What would drive more women to race in Zwift? Why are the women's fields so much smaller than the men's?

Zwift Zwift Racing
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I have another question for the group, and considering again the breath of experience so many of you have in women races on Zwift, I’d love your thoughts.

This was an interesting article about this topic. But I think it assumes everyone wants to race in the first place. I wonder whether the women who use Zwift are just not that interested in racing for other reasons?

PS: the article above does seem to offer one potential solution for the question posed on this other article, but that is a separate discussion.

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I haven’t fully read this one yet but interestingly enough, it was a racer from a team that races a lot that was one of the most vocal against the zwift Women’s May AG series

I do think its. Combination of things

  • some women don’t want to race at all but do occasionally and are triggered by the cat system
  • Some women want to race just zwift and have never raced IRL so their context is virtual only
  • Some women want to race both Zwift and IRL and struggle with the difference between those - and don’t always understand the IRL factors that impact an IRL race, not just for themselves but for others
    → some of these haven;t experienced AG IRL - i don’t think all events offer Masters - and so when they have to face higher cats in their AG, its tough

Pretty sure i didn’t catch all the options - i know myself until i tried racing IRL and I only do TTs mind you, my perceptions were very different. I get that some only want to race on Zwift because of the conditions of racing with others right there, i mean thats why i only do TTs, I’m not comfortable in a bunch, group rides are really stressful for me and i do very few of them. What can’t figure out is how to convey this to those that don’t race IRL, my attempt in the FCC discord didn’t go well :roll_eyes:

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are you referring to the perceptions that folks who never raced IRL have about racing in Zwift? if so, would you mind giving an example or two? thanks for posting Gail!

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Could the difference between the number of men vs women also be a factor of gender differences? I am not trying to be political here but there are some mental and emotional differences between men and women. Obviously there are alot of women wanting to race or we wouldn’t even be having this conversation but men are often, as a gender, more keen on competitiveness than women. Guess I am just throwing that in as another factor in this topic. There is also a subset of folks who race on Zwift and not outside for “medical” and/or safety reasons.

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Hey! :wave:
elaine from OWL.BiKe here, swooping in with a quick question. You mentioned that someone from the OWL squad wasn’t too keen on the Women’s AG series—do you know who our mystery racer is? I make it my mission to cheer on all things women’s cycling, so this caught me by surprise. Just trying to keep my support radar well-tuned!

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@elaine i haven’t been able to find it - there’s a ton in the discord so I’ll amend my comment above to there was someone from a team which surprised me since i know that team races a lot - sorry for any confusion

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Yes. Before I raced IRL i had a different perspective on Zwift racing in that it’s all I knew - so i only raced against ability cat and at that time almost always only women - I think i was also naive at the time and assumed everyone raced truthfully, i.e. height, weight, trainer calibrated etc.

I experienced AG racing IRL first and I race a lovely woman that is simply better than me, she’d be cat 3, I’m barely a cat 4 TT IRL, and that’s not even with her being on a TT bike. So. I learned to respect it and accept it. Last year I raced the RB category but we still do Women’s fastest times across all women. this year I’m racing TT 4/5 simply so i could go into a race or 2 and feel like I had a fighting chance.

But if it was my only option, to race her all summer in the same category, I would do it instead of not racing.

It’s not that different from racing someone in ability category when you’re towards the lower end and they are are the higher end or vice versa.

It’s a mind set and if winning is the topmost goal instead of showing up, crossing the start and finish and feeling like you’ve done your best, then racing by whatever category/grouping/etc. where one is not at the top will never be appealing. It’s the former mind set I wish I could help women move away from.

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Interesting article. For me, I haven’t raced in a long time because race times are generally not when I can race. In the evenings they are too early or too late because race times try to capture east coast or west coast and forget about us folks in the middle of the U.S., and on weekends they are usually later in the morning or in the afternoon (early morning is my preference so I don’t have to sit around waiting all day–I have things to do!) or on a Sunday (my rest day). When I do decide to race, there are either no women-only events at the time I am available, or there are 0-5 women signed up in my cat. This means I usually race mixed. It has nothing ever to do with racing points, something I absolutely don’t care about. It’s all about race time and having enough people in the race to make it fun and challenging.

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There are substantially more men than women on Zwift. The latest stats put women at just 18–20% of riders, so a women-only race score is probably not high on Zwift’s radar.

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i think society puts more value on competitiveness in men than in women, so men may feel pressure to be competitive when they don’t want to and women may feel pressure to be less competitive and more supportive when they don’t want to. society strongly supports men participating in sports while women are far less supported.

i love exercising, the joy of moving one’s body, but i am not as fond of direct competition. i prefer the “how long can we keep this ball in the air” games over games where people aggressively hurl themselves at each other. zwift supports my prefence. my favorite rides are banded. i rarely race on zwift, but when i do, i tend to view the event as ‘us all working together to get to the line as fast as possible’. i am aware that not everyone is thinking the same thoughts, but i don’t care. when i race, i just want people to ride with and work hard with. i am not on zwift power. i joined zwift power when i first joined zwift, but it lessened the quality of my life, so i quit it.

the main reason i don’t zwift race much is that racing is hard and i don’t often want to work that hard. i prefer the open races because there are more people and i am more likely to find people to race with.

most men on zwift don’t race either. if women aren’t racing, because they don’t want to, there isn’t a problem. the most popular activities on zwift are workouts.

i do not want the zwift racer score changed so that people’s scores won’t be adjusted based on race placement unless the riders are in single sex events.

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Thanks everyone, these are all helpful perspectives. All of these likely play a role. And in an environment where the number of women cyclists is only 18-20% of total riders, what you see is a very small number of participants.

^ Wanted to highlight this comment here. From experience, I have found that, the more seasoned a racer is, the less they focus on placing. A new cyclist riding outdoors typically understands and accepts that they will not start off by being fast, let alone win. They put in the time, the miles, the training, month after month, year after year, and see the progress. Similarly with racing IRL, cyclists start at the bottom category, regardless of the power they can produce. That makes sense, because they lack the skills. So here too, they put in the time, race for many months and years, to then start winning and move up. You have to “pay your dues.”

In Zwift, that beginner/apprentice mindset seems to disappear pretty quickly because there isn’t the same learning process that is, by design, mandatory IRL. So I see many Zwift racers frustrated because they want to win, they want to place, they want to be better - but often times, it’s too soon, they need to put in the time and the work… and accept that they will suck, fail, get dropped, etc. for longer than they imagine!

Another difficult and sometimes frustrating part of Zwift racing is that we never know what’s behind the avatars we are racing against. That alone is reason enough to not be worried about results.

Regarding gender differences in terms of wanting or simply being more competitive that @bkolden and @Elliswall mentioned, I would add that, in my experience coaching men and women, I see that in general, men tend to take a bad result in racing as something that simply happens, and it’s not that big of a deal… there is not as much dwelling on the results. They tend to be more pragmatic, analyze (but don’t over-analyze), take the lesson, and move on. They don’t even place all the “blame” on themselves, they cite the course, other riders, the bike, etc. Women tend to take 100% of the blame upon themselves as if 100% of a less desirable result is their doing - I am generalizing of course. Of course there are women racers that are more pragmatic and less attached as well (typically the very experienced ones); I just think they are the exception to the rule, at least on Zwift.

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