Zwift Camp: Build is now underway. This is a 5-stage route-based workout series, with each stage lasting one week and focusing on developing power over a specific time interval.
My plan is to do each of the five workouts before their weeks begin, so I can write a post unpacking the workout and delivering some tips along the way. This post covers Stage 2’s anaerobic workout on France’s Bon Voyage. Let’s dive in!
Stage 2 Walkthrough: Anaerobic Capacity (~1 minute)
The second stage of Zwift Camp: Build focuses on what you might call “long sprint power,” with efforts lasting 20-60 seconds. To do so, you’ll ride a lap of France’s Bon Voyage route (31.4km, 155m).
Here’s a profile of the route, not including the lead-in. As you can see, there are 9 sprints on the route itself. But watch out! You’ve got one more on the lead-in, for a total of 10.
The sprints you’ll hit are thus:
- Dos d’Âne Sprint Reverse (0.75km, 1.7%) – at the end of the lead-in
- Sprint du Cratère (0.3km, 0.1%)
- Sprinteur Sprint Reverse (0.25km, 0%)
- Dos d’Âne Sprint Reverse (0.75km, 1.4%)
- Sprint du Cratère (0.3km, 0%)
- Sprinteur Sprint Reverse (.25km, -1.8%)
- Dos d’Âne Sprint Reverse (0.75km, 1.4%)
- Sprint du Cratère (0.3km, 0%)
- Sprinteur Sprint Reverse (.25km, -1.8%)
- Pavé Sprint Reverse (0.33km, 0%)
Executing the workout is simple enough: just hit every sprint segment hard. (I said simple, not easy!) 10 sprints is a lot, especially when three of them are 1-minute efforts. So expect some suffering.
I went into the workout with semi-tired legs, but figured I could put in a decent effort because I thought we would only be doing three 1-minute efforts, based on the event description.
Unfortunately for me, this workout had more sprints than anticipated. But lucky for you, now that you’re reading this, you know what you’re getting yourself into!
My first sprint, Dos d’Âne Sprint Reverse, began 2.4km into the event. It was a little off, for a few reasons:
- It wasn’t clear to me from the on-screen instructions that I was supposed to sprint at the line. (The messaging before most of the subsequent sprints makes this more clear, but this first one did not.)
- When I went to turn my Wahoo Headwind fan up partway through the sprint, the fan turned completely off! So I had to fumble around with that.
- My legs clearly needed this to be a recovery day.
- The sprint was longer than anticipated, taking me 74 seconds to complete.
It wasn’t until 4.5km into the ride that a message popped up telling me the next sprint was coming up – Sprint du Cratère – and that I was supposed to sprint on it. That’s when I realized I would be sprinting on every segment on this route. Uh oh. I picked a bad day to have bad legs!
I sprinted rather halfheartedly my first time over Cratère, but the game was very impressed:
Wouldn’t it be cool if Zwift had some intelligence built into these messages, so the response reflected your actual performance? Maybe with a “Snark Slider” in Settings so we could determine how acerbic our coach was. My screen should have said something more like:
This route uses some of the newer HUD features I mentioned in stage 1’s writeup, showing the Ride Stats panel as well as the Lap Splits.
Like stage 1, Ride Stats was more useful than Lap Splits. I appreciated seeing the 1-minute power field on Ride Stats, as that gave me something to chase. But Lap Splits? Totally useless for this workout, because of how the route is laid out and how the Splits were used. (More on this topic in the Suggestion Box below.)
On-screen messaging does a good job of telling you when the next sprint is about to arrive, plus you can see the finish lines approaching on the mini-map profile.
There isn’t much more to say about this workout from an execution standpoint: just sprint hard at every sprint segment, and rest in between.
Again, same warning as stage 1:if you ride this in a group event, it may be harder to dial it down and spin between sprints. But you’ll definitely want to do so, if you want to have the energy for maximal sprint efforts.
HoloReplay Bug
I found Zwift’s HoloReplay to be helpful as a motivator on the sprints, but the same bug is in this workout as in stage 1, causing two different ghosts to appear, instead of just my previous effort. (More on this in the Suggestion Box below.)
Watch My Video
More On Anaerobic Power
A few interesting things about the anaerobic energy system that stage 2 focuses on (read much more on this excellent TrainerRoad post):
- Anaerobic capacity is typically measured with a 30-second sprint test
- Unlike the neuromuscular system from stage 1, the anaerobic system is highly responsive to training
- Strong anaerobic performance is particularly useful in “spiky” cycling disciplines like cyclocross, crits, and MTB racing
Anaerobic Training Tips
The anaerobic system is very adaptable to training, so if you find this is an area you’d like to focus on, you can execute stage 2’s workout more than once! You can also try making your own workout, or using workouts from Zwift’s library.
One classic anaerobic workout is called “Thirty Thirties”. 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off. Repeat this 5-10x, rest for a few minutes, then repeat it again. Do 2 or 3 sets. Fit riders can typically do 3 sets of 10 30-30s. You can do the 30-second hard efforts as free ride segments in a workout, or set them to 130-150% of your FTP if you like Erg mode. You can even do this during a free ride, simply using the game clock as your timekeeper. It’s a simple yet effective workout.
Three tips to maximize your anaerobic workouts:
- Fuel properly: Anaerobic work is almost entirely glycolytic, which means it’s fueled by sugar. If you don’t have glycogen stored up to fuel the workout, you won’t be able to put in repeated full efforts in your anaerobic zone.
- Go in recovered: If you’re dealing with residual muscle fatigue from yesterday’s workout or tiredness from a poor night’s sleep, you’ll have a really hard time executing a quality anaerobic workout. These efforts are sharp, hard, and repeated. They take focus and mental (as well as physical) energy.
- Set accurate targets: if you’re doing these as an ERG workout, make sure your FTP is accurate and your targets are realistic (130-150% of FTP is normal). As with all ERG workouts, an inaccurate FTP means you won’t be training the systems you thought you were training. And nobody’s got time for that!
Suggestion Box
The second workout of Zwift Camp: Build would have gone better if I’d known, going in, that there would be 10 sprints. I would have gone easier the day before, knowing I needed more in the tank.
Here are my suggestions for improvements Zwift could make to stage 2:
- How many sprints? The marketing for this stage talks about “Three 1-Minute Efforts”, but the actual in-game messaging has you sprinting all 10 segments. Those are two very different workouts. Zwift needs to decide what the actual goal is, then communicate that consistently.
- No Lap Splits: This route is basically two laps of a circuit, plus a lead-in at the start, and a “lead-out” at the end. So at best, you could time two “laps”. But the way it’s set up, the first lap isn’t auto-triggered until the second time through the Dos d’Âne Sprint, meaning the first lap’s time includes the lead-in. That means you can’t compare it to the second lap’s time… which makes the Splits timers useless for this workout.
- Fix HoloReplays: It’s clear that Zwift has hard-coded the HoloReplay functionality into these events, because changing my settings doesn’t seem to make a difference! It wasn’t a big deal for me, and the ghosts still motivated me to push hard. But Zwift should fix these events so they automatically show HoloReplays (just one ghost of your previous effort) for everyone.
- Improve the event description: I already mentioned this for stage 1, but stage 2 is a perfect example of how a simple line or two in the event description would clarify what people are signing up for (once Zwift figures out what that is, see the first bullet above).
- Intelligent in-game messaging: OK, this is sort of silly and a major stretch goal at best. But it sure would be cool if the game could respond accurately to my actual efforts on the segments, as pitched above. Zwift has the data necessary to do so. Just hook it up to ChatGPT and let ‘er rip!
Sign Up For Stage 2
Sign up for stage 2 events in-game, in the Companion app, or go to zwift.com/events/tag/zwiftcampbuild2025wo2.
Questions or Comments?
Have you done this workout yet? Share your thoughts below, or any questions you may have heading into the workout.
Aren’t you just supposed to sprint on the Dos d’Âne sprint? Not the others?
Not if you follow the on-screen prompts. Zwift is sending mixed messages though, like I said above.
I wonder if the mistake is in the description or in the on-screen guide.
From the point of view of the workout, which is training the 1min power, I’d say that the guide is wrong.
would be good to have an official answer from HQ
As a workout to improve 1min power, sprinting every segment makes it more effective IMO. As a test to try and get a 1min power PB, just 3 sprints would make more sense.
I would love a Snark Slider for workout messages! A bit like the Humor Setting on the bots in Interstellar. “That was a nice warmup. Let’s see a real effort for the next one!”
And please Zwift: show my results on the screen to be proud/ashamed of. Either during the workout or at the very least a results screen afterwards with my power for all the sprints. How else can I see what kind of sprinting works for me?
Is the description wrong, why are you sprinting everything?
Workout 2: Reel ‘em In
Route: Bon Voyage
Dates: November 17-23
Target Segment: Dos d’Ane Sprint Reverse
Target Effort: Three 1-minute efforts
i talk about this above. And in my video. The on-screen prompts clearly say to sprint everything. But the event descriptions going in all seemed to indicate just the three big sprints. A mixed message for sure.
The lap splits should be triggered at the start and end of the sprint segments, if those are what you should be focusing on in this workout. Soo many missed opportunities, again…
It wasn’t clear to me in the first stage if I was going for fastest time in the segment (requiring a much longer effort), or maximal power for the duration of the segment. Is there any clarity for stage 2 what you should be aiming for?
It’s really about power, but using it in the context of a “real” segment and not just a block of time. So the answer is sort of… both! Either way it’ll hurt. 😜
Eric, they really should of let u tested all these workouts before it got released and fix ur suggestions before release. Would of been a way better experience for their customers.
Maybe they are ” counting” just the three long sprints to estimate ur 1min power and the other sprints are for empting the tank ?! would make sense if they send u a message with the 1min power
Thanks for the write-up, Eric. It will be helpful to many.
I thought it was just a sprint effort on Dos d’Âne Sprint Reverse three times also, and then when I selected it this morning, I missed the 2nd sprint on Sprint du Cratère because I was using the rest of the ride for recovery. So, mine ended up being 8 sprints overall instead of 10. I was expecting it to be more or less a recovery ride on tired-ish legs. Everything but the sprint parts was very much a recovery ride.
I did manage to hit my best 1-minute power since getting ran over in 2023 (just short of my all-time best), so there was that. I felt the part as well, kind of walking sideways for a bit after getting off of the bike following the bonus final Pavé Sprint Reverse. I dumped the 3rd Dos d’Âne Sprint Reverse sprint since my 2nd established great performance, and I was picking and choosing my battles for the rest of this – thus, the 8 sprints. One accidentally missed, and one skipped.
I don’t usually ride that hard, and these long sprints remind me that there is a cooling fan inside of the KICKR BIKE V2. It turns on and becomes louder than my KICKR Headwind fan – it’s still not particularly loud, but it’s louder than nearly silent. I’m not even hitting 1/5 the power that bike is engineered to support. I wonder what it sounds like when someone with legs uses it.
I like how they’ve done these with the route-based workouts. I was expecting some type of report like I got with Zwift Camp: Baseline, but I haven’t seen that to be the case. I do like how it pops up the Ride Stats on the screen after each effort. I also like how that Ride Stats will persist if it is manually enabled. Zwift won’t remove it if you choose to leave it on between efforts.
I’m looking forward to Zwift Camp: Build (3) (I need that Hot Laps route badge), and I’m looking “forward” to (4) on The Grade and (5) on Alpe du Zwift… 😉
I just did as I was told on the screen. Yeah, it was a challenge. The “holo” images were distracting, but you know what? I wanted to chase and pass myself! I’m enjoying this series. Thanks for your video, which I didn’t see until I completed this stage.
When you said “snark slider”, my first thought was the old computer game “You don’t know Jack”. There was plenty of snark in that.
I did the Zwift base camp last month. Where can I find my best results? few week ago I found they in Companion….
U had an email with ur powers after every workout last month maybe in ur spam ordner
Currently no results report apart from what you get in game, Strava, etc like any other workout. Zwift had planned a web-based dashboard but something made that not happen yet.
No email reports are sent for ZC: Build.
Is there a way to get access to workout 1 now that the timetable has moved to week2?
Yes, you can do it anytime. It just will not be in a group with others.
Click on the large Build banner on the home screen.
On the left hand side of the screen, click on Stage 1, then select the box.
You will land in Scotland and begin the circuit.
I found the message says six sprints, but the screen prompt said one more when there were actually two more. But, you can skip any of the efforts if you don’t feel up to sprinting all six.
I am actually fond of the holoreplay showing more than one rider. I’d actually love it if it showed more. Gives you a much better comparison between your efforts over time
Yes agree. It’s interesting/useful/motivating to race against your most recent *and* best time
When I read the description of the workout, I thought that there was only going to be three 1-minute sprints sessions during the entire workout. I thought that the workout was going to have a lot of recovery time in between sprints. When the workout started and I saw the map, I realized that the workout consisted of three sessions comprised of three 1-minute sprints efforts “back to back” with a recovery period in between the three sessions. The workout was manageable, but my legs were jelly by the start of the third session.
Any response from Zwift on how many sprint sections this should be?
Hi Eric, most of the links to segments are broken (giving 503) on this and a lot of other pages. Seems to be caused by changed page slugs: E.g. the links use “/segment/dos-dane-sprint-reverse/” while the actual page is on “/segment/dos-dane-sprint-reverse-4/”
I miss the first one
It’s a little late in the day as we’re now just about to go into Stage 4 of the ‘Build’ programme, but only just found this article. Not sure how I missed it as I appreciated your one on Stage 1. I agree with everything you’ve said, but I tend to go into these things with an open mind, knowing that Zwift aren’t the clearest in their descriptions. Re the Holoreplay figures if one was the previous attempt and another was your best for the session, I could see that that could be helpful. I guess I assumed that this I was seeing especially in Stage 3 where my second lap was down on my first.