Zwift+Giant have just announced a short, fun race series with a fresh format and new bikes!
The “Giant Gravel Crushers” series is four weeks long, with races happening on Wednesdays at multiple time slots. Each week features two short races, one right after the other.
For example, in week 1 we’ll race the Makuri Islands Valley to Mountaintop route, then 20 minutes later tackle the Kappa Quest Reverse route.
See upcoming events in this series at zwift.com/events/series/giant-gravel-crushers
All routes are most or entirely gravel, and we’ll be riding gravel bikes in game.
Schedule and Routes
Week 1 (June 1)
- Race 1: Valley to Mountaintop (5.1km, 130m of elevation)
- Race 2: Kappa Quest Reverse (14.2km, 269m of elevation)
Week 2 (June 8)
- Race 1: Kappa Quest (13km, 260m of elevation)
- Race 2: Jungle Circuit Reverse (14.2km, 105m of elevation)
Week 3 (June 15)
- Race 1: Spirit Forest (13.1km, 256m of elevation)
- Race 2: Jungle Circuit (13.6km, 91m of elevation)
Week 4 (June 22)
- Race 1: Sea to Tree (3.8km, 120m of elevation)
- Race 2: Serpentine 8 (26.8km, 239m of elevation)
New Bikes
All riders will be placed on new bikes in game – men will ride the Giant Revolt, while women will ride the Liv Devote. These bikes have not yet been seen in game and aren’t available in the Drop Shop (Zwift says they wont’ be available until June 8th).
Category Enforcement
This series uses Category Enforcement, so your minimum category is determined based on your Zwift power history. Category Enforcement makes it easy… no more tracking your FTP or wondering if you’re on the cusp of two categories. Just sign up for any category Zwift lets you sign up for!
There are “open” races (men and women are welcome) and women-only events.
ZwiftPower Results
Series results will be tracked on ZwiftPower, with riders earning points based on finishing position. Here are your league links:
Cap Unlock
Men will score the backward Giant cap and women will snag the backward Liv cap upon completing a race.
Questions?
Share below!
Not using the new Handful of Gravel route? Silly…
Also, all these routes are basically using the same stretch of road in Yumezi and Watopia… just changing direction of the climb, boring…
Yeah, that’s a bit of an odd miss, eh?
Zwift needs more gravel routes.
Impossible to participate in these races 😫, all race times are working hours here in Denmark 😒😒
Is there any geography where these time slots are ideal? 0415, 1330, and 2130 are really tough times for those on ET in the Americas. Maybe there are a lot of Zwifters who race during their lunch hour, but I would think that generally speaking you would want to have pre-work and post-work time slots that aren’t the middle of the night. A shame, as it sounds like a fun event.
My guess is they’re targetting Australian users with this series. I believe they’ve done the same in the past.
The hyperlink for zwift.com/events/series/giant-gravel-crushers is broken
Fixed.
Giant had a back to back crit series last year. the races are super short but super intense with barely any recovery. its interesting….and painful.
Not that great with the time slots. I was also hopeful that the new gravel routes were going to be in this series.
Ridiculous routes and timings, looks ill thought out IMO
I’m EST so it’s either before I’d wake up 4:15am in the morning, 1:30pm in the middle of the workday, or 9:30pm when I should be going to bed. It’s not anywhere near interesting enough of an event for me to make those times work. Don’t get me wrong – I would make it work if it was worth it – it’s just not.
I still need a gravel bike in game. I have a Revolt Advanced IRL, so I am interested to see how it stacks up to the Grail and Crux in game before I cut loose on one. Be nice to get the one I have in game. Love my Revolt too.
I rode Race 1 today but unfortunately didn’t receive the backward Giant cap … 🤷🏻♂️
Sounds like that happened to multiple folks. Contact Zwift support, I guess?
good idea … I will try this … it’s really strange because I even received this automatic eMail after the event : “Great job … you unlocked the Giant backwards cap” 🙈🤣
Same issue for me. I thought maybe they were only issuing cap if do the whole season, but I got the email .. just no cap ! Oh and it doesn’t suit Australians either. Rides are 6pm, 330am or 12pm ??
my mail to Zwift support paid off very fast : Cap is in my garage now
Same here, but I did get a Giant jersey. Just no cap.
Still no league results on Zwiftpower
I don’t get why teams and organizations set up and promote these leagues and, more often than not, won’t update the league standings. It baffles me, but happens all the time.
The problem is zwift power a lot. It is not set up to handle series or stages races the best. It is good for a single day race results and cat enforcement. It needs some work to make it more efficient for multi races weekly series/stage races events. Reason why WTRL, FRR, maybe some others have their own website for series/stage race standings.
If I wanna join a race I can’t to that. The “plus” BTNs for each category are greyed out, in web and in the app as well and not selectable.
That’s odd that none of the categories are selectable for you… never heard of that. Maybe contact Zwift support?
Were you maybe looking at one of the events that is restricted to a gender different from your own?
Week 3… Race 2 was started before we finished race 1… (top 6)… Other weeks was great!!