UPDATE: Zwift sent out the following email on April 3rd:
Haute Route Watopia is underway and it’s seen a stacked field taking to the start line. To improve your experience we’re in the process of making immediate changes to create an even better Haute Route Watopia for you!
With the events proving so popular, a small number of you might be running into technical limitations/difficulties on your device. If your ride didn’t upload, we recommend following these steps.
Didn’t complete Stage 1 and still want the kit? You’re in luck, as the only stage required to unlock the kit is Stage 3.
We don’t want anyone to miss out on the chance to win the epic prize of entry to an in-real-life Haute Route, so we’re happy to announce that we have another prize draw which we will send you an email to enter on Monday!
We’ve responded to the high demand for more event times by adding several more for every stage. We’ve also added a second category to all events. These D and E categories are identical but will help us stagger rider start times and smooth the load on the servers. Check out all the upcoming events!
Zwift has announced an event in partnership with Haute Route which is being billed as “the world’s most challenging virtual 3-day stage event.” It’s Haute Route Watopia, and it’s going to push riders to the limit as they take on tough routes three days in a row, culminating in The Pretzel!
Open to all Zwifters worldwide, this free event will be the most accessible Haute Route to date. And in terms of participation numbers, it will certainly be the largest Haute Route ever! Haute Route Director Julie Royer says, “The virtual world opens up entirely new possibilities never seen before. Haute Route Watopia will allow more people from around the world to experience the thrill of an Haute Route event.”
Sign up and details at www.zwift.com/hauteroute >
About Haute Route
Haute Route has made a name for itself by creating challenging three and seven-day events in some of the world’s most iconic cycling destinations. Their events are essentially fully-supported stage races for passionate yet amateur cyclists. Some riders race the events, others seek to only challenge themselves, while others just want to enjoy the scenery. Some do all three!
Velo News says, “Haute Route events are at, or near, the pinnacle—for every pedal stroke on every stage—at offering the pro experience, both on and off the bike.”
Test Yourself
In true Haute Route style, this is designed to be a challenging stage event. Zwift CEO Eric Min says, “I’ve looked at the route, and it’s certainly going to be a huge challenge. However, I always like to test myself, and I certainly look forward to taking part.”
Competitors must complete all three stages on back to back days in order to officially finish. Each stage will be run across multiple time zones – see the event page on Zwift.com for schedule and signup.
There will be no make-up days – stages must be completed back to back.
Event Support
Haute Route events are reputed to be the best-supported amateur cycling events in the world, and according to Zwift’s press release, “Haute Route Watopia will be no exception.” Event participants can expect the following:
- A rider’s handbook
- A complete training program to help you perform at your peak for the event itself
- An exclusive in-game Haute Route kit for all entrants
- During the event itself, a general classification allowing all entrants to track their performance across all three stages (see it here on ZwiftPower)
- Additional prizes and unlocks for all finishers (see below)
Stage Details
Over the course of three stages, participants will ride a total of 145km (90.2 miles) with 3,373m (11,070′) of climbing. These are double draft events.
Here are the routes for each stage (click for details):
Prizes and Unlocks
Zwifters who complete all three stages will unlock the exclusive virtual Haute Route finishers kit by Le Col to wear with pride in the game. In addition, finishers of all three stages will be entered into a prize drawing to win either entry to a 3-day Haute Route event or a Le Col Haute Route cycling kit!
Sign up and details will be at www.zwift.com/hauteroute >
Group Workout Series
Leading up to the big weekend, a group workout series has been put in place to help us train for the race.
The Haute Route Workout Series includes eight workouts that take place over six weeks. Join any event to wear and unlock the official Haute Route kit. See the event page for a workout series schedule >
Ride with Pros Events
Zwift + Haute Route are also hosting a handful of Ride with Pro events, where the group will be joined by a pro rider. Complete any Ride With Pro event to unlock the official Haute Route socks and cap to complete your look.
See the event page for upcoming Ride with Pro events > (none yet scheduled when this post was initially published)
Didn’t you already post this yesterday?
I did, then was asked to take it down by Zwift… they had released the info earlier than they were supposed to. 😀
Interesting to see how much press this has across non-zwift cycling sites
That’s because Zwift released an official press release. Anytime they do that, all the main cycling media pick it up.
According to the Zwift website if you do any one of the workouts you get the jersey and if you do one of the “Ride with a Pro” group rides you unlock socks and a cap.
SufferZest
To quote the great Mr. T, “Prediction: Pain!”
I was wondering if there was going to be a ZWIFT tie-in when Le Col announced their Haute Route kit the other day given the color scheme and all. Go figure.
I am new to ZWIFT. How do I find or sign up for this event?
Signups will be available at https://www.zwift.com/hauteroute, once stuff is finalized. I think this was just an initial announcement. Stay tuned!
If I do the Haute Route Stage, will it count towards the Route Badge or does that pier cancel that out and I still will have to do that route again??
It will count, as long as the stage covers the full route. Events count toward badges.
The GC feature sounds great! But day 3 after the AdZ will be an interesting day.
If by “Interesting” you mean “suffering-filled” then yes, I agree! (It’s day 2, BTW)…
ZWIFT need to really think about these publications, is it an initial publication? if so why the “sign-up” and links to site and videos that don’t work (all now fixed after several days). If this is a formal release with an ability to “sign-up” then you should be able to sign-up to something; you still can’t ! the links take you on a never ending circle.. I just want ZWIFTs communication to be clear and correct, both functionally and factually.
Notwithstanding the above, this is a great idea and I am really looknig forward to it. Sadly I cannot make the training rides but looking forward to the event rides.
As I’m doing an existing training plan I’d like to know some more details on the specific make up of the group workouts. Anyone know where to find this ?
Hey Jon – go to this link (https://zwifthacks.com/app/events/?key=5e596814d9231), then click a workout. It’ll show the diagram of the workout. These diagrams are also available (with details of each interval, in fact!) when browsing events in the Companion app.
During the event itself, a general classification allowing all entrants to track their performance across all three stages
ok, but per time zone or just one classification. Would become a matter of picking the fastest time zone group with one classification
Did they abandon the ride with pros? I was looking forward to the hat+socks
There was one ride with Juliet Elliott that I’ve joined, but I didn’t get cap nor socks unlock. Zwift support informed me that this kit parts have not been added to Zwift yet and they don’t know when that will happen. My thought is that never.
Did anyone ever unlock the Haute Route Cap and Socks 😢 the original Ride with Pro rides were on the calendar during the course recon marked with a black dot, group workouts in grey and the Haute Route 3 day event in orange. Looked on Zwift Insider they told me about this ride on the 10th with @julietelliott in between he VO2 Booster and Going up, but they also said that there was no unlock the Zwift Jerseys page shows the socks were not released to the game as a TZX file on the 18th March 2020 8 days after this ride. so far it’s the only one information that I have found that there ever was a Ride with Pro during this series in 2020
Why is there no times past 2pm Eastern!? It’s ridic frankly
Exactly! Why nothing in the evening EST?
Ridiculous. I’m on the west coast. Evenings are my only window. Throw us a bone!
Come now if I finish all three stages of the event that should give me all the marbles in regard to kit … Not all swifters want to do workouts or group rides and instead prefer just to ride the routes 😑
I like to ride this challenge. But I don’t can look in at 18 a clock up to 21.30. So I can’t ride with you. This is a problem. I look in forum, many people has the same problem, but no help. Please help us.
A fantastic event and thrilled that it’s 3 consecutive days with no make-up days, but it’s RIDICULOUS that Zwift HQ completely ignores their USA and Canada-based customers! If you have to work on Friday, you are out!
Regardless of our current environment, training on Zwift is consistently more productive than outdoor with a few exceptions. I used to struggle staying warm when riding in the winter. Now I don’t go out unless its 50F 🙂
Was going to give this a go but only 9am and 11am options on the West Coast? With the lockdown you’d think more timeslots would be a no brainer.
They did 2 more slot 6pm 9pm EST
All set to have a go at the first stage this evening. Eric, based on your recommendations from the article, I generally stick to the allez frame with Zipp 808 wheels as I’m only level 16. Would there be enough elevation to warrant switching to the Enve wheelset for the three sisters route? Will use them on the Alpe tomorrow with the Emonda frame for sure.
Overall your fastest time will be with an aero bike. But in a draft-enabled pack event, I would pick a lightweight right since I can hang with the pack on the flats/descents, and need all the help I can get on the hard climbs.
So I’m going Tarmac Pro + Lightweight wheels.
Can we be sure that there is a difference between kit you unlock after any group workout ride and that one for finishers of all 3 stages? In my opinion it is not clear.
Yeah, it’s not clear. My guess is there’s only 1 kit.
Hi Eric
Completed Stage 1 during 6 am event today. Went through finish gate and all of my completion data showed on screen but not showing up as completed on companion app. Even shorted me miles. Any suggestions? Was hard and want credit for it.
Same Here! Maybe it’s the last name?
Same thing happened to me I crossed the finish line, but companion app said, I’m not done & short distance. Also workout didn’t get transfer to garminconnect. That was my best workout, but didn’t get recorded a bit disappointed!
For the 2PM ET / 11AM PT ride, they had >3900 riders. I’ve never seen anything even remotely close to that. Thanks to the non-stop drafting, I finished 5 minutes faster then when I collected the badge in workout mode. Even though I averaged 0.5 w/kg less today (recovery ride) than during the workout.
Also great to see how many new / inexperienced riders participated. When I got down from Bonus Climb, Zwift showed the KOM times again and at that point not even half the field had gotten to the regular top. So probably a lot of riders who took 2-3 hours for the loop. Impressive!
Alex, you are correct. I finished about 5000th (no data available after the fact, but the screen said 4756 or similar on completion) in 2h13. No drafting between Mt Zwift and the volcano for me, but I was in a good group of 6 from the volcano descent to the finish. I don’t know that many took 3 hours, though.
The 5pm UK time ride had about 7850 riders. Kudos to Zwift for making that work.
For the 2nd stage the have moe 2 categories a D and E. What is the difference?
Nothing. See the email I copy and pasted into the start of the post… the categories are there to reduce server load.
Today was a mess. At first the screen showed only bikes without Avatar
That’s a sign of an underpowered graphics card. Not an issue on Zwift’s server end.
I gave up after a mile of Stage 1 today that took me 10 minutes, clearly issues there with so many riders, like 6,500 on the start line. Zwift ended up crashing on me. If that is the way these events are likely to be then I will be choosing smaller group rides instead.
Zero issues for me apart from a slow framerate for the first minute or so and that was with nearly 9000+ riders.
What is the difference between event E and D? Only the 5 minutes that separate them?
Yes, see the email from Zwift which I pasted at the start of this post. It’s just a way to split up the groups so there’s less server load.
I got booted about 10 k into the 2:00pm ride and couldn’t rejoin. Companion app was insisting that I was still riding an hour later. Disappointed that I couldn’t do stage 1
It happened to me as well on stage 2 bummer :/
I just started on Zwift and thought this would be a great way to get three route badges I don’t have yet. I was surprised to see that you don’t actually get route badges for doing a new route in an event. I wonder what their logic is.
This is not true, I got the 3 sisters route badge yesterday
You definitely get route badges as long as the event covers the actual route. Since these are advertising the existing routes, you will unlock them if you haven’t already. I got Three Sisters on day one, and will get Pretzel on day 3.
Anyone knows how come i finished stage 1 but the route badge ‘three sisters’ is not unlocked?
Hi. The end of the route is on the start/end arch. The end of the stage was just a few 100 meters before. You probably stopped just after the stage end.
Have fun doing it again !
Hi, I am new to Zwift and completed the Haute Route stage1 yesterday, however, it does not show as completed on Zwift. I have got the full FIT file on my laptop and have been able to upload to Strava but cannot upload to Zwift. How can I be credited with the full ride?
Run your fit file through the “Corrupt Time Fixer” tool at https://www.fitfiletools.com/. Then it should upload to Strava OK.
Unfortunately, it’ll probably never be loaded up onto Zwift.com, and you won’t get official credit for completing the stage. Which doesn’t really matter for most folks anyway. Apparently you only have to complete stage 3 to unlock the kit.
Where do you find the overall GC (general classification)? Zwiftpower.com only shows the results inside the wave you rode, so where is the overall result?
Here is the overall GC in the League: Haute Route
Bonjour j’ai fait la première étape le 3 avril mais Zwift ne l’a pas comptabiliser que faire ?
le deuxième parcours la monter alpe Zwift à était comptabilisé ok
il reste le parcours de demain dure dure
Super bummed out… entered Day 1, first time event. Running Apple TV 4K set up, never had any troubles before. Finished Day 1 but it looks like the file didn’t upload properly. All my stats and effort for the day lost, only thing I have to show for it is an email saying that I completed Day 1. Being relatively new to Zwift (Level 7) I am trying really hard not to be upset about this… but! Hopefully today is better with the addition of a D ride as well.
As long as you finished you will get credit. They had network problems at the end and ended up having to recover a bunch of data. I initially didn’t get the ride credit, or the route badge for stage one, and the ride did not upload to my zwift feed or Strava. However, later that afternoon, I checked my Zwift Activities page and it was there. I was able to download the fit file and upload it to Strava. And when I logged into Zwift this morning my route badge was there, and I got the email congratulating me for finishing the stage. I would not assume you won’t get credit. IF nothing else, submit a support ticket on their site and upload any screenshots you have (I always try to get one as the finishing screen pops up so I have it as ‘evidence’ just in case.
Pity the kit is not different depending on the number of stages completed… a simple 1,2 or 3 on the back or 1,2 or 3 stripes would suffice
All done. That was EPIC. I don’t think I’m gonna be able to squeeze a 21k run to complete my virtual IronMan this week end. haute Route and IM don’t go together! (well, at least not at my amateur level)
I completed all 3 stages and did get my 3 day kit on zwift?
same same. i did get my 3 day kit Haute Route on zwift
Do you get an additional jersey or is it the same jersey that was given by the workouts?
Had 3 attempts to enter the haute route race causing my zwift app to crash each time. I wonder if it had anything to do with the fact there were 9000 rider that joined. Will the developers work on something to prevent this in future around this time isolation indoors. I would anticipate zwift memberships to explode.
Had 3 attempts to enter the haute route race causing my zwift app to crash each time. I wonder if it had anything to do with the fact there were 9000 rider that joined. Will the developers work on something to prevent this in future around this time isolation indoors. I would anticipate zwift memberships to explode.
Hi, will Zwift be posting an overall General Classification result of the three events?
It’s on ZwiftPower: https://zwiftpower.com/league.php?id=289
Is it possible to filter the Haute Route General Classification by 2 columns e.g age and time. As a 60+ rider this is the only relevant result. If I filter by age the order by time seems to be completely random
+1 looking for the same answer – thank you
Doesn’t look like it.
The Pretzel seems to have interesting feature. When starting from the docks, you’ll miss the normal start gate and won’t get the segment on Strava. Not a big deal, but took me a while to realize what was wrong. 😀
did someone unlock the finisher kit?
I participated in one of the training sessions and had already received an HR kit, I thought I was going to win another one participating in the 3 stages of the event. I was wrong?
Wondering the same, it says “exclusive kit” for this 3-stage event. Extremely dissapointed if it is the same kit as when doing a simple 1h workout!
Hi Eric,
late to the party as usual for me… 🤷🏼♂️ Any chance this will be a repeated event? I’d love to take a swing at it. Thanks, Mike
Is there a time limit to complete each stage on zwift?