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Zwift’s “ZRacing” is the platform’s most popular ongoing race series, and in August riders take on new Makuri Islands courses. With a new Women-Only option and up to 1500 bonus XP available, there’s something for everyone! Read on for details…
New This Month
Women-Only Events
Two daily women-only races have been added, at 4:30pm UTC (12:30pm ET/9:30am PT) and 5:30pm UTC (1:30pm ET/10:30am PT). See upcoming events at zwift.com/events/tag/zracingaug2026women.
New Makuri Routes
Zwift Event Manager and hero of the people James Bailey has created four new Makuri Islands routes for this series. He even got free reign to name them! That means four new route badges, which means a nice chunk of bonus XP. See details below…
Bonus XP
You’ll earn a chunk of XP for each stage you complete, including 1000 XP for your first stage! Total XP for completing all four stages is 2000 XP (1000 XP for first stage, +500 for two stages, +300 for three stages, +200 for four stages).
August’s Routes
Here are the routes we’ll be racing in August:
- Stage 1: Mech Isle Mayhem (Aug 10-16)
- Distance: 20.4km / 12.67 mi (1 Lap)
- Elevation: 121m / 397 ft
- PowerUps: Feather, Ghost
- Note: ZRS changes have been turned off for this week’s races due to finish placement inaccuracies. See note under “Post-Race Analysis” below for more info…
- Stage 2: Urumaze (Aug 17-23)
- Distance: 26.8km / 16.65 mi (1 Lap)
- Elevation: 202m / 663 ft
- PowerUps: Feather, Aero
- Stage 3: WhatYumeziWe’reLost? (Aug 24-30)
- Distance: 17.6km / 10.93 mi (1 Lap)
- Elevation: 288m / 945 ft
- PowerUps: Feather, Draft
- Stage 4: Twilight Crit (Aug 31-Sep 6)
- Distance: 21.2km / 13.17 mi (5 Laps)
- Elevation: 116m / 381 ft
- PowerUps: Draft, Aero
See Women-Only ZRacing events >
See Range 1 ZRacing events >
See Range 2 ZRacing events >
See Advanced ZRacing events >
See ALL ZRacing events >
Post-Race Analysis
GC Leaderboard
Zwift’s web-based leaderboards track the monthly GC competition. Access the ZRacing leaderboards at zwift.com/racing/leagues/zracingaug2026.
UPDATE August 11, 2026: Zwift has canceled the GC competition for the entire Makuri Madness series due to inaccurate race results caused by racers running differing game versions, which led to differing finish lines. Read more on Zwift’s forum >
Your GC ranking is based on your best finishing time for each stage, and you can race stages more than once to try for a better time.
Your Racing Profile
In May, Zwift launched the new “Racing Profile Page” at zwift.com, bringing all your Zwift race results together in one place so it’s easier to track performance and results etc. This page continues to be built out, including the addition of a power dashboard (see below). Sources tell me a ZRS history chart is arriving very soon!
Your profile is available at zwift.com/racing/me.
Category Options
Zwift now schedule four different flavors of ZRacing events in order to encourage “Fairer, more competitive racing for everyone.” There’s the new Women-Only events, then the other three use different racing score ranges for categorization. Click banners below to see upcoming events for each:
Questions or comments?
Post below!
“Zwift now schedule four different flavors of ZRacing events in order to encourage “Fairer, more competitive racing for everyone.”
There’s nothing “fairer” with only offering a Range 1 cyclist (0-160}, Range 2 (0 -210} events without changing your preferred cycling start time to suit this “unfair” system.
Several weeks ago I came in 12th in a Range 2 (0-210} event that I would have won if it was Range 1 (0-160). I won’t be doing that again.
It’s tricky with the distribution of racers. There are so few racers in the low end to start with i’m not really sure what the answer is.
old ABCD cats had the same issue once you start getting below 2/wkg it seems people prefer to so coail rides than race.
I do think there is a lot that could be done to encourage lower end riders to racing but not without a lot of work from zwifts end to make the experience better.
The only reason to “compete” is to win.
Whether it’s a bike race or running for an elected office.
There literally is no other reason
The only person I am trying to beat is myself, the others are there as a motivation for me to try harder. Zwift racing to, for me, to gauge my improvements over time of my training. If you have to win for their being any point to racing then racing isn’t for you.
But if you had won the event in range 1, you would have likely been bumped up and not been able to race there again. We all got to start somewhere.
Wrong. My current racing score is 120, I’m just a “good” racer.
What I’m not is a miracle worker.
Tl;Dr-my friend have fun and enjoy riding.🚲❤️ IN A NICE WAY let me say: you aren’t winning money either way. You are winning better fitness. You did one race, didn’t win, and won’t ever race again? Trust me that IRL you won’t win your first race, you will get lapped and pulled. I got lapped and pulled my first 2 races. I never win a Zwift race and my ZRS is 450. I still race cuz it’s fun. 🌈 😃 😊
not everyone shares the same idea of fun. i think there is a huge difference from racing at 450 to racing at the lower end of zrs scores
You don’t understand what “competition” means unfortunately nor does whoever designed this “system”
What’s it’s not is volunteering yourself to be a victim/loser
Friend, if you’re fighting for a podium in the absolute bottom rung of the racing score range and mad about not having more time slots to win in…you’re already losing.
Exactly. My ZRS is 445, and if I win a race then I dont kid myself that I’m winning anything other than “the race for people who are too old, too unfit or both to be in any of the three higher start pens” 🤣
You gotta pick your battles. Racing requires strategy and preparation.
The way I see it is if I win I was racing against people not as strong or more fatigued. If I lose they were stronger or less fatigued. It’s a game to help you get and stay fit. There is so much weight and height doping and now competing against upgraded va unupgraded bikes there are so many variables. If you don’t like racing find a different outlet. Pace partners workouts beating a pr.
Agree. If someone is cheating, does it matter? I’m not in A, there is always someone better than me. So maybe the person in the race isn’t putting out the watts the game says they are, but there is a person who can put out those watts. So I’m racing against whatever fake version of their fitness they decide to send to zwift. I don’t know this person, they are just watts on a screen, whether produced for real or faked, it’s competition.
I agree, I use Zwift to improve my fitness and maintain general health. Races are a fun self challenge and a very intense workout for me. I appreciate the level of competition because it pushes me to work harder and beyond what I would normally expect of myself. I am happy if I can hang with the fast group but many times, the race within the race is more satisfying.
Zwift Event Manager and hero of the people James Bailey – hahahahah
I like it!
I’m going to ask Eric to write my year end appraisal!
Looks like gravel frame will be best way to go on first two routes.
Looks like the unpaved sections are mostly sand and wood with a little bit of dirt and maybe grass. Road tires will likely perform best according to the Rolling Resistance/Crr info page here on zwiftinsider, so I would stick with a road bike.
Watching the video, Road = 6.3km, Wood 2.5km, and dirt/sand 11.7km.
I hear you about the article on crr, but I do think that has changed. I have asked on that article if it is still true. Really odd that dirt/gravel is harder to ride in than sand still.
I don’t think it has changed. I think they intentionally made sand fast because they wanted the visual feel of it when they created that section of roads but at that time gravel/dirt was slower and very unpopular. Since then they’ve sped up gravel/dirt to make it less unpopular. Given how unpopular slow gravel/dirt was I doubt they are ever going to make a change at this point to make a surface slower, imagine how unpopular that would be?
Is there a way to ride these routes for the badges without racing? Or will that come later?
Just join the race and ride at your own pace. You don’t need to push, unless you are trying to protect your racing score.
Doing so does impact the scores of everyone else in the race though.
Why should I care about other people’s scores? And how much of a difference will one person going at Z2 have on a bunch of people racing? One place up or one extra point for the podium folks?
Who cares? No one who races seriously cares about ZRS. It’s a broken system that will never be fixed.
They will be available for free ride in September.
Seems odd to have two women-only time slots each day and putting them only an hour apart.
On the forum James said it’s 1000XP for the first stage you do, 500 for the next, then 300, then 200. That’s 2000XP total for completion, not 1500 as the post states.
Those are the two most popular time slots and we would struggle to get meaningful attendance outside of those times.
And yes, it is 2000 XP.
‘Ghost’ should not exist. Even gamification needs a limit.
Which is why I never use Burrito. I think the Ghost PU are fun though, especially with fire socks.
So glad the lightning socks don’t give the “back to the future” effect that the fire socks do with ghost. The fire sock effect looks cool when others do it, but not useful for me.
The burrito though. Ugh. Especially in ladder races when a teammate who doesn’t know how to use it properly initiates it at the back and runs through the pack gapping off teammates.
Would it be possible to use your influence to have Zwift create a consistent landing page for their ZRacing leagues. /racing/leagues has no page and they don’t follow a format for naming. It’s 3-4 page clicks to get to the current from a profile and there isn’t an index of old ones
I’ll check in with Marketing. I thought we had an evergreen page.
https://www.zwift.com/uk/racing/zracing
This is perfect, thanks 👍
Thanks!
I really don’t think the Ghost power up should exist. All the other power ups mimic the flashes of good fortune that might happen in a race…but to become invisible to your competitors is ridiculous .
Am I the only one who loves power-ups but hates Ghost?
Ghost isn’t as bad as Burrito
*makes scary ghost noise*
My wife will be excited for the women’s only racing. I don’t see them in the companion app yet though to sign up. I am curious what the turnout will be.
Me too! Good I hope although it is August. I’ll also run a separate women’s only league in ZwiftPower.
I would love to see more women in racing, especially in the lower categories. I think a lot of women feel they are not good enough to race unless they are a C cat or higher. I understand the reasoning behind the women’s race times, but that pretty much rules out and NZ/Aus riders at around 5am/3am, it’s a bit early for me.
@Eric Schlange can you confirm if road and sand still have the same crr values as per the article?
Yes, they still have the same values. You can test this yourself by riding these roads… you’ll notice your speed doesn’t drop on Sand like it does on Dirt!
I haven’t figured out what is sand and what is dirt. lol
Dirt spits up dust. Sand does not. (They also look different.)
Who named stage 3? Dad jokiest stage name ever……
Did Zwift do away with the missions badges? I realize I haven’t seen any in 2026
Yeah, they haven’t had any for at least a couple of years.
Hi, is it possible to race the open category and then the women’s to see how I do?
Yup!
Seems the new “Mech Isle Mayhem” route has a problem. In our A race at 6:10pm CET some riders were sprinting for the win already atop the mech island climb and then dropped to the back. As the race ends at Tidepool you would expect to see them in the last spots in the result list. Seems that Zwift recorded them as winners with >2min lead even though they didn’t complete the race. Maybe they were racing on old Zwift app versions?
We had a similar problem in an earlier A race. A small group have got times about 2 minutes less than expected. Is there any way to flag these problems to Zwift?
I had a similar issue. Finished 10th in C at 5:10pm Eastern, then shown as 25th in Companion and Zwiftpower.
Zwift confirmed this morning, that the issues were caused by riders, who had not updated their app version. Let’s see, if they recalculate the race results and remove the early finishers…according to the official forum they are working on this.
I did the first race on this course in the range 510 – 650 at 17.10 CET. Really enjoyed the race, but I think the results were somehow wrong. When I crossed the line the HUD on the right of the screen indicated that I was 14th out of 46. However in the results I was listed as 25th. Several riders made similar comments after the race.
Same here.
I was racing the same time slot but in the 0-160 range.
At the end I was sprinting for 8th place with two other guys. I lost and should have been 10th, but I was listed as 15th. And some guys who had been in the same group a few kilometers before the finish were several minutes ahead somehow.
Strange results.
The same thing happened to me. It is a great course!
Stage 1 ended 1.5k earlier for some in my race group. Sounds like a bug to me.
Hmm, the race results for mech isle mayhem are flawed. I got 1st, but it says 12th, because some people were allegedly up to 3 minutes ahead. I think maybe it counted dropped riders, who still had to pass the finish at tidepool before doing the mech isle loop?
Same deal here. I thought folks were nuts sprinting 1.5 km from banner….but they had a different banner than the rest of us. Odd glitch!
Looks like the bug was in all events. Not sure they can fix results fairly and should scratch the event from the monthly results.
Still not on my Home Screen anyone else got this issue
Bug still there on day two. Interesting observation: numbers in the Advanced category are up at multiple times. I’m assuming everyone is hoping to win the finish line “lottery” at some point😁