Zwift has just announced its second Tour of New York, happening December 18-20. The first ToNY was held in late October 2018 to celebrate the launch of the New York City map, and it was 5 stages long. This year’s ToNY is only three stages long, but each stage offers multiple length options.
Based on early signup numbers, ToNY 2020 will be a busy event! Of course, official Zwift tours are always popular, with several hundred riders participating in each ride.
Fresh Kit
If you don’t already have the ToNY kit from 2018, finish any stage of this year’s tour to unlock it for keeps.
Is It a Race?
Some (most?) riders will treat each event like a race, and a “Tour of New York” league has been set up on ZwiftPower to track results. But you can ride them however you’d like.
Event Schedule and Routes
Stage 1 (Dec 18): Park Perimeter Loop
- A Group: 4 laps (39.2km/24.4 miles, 504m/1653′ elevation)
- B Group: 2 laps (19.6km/12.2 miles, 252m/826′ elevation)
- C Group (ladies only): 3 laps (29.4km/18.3 miles, 378m/1240′ elevation)
Stage 2 (Dec 19): Grand Central Circuit
- A Group: 4 laps (28.8km/17.9 miles, 548m/1798′ elevation)
- B Group: 3 laps (22km/13.7 miles, 411m/1348′ elevation)
- C Group (ladies only): 4 laps (28.8km/17.9 miles, 548m/1798′ elevation)
Stage 3 (Dec 20): The 6 Train
- A Group: 6 laps (38.4km/23.9 miles, 366m/1200′ elevation)
- B Group: 4 laps (25.6km/15.9 miles, 244m/800′ elevation)
- C Group (ladies only): 5 laps (32km/19.9 miles, 305m/1000′ elevation)
Questions or Comments?
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Trying hard not to be cynical towards zwift lately, but have we really reached the point where they can’t even be bothered to create new events? Coupled with reusing the same fondo routes over and over, this is really feeling “phoned in”.
Same Kit, really…
I don’t disagree, Rob. I’d love to see more “freshness” from Zwift. Saw this sentence in the description text for these ToNY events and it made me a bit sad: “If you’ve ridden the ToNY, and already have the jersey, this is an opportunity to reminisce about a time when Zwift was growing.”
But on the other hand… Zwift grew by 2.7x this year. So it’s quite possible that the majority of active Zwifters today never had a chance to ride the original ToNY.
That’s virtually certain, unless riders joining in 2019-2020 (like me: I joined due to COVID19: this is new to me) are substantially more likely to quit than rider who joined by 2018. However, the “year in review” for 2020 will clearly be a lot briefer, or dig deeper, then the 2019 year in review article.
It would be nice if Zwift would use this as a chance to enhance the NYC map, though. It feels as if they’re coasting, even if they’re busy doing something, I’m sure.
I appreciated that Colors of Pari was marked as a race, rather than a ride, and thus contributed to ZwiftPower points (unlike L’Etape du Tour). The mixed-field races allow lower-cat riders to test themselves against higher-cat riders, and eliminate sandbagging.
I have been hoping that they would expand NYC and have seen some indications they are map building. Just off the blocked route to your right (going up) on the “Mountain Climb” the map shows tracings of a route. Additionally I also noticed Zwift flags on the potential route. Not sure where it goes or links back in. I know the “blocked route” entrance has been there, but has anyone else noticed these subtle changes? Or am I dreaming?
maybe 2.7x in users, but the content/feature growth has almost stagnated to handful of gimmicky features
Kevin google “Zwift Racing League” bro.
Rob, I hear what you are saying, but don’t forget, maybe good events are repeated every single year. And as Eric said, YES actually I am new to Zwift this year and if I can fit it in I’ll enjoy the ride. (*) Thirdly, and perhaps most practical remark: what’s the harm in it?? Don’t complain because you recognize something (but do feel free to complain after a spell, if, “gee there’s nothing new lately” … but so, that’s nothing against the “Tour of New York” I reckon, don’t get all huffy at that poor event …).
OK fine, repeat the event and route but at least refresh the kit. Changing the color scheme would take 30 seconds (change the black bit to white or any other color). As a long-term Zwifter this just feels stale and is in no way motivates those that have done this in the past. As others have noticed, the nonracing subscribers are sponsoring the race improvement and the pro races while getting little in return.
Yea that’s a good point Darth, you would think they could get somebody to spend 10 minutes and at least put something new on the kit, like a “2020” at least. Or maybe the same general design but change some of the colors so that way people who did the old one would recognize your new one, but also it would be fresh. Is it too late? .. // also I don’t know that part but it seems like it must be a very good point about writers who don’t race, and the smaller world of racers. (How many people on Zwift actually have an account at Swift power?)
Rob did you try Spartacus this year? That was new .. really cool three day ride/race.
It will be another shambles where too many riders and there will be huge lag / crash out. Losing faith in Zwift tbh to deliver an acceptable big event platform. Fine for smaller events.
Lagging it typically caused by underpowered devices. Zwift’s servers can handle the load, and if your machine is beefy enough, it’ll run smoothly. The problem is many machines/phones/tablets aren’t beefy enough!
The Zwift app needs to do a better job handling big events on “potato” devices… showing fewer riders, reducing detail, etc.
No. Totally disagree. Zwift should remove support for low-end devices. It’s holding the platform back. It’s the same reason Fortnite is a PoS compared to PUBG
Absolutely not. The fact Zwift is open to so many is one of the things that makes it so great. They have coped with a massive increase in users and retained a fantastic way to keep training. Just because some can afford high end trainers and hardware shouldn’t mean those who can’t afford it miss out
Open – Yes. Stuck in 2002 – No
Zwift needs to do a better job of managing those lower performing devices. Why not switch sessions to different servers dedicated just for underperforming devices? Why let all suffer? this is network bandwidth management 101
This is probably the most stupid thing I’ve read on here. I for example have a gaming PC, but cannot use it for Zwift, since I ride in a different place, so I use my notebook for Zwift. Many people will have it similarly and most won’t have a gaming PC, so it would kill Zwift completely for them.
For the cost of 3 AAA games a year, we should get something that approaches the quality of something published since 2015. Instead we have these 2007/PS3 graphics so people can run it on anything. Either make a better game or charge less. It’s obviously possible to do it right, the GTA5 bike mod is great.
Get another one and run Zwift on it
People need to stop trying to run Zwift on potato’s and lay out the cost of a new set of kit for a machine that doesn’t struggle.
exactly
So that’s means when I do events that are marked as races and cruise them I’m hurting my zwiftpower ranking. Hmm that’s a bummer.
Not really, since your ZP ranking is based on your top 3 results. Bottom results don’t really matter…
It’s not clear what the original poster meant.
I agree that it won’t affect your cat as this is based on your top three power performances.
I think though he means that if he does bad positionally wise then this will affect his ranking.
I don’t know how much difference this would make and ultimately does it matter? If it does then don’t enter the event.
I have some very poor segment times on NYC routes and it is hurting my VeloView ranking. Three good PBS on these routes could assist me on my VV ranking.
Zwiftpower categories are based on your best three 20 minute power results in the last 90 days (actually 95% of those top 3).
Zwiftpower race ranking is based on your best 5 races in your last 90 days. Any efforts worse than your 5th best race are irrelevant.
M4rk0 .. yea I’ve often wondered about that. Why conflate 60-minute capacity and 20-minute? .. except, I suppose the nature of Zwift racing, a lot of races you couldn’t really take “the best 60 minutes” I guess, because the whole race is only 12 kilometers or something.
As far as zwift goes for major updates in my view look, as I started due to local fires and covid-19, at this they were planned then thay got swarmed by tons new riders by almost 3X what they had before in a year due the pandemic and fires. That has to put a lot unexpected strain on zwift operations. So major updates such as new maps, chaning maps without leaving the app, etc got put on hold in order to make a functional platform for larger number of users. The pick was between a bunch of updates with glitchs due to too many users or making the app work for the new load of users. We know what Zwift picked and now that is done. It seems that massive issue is over with and lots of profit beyond yearly expectations so they can do major updates they were going to do and then some. So an event redone from couple years back that is new for many riders is a good thing and chance show off zwift events to people not familiar with them. It allows them finish off updates, instead fixing post release, before releasing them out as well before Winter holidays period.
The thing I don’t understand about this is the people designing worlds are not the same people who improve the load capacity of the code. Sure, there’s optimizations which can be done which allow for more users at once, for example being smarter about reporting the locations only of nearby riders instead of every bike in the “world”, and avoiding O(N-squared) issues. If money is tight maybe you need to lay off the world builders to hire more algorithm people, but resources are essentially unlimited due to the massive cash flow, so the world builders need to be building worlds. Integrating new worlds into the code should be fairly straightforward once the worlds are designed.
Did I read that right? None of the stages go up the KOM?
Grand Central Circuit goes up the reverse KOM. That’s the only one that hits the glass roads at all in this tour.
It’s come to this. Instead of progressing forward Zwift is repeating the past. If they are not going to give us anything new, then perhaps they should reduce the monthly subscription fee. $5 a month sounds about right.
It might be that they are so busy with all the ESports Championships and other Top Level Events for Semi Pros etc that they haven’t got the manpower to create new routes each month.
The big events bring in money through advertising etc and new riders…. Ive been here since 2015/6.so I’ve waited a long time for new routes.
Most games that run on everything from a phone to a PC, like fortnight are free. The annual price/year does not justify the lack of UX, graphics, launching in a web browser, etc etc. For the price, they need to do better.
Ok so I’d love to join in on this, but there’s one thing that confuses me. This article and the official Zwift announcement claim that you get the kit by riding any (sounds to me that that can also mean just 1?) of the stages. Yet in the Zwift app it claims you need to complete all stages… if I just ride one stage, can I still get the kit? As someone relatively new to Zwift and a massive fan of NYC I’ll take any extra kit I can get but not sure I can do all stages…
It’s ANY stage, not all. I reached out to ZHQ, told them about their mixed messaging, and got the scoop from them.
So the kit we busted butt for to complete all 5 stages in the original tour now just unlocks with one ride? 🙁
Shame. That was my last special kit I had in my arsenal.
are there any overall standings, a total of the 3 stages?
Well – there’s a Tour of New York league on ZwiftPower: https://www.zwiftpower.com/league.php?id=586
But it doesn’t appear to be populating, perhaps because ZwiftPower is a bit behind in processing event results. So the answer is… sort of?