“BRAEk-fast Crits and Grits” Route Details (Scotland)
Designed by Zwifter “JackCat” from team OTR, this route is the first ever added to the game as a result of a route design contest. (The contest was held to determine the final race route for Round 1 of ZRL’s 2024/25 season.)
BRAEk-fast Crits & Grits gets its name from a signature feature: 3 full laps of the Breakaway Brae loop (aka “Nessie’s Loop“). The route also starts and finishes up the Sgurr Summit South climb, which is sure to force key selections in any race.
Route Basics
Length: 20.8 km (12.9 miles)
Elevation: 211m (692′)
+1.3km (0.8 miles) lead-in with 32m (105′) elevation
Map: Scotland
ZIMetrics
Rating: 11.9/100 🛈
Time Estimates 🛈
lead-in + first lap
4 W/kg: 34 minutes
3 W/kg: 38 minutes
2 W/kg: 47 minutes
Start & Finish
Start with a pitchy lead-in from the Highland pens to the top of the Sgurr, which is the route’s official loop start/finish line.
Format: Loop
Ride Achievement Badge: 415 XP
Run Achievement Badge: none
Strava Segments
BRAEk-fast Crits and Grits – with Lead-In
BRAEk-fast Crits and Grits
Route Description
Route profile by ZwiftHub – the place to plan and track your route achievements!
The route begins from the Highland start pens, taking riders through the Highland lap banner and turning quickly left to head up the paved side of the Sgurr climb. This is just the lead-in, but if you aren’t warmed up before jumping into a race you may get dropped before the route properly begins!
Catch your breath over the top of the Sgurr and descend the gravely south side and it’s time to nip into Glasgow for a quick lap. That means once up The Clyde Kicker and once through the Champion’s Sprint before heading up through the castles and onto laps of the Brae circuit.
You’ll loop this short circuit four times, so be ready to repeatedly attack that Breakaway Brae Reverse segment!
As we near the finish, we descend from Corkscrew Castle and encounter the final ~2.7km of the route, which is almost entirely uphill. First we climb up to the Highland lap banner, then we turn left once more for a final go at the Sgurr Summit South KOM. Can you hold on to the top?
Interesting course – maybe better suited to a points race?
FYI, JackCat and I have organized points race events on this course for the coming week: https://www.zwift.com/events/tag/snapcracklepop
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Not related question bit why latest posts/news are not displayed on the top of the page but like this one are a little bit further down? At least on mobile this make it quite cumbersome to see if there are some updates on the page.
Just tried this route on a ZRL Recon ride and it didn’t work – the start point was wrong people were flying off in all different directions after the first turn
When will this be an event next?
Events are on right now if you look for ZRL recon rides. It will be used for ZRL race 6 tomorrow. After that it seems to be available for organisizers to select for a group ride so keep an eye on zwiftpower or zwifthacks to find upcoming events.
Wrong reference for the activity. Not sure why but it seems the link says “route==” instead of just “route=” 🙂
Did this as an ITT the other day and was wondering if a road bike would have been faster compared to a TT bike. It does get a bit confusing once you start lapping people on the circuit part.
Just FYI the link to this page from ZwiftHub is broken
As of right now, the route description map shows a segment “Fuego Flats.” Which is DEFINITELY not a part of this course.
@Eric Schlange Hi Eric, maybe time to clean this up? Thanks!
Yup, working on it!
Still working on it?
Ha! Thanks for the reminder. Had the new images sitting here in my To Do folder. Done!
Still not “Done” Eric!
yeah, for sure not Done, Eric 🙂
@Eric Schlange can you re check please. Seems not fully corrected still
Oops, fixed for real this time!
@Eric Schlange the route description picture does still not show the Sgurr climb shortly after starting from the pens
That’s because it’s part of the lead-in. The ZwiftHub route profile images don’t include lead-ins…
Fantastic race course! Totally smashed the the Rolling with ENVE race today, new 5min PR and new VO2max as well. A great course sure helps in bringing out the best!
Did this route today. It said it’s 13.7 miles with the lead in and about 50 mins. It didn’t show me complete until over 25 miles and almost an hour and a half in! I was riding hard. What is the deal?
Are you sure you didn’t do two laps?
Link to your activity on Strava or Zwift.com here and I can take a closer look…
I think I did! On zwift what is the grey dot on the route map? Here it’s blue. Is that the spawn point? Must be.
weird thing is on the on-screen map (upper right corner), with the course profile it showed I had a lot more to go for the route to finish. Even though I already finished? Confusing.
if the route is one lap wonder why it only showed half finished on that hill/course profile?
Your ZCA screenshots show you being awarded the route XP and also the TdZ stage finish at the 13.7 mile mark. Possibly they came up on screen and you may have been looking away at the time.
what I think then happens is the system realises that you have completed the route lead in (the route lead in is the last 0.8 miles of the circuit) and the mini map then shows you have 12.9 miles left of the route to complete the circuit AGAIN.