When I saw the news that Zwift was rolling out their new Racing Score metric in various test events, I knew I had to give it a go.
My first thought was to jump into one of the 5-category ZRacing events that were using Racing Score. The prospect was especially appealing because my initial “seed” score was 570, putting me right at the top of the middle category, which was for racers scored 400-575. Maybe I could find my way onto the podium!
But it wasn’t meant to be. Zwift reset the seed scores to fix a bug soon after launch, and mine went up to 588. Plus, schedule constraints put me into the race starting at 10:10am PDT, and this race was using Zwift’s experimental 10-category setup. In this scheme, there are actually two events – a “high” and a “low” – due to Zwift’s current (and silly) limitation of 5 categories per event. Each event has 5 categories, and my score put me in the lowest category of the “high” event, with riders between 550-600.
So I was still near the top of my category. On paper, at least.
The cool thing about results-based rankings, though, is that when done right, they reflect your race craft, not just your pure power numbers. Everyone was initially seeded based on their power numbers, but in theory, someone like myself with (*checks ZwiftPower*) 1141 races under their belt should have the smarts to outperform others who have the same physical capabilities but much less experience.
So how would I perform in my first-ever scored Zwift race? There was only one way to find out…
Warmup
I chewed two pieces of caffeine gum as I jumped into the Maria Robopacer group which had recently been relocated from Makuri Islands to France as part of Zwift’s big TdF July focus. After warming up a bit with Maria it was over to Coco to ramp up the effort a bit, put in a few harder pulls, and generally break the ice so my heart and legs wouldn’t be surprised by the race effort.
Then I headed to the pens for one lap of France’s R.G.V. route. We had 43 riders ready to go.
The Start
The start was rather tame, with nobody pushing hard from the line.
The attacks would come soon enough, though. One of my DIRT teammates (Captain Diogo) went early, moving to the front for a hard pull, ramping the group up from 40kph to 46.
The Middle
This pattern would repeat itself throughout the race. Someone would move to the front and push hard, others would chase, and our speed would ramp up to 46-48kph. Eventually everything would come back together, we’d catch our breath, and a few minutes later another attack would go.
The group wasn’t thinning much, though. This was a flat course, and as long as you stayed in the draft, you could stay in the group holding around 3.3 W/kg. Still, every attack dropped a few riders, which meant we had gone from 43 to 33 by the time we rode through the Pavé Sprint.
The biggest push (other than the finish) came, unsurprisingly, up the Aqueduc KOM Reverse. It’s really more of an uphill sprint than a climb, and while I’ve been dropped here before in mixed-category races (*shakes fist at A-cat*), I can usually hang with a group of B’s up and over this rise.
The same was true today: I stayed well-positioned mid-pack, triggered my draft boost powerup, then recovered on the descent that followed. We went from 33 to 31 riders, and everyone settled in for the final push through Les Intestines to the line.
The Finish
Les Intestins are always a tough push at the end of a race: 3km of twisty, rolling road, followed by an all-out sprint! I stayed in the draft, steered as much as possible to shorten my lines, and generally tried to save my legs as much as possible for the final sprint.
With 500 meters to go the road flattened, the twisties ended, and 31 riders were tightly packed into the front group.
I triggered my draft boost as we turned right onto the main road and avatars got out of their saddles. Then I dug deep, pushing with all I had to the line. Riders just ahead took the corner wide, so I chose to stay in the draft on their wheels instead of cutting the corner with steering.
My legs struggled to hold high power, though. I crossed the line in 8th.
See results on zwift.com >
See results on ZwiftPower >
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Watch the Video
Zwift Racing Score Results
The in-game results screen (shown above) didn’t reference Racing Score in any way. But I could see my Racing Score result on the event’s page on zwift.com, as well as in the Companion app. Here’s are the zwift.com results:
My score heading into the race was 588. Finishing 8th earned me a score upgrade to 594. (It’s worth noting that this isn’t like ZwiftPower, where your ranking is derived from your 5 best results in the last 90 days. With Zwift Racing Score every race counts, and your score is calculated at the end of each race based on that race history.)
Checking the results on zwift.com, it appeared as though every single rider in my race got a Racing Score upgrade from their result. That is, they all had an up arrow beneath their result! I reached out to Zwift to ask how that could be possible, and it turns out… it’s not. The wrong arrow is showing some cases, so while some rider’s scores did decrease, it’s only showing up arrows for everyone on the web results. Companion app results show the arrows accurately.
One thing I did note when browsing results in Companion is how startlingly accurate Zwift’s seed scores seem to have predicted the results. In my race, in all 5 categories, there isn’t a mix of up and down arrows as you scroll down the list. Instead, all the upper finishers get up arrows, and all the lower ones got down arrows. This would only happen if people finished right around where their seed scores would have predicted them to finish.
(I did find one rider in the highest category who had an up arrow instead of a down. But just one rider.) Zwift says they’re checking into this, because they noticed the same pattern and think it’s a bit suspicious.
Takeaways
What was my actual experience in the race? It was good. It felt like I was pushing at a typical B-category pace, but it also felt different than a typical B race, because riders were putting in digs that forced us to chase. It was less of a boring, steady effort and more like several hard efforts with recovery in between. It felt (and I’m too lazy to do the homework to confirm this) like we had several riders with high FTPs but poor sprints who were trying to get away off the front, or at least stretch out the group to thin the herd before the final push. And that’s good, straight-up bike racing.
In the end, our starting group of 43 became a finishing pack of 31 sprinting for the win. That seems like a sensible level of attrition for a flat route like R.G.V.
One final takeaway: I forgot the draft powerup now lasts 40 seconds instead of 30. This change was made over a year ago, so I really should have it locked in by now. It’s a crucial mistake, because I could have triggered the powerup 10-15 seconds sooner and enjoyed its benefits heading into my sprint effort.
Your Thoughts
Have you tried a scored race yet? What do you think of Zwift’s new Racing Score? Share below!
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