In June, Zwift hosted its first-ever events in the Climb Portal, focusing on climbs featured in the Tour de France.
Starting in September, Zwift will be hosting a fresh set of Climb Portal events! These will be the first-ever races on the Climb Portal, and the winner is the first rider over the top of the designated climb.
Final results and a monthly GC will be available on ZwiftPower.
Event Schedule and Route Details
Climb Portal Races happen on Fridays, with events scheduled throughout the day.
- September 6: Cheddar Gorge (4.7km, 3.6%)
- September 13: Puy de Dome (12.96km, 7%)
- September 20: Old La Honda (5.6km, 7.1%)
- September 27: Col du Galibier (Lautaret) (10.3km, 5.2%)
- October 4: La Super Planche des Belles Filles (8.6km, 7%)
See upcoming Climb Portal Races at https://www.zwift.com/events/tag/climbportalrace
Overall Standings
These Climb Portal races include an overall monthly leaderboard on Zwift Power.
Questions or Comments?
Share below!
Super Idea! Not a Hill Climber! However a challenge I would consider 🤩
Eric will there be womens only climb portal races?
Vinnette, women can take part in the events and there is a women’s only filter on the league. Having women’s only climbing events of any kind is generally not advisable because of the field sizes.
I don’t think it will make much difference, in w/kg cats there is no performance handicap. It is in fact more likely that some low weight strong female climbers may actually be the hardest to beat!
Shame there aren’t more time slots, specifically earlier, so that I could do these
First time La Super Planche des Belles Filles us available I believe
I think you’re right!
Yep! Debuts with the Portal Races!
More mainstream focus on uphill racing on Zwift? Absolutely, yes please! Looks like a good selection of climbs and looking forward to going up and blowing up in September, great news 👍
I’ve always been big on hills (and sometimes have the rein myself in a bit!). There’s also the regular Zwift Hill Climb Racing Series where times are taken for the KQOM summit time only.
Eric, how about an article on how much draft is available on uphill sections?
One company shows draft in watts. It’s 50 on flat roads but only 1 watt when it goes over 10% elevation.
Gerben will be very happy. No cheating!
I can’t tell one one climb from another in the portal so does anyone even care what new “routes” are released? However, I’d like to know how many portal climbs I’ve completed all time. Getting close to the 25 so I can stop doing these all together.
Oh baby!
I think it is a bad sign that the “hill portal” is becoming a more entrenched feature of Zwift.
It really seems like a stop-gap approach to getting more routes into the platform. A significant aspect of the user experience of Zwift is the graphic simulation.
It’s already been specified the janky graphic engine makes it laborious to add new routes. So this really is better than holding hostage routes that would conceivably never get released.
Will these be a mass start event? Will they work like the climb portal do now 50% 75% etc?
They are mass start events, but you can’t choose the % scaling… they’ll be at 100%.
They may provoke some challenges to our setups. My bike for zwift is a 53/39 with original 11-25 that I swapped out to a 11-34t with a medium deraileur. I currently run at 67% to closer match my 50/34, 11-34t IRL and change my frame length on the Wahoo app to 1.33m to try to keep the CLIMBR at the real slope. These events would have been a rude surprise if not for these comments. Your mileage may vary
A shame that there’s no Early Morning Central Europe Timeslot…again. Just like the Hill Climb Club this slot is always left out because it’s not a “peak time”. I don’t get it, but It’s not my call.
What I would think would be good for these would be to make it so that in these races the Trainer Difficulty is always 100%, else it’s not really a fair contest for everyone.
Hmmm. It didn’t appear to work the same as a kom -hill climb race…. My Strava time for the climb was 11:52 and the recorded race time was 17:39…. Maybe start time from the pens?
Ah – maybe included the down as well as the up?
Yes, it does take into account the overall time all the way from the pens, which is a bit of a shame as I was under the impression that only the KOM time mattered. Wouldn’t it make more sense to neutralize the first few kms on the way to the portal?
Interesting races. The first one on Friday the 13th (Puy de Dome) has a winner with an impossible time who wasn’t actually in the race. 🤣
https://zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=4474449
I noticed this as well on the leaderboards. Impossible time and wkg doesn’t make sense. I give the benefit of the doubt and don’t think the rider did anything nefarious but I flagged it.
Eric, did you get a sense about whether Zwift were happy about this series and are looking at repeating and/or tweaking the experience?