Teamwork makes the dream work.
Last week I messaged Jesper Rosenlund Nielsen, the genius behind behind ZwiftHacks, a website I access multiple times daily thanks to its powerful event search tools. Here’s how that conversation went:
As always, I’m wowed by Jesper’s ability to build great features quickly. I offered a few more suggestions, which he implemented, and today, less than a week after my initial idea, I’m happy to share the news of ZwiftHacks’ latest event filtering feature: a Zwift Racing Score percentile search!
How It Works
The big idea here is to make it easy to filter upcoming Zwift races that use the new Zwift Racing Score (ZRS) metric. But we’re not just looking for a list of ZRS-powered events… ZwiftHacks already has that.
From the ZwiftHacks event search homepage, click “Experiments” then slide the top bar to your current racing score (find that in the Companion app or in game). This will show all upcoming races that include a category containing your racing score.
147 events showed up for me, but I wanted a more restricted list. As I explained to Jesper, what I want (sometimes) is to find scored races where I have a good chance of getting on the podium. What if I could just show races where my score puts me in the upper 20% of my category? This tool lets me do that:
I’ve entered my current racing score (591), then set the percentile slider to 80-100%. The resulting list of 15 races all include a category where I’m ranked in the upper 20% of the group.
I could also set my filters like this:
This shows all upcoming scored races (132) where I’ll be in the bottom 30% of my category. If I want to be pushed to my limit and probably dropped before the finish line, this is the search for me!
Early Days
Of course, it’s still early days for Zwift Racing Score, so Jesper’s experimental ZwiftHacks tool will probably need to evolve along with it.
Right now, as far as I can see, events using ZRS use one of three banding schemes:
- 5-category mixed scheme:
- 725-1000
- 575-725
- 400-575
- 225-400
- 0-225
- 10-category mixed scheme, with separate events for “high” and “low” groups:
- 775-1000
- 700-775
- 650-700
- 600-650
- 550-600
- 450-550
- 375-450
- 300-375
- 200-300
- 0-200
- Women’s 5-category scheme:
- 540-1000
- 415-540
- 330-415
- 220-330
- 0-220
It’s easy enough right now to figure out where your score places you in each of these schemes, and to find which events you prefer to join. Because of this, you may not see a need for a tool like Jesper’s.
But in the future, event organizers will be able to set their own custom score-based bands, which means you won’t always be at the top or bottom or middle of your category. (This is a good thing.) Having a filter like ZwiftHacks’ will let you quickly choose a race based on the sort of experience you’re looking to have.
Nice work, Jesper. Ride on!
Questions or Comments
Got questions about how the ZwiftHacks tool works? Suggestions for making it better? Share below!
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