This afternoon I, begrudgingly, took part in Zwift’s Tour for All 2020: Stage 1 Longer Race. I competed in the D group, which displayed as the B group, and was for riders in the 1-3.1w/kg range.
The really odd thing about the Tour For All 2020 is that Zwift have decided to totally change up the categories. Now Category C is no longer 2.5-3.1w/kg as it always(?) has been. The categories now are both distance and watts in some combined mess.
And whilst I do applaud Zwift changing things up, I honestly think they have got this one quite wrong.
To clarify, each Stage of the Tour For All has 4 events. There are:
- Longer group ride
- Shorter group ride
- Longer race
- Shorter race
I think that’s correct, but feel free to shout at me if I am mistaken.
For the sake of group rides, watts and categories etc matter very little.
But for racing, it really is important. At least, in my opinion.
What Zwift have now done is to use categories A and B for the shorter race, and C and D for the longer race. And on top of that, they have split the groups into two, rather than four. There’s now 1.0-3.1w/kg, and 1.0-5w/kg.
Confusing.
But it doesn’t stop there.
Everyone started together. This wasn’t immediately obvious until we set off. It took me a good few minutes to understand the mini-map. Partly because at 4k I couldn’t see the little icons on the screen particularly well.
But sure enough, both short and long races started at the same time, from the same place. And we were all riding out together.
Then 10km in, we split off.
What?
God help you if you were in a pack with everyone else who suddenly left you whilst they made a sharp right.
Anyway, as I’d opted for the D group, I should have been fine. In every other race I have ever done, I’ve either been in D, or C cat. Today, things were different.
Due to changing my power measurement source (from the Neo to the DUO pedals), and dropping my weight (from 70kg to 68kg), I was suddenly whacking out top watts.
Whilst this felt decent – and certainly helped me get through a ride I wasn’t particularly eager to do in the first place – it meant I’d done the one thing that narks me most about Zwift racing:
I’d effectively screwed up everyone else’s race.
Sorry! This was entirely by accident on my part.
And Zwift Power have disqualified me, rightly so. Well, filtered me, anyway.
I have to be honest here, it kinda feels like I’ve cheated today.
Not that I won my category as a result. Just in that I’ve suddenly jumped in fitness quite markedly.
I guess what matters is consistency, and having the power readings taken from the DUO’s both indoors and outdoors means my metrics will be consistent. That’s a good thing.
Also, I didn’t cheat on my weight. I genuinely have lost those two kilograms (well, 1.9kg, but Zwift isn’t that accurate), but just not updated the game in a while.
It certainly felt unusual hanging with the 3.3w/kg guys for 50 minutes though.
Coming round to the finish line I tried my absolute best to put in a strong finish. But frankly I’d been working myself hard for the entire race just to keep with the pack, and with 400m I tried dropping gears and standing up, but I couldn’t seem to push much past 5w/kg. Some guys were dropping double digits. I had no chance.
Still, as bad as my mistake was with regards to being over powered for my category, I couldn’t quite believe the outcome of the race overall.
Somehow I managed a spectacular … 291st?
Didn’t the sidebar say somewhere between 87th and 105th through the last several kilometers? Apparently that was a lie.
And the winners? Well, they managed to smash us by 12 solid minutes.
Actually that part didn’t immediately ring alarm bells. I’m used to getting thrashed.
Though it wasn’t obvious, you could then check each individual category for results. And lo-and-behold, in my category B (err, D?) I finished 23rd. By “cheating“… but still.
In 4k it’s actually a massive pain in the ass to see the mouse cursor, so giving everyone a ride on is really time consuming. In the end I gave up. Sorry!
Notice the unusual result here though?
The winner of Cat C – confusingly the faster group of the shorter ride – won the race. Yet they didn’t even race the same race as half the field?
I mean… come on Zwift. WTF?
It really stinks that you have to use a third party site (Zwift Power) to see accurate results over the 1st party.
After this ride Zwift gave me an automagic FTP boost from 214w to 225w.
Unfortunately it’s a real pain to get a screenshot of an FTP boost, as it happens as the game is shutting down and the screenshot button no longer works.
By now you should probably be expecting such things, given the other UX mishaps stated above.
I genuinely did go all out in the first 20 minutes. You can see that – just – for the timeline below. I’m wondering if I would have got a boost if using the Neo ?
The other thing I was definitely pleased with today was cadence. By and large I managed a fairly consistent 90rpm, unless dropping a gear just for a bit of a breather, at which point I would still be fairly consistent around 75rpm or 80rpm.
Obviously Fuego Flats is … ahem, flat, so it’s easier to maintain a smooth cadence, but still, pleased with this.
As I said at the start, today I couldn’t be bothered with this one. I over did it yesterday, and mentally paid the price today. I kept putting this one off and off – initially thinking I’d do it at 9.10, then 11.10, then dinner time… until I checked the companion app and saw today was the last day for Stage 1, so if I didn’t do it, I’d miss out.
I feel I’ve earned a breather for tomorrow. And then from now on, I guess I’ll be in the big boy category or else I’ll need to go and buy some sandbags.
