2018 Tour de France winner Geraint Thomas has taken on the challenge of riding 12 hours a day for three days straight on Zwift, mirroring the typical shift of a National Health Service (NHS) worker. He’s taking on this massive challenge in a bid to raise £100,000 to support NHS workers across the UK, at a time when they are needed more than ever.
To kick things off, Zwift has pledged £25,000.
Schedule
His first shift begins tomorrow (Wednsday) at 7:30 am BST (11:30 pm Pacific tonight, 2:30 am Eastern).
Zwifters are invited to join Geraint for as much of the riding as they’d like, and thousands of riders have already signed up! His shifts will each take place on a different Zwift map (first Watopia, then London and New York). For each shift, 6x 115-minute events have been created, each on a different route.
See full list of events and sign up at zwift.com/events/series/geraint-thomas-nhs-zwift-shifts
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Pace
Expect a moderate-to-fast pace, depending on the time of day. All events are in double draft mode, so riders can sit in at a much lower effort level than those on the front.
Donations
Those who can afford to make a donation in support may do so here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/GsNHSZwiftShifts.
Watch Live
G will be live streaming his rides via his Facebook page.
It’s not just the NHS workers that need support
Please remember that
I was wondering if they were going to ‘event it’.
Will the ‘ride with’ option from the startup still work in that case, without having signed up for the event of that time?
It should, but the event riders (eg, Geraint) won’t be able to see you if you aren’t in the event.
Late join IS allowed, so you could join the events up to 30 minutes late.
So I’ve just tested it, and it doesn’t quite work like that!
Selecting to ride with Geraint Thomas in the startup at 12:35 BST (so 65 minutes into the current event). I get placed into the right place, but don’t see G or any others in the event.
But then using the companion app, and finding G. I switch to ‘Fan View’ and then G appears on screen, with the event riders, and I can see myself too, while on his view.
Switch back to ‘My View’ and over the next 5 seconds or so, all event riders vanish.
So realistically, the only way to ride with G in this will be to sign up to one of the event slots, and join within the first half hour of each.
Plenty of people signing up to the events, so G will get plenty of company – but seems a slight shame that it’s not really possible to hop on at any time in the 12 hours and join in for a bit.
I read on the BBC that there were specific children’s slots? how do I get my son on to one of them?
Not specific slots – he’s just riding at a slower pace (was either 1 w/kg or 100watts, I forget which) for two 30 minute periods each day. (11:30-12; 3:30-4). Both coincide with the start of Zwift events, so it’s easy to join in for those parts.