As Zwifters, we spend lots of our time cranking away on our indoor cycling setups. Watch as one prominent Zwifter provides a tour of his recently updated pain cave!
Also included in this week’s list are videos about Alpe du Zwift, racing tips, and the E-World Triathlon Championships.
Behind-the-Scenes Tour: My New Zwift Pain Cave Studio
Tariq from Smart Bike Trainers recently renovated his pain cave. Get a tour of his full setup!
I knocked off how much time on my second Alpe Du Zwift?
Around a month after posting his first Alpe du Zwift attempt on YouTube, Omar, from Coffee Fueled Cycling, gives Alpe du Zwift another stab. How much time can he shave off?
Avoid these 3 Zwift race mistakes!
Ollie Moore, aka Not Tadej Pogacar, provides commentary on his recent race. As he analyzes his performance, he shares 3 crucial things that riders should avoid doing in Zwift races. Ollie is so close to 1000 subscribers! Like his content? Help him out by smashing that subscribe button!
Alpe Du Zwift – Chasing 6W/kg – Ep.2 Zwift Champion Weighs In
On episode 2 of The Alpe Ape’s journey to 6 w/kg up Alpe du Zwift, he does a weigh-in and snags a personal record up the Alpe.
supertri E World Triathlon Championship Powered By Zwift | FULL RACE LIVE
Just this past weekend, the supertri E-World Triathlon Championship took place. What makes this series unique is that it takes place completely indoors… with the ride and run legs on Zwift!
Got a Great Zwift Video?
Share the link below and we may feature it in an upcoming post!
The Watt Wasting Window: Riding Second Wheel Efficiently on Zwift
While doing some 2-rider drafting tests on Zwift recently, I noticed a pack dynamics “quirk” that I haven’t seen discussed elsewhere. You know how we love Zwift minutiae here at Zwift Insider… I couldn’t help myself! I went down the rabbit hole. For science. For Zwifting! And now you get to read the results. Let’s dive in…
The Watt Wasting Window
I’m calling this quirk the “watt wasting window” because it works like this: if you’re sitting in second wheel, there is a “window” or range of power you can hold to maintain your position.
There’s the minimum amount. This is what you want to hold in order to race efficiently.
But there’s also a maximum amount. This is the maximum power you can hold without coming around the rider in front of you and getting into the wind yourself.
The range of watts between minimum and maximum is large, which means you can waste a lot of watts in this situation. For example, in my video below, I show how you can sit on the wheel of a rider holding 300W at either ~230W (the minimum) or ~295W (the maximum). That’s a 65-watt swing. That’s big!
Here’s a quick video demonstrating how it works:
Before anyone asks: the overlays in the video are from Sauce for Zwift. It’s a very useful third-party Zwift add-on, but I used it for this video particularly so I could see more accurate rider speed and show the stats of both riders.
Applicable Scenarios
The most obvious scenario where this quirk matters is in a team time trial. Ever TTT racer knows that when you’re not at the front of the train putting in a pull, you have two jobs:
Position yourself correctly
Ride as efficiently as possible
It’s especially important to do these jobs well when you’re in the second position because messing them up can slow down your whole team or unnecessarily increase your fatigue right before you’re about to take a hard pull. To put it simply: you don’t want to waste any watts just before taking a pull in a TTT.
The watt wasting window grows larger the faster your front rider moves, too. That’s just how the math works! So if the front rider is holding 400W, the second rider can sit in at ~290W, but will also be sitting in at 395W – a range of 105 watts! Screenshots from recent tests:
It’s useful to know about this quirk in other scenarios too. In fact, just one day after running these tests, I found myself in a race sitting in a chase group with two other riders. As I sat second wheel putting out around 300W, I remembered what I’d seen the day before, and I eased up to around 250W. Guess what? I stayed on that rider’s wheel.
Now I wonder how many watts I’ve wasted since Zwift changed Pack Dynamics to behave this way.
Non-Applicable Scenarios
If you’re wondering why you’ve never noticed the watt wasting window before, it’s because this quirk is only noticeable in specific scenarios.
In a typical Zwift race you’ll spend a lot of time moving around in the peloton, just trying to sit in efficiently. You may also be attacking off the front, or maybe even putting in a hard pull on the front of the group to keep the pace high.
In these scenarios, the watt wasting window doesn’t apply. You can move freely around the peloton, you can fly off the front with your leg-snapping attack, or you can sit in the wind and put in a big pull to keep the pace high so your teammate can sprint to glory in the final 300 meters. All without worrying about wasted watts. (Well, at least not the wasted watts I’m talking about today.)
In fact, you may even find yourself accidentally rolling through the peloton and onto the front, into the wind, due to the virtual momentum your avatar had from the power you put down several seconds before. While this may be wasted watts as well, they’re wasted watts of a different type, and not the watt wasting window I’m discussing here.
It’s Not a Bug, It’s a Feature
The watt wasting window applies to very specific scenario: when you’re stably sitting second wheel.
Zwifters may see this pack dynamics quirk as a bug that Zwift needs to fix, but I don’t think that’s the case. Perhaps avatar behavior could be tweaked a bit, but there’s good reason why it works the way it does.
To put it another way: just because Zwift isn’t behaving like outdoor riding doesn’t mean something is wrong. There are limits to the simulation.
Consider this: what’s the alternative? Instead of staying on the front rider’s wheel, what should happen to the second rider when they bump their watts up to just below the front rider’s power?
Outdoors, if you rode at 295W behind a rider holding 300W (all other things being equal) you would ride into their back wheel and crash. Clearly, that’s not going to happen in Zwift. So how should Zwift position your avatar? There are three possibilities:
You stay on the wheel of the rider ahead – this is what’s currently happening.
You move forward, so your avatar melds with the one ahead. But this looks bad visually.
You move forward and off to the side of the rider, like you might do outside to avoid crashing.
#2 is a nonstarter for me. I’d be interested in experiencing #3 to see if it creates a more intuitive simulation, where I begin to automatically modulate my power for maximum efficiency.
But #1, the way it currently works, also seems like a sensible approach. And it works in such a way as to help you find that magical minimum power number, if you pay close attention…
Finding The Magical Minimum
Zwift could modify the UI to help riders find that minimum power level in this scenario, perhaps by showing some sort of “watts wasted” graph. But that may prove confusing to riders, and Zwift (rightly) wants to keep their UI very simple.
The good news is, if you find yourself in this very specific scenario where the watt wasting window applies, you can find that magical minimum today as you ride! The key is to keep a gap to the rider just ahead. Outdoors, a 6″ gap feels super efficient. But on Zwift, that probably means you’re putting out too much power! Let the gap go out to 2-3 meters (you’ll get a “close the gap” message), then try to hold it there. You won’t lose any draft benefit. If the gap starts to close, you’re putting out too much power. And if it starts to stretch, you need to add a few watts.
Give it a try, and let me know how it goes for you. Ride on!
Several weeks back, I got pipped at the line in a Zwift Games race by one Samuel Huntington. As it turns out, our meeting was serendipitous, and Sam reached out via a Strava comment to invite me onto his Hill Climbers podcast.
Hill Climbers is a newish, interview-style podcast featuring “stories of business and culture from cycling-centric folk.” Watch our interview below to learn about my origin story and where I think Zwift racing is heading, and check out the Hill Climbers website or Spotify for more episodes.
Episode Summary
Eric Schlange is one of the most well-known Zwift riders on the platform, and he comes to the notoriety honestly. When Eric started Zwifting in 2015, the veteran webmaster immediately identified a need for a Zwift knowledge base to address the nuances of riding in the brave new virtual world. Exponential traffic growth led to an official Zwift sponsorship, cementing Zwift Insider’s credibility.
This story does not entail scale-at-all-costs entrepreneurship. Instead, it is one of a self-professed community builder who understands the need, power, and commercial value of niche online hubs. In fact, Zwift Insider was not Eric’s first rodeo – that was www.banjohangout.org – THE banjo enthusiast destination for more than 20 years!
Sure enough, Eric is exactly the kind of guy you’d hope to be riding and racing with on the platform: friendly, witty, competitive, and resourceful. He demonstrates the core values and class of a true esport ambassador and this interview reflects his passion and ability to articulate both soft and hard reasons that Zwift earns precious hours of devotee training.
This interview covers Zwift Insider’s adolescence before organized platform racing, broad usership data, and a taste of the product roadmap, with Eric’s insider insight and stories sprinkled throughout. You would be so lucky to race alongside Eric in Watopia, Richmond, or Glasgow. RIDE ON!
How did you get into cycling? My husband trained and competed in cycling, so he introduced me to outdoor training.
How many years have you been racing on Zwift? Racing since 8th February 2021
Are you part of a Virtual team? eSRT
What do you love most about racing? Fun to do the little extra and now have a team that supports you.
What is your favourite style of race (e.g. points, scratch, iTT, TTT, Chase, duathlon)? iTT or points
What is your favourite Zwift women’s race series? I have not had many yet but last memory of Tour de Boudicca 5.0 was fun!
What is your most memorable racing experience, inside or outside or BOTH? BOTH
What is your favourite food to eat post race? Oats
What advice would you give to a woman entering her first Zwift race? Try! You do your best and compete also against your self – and you quickly get better!
A big Zwift series is ending, while a new one is just beginning. See them both below, along with an epic charity event and two metric centuries led by community teams!
✅ Popular Event ✅ Endurance Challenge ✅ Jersey Unlock
Norseman Xtreme Triathlon has a history of pushing Zwifters to their limits, and this weekend Norseman and Zwift have organized a series of rides to do just that while raising funds for childhood cancer research and treatment.
This weekend is your last chance to ride Zwift Big Spin events! If you want to get in more spins (do you have the Atomic Cruiser yet?) or just knock out a stage you missed, stages are scheduled every 3 hours this weekend at 15 minutes past the hour.
✅ Beginner Friendly ✅ Fun Unlocks✅ Women Only Option
The 6-week Spring Training workout series began this week, making this weekend your last chance to get the first workout done. It’s called “Sweet Spot Foundation”, and the goal is to help you build your endurance base.
Join one of the most popular and long-running teams on Zwift for a metric century ride with two pace options: the “Cake Crusaders” in C (2.5-3.2 W/kg) start the ride, then the “Bombers” in B (3.2-4 W/kg) begin 15 minutes later, with the goal of chasing down the C riders. Both groups will be on Watopia’s Sugar Cookie route.
We choose each weekend’s Notable Events based on a variety of factors including:
Is the event unique/innovative in some way?
Are celebrities (pro riders, etc) attending/leading?
Are signup counts already high, meaning the event is extra-popular?
Does the ride include desirable unlocks or prizes?
Does the event appeal to ladies on Zwift? (We like to support this under-represented group!)
Is it for a good cause?
Is it just plain crazy (extra long races, world record attempts, etc)?
Is it a long-running, popular weekly event with a dedicated leader who deserves a shout out?
In the end, we want to call attention to events that are extra-special and therefore extra-appealing to Zwifters. If you think your event qualifies, comment below with a link/details and we may just include it in an upcoming post!
Why? Because it wasn’t as easy as simply clicking to join a Zwift event. I had to find a team and wrap my head around all that Club Ladder racing involved strategically and logistically. So I kept putting it off, until several weeks ago when I finally took the plunge.
And I’m so glad I did.
What Is the Zwift Club Ladder?
The Club Ladder is a community-powered league using a team-vs-team race format. Two teams of five riders show up at an agreed-upon place at an agreed-upon time and go head-to-head! You earn points based on your finish position: 1st place gets 10 points, 2nd place gets 9 points, and 10th place gets 1 point.
The team with the most points wins the race. Your goal is to move up the ladder of teams by winning, and there are three timezone-based ladders.
How big and active is the league? The current round has 181 active teams, with most teams (I assume) racing at least once a week.
The Club Ladder website includes a captain’s area where team captains log in and challenge other teams to races. I don’t know how all the scheduling logistics and rules work, but I know my own team’s flow goes something like this:
Captain Diogo will ping us on Discord about a week before the potential race with a question: who is available to race on X date at X time? (We basically only race Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, right around 11:30 my time.)
If we have enough to make a team, Diogo confirms with the other team that we’re in. Then a course is chosen. (I’m not sure how that choice is made, but I know Diogo often asks us to vote on which course we’d like.) For this race, we chose 7 laps of Scotland’s Glasgow Crit Circuit.
Once the date/time and course are locked in, a private event is created and both teams get the private signup link.
This particular race was against SRT Surströmming, and once the riders had signed up, the Club Ladder website generated power charts for the teams to use in their planning:
Based on the other team’s power numbers, Captain Diogo put together our team plan. I won’t copy-paste that here, but basically our goal was to keep the pace high and attack each kicker, with the goal of dropping SRT riders. As Diogo says, “The sooner we leave any opposition rider behind the easier it gets.”
The Start
This was my sixth Club Ladder race, and I think every race has started out the same: hard! Zwift races always start out with a solid effort, but Club Ladder races are different. Someone always sprints off the line, which forces the other team to chase since a single rider can get away and stay away when there are only 5 riders (the opposition) willing to chase.
We call sprinting off the line “doing a Chilly” as our teammate Chilly is known for this move. But my guess is, every Club Ladder team has a Chilly. Sprinting off the line seems to be table stakes for Club Ladder racing, and occasionally, someone gets dropped by this hard push. That’s a tough way to start a race!
Today, I was the Chilly. So I pushed pretty hard, leading the pack out of the pens. But it was clear before we even reached the Champion’s Sprint arch that I wasn’t going to drop anyone in this opening stretch. So I sat up and caught my breath to prepare for the first Clyde Kicker.
The Clyde Kicker is the key feature of this circuit. It’s only a 15-20 second climb, but it’s the most common place for attacks to launch, legs to get softened, and riders to get dropped. I used my feather powerup on the first Clyde Kicker, and was pleasantly surprised to find myself finishing the climb in 5th, with no major attacks going away.
As we hit the little kicker after the chicane near the end of the first lap, teammate Josiah (our strongest rider) put in a big attack and went off the front. Once that happened, it was our job to sit in the wheels, forcing the other team to do the work to reel Josiah in. Classic racing tactics.
As SRT riders pushed to bridge up to Josiah, I pushed to hold their wheels, ensuring that we’d still have the numbers if they were able to bridge up.
The Middle… and Steering
Teammate Benjamin got dropped as we finished our first lap, but one of their riders was dropped with him, taking the sting out of it. Hopefully Benjamin could outsprint him in the end. That left 4 riders from each team in the mix!
Josiah was caught on the next Clyde Kicker, then Diogo attacked on the descent, steering to the far right.
Can we talk about steering for a minute, in the context of Club Ladder races?
Nowhere in Zwift is steering more useful than these races. With so few riders on course, you can’t count on a massive peloton’s draft. Steering ability lets you make attacks that are harder to follow and optimize your line in turns. Simply put, if you don’t have steering in these races, you’re at a disadvantage. And the more riders who do have steering, the bigger a disadvantage it is to not have it!
This was clear when Diogo attacked. Their one rider with steering followed Diogo’s line, while their other three riders were out of Diogo’s draft, having to work together to keep pace. Nobody got dropped, but it’s these efforts that pile up and lead to riders getting dropped down the road.
Next came Josiah’s kicker, where he kicked again. Their team chased, and we covered the chase. Over the Clyde Kicker Josiah kept a 4-5 second gap, and SRT’s hard chase dropped one of their own teammates! Now we had a decision to make – do we push hard to keep that rider dropped, while potentially catching Josiah up the road? Or do we keep surfing the wheels in hopes that Josiah can stay away?
Josiah off the front through the Clyde Kicker, with an SRT rider falling off the back in the chase
We pushed the effort, with teammate Fred pushing hard on the front of our group and Captain Diogo reinforcing on Discord “They have two off the back, we need to keep pushing.”
We kept the speed up, and at the end of the third lap Josiah was still a few seconds up the road, and we had a 3v2 rider advantage in the chase group. Now we eased, trying to strike a balance between staying away from the two chasing SRT riders without closing the gap to our teammate who was off the front.
SRT’s strongest rider on the day (aptly named “D. Speed”) closed the gap to Josiah over the next Clyde Kicker, and I just sat on his wheel to ensure he didn’t get away in case Josiah was tired and dropped off the front.
Then we hit Josiah’s kicker again. And Josiah attacked. Again! What a beast.
This time SRT didn’t chase. Josiah had worn them down! Now the three of us in the main pack just had to sit on the two SRT riders’ wheels, forcing them to do the work to try to keep Josiah within sight.
Only one rider in the front pack lacked steering at this point. We kept steering towards the center, leaving the non-steering rider in the wind. I felt for poor “B. Shannon”!
Poor B. Shannon, out in the wind!
The Finish
Josiah had 20 seconds heading into the last lap, so we were pretty confident that he wasn’t getting caught. Now it was time for some team tactics to take advantage of our 3v2 situation.
But before we could make our move, SRT’s Shannon fell off the back at the bottom of the Clyde Kicker, and his only surviving teammate, D. Speed, attacked hard as soon as it happened. (Probably the right move, since a 3v1 is tough to win!)
Chasing down D. Speed
D. Speed didn’t have enough to get away, though, even when he attacked with an aero powerup on the descent and steered to optimize his line. Teammate Fred chased him down, while I chased Fred. Captain Diogo fell off the back, but with no one nearby, had an easy run in for 5th place.
The final 500 meters were cagey indeed. Fred and I knew D. Speed had already used his aero powerup. D. Speed swerved off the front and onto our wheels, then swerved right as we turned onto the finishing straight and began sprinting.
I activated my aero boost and stayed in my lane, not wanting to give any draft to D. Speed. Fred had swerved over to D. Speed’s side and activated his aero boost as well! I swerved to Fred’s side, making our two avatars meld together as D. Speed dropped back to 6…7… 8 meters behind.
Fred and I crossed the line at virtually the same time, with the game giving me 2nd place overall.
~615 watts for ~17 seconds… that’s what it took to hang on up the Clyde Kicker each of this race’s 7 laps. Typically the effort is so high on the last lap that I have nothing left for the final sprint. But this race was different! Since SRT was forced to chase, I could sit in the wheels and recover. My legs were fresher than they’d ever been for the final sprint, and it showed in my power numbers.
Every Club Ladder race I’ve done has felt very different from the others, but they’ve all been much more strategic and interesting than a typical Zwift scratch race. This race was, though, was the most strategic-feeling one yet. Josiah’s attacks made it interesting and laid a solid foundation for the rest of my team’s strong performance.
As a result of our win, we moved up the Club Ladder rankings. I also got a ZwiftPower ranking boost. Hurray!
Questions or Comments?
Have you tried Club Ladder racing yet? What are your thoughts? Share below!
Zwift version 1.63 begins its phased rollout today. It’s a minor game update, but badge hunters will be happy to see that some formerly event-only routes are now free rideable. See details below…
8 Routes Opened
The eight event-only routes Zwift created for Tour de Zwift 2024 and the just-finished Zwift Games are now free-ridable (or runnable, in the case of one of them):
If you haven’t completed these routes yet, and want to grab that route completion badge and XP bonus… Ride On!
Brake Sensitivity Adjustment
For Zwift Play users, brake sensitivity can now be adjusted in Settings, ranging from maximum sensitivity to off.
Our guess is that most Zwifters who choose to adjust this setting will just slide it to “off” because they’re annoyed at accidentally bumping their brakes. This setting lets you use Play steering and other features without worrying about hitting the brakes.
In the future, though, when Zwift modifies game dynamics to make braking a useful action, this slider may prove useful for dialing in your braking feel.
Steering Fix
The previous update introduced a bug which caused riders with connected steering devices to automatically steer towards the center of a lane after 4 seconds. This issue has been fixed.
Treadmill Connection Fix
Some Zwifters had problems connecting their treadmills after the previous update. This update fixes that issue.
More Release Notes
Zwift provided notes on additional tweaks and bug fixes in this update:
Virtual Shifting: Fixed an issue in workouts where shifting quickly after starting a Free Ride block could result in the current gear being reset to 12.
In-game achievement banners are now displayed for a longer period to make sure you don’t miss a celebratory moment.
Fixed an issue that could potentially make it difficult to dismiss the Ride Report when navigating with a keyboard, Apple TV remote, or Zwift Play.
Fixed a potential crash that could occur when capturing a screenshot.
Android: Fixed an issue that could cause screenshots to not be saved on some Android devices.
All Aboard Zwift’s Surprise “XP Express” Tuesday Events
If you’re looking to level up quickly, Zwift has just posted a set of “surprise” events on the next two Tuesdays (April 16 and 23rd). What’s special about the events? Double XP!
These events may be of particular interest to newer Zwifters looking move up levels, or perhaps also to veteran Zwifters trying to hit level 100 before Zwift increases the level 90-100 requirements soon.
Events are classified as rides (not races). They are 45 minutes long, with no leader or stated pace, and are scheduled every three hours.
