilites to do this kinda things even more, because of the low participant numbers.
So my thing is:
Would it not be better to ask participants why they join a particular race, before making it private, instead of just using a certain attendency number as cut off point?
The Frenchy Fuzion Ladies Race was the only race with the opportunity to do this recon.
What zwift needs is a drastically reduced “time slot events” and adding true matchmaking events that starts when enough riders are in a lobby.
Its amazing that it’s almost 2023 and all we have is scheduled races and no adhoc matches like in any online game.
Other platforms do exactly that.
Bad idea.
Zwift ignored racing for years now they are trying to crush the only thing that kept racing alive on Zwift.
The community races are important.
Zwift comes in with an advertised race every 1-2 hours and it affects the other races.
Speaking of race participation, I’ve never been in a more glitchy race than the 216 that started a zracing event the other day. Do they think they’re losing subscribers over small races? I wonder how many folks are like me; looking for a specific length when I’m available? Nothing wrong with collecting data, though.
Specific length (either distance or time depending on course type) when I’m available is my top priority. Type of race comes next. How many people I’ll be racing against comes in somewhere further down the list. But then, I’m someone who has to plan my Zwifting time into my day unlike the decision-makers who appear to be be able to plan their days around their favorite races and seem to think everyone else can do likewise.
I also hate doing structured workouts and would much rather chase 3 people way off in the distance over a hilly course (surging on the hills) than do interval training any day of the week, so I’m not one who quits races even when I get dropped due to a temporary Bluetooth dropout or whatever.
I don’t think this gets talked about enough. Anytime the pack is over 100 people it is a nightmare. Until Zwift updates how they handle large packs I think they need to cap fields to 100.
Right up front I disagree completely with the author (which I have much respect for) that more equals more competitive or a better race experience. I have been on Zwift a long time. I started Zwift racing back in the days you had to have access to a message board where the route and time where published, you had to pedal to the start line and someone through IM would say ready set go and away we went. My experience is the exact opposite, I find racing with less than 50 people for dynamic, more challenging and a bit more realistic. This all due to Zwift’s pack dynamics, which I will get into a bit . Due Zwift categories if I am racing with 20 B level racers or a 100 I would argue the “competitive” nature of the field is the same and I would go on argue it is more “competitive” in the 20 field. This is solely based on my experience and I have no imperical data to back this up, just like the author. So let’s get into it. There are 24 world time zones with people getting Zwift at all times inside those 24 time zones. I would argue that we Zwift when we can and most of us can not work around Zwift schedule but Zwift needs to work around my schedule. I see this move as driving people away from Zwift racing strictly from a schedule perspective. The author has stated in numerous articles that your starting position plays a factor and it does as we all know the full gas start for the first KM and if you get to the line just in time for the start you are religated to the back and more than likely not see the front again. Not an issue with smaller fields. Also with smaller fields the Zwift pack dynamics are less impactful. With smaller fields you just can not hide in the pack as at some point you have to get your nose in the wind. I have seen a more tactical race with smaller fields where people will attack counter attack and escape and win. With the larger fields what happens is the pack dynamics are so strong that no one’s escapes and the person that can 10W/KG over the last KM will sit in the pack doing 2 w/kg then let lose that last KM and win, I don’t have that of power and just end up finishing with the pack. I think people will get bored with this and just end up not racing at all. This has happened to every race I did with more than 50 people. That is why I would only do races with 50 or less, it is more fun, more tactical, and just better racing. More competitive does NOT equal more numbers. You want competitive work on sand baggers, miss calibrated power meters, etc. That is just my opinion- I do miss Zwift crit city races – will I race again, depends on where Zwift goes with this 50 or people rule – feels like I am in a Ford Fiesta and Zwift just took the air conditioner out.
with this culling I would like to see this happening with the Zracing series to give other races time to breathe. Running them every 2 hours does seem to lower the regular races, especially with TdZ and Zracing in Jan… there are going to be so many options. I like the Zracing series but unless you are racing on the first day at a popular timeslot then you have no chance with the series GC. With a few less time slots or days available then the entrants should be higher… and faster 😉
The ZRacing series definitely brought sign ups for community races down a ton. Just the sight of an official Zwift branded event seems to appeal more than the community races.
To me, it really felt like the problem with the overwhelming number of races really only started this summer with the Zracing and other branded events that seemed to come out of the woodwork and overwhelm the schedule. It could be that the branded races are where Zwift wants to go, and they don’t mind hurting the community races because that’s what they’re doing. I would find that disappointing if that’s the case, but maybe they see it as a new revenue stream.
Cutting back on the branded races and fixing their search function (make it look like Zwift Hacks’s events page but maybe add in the race quality filter and the ability to see who has signed up from ZwiftPower if you want to be fancy), and you’ve solved 90% of the problem. Then just manually getting rid of the few, really old, automatically repeating races that haven’t been updated in years and have been abandoned by their creators would fix the problem more effectively than culling active-but-low-participation community races.
Can we please have an upgrade to using Zwift on laptop (Windows OS) so that we can see and select forthcoming EVENTS in the same way as the Companion App – e.g. see Events ALL DAY today and future days. The 60 minute Events selection in the laptop version is not broad enough.
Culling the smaller races is such a bad idea, and will only lead to flat/rolling races with the blob sticking together and sprint at the end. Pack dynamics make it too easy to sit in and too hard to escape. Large races just lead to heavier powerful riders dominating the races, but because they can sit on 20min powers never trigger enforced cat changes. Smaller races encourage tactics and working together to either break or catch the break rather than threshold efforts, sitting on or sprints.
There are so many problems that zwift could be solving rather than this.
As long as ALL rides and races are searchable on ZwiftPower I’m fine with this. I sign up for almost every ride I do on ZP and I’d hate to find out that I can’t find those rides anymore.
Do you mean the ones that get downgraded to club too? If James is saying that they’d let Clubs post their races to ZwiftPower, I’d hope that means making them searchable in the schedule too. Probably not, but it does make sense. How else would clubs make it so people outside the club could find them so that they can show they’re worthy to be upgraded to full time events?
Been on Zwift for a few years now, and love it. but for a BIG except. Living in the Pacific Time Zone (west Coast Canada), and able generally only to ride in the afternoon, there is a massive dearth of group activities / races available, particularly with women only categories. I scroll through all the enticing events scheduled early in the day, and curse. Usually unsuccessful to find anything in my time slot so…oh, another lone free ride…
This culling I fear is only going to make it much worse. I’m happy to race against anyone, even if only five, if it allows the opportunity.
I don’t like this at all. If I’m understanding this correctly unless I bring to clubs many races I will never know about. As a relative newb to zwift I don’t know yet which events and and clubs and races I should be a part of. If many of these are hidden from you because of the number threshold how do I ever learn about the ecosystem?
Then we need more than 10 clubs to join !