Here’s one final reminder that we’re hosting our first-ever official Zwift event this Saturday – and it’s gonna be huge!
Riding The Über Pretzel is a bit nutty, by anyone’s standards. It’s the longest route on Watopia, after all: 128.3 km (79.7 miles) long with 2335 m (7,661‘) of elevation. And it finishes with a climb up Alpe du Zwift.
So we figured only a few hundred riders would be crazy enough to join us.
Yet here we are, with precisely 4,164 riders signed up with two days to go. Far more than any other event on Zwift’s calendar!
You’re all insane. And so are we. See you out there!
Event Signup
“Zwift Insider Badge Hunters – The Uber Pretzel Edition” takes place on Saturday, February 20th, at 6am Pacific/9am Eastern/2pm GMT.
To sign up, find the event in Zwift Companion, or sign up on the web at zwift.com/events/view/1733428.
Be Prepared
Just about anyone can hop into a 1-hour Zwift ride unprepared, without worry. But when it comes to an undertaking like the Über Pretzel, you’ll want to put some extra time and effort into preparation. A few quick tips:
- Extras are helpful: towels, sweatbands, gloves, socks, and cycling kit can get saturated with sweat and other grossness after 2-3 hours in the indoor saddle. Consider grabbing extras of these items and swapping to them halfway through. There’s nothing so refreshing as a fresh chamois after 3 hours of riding!
- Charge the batteries: make sure any devices you’ll be using are fully charged, and/or you have charging cables within reach.
- Carb up: consider eating a high-carb dinner (pasta?) the night before, to top up those glycogen stores.
- Pre-hydrate: drink lots of water the day before the ride, so you’re fully hydrated when the event begins.
- Keep hydrating: fill lots of bottles before the ride, or have someone on hand who can do that for you. You don’t want to be conserving water intake on a ride of this length.
- Ventilate the space: if your pain cave gets humid, your sweat won’t be able to evaporate and cool you. Make sure your space stays well-ventilated by opening windows, running AC, etc.
- Mind your fueling: hopefully you already know what sort of snacks you’ll need for a multi-hour effort. Have them on hand!
- Chamois cream: highly recommended you remember this, if it’s something you find helpful on long rides.
Read “How to Fuel for a Long Ride On Zwift” for more tips from coach Shayne Gaffney.
FAQ
Will I earn the Über Pretzel route badge with this ride?
Yes.
Will my time count in the VeloViewer Route Hunter Leaderboard?
Yes.
What’s the pace going to be?
This isn’t a paced group ride. There is no ride leader. Think of it more like a Zwift Fondo. With so many riders signed up, there will be people riding at all paces. Just find a group holding your desired effort level, and work together!
Will there be rest stops?
Only if you stop. To rest. You do you! But you’ll probably lose whatever riders you’re currently with, unless you can convince them via in-game messaging to stop with you.
How long will this take?
The very strongest riders on Zwift can complete the route in just under 4 hours. With such a massive signup list, and double draft being used, we may very well see a new course record on Saturday!
Most mortals will require closer to 4.5-6 hours to finish. You can use BestBikeSplit’s Uber Pretzel model to enter your weight and average power and get a time estimate.
I’ve ridden this route before. Why is my time not showing on the Uber Pretzel Strava segment?
We modified the segment early this week so the one segment will match both free-ride and event efforts. Strava isn’t doing a great job of going back in time and matching old efforts to the new segment, but you can do the “Activity Type Hack” to get your old ride to match. Just edit that ride, changing the activity type to something else. Then change it back to “Virtual Ride”. All done!
I live in Australia, and this event is at 1am. Any chance of getting a better event time?
Not this time around. We may change things up for future events, but this is really a test case to see if we want to organize more of these events moving forward.
Will you be organizing more of these events?
We’ll see how this one goes first. We only want to add events to the calendar if they’re going to be special and really add value to Zwifter’s lives. Based on the response to this event, it looks like there may be more tough “Badge Hunters” rides in the future!
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