Chasing Yellow 21-Stage Grand Tour Begins June 29

Chasing Yellow is back for its third year with its biggest tour edition yet! Inspired by the Tour de France, Chasing Yellow is a 21-stage race where riders race every day of the TdF with a mini Zwift version of the in-real-life course. The tour runs from June 29th through July 21, with just 2 rest days on the schedule, and it’s the queen tour of the year-long Chasing Tour competition.

New This Year

This is the first time Chasing Yellow will cover all 21 stages (previous years only covered 18). That also means the overall distance is more challenging than ever, covering 860km total, which is quite a step up from 558km in 2022 and the 707km covered in 2023.

Adding to the excitement, Chasing Yellow will feature 7 of the newly-released Watopia routes included in The Grade expansion. What better way to experience new roads and tick them off your route completion list!

Schedule Details

Each race is scheduled at four different times throughout the day, so you can find a slot that works for you:

• 9:30 UTC / 5:30 EDT / 2:30 PDT
• 12:00 UTC / 8:00 EDT / 5:00 PDT
• 17:30 UTC / 13:30 EDT / 10:30 PDT
• 0:00 UTC / 20:00 EDT / 17:00 PDT

Note: thanks to the Chasing Series’ novel time gap system (see below) you don’t need to race the same time slot each day.

Stage Details

• June 29, Stage 1  |  Itza Party  |  45.7k / 506m
• June 30, Stage 2  |  Hilly Route Reverse  |  37.0k / 372m
• July 1, Stage 3  |  Douce France  |  42.0k / 250m
• July 2, Stage 4  |  Mayan Mash  |  38.0k / 755m
• July 3, Stage 5  |  Chasing the Sun  |  40.0k / 345m
• July 4, Stage 6  |  Watopia’s Waistband  |  42.0k / 129m
• July 5, Stage 7 (ITT)  |  Eastern Eight  |  25.0k / 134m
• July 6, Stage 8  |  Rolling Highlands  |  41.1k / 308m
• July 7, Stage 9  |  Serpentine 8  |  45.7k / 398m
• July 9, Stage 10  |  Casse-Pattes  |  46.9k / 290m
• July 10, Stage 11  |  Snowman  |  44.0k / 578m
• July 11, Stage 12  |  Country to Coastal  |  38.0k / 334m
• July 12, Stage 13  |  Park Perimeter Reverse  |  39.4k / 504m
• July 13, Stage 14  |  Achterbahn  |  56.0k / 1348m
• July 14, Stage 15  |  Peak Performance  |  41.0k / 725m
• July 16, Stage 16  |  Tides and Temples  |  36.5k / 460m
• July 17, Stage 17  |  Coastal Crown Loop  |  35.6k / 372m
• July 18, Stage 18  |  Sand and Sequoias  |  42.8k / 292m
• July 19, Stage 19  |  Quatch Quest  |  46.2k / 1683m
• July 20, Stage 20  |  Surrey Hills  |  44.1k / 1029m
• July 21, Stage 21 (ITT)  |  Glyph Heights  |  33.4k / 537m

Access race passes here (chasingtour.com registration required) >

Rules & Categories

Chasing Tour rules are quite simple:

• Riders must register for the Chasing Tour at www.chasingtour.com
• Heart rate monitors required
• No ZPower riders

Categorization is different than typical Zwift races, since the Chasing Tour is using the zwiftracing.app ranking system to provide categorization. All categories will start at the same time and be visible to each other during the race. If you need help determining your category, see the CATEGORIES section of the Rules page.

GC Competition Details

In addition to the individual race competition, Chasing Yellow (and all other stage races in the Chasing Series) has a GC competition. It works using the novel “time gap” system, explained below:

• Stage races evaluate a rider’s combined time over the course of multiple stages (race events).
• In an effort time normalize times across multiple time zones a time gap system will be used.
  • The 1st placed rider in a race event will earn a time gap of 00:00:00s.
  • Each following rider’s time gap will be calculated as a difference from the first rider’s time (ie: +00:00:05s).
  • The time gap logic will apply to each race event time zone.
  • Riders will then be globally ranked based on their overall combined time gaps throughout the tour, with the rider with the lowest overall combined time gap finishing in 1st.
• If a rider misses a stage they are given the last finishing time for the stage.
• For Chasing Yellow a rider must complete all ITTs (2 stages) and at least 16 of the 19 road stages. In short, a rider can miss 3 non-ITT stages and still qualify for overall GC placement.
• Don’t worry if you miss a stage, riders still earn points from the individual race events they complete within a stage race.

Questions or Comments?

I plan to race Chasing Yellow this year, as a fun challenge that’ll boost my fitness. (Unfortunately, my ZwiftRacing.app vELO ranking puts me into the bottom of category B, which means I probably won’t be much of a contender.)

What about you? Will you be racing Chasing Yellow? Got questions about the series? Share below!