Zwift’s Epic Race Series is known for its longer events, which many find especially welcome on weekends. Heading into April, organizer James Bailey has tweaked the series based on racer feedback. Key changes include:
- Mass Start (with categories): these races have always been mass start, to help give everyone someone to ride with. They still are, but riders will be signed up to racing score-based categories.
- Riders will be forced into the proper category (to counter some of the complaints about people racing up to reduce their racing score.)
- Each category will wear the same kit, so you can easily spot the riders you are racing against.
Apart from the changes above, series distinctives remain: races are around 50km in length, without powerups.
Weekly Schedule
Races happen weekly on the following schedule:
Monday-Wednesday-Friday Weekday times (UTC)
- 0930
- 1030
- 1230
- 1730
- 1830
- 2330
- 0130
Weekend Times (UTC)
- 0700
- 0900
- 1400
- 1700
- 2300
April’s Routes
- March 31-April 6
- Deca Dash
- 1 Lap (52.6km, 500m)
- April 7-13
- Navig8
- 1 Lap (66.1km, 423m)
- April 14-20
- Spiral Into the Volcano
- 1 Lap (55.8km, 355m)
- April 21-27
- Shisa Shakedown
- 1 Lap (53.5km, 556m)
- April 28-May 4
- Three Sisters
- 1 Lap (48.5km, 896m)
Sign up at zwift.com/events/tag/zwiftepicapril >
Join the Epic Racing Club to easily find upcoming events and chat with other epic racers. You can also hop onto the Facebook group to discuss all things epic!
Questions or Comments
Have you raced the Epic series yet? What do you think of these changes? Comment below!
Good changes! Love this series!
This series sounds fun. Sadly there are no time slots when I can participate
Decca Dash is a brutal route takes no prisoners destroys the soul
How does forcing people to race in proper race category prevent people from racing up to downgrade their racing score? They can just race in another race that allows racing up?
And shouldn’t the zwift racing score algorithm take into account that if you lose to people with racing scores much higher than yours then your racing score should probably not be adjusted? Like if you are a 300 and you lose to a bunch of 700s then all the score really knows is that you are probably < 600, and it doesn't know that you should be 295 or 305, it can't tell.
I’m also confused by this. Why would you lose more points when finishing last in a high cat. than in a low cat? This doesn’t make sense at all.
I’m also worried that this cat. enforcement will become more common, because I regularly race a cat up (and typically still finish in top half), because zwift racing score has been constantly underestimating me. This could be because I’m heavy, high power and relatively low w/kg, and zwift still doesn’t sufficiently take the actual results into consideration, but relies too much on w/kg.
It has taken me 30 races to finally get to 650+, where I clearly belong (as long as no real long climbs are involved.) Not meant as a brag, but the last race I did I came in 4th out of a 100 in the advanced 650+ field, beating many 700/800/900+ riders. I gained only 6 rating points?! This system is so broken..
Summer is coming soon. When I get back to zwift racing in September, it would really suck if Zwift sets me below 400 again and forces me to sandbag for months.
The good news is that ZRS doesn’t seem to reset when you take time off. Your floor would as that’s based a 90 day history, and you might have to do one other ride before you’re allowed to enter a race. But for your first race your score should be where you left it.
Hopefully come September the few small changes required to move ZRS from entirely broken to being very good will have been implemented.
would really love to have a weekend option for this. love the concept of longer races but hard to fit them in on a weekday morning. EDIT: never mind – i need better reading comprehension . . . there are weekend time slots.
Like the series, would like a timeslot between 12:30 and 17:30 though. 🤞