UPDATE March 26, 2024: in March, Zwift reconfigured these events to be rides with a results screen at the end, instead of standard races. They’ve told us this change was made to make the L’Etape du Tour events feel more like sportives than races.
L’Etape du Tour de France is one of the biggest amateur Gran Fondos in the world, with over 16,000 participants each year. Riders return year after year to take on a full Tour de France mountain stage, and Zwift has a history of working with L’Etape as a training partner.
This year, Zwift is hosting a creative and challenging Virtual L’Etape du Tour de France series which is sure to be very popular with riders. Whether you’re training for the IRL L’Etape or just looking to get some hard racing in, you’ll want to add these events to your calendar!
All the details for the series are below, although some links are not yet active and will be updated as Zwift updates their sites.
Schedule and Routes
This is a monthly series, with events scheduled one week per month. Shorter Prologue races happen midweek, with Grand Fondos on the weekend. Events are scheduled every two hours for maximum availability (see upcoming events).
February
- Prologue: February 20-23
- Going Coastal 1 lap (18.7 km/11.6 miles, 63 m/207′)
- Main Stage: February 23-26
- Big Foot Hills, 1 Lap (69.9 km/43.4 miles, 707 m/2,320′)
March
- Prologue: March 26-29
- Greater London Flat 1 Lap (17.3 km/10.75 miles, 45 m/148′)
- Main Stage: March 29-Apr 1
- The London Pretzel 1 Lap (56.1 km/34.8 miles, 531 m/1,742′)
April
- Prologue: April 23-26
- Neon Flats 1 Lap (15 km/9.3 miles, 72 m/236′)
- Main Stage: April 26-29
- Country to Coastal 2 Laps (67 km/41.7 miles, 548 m/1,798′)
July
- Prologue: July 2-5
- R.G.V. 1 Lap (25.1 km/15.6 miles, 107 m/351′)
- Main Stage: July 5-8
- Petit Boucle 1 Lap (62 km/38.5 miles, 430 m/1,411′)
Note: there are no make-up weeks in this series.
See all upcoming L’Etape du Tour events >
ZwiftPower GC
You can treat these events as one-off races, competing in them whenever you’d like. However, some riders will compete for the time-based general classification, which ranks riders based on their total time for each stage.
Each month will have a GC competition on ZwiftPower (look under “Leagues”) based on that month’s Prologue and Main Stage events. There will also be an overall GC which includes all four months.
Official Kit Unlock
Complete any of the weekend Main Stage events to unlock the virtual Santini L’Etape du Tour de France official event kit in game!
Climb of the Month: Col de la Couillole
This series takes a break in June for obvious reasons, but while we’re on break, the Climb of the Month in the Climb Portal will be Col de la Couillole, the final climb of the IRL L’Etape du Tour de France. At 15.7 kilometers with a rock-steady 7.1% gradient, this is also the finishing climb for stage 20 of the 2024 Tour de France!
Win a Trip
L’Etape du Tour de France is already sold out for 2024, but you could win a spot!
Complete one Prologue ride and one Gran Fondo every month between February and April, and you will be entered for a chance to win a trip to participate in the L’Etape du Tour de France live. Read the terms and conditions >
Questions or Comments?
Check out Zwift’s L’Etape FAQ, or post below!
No badge?
Finally, accepting Zwift’s headline mass-participation events (ala TdZ, Tour of Watopia, etc) for what they really are…races 😉
“This series takes a break in June for obvious reasons” – I’m probably dense, but what is this “obvious” reason? Also, there is a break in May as well, right?
May flies and June bugs!
T20 World Cup, perhaps?
There’s a U11 bike race in Calabasas, California. Wouldn’t want to conflict
A fondo series with no fondo at all. Whens the real fondo series coming? 😉
Now, this really looks like an action packed fun fest.
Nice! Will there be Training Plan/Workout Collection related with this series?
It seems that Zwift forgot that Rapha Rising was supposed to happen at about the same time:
Ride With Us | Rapha
Or maybe Rapha forgot, since it’s Feb 19th and there still aren’t any events on the calendar for it…. hmmm…
Rapha does seem to be slipping a bit recently. Lots of almost never-ending sales, parts of their website not being updated in a timely manner (6 months old info), etc. Fingers crossed that they’re able to get it back together.
Ah, yeah. That makes sense. I was holding off on doing any major events in anticipation of Rapha Rising but I guess I’ll get started on this event instead.
Not sure why I’m being downvoted for making an observation but whatever.
Interesting route selection. I’d originally thought they’d have a (rebel) route or two that started in France and included a trip to the climb portal with climbs specific to L’Etape.
Undoubtedly to prevent a fun o.d. I mean if they included the climb portal in this fun-fest, I for one would need plastic surgery to remove my smile.
If it’s only one event per month, why the need to limit each one to a 3 day window? Why not put them on for an entire week so we have a chance to actually ride them – especially the mid-week ones, what’s wrong with Monday and Friday?
This morning, 23rd, already too late for the Feb. prologue.
If Zwift can’t be bothered to leave it long enough for it to be ridden, I shan’t be bothered either…
I wish they would include one race that’s longer and harder and therefore closer to the real thing.
Doesn’t have to be a 7+ hour affair but at least comparable to the 7 Horsemen route they did for Norseman that was 120km+ and close to 3000m of elevation. Norseman participation numbers show that there’s a market for it.
Yeah, this feels like: let’s promote our Fondo in Zwift. To do so, let us plan 20 min races…. Close enough for a Fondo
Don’t disagree with your request, which is what it is.
The logic/notion that ‘there’s a market for it’ or ‘there must be a market for it’ is widely misinterpreted on all things Zwift — probably because it is so different from so many others we sometimes think about.
Zwift can in theory get riders from any distance away. The cost of event development is in theory close to zero. The entry fees per rider often ARE zero or effectively zero. Also the travel fees are (also basically) zero, the prestige factor is not the same, and there is no related tourism/activities/cool places to stay/cafes on the trip for the riders or anyone who might support them (or grudgingly allow that this ‘could’ be part ofa holiday).
So Zwift has to think about its costs and market (e.g. for events) very differently.
One idea that seem obvious is that Zwift has a platform, sure, but it’s really more like a newsletter. What a lot of Zwift riders are subscribing to is a global list of free events they can enter. It’s a bit like a list of races in a ‘pennysaver’. And maybe a bit like a gym membership. It may be a bit like those joke sheets too.
As an ‘outsider’ it seems some conversations in Zwift are certainly in line with this approach and model: recognising that their real cost is ‘bandwidth’ (number of print space in the pennysaver) and their product is the subscription. This is even more the case now that they’ve blown up the levelling and double XP etc.
So the relevant model they are using is they need more eyeballs, they need monthly features, they need more pages in the pennysaver (better UI) they need things that are ‘good enough’ to warrant continuing subscription, or to give people hope that something good enough is coming round the bend.
Realistically what featuring L’Etape du Tour series seems to be is a backdoor way for Zwift to keep itself associated with the TdF. The TdF part of the EdT logo is very important. Zwift lost UCI and the consensus seems to be that they are in retreat somehow or losing market share at the moment. It’s likely they are slashing budgets or re-balancing budgets. So it makes sense to buttress and diversify their connections or perceived connections. This might be one reason why in a series ostensibly inspired by EdT type events, there’s basically no routes that actually come across as that.
Making some of these requests/arguments, for example Zwift to compare itself to or look at ‘prestige events’, is not far from arguing for per-event pricing models. I take no view on this, and have my doubts that such a model could work at all for Zwift, but it’s worth maybe understanding.
Shouldn’t a prologue be a time trial, with no drafting? 🤔
And shock horror, the “prologues” all appear to be dull as dishwater routes, that are as good as pancake flat.
get off my lawn zwift
I don’t mind the courses, but if I knew it wasn’t a time trial I would have made sure to show up earlier to get a spot near the front.
Now I know.
I’m wondering if you ride one of the events, say the prologue, more than once, is the best time taken for GC, or is it just the first time you ride it?
Best time is taken.
Nice! Thanks!
you know where to find the ranking? Was not able to find it on zwiftpower
Do You know already the link for GC on Zwiftpower ?
And no Ventoux. Seems crazy to not use the bit of the world that best fits
Hi All – I have just joined Zwift to prepare for LÉtape 2024 however I cannnot find any routes in Zwfit that display LÉtape route – would appreciate if anyone knows how the process works and what is the best option to train virtually for LÉtape.