Many Zwifters are wanting to have a go at Mont Ventoux, the massive climb appearing in Zwift’s new France map which replicates the iconic IRL mountain. In fact, even though the France map is closed to free riding and no group rides have taken riders up the climb yet, 1471 Zwifters have summited Mont Ventoux since it was released 18 days ago!
Here’s the good news: getting onto the climb is now easy, thanks to regular events appearing on the calendar.
The bad news? While a handful of Zwifters have completed the massive climb in less than an hour, it will take even fairly fit riders 90+ minutes of hard work to complete! See the Strava segment >
How To Ride Mont Ventoux Today
Our favorite Aussie Lama Shane Miller has shared a trick to get onto Mont Ventoux. To summarize: join a Discovery ride (see list here), quit the event, then use the arrow keys to navigate to the climb (just turn right out of the start pens). Shane shows exactly how to do it here:
L’Etape this Weekend
Don’t forget, this weekend is the final stage of L’Etape du Tour, and we’re all racing the Ven-Top route to the top of Ventoux. This is our community’s first chance to get the Ven-Top route badge. It’s gonna hurt!
When Can We Free Ride It?
The France and Paris maps are currently event-only, meaning you can only access them by joining an event. But good news – word on the street is that France and Paris will be on the guest map schedule for August, probably starting around August 10th.
Group rides may be scheduled by the community before that, although that’s unclear at this point.
Questions or Comments?
Share below!
My best Alpe time is 56 minutes and some seconds and I did Ventoux in 90:48 this morning. If I’d known I was going to be so close to 90 minutes I think I could have found the time because my 56 minute Alpe time was a harder effort. I think if you can do the Alpe in under an hour then 90 minutes for Ventoux is achievable.
I’d say the character of the 2 climbs are different. On the Alpe, the gradient is always changing. On Ventoux, it changes less often, so the hard bits go on for longer (there’s a tough section maybe a quarter of the way up) but the easier sections (6 to 8%) also go on for longer. The other thing to note is that once you get to Chalet Reynard most of the hardest climbing is over (it still goes up but there’s very little 10%+ up there)
Is there the time/power for each section/turn on the left of the screen like the Alp?
No, but Ventoux isn’t as obviously segmented as the Alpe is. I was at Chalet Reynard in just over 65 minutes, picked up the pace a bit at that point and missed 90 minutes by not a lot as a bit of a guide
Have a best time of 56 for the Alpe and did it in 86. I think there’s definitely room for improvement now I know the length and gradients etc.
Yes same here. I’ve ridden it in real life so I knew when I got to Chalet Reynard I could go for it but I was holding back a bit until that point for fear of blowing up because I didn’t know how long that was going to take. Will be having another go in the Etape on Sunday and will push a bit harder in the middle third (after the steep bit)
How much do your real live time and zwift time match? I’ve seen YouTube vids that alpe times match prettymuch the same, is ventop-ventoux the same?
You can also just keep riding at the end of a discovery ride.
Did that as part of a 100-mile day in France. Very tough!
I did the Alpe du Zwift and Mont Ventoux climb this week.
Mont Ventoux 83 minutes
Alpe du Zwift: 55 minutes
It took me 50% more time to complete the Mont Ventoux than the Alpe.
did Ventoux last week, not at max but still a hard effort for me, esp. near the end. Did 65min at 313W/69kg (4.5Wkg)
Best Alp was 39.20 however that was in a race and max effort.
Think a 1.5 factor is indeed a realistic target however big difference is that you can really attack Alp as it is fairly short, Ventoux is too long to redline imo.
Any thoughts on why delay open access for another month?
Presumably to get the ASO events done and then redress the courses without the TdF branding and markers.
Would be nice if they left the fans in place though.
It’s not the TDF branding thats the issue. If you do the hack where you modify the schedule XML to ride France (OMG I GAVE AWAY THE SECRET!!!) The branding is normal Zwift orange. Only during the official group rides is the TDF branding on the course.
Well, it’s not another month… after next week’s Discovery Rides finish on Friday the 24th, it’s basically just a week until August begins.
I’m not sure why they’re waiting until the 10th to roll it out (and that date may change some).
It’s absolutely absurd. We are paying customers and they treat us like children. I’m terribly pissed.
They want to wring every last bit of exposure out of it. Looking forward to more races on the courses once this TDF promotion is over.
I would guess that this is because in order to make it a guest world in the regular rotation Zwift will have to release a new update. So, they will likely just make it a part of their August update package. If this is the case, though, I would doubt August 10, because that is a Monday and we all know by now that Zwift does their updates on Fridays so that we can all complain over the weekend about what they broke with the update! 😂
Just search on you tube, the Paris and French routes hack is no harder than the guest world hack.
When I went up the Ventoux on Sunday there was a steady stream of riders going up and down. I’ve only got one badge left to get now for the new maps.
The second half of the Ventoux climb feels easier than the first half. I think it’s an easier climb than the Alpe for bigger riders.
Just like in Reality …
I just did Ventoux in RGT yesterday, and I’ve done AdZ in Zwift. I am 51, 94kg, and definitely on the sloooooower side relative to most people who do these climbs. (I’d probably finish close to dead last if I ever did AdZ in a Zwift event, which I have no interest in doing). I found Ventoux did indeed take longer but I perceived it as “easier”.
Did 99min and I feel it is”easier” than aloe because there are more flats to recoup a bit. The length is really the difficult part psychologically.
Did the climb again last night, for something a bit mad I used the Zwift Safety Bike and got a time of 80:20 .
My best AdZ time is 49 mins and I did a recce run of Ventoux in 83 mins a couple of weeks ago. Wasn’t pushing too hard (average wattage was in high Z3 for me) so will be aiming to go a good bit faster on Saturday’s stage 3 run.
Is this specific to the stage 2 discovery or is he saying you can just Navigate once you are France?
Stage 2 discovery was last week, in Watopia. This week is stage 3 and 4, which are both in France.
Once you exit the Discovery Ride event you can freely navigate the France map.
You can already do real world climbs on other platforms. Specifically, Bkool has every epic climb you can think of, not to mention over six million routes mostly created by their user base. If you can’t find any you like, all you need to do is create your own and submit it for processing.
Yeah, but zwift is just more fun
I’m going to tackle this during L’Etape at the weekend. However, that only covers the climb and I’ll be buggered if I’m not going to get to enjoy the descent after all that work. However, I assume if I just keep riding after the summit/finish, Zwift (and therefore Strava) will just continue to record it as one continuous ride rather than one ride for L’Etape and one for the descent. Is there any way of getting round that so I can record my L’Etape attempt as a standalone ride?
Not really. As you say, it’ll be seen as one activity.
I think that, from a Zwift POV, you will have just the one ride consisting of the up and back down (plus whatever else you decide to do). But once the ride is uploaded to Strava I believe they have a tool that will allow you to split your ride into multiple activities. This should allow you to have the climb as one activity and the rest of your ride as another.
Ah yes, I forgot about Strava’s ‘split activity’ function – thanks!
Bother, that didn’t work – the Strava split tool only works for rides and runs (not virtual rides). If I try to edit the activity type in Strava to ‘ride’ (or anything else), it just changes it straight back to ‘virtual ride’
You show this right turn to stage 2. now stage 3 and 4 are available will it work the same?
Stage 2 was in Watopia. Stage 3 and 4 Discovery Rides (running this week) are both right turns out of the start pens in order to get on the Ventoux road.
Hilarious…..I did one of the Discovery rides just shy of 2hrs ago and smugly thinking I’d be the only one to try the Lama ‘hack’…..turns out about 100 dudes around me had the same idea!
Is there a badge for getting up in under an hour like there’s one for Alpe du Zwift? Or a wheel of fortune or some other goodie at the top?
[disclaimer: no idea if 60mins would even be possible with the ERG set at something around 5w/kg? Based on the 1.5x Alpe time that others suggested it sounds borderline doable]
There are no badges or awards associated with Mount Ventoux, that I know of.
Rode the Ventoux earlier today via the GPlama method. The segment of the climb is not showing up in Strava. Do I need to do something to show the segment and check my time?
The Strava segment is either hidden for you, or you took the wrong route and missed the start of your KOM. Share your Strava activity link here and I can take a look, if you want.
Ok, thx!
https://strava.app.link/CcAfzeF8a8
@Pieter – Looks like you took the wrong route I’m afraid! The Strava segment is from the bottom of the Petit KOM reverse and then turn right at the top, whereas your ride appears to have gone up the Petit KOM forward and then a left turn towards the Ventoux summit
Indeed Pieter, that’s what happened to me…. i did another loop after the stage 2 Etape event then turned left at the top of Petit KOM and got no segments recorded on Strava.. was very disappointed when I got to the top 🙂 … get another chance this Sat with the L’Tape stage 3 and at least will have fresher legs 🙂
Sounds like a vEveresting paradise for the larger gentleman/lady then.
That is all we need to know.
Thanks Eric for sharing this ‘hack’. I went up yesterday and noticed a number of riders were in workout mode. I’m sure its a dumb question, but how can you access Ventoux in a workout mode?
No dumb questions, only dumb answers!
You can start a workout at any time if you’re in a free ride. So once you’re on the Ventoux climb, go to Menu>Workouts (or just hit “E” on your keyboard) and select which workout you want to do.
Hey everyone. I completed Stage 5 Discovery ride up to Chalet, 14.2 miles. With the right turn and going to the observatory, what is the total mileage of the “hack?” I’ve got to say, like many of the comments here, I was thinking my Alpe time would be similar to Ventoux. Nope. Curious on how much time I need to carve out to summit. Ride On!
😭😭😭 I spent 2 hours climbing that hill only to discover I lost internet connection and I didn’t get credit for it!! I was like “where’s my f-ing confetti?!”. I guess I’ll try again next week 😭
Oooooo. That’s rough. My deepest sympathies.