While not the longest-running race series on Zwift, KISS has taken Zwift by storm in the past few months, quickly becoming the most popular series in rider numbers. And it’s easy to see why–the team of organizers has worked hard to keep things consistently simple and fair.
Mike Ede is one of the KISS organizers, the other two being Glen Knight and Wayne Elvin. Here’s what Mike had to say…
Tell me a little about yourself–how long you’ve been riding, what sort of riding you do, when you discovered Zwift, where you live, etc.
I am Mike Ede, 41 year old designer of medical devices. I also run my own business (online dog food) when not doing my day job. Father of one 6 year old who loves Zwift and owned by three Weimaraner dogs.
Raced a little BMX as a child and rode MTB up until my early thirties. Got fat and needed something low impact on my knees and back. Do a bit of 24 hour MTB racing and prefer to be off road rather than on it but quite happy doing either. Have been back riding for about 3 years. Came to Zwift via Trainer road and Sufferfest.
How would you describe your philosophy as a race organizer? What is most important to you when organizing Zwift races?
KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) is how we try to organize the races, it isn’t necessarily how the discussions go or how the experience is for the racer! Things got a bit out of hand when we got to around 80 racers and we were generating the results manually, it literally took 2 or 3 of us about 4 hours to pull everything together and that really wasn’t sustainable or simple!
What race(s) are you currently organizing on Zwift, and how long have you been doing them? What makes these races different than other Zwift races?
The others have covered what we do well. As far as I know we are the only race that deploys the full game experience and I think that the way we have grown shows that the audience has an appetite for racing with game elements. As long as they were switchable I would really like to see more game / strategy elements available for the riders.
What suggestions would you give to someone interested in joining your races for the first time?
Read the event description and you will already be in an elite minority! There is nothing to be afraid of and you will find people of a similar level. If you go too hard the first time keep trying until you find the pace that works for you.
If the folks at Zwift HQ could add one feature to Zwift to make your job easier, what would it be and why?
Timestamp all the .FIT files centrally, relative to Zwift time, rather than using the local PC’s time. Because local PC time is used there is uncertainty about when people actually started and finished with the results on Zwift Nation. If everyone’s .FIT file was relative to a central time we would know with some certainty when they started and when they finished. This would save a huge amount of time!
