Zwift’s new Alpe is a perfect place to test your fitness, with the full climb taking anywhere from 50 to 90 minutes for most riders. Interval efforts can also be put in between specific bends if desired.
We’ve created a set of Alpe du Zwift bike segments which include the full ascent, the full descent, and segments between (almost) each pair of bends. Here’s the list:
- Alpe du Zwift (Zwift Insider verified)
- Alpe du Zwift Descent (Zwift Insider verified)
- Alpe du Zwift Start to Bend 21 (Zwift Insider verified)
- Alpe du Zwift Bend 21 to 20 (Zwift Insider verified)
- Alpe du Zwift Bend 18 to 17 (Zwift Insider verified)
- Alpe du Zwift Bend 16 to 15 (Zwift Insider verified)
- Alpe du Zwift Bend 15 to 14 (Zwift Insider verified)
- Alpe du Zwift Bend 14 to 13 (Zwift Insider verified)
- Alpe du Zwift Bend 13 to 12 (Zwift Insider verified)
- Alpe du Zwift Bend 12 to 11 (Zwift Insider verified)
- Alpe du Zwift Bend 11 to 10 (Zwift Insider verified)
- Alpe du Zwift Bend 10 to 9 (Zwift Insider verified)
- Alpe du Zwift Bend 9 to 8 (Zwift Insider verified)
- Alpe du Zwift Bend 8 to 7 (Zwift Insider verified)
- Alpe du Zwift Bend 7 to 6 (Zwift Insider verified)
- Alpe du Zwift Bend 6 to 5 (Zwift Insider verified)
- Alpe du Zwift Bend 5 to 4 (Zwift Insider verified)
- Alpe du Zwift Bend 4 to 3 (Zwift Insider verified)
- Alpe du Zwift Bend 3 to 2 (Zwift Insider verified)
- Alpe du Zwift Bend 2 to 1 (Zwift Insider verified)
- Alpe du Zwift Bend 1 to Banner (Zwift Insider verified)
We are currently missing segments between bends 20-19, 19-18, and 17-16 due to Strava’s restrictions on “short” segments. The problem is, Strava does not take incline into consideration when determining how “short” a segment is, which means a 1 km 14% uphill segment is considered just as “short” as a 1 km downhill. We’ve submitted support requests for this to change, but we’re not holding our breath.
Note: Zwifters have already created many inacurrate Alpe segments. We recommend hiding these, for your own good and the good of the community. Here’s more on the how and why >
The cool thing about these new segments is that we can see, of those who “start” the climb, how many “finish” it – looks like about 36%, currently. Now all we need is a speed test on the descent – which is the fastest bike for descending?
I hadn’t thought of the “% finishing” angle… that’s interesting. As of right now, the first bend segment (https://www.strava.com/segments/17329459) shows 10981 finishers, while the last (https://www.strava.com/segments/17352757) shows 6231. That’s a higher finishing % than I would have guessed… 57%.
One issue with this math, though, is that I created the final bend segment a few days after the first one… since Strava limits how many segments I can create in a 24-hour period. So there were actually more finishers than what is recorded.
Over time the numbers will shake out and be more accurate.
Fastest bike descending is the TT bike with 808’s… followed by the Tron bike. This is without drafting, of course… the Tron bike may be faster depending on how much drafting you end up doing.
Eric.. you must have been uploading these segments to Strava yesterday morning early, as I was climbing the Alpe du Zwift on the 6am Pacific ToW Stage 3. I must have been between corners 8 and 9 when you added that segment and through some miracle of timing I was the first rider to complete the segment. When I completed the ride and checked Strava I was floored to see that I had collected a KOM! By that time I was already down to 9th on the segment and since have fallen much further down the list, but after 6 years on Strava I actually held my first KOM (even if only for a few moments). Thanks for the inadvertent little thrill.. and thanks for these well thought through segments.
Ha! Sounds like you hold about as many KOMs as me. 🙂 Glad to help!
Thanks for these accurate segments and thanks to Zwift for starred hairpins to break things up, helped no end today. Corner 21, right just 2-3 minutes more threshold to corner 20…*hit lap on the Garmin* right just 2-3 minutes more threshold to corner 19…etc. etc. Admittedly I sneaked in two sweetspot (longer) corners on the way up to “recover” but psychologically each star of effort was so much more manageable and helped me knock two minutes off my previous best.
Anyway was nice to look back at the power on these segments and see how consistent I was in my suffering, thanks again.
Now if we could only get Strava to backdate segment efforts for Zwift, like they do for real life ride segments, that would be perfect! At the moment my first one and a half trips up the Alpe don’t have any of the ZwiftInsider segments matching (apart from the entire climb one), so it’s hard to compare my early hairpin-to-hairpin efforts to my more recent ones.
Agreed, it seems a bit odd given some newly created segments in the real world are surely just as popular and therefore as resource intensive to populate. I guess Strava think it’s that bit more resource hungry…but still seems like a fairly typical cop out on their part…
Maybe delete and upload the ride to Strava again.
Could you make a segment from 20-18 and another from 18-16? Then, it’s all covered.