Are you a strong climber? Level Racing recently announced the Level Hill Climb Series – a series of five races focused entirely on particular climb segments. Read on for details!
How It Works
This is a series of five points races where points are scored for FTS (fastest through segment) on a hill climb KOM segment near the start pen of each race. Maximum points for a segment is 100, down to 1. Only the KOM segment scores in each race. Nothing else matters!
Drafting is disabled, so this is a pure test of a rider’s climbing ability. But you can pick your best climbing bike/wheels setup.
Related: Fastest Climbing Bike Frames and Wheels at Each Zwift Level >
Your best three races of the five will count toward your overall series finish.
Event results and league positions will be published on ZwiftPower. Results are combined for all events, regardless of which time slot you race.
Riders are categorized based on zFTP, but everyone leaves the pens at the same time.
Thursday Time Slots
Races are on five consecutive Thursdays beginning September 10. There are three different time slots for maximum availability:
- 10:35am UTC/6:35am ET/3:35am PT
- 6:25pm UTC/2:25pm ET/11:25am PT
- 11:35pm UTC/7:35pm ET/4:35pm PT
Routes and KOM Segments
- September 10: Oh Hill No KOM – The Grade KOM starts at 0.2km and finishes at 3.7km with a custom course finish at 4.3km
- September 17: Greater London Loop Reverse KOM – Fox Hill KOM starts at 2.7km and finishes at 5.1km with a custom course finish at 5.6km
- September 24: Grand Central Circuit KOM – New York KOM Reverse starts at 5.2km and finishes at 6.6km with a custom course finish at 7.1km
- October 1: Achterbahn KOM – KOM Reverse starts at 3.1km and finishes at 8.9km with a custom course finish at 9.4km
- October 8: Sea to Tree KOM – Temple KOM starts at 1.3km and finishes at 3.8km (1 lap)
Sign Up
This looks different. I’m 58 years young at 86kgs. No ones going to worry about my ability, but I’m going to have a go and give it my best. Who knows, it might encourage me to try those tiny races too 😊
Your not the only one out there Darren. I’m heavier, but a bit younger and if i look in my zwift profile it screems don’t do mountain stages, because you have a big disadvantage.
But i decided just give it a go, it’s not a “road to the sky”, not a “Ven Top”, only 15 to 30 min complete horror 😅
Yeah I’m 69 and might give it a go too. It’s stupid that they don’t have age groups for this type of race, or any of the races for that matter.
There are age group results in some races, for example at the current SISU Punainen race series on their website. Really nice for us longer-in-the-tooth racers!
A great addition to this series, and the micro race (VO2 Max) series, is to have one or 2 stages available for the non-racer to experience. Maybe one grows into racing. Maybe is improves the Zwift the overall experience. Not everyone is a racer but they are bike rider.
I would argue that the “race” aspect is really about trying to draw the best of riders. I raced on the road before Zwift, and racing on Zwift itself has some problematic aspects. But racing has always been about me putting in my best effort. The easiest way to grow into racing is to try out a race. Your placing doesn’t matter – the only person you need to compete with is yourself.
Am I a strong climber? Absolutely not.
Is this the kind of brutality I willingly expose myself to? Yes. Yes it is.
59 years old, interested to give it a try ! 😊
If I understand correctly, for each of the five races, only the KOM time counts, and not your final position at the finish line, is that correct?
In this case, why the finish line is not the end of the kom ?
thanks 🙏
Once again, anyone in the USA western time zones who has a day job is excluded from being able to participate.