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Notable Zwift Events for the Weekend of August 12-13

Oli Chi
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1
Notable Zwift Events for the Weekend of August 12-13

To start off this weekend’s notable events, we’ve got a memorial ride for a beloved team member. Additionally, we’ve got the start of a refreshed familiar series, another new race series, and two social group rides.


🤝GXY MARK QUEE MEMORIAL RIDE

✅ Popular Event 　✅ Feel Good Factor 

Mark Quee, leader, and sweeper for Galaxy Cycling Club (GXY), recently passed away suddenly at the age of 49. To honor and remember him, GXY is hosting an endurance group ride on the PRL Full. GXY estimates that it will take roughly 6 hours, so there will be rest stops at various points in the ride.

PRL Full is the longest route on Zwift, and this is currently the most popular event this weekend, with over 100 sign-ups!

Saturday, August 12 @ 9 am UTC/5 am EDT
Sign up at zwift.com/events/view/3789780


🥇 Rhino Racing Crit Series – Week 1

✅ Popular Event 　✅ Innovative Format　 ✅ Highly Competitive

The first week of the revamped Rhino Racing Crit Series is underway. Join Rhino Racing for a 4-week crit racing series! One of the great things about this series is its multiple time slots across multiple days, making it easier for those with a crunched schedule to compete. Routes also rotate weekly to keep things exciting and fun.

Week 1 of the series will be tackling the Glasgow Crit Circuit. Note: Rhino Racing asks those who complete the race to provide feedback via the survey form linked in the event description.

Multiple Time Slots on Saturday
Sign up at zwift.com/events/tag/rhinocrits


🥇 The Zwifty Fifty with DZR

✅ Popular Event 　✅ Highly Competitive

DZR is here with another racing series! These races lie in between the 100km races and 25km races, with a distance of 50 km. The goal of this series was to fill the gap between races that take too much time, and races that are too short. To keep the series simple, races take place every Sunday and have a few rules set.

The action will take place on the London Pretzel course, a course that is approximately 56 kilometers long.

Sunday, August 13th @ 12:45 pm UTC/8:45 am EDT/5:45 am PDT
Sign up at zwift.com/events/view/3782217


🤝 Slowpoke Soiree p/b Ascenders Team

✅ Popular Event 　✅ Beginner-Friendly

Looking for a slower group ride? Team Ascenders hosts their weekly Slowpoke Soiree group ride every Saturday. This ride will aim to average ~15mph/24kph. (To put this in perspective, most group rides average ~20mph/32kph or more.)

This 75-minute group ride will take place on France’s R.G.V. course.

Saturday, August 12th @ 1:05 pm UTC/9:05 am EDT/6:05 am PDT
Sign up at zwift.com/events/view/3793065


🤝 ZZRC Wind Down Sub 2

✅ Popular Event 　✅ Beginner-Friendly

Looking for a mellow way to round out the weekend? ZZRC has you covered. Every weekend, ZZRC hosts a 1.7-1.9 W/kg group ride. Sweeps and leaders will be present to keep it organized and fun for everyone.

This group ride takes place over 60 minutes on the Makuri 40 course. Note: riders will likely be a few miles short of the finish of this course at the end of the 60 minutes – keep going if you want the badge!

Sunday, August 13th @ 11 am UTC/7 am EDT/4 am PDT
Sign up at zwift.com/events/view/3793989

How We Make Our Picks

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!

Your Thoughts

Got other events that stand out this weekend? Share below in the comments!

Setting Up Your Drivetrain for Quiet, Smooth Zwifting

Eric Schlange
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18
Setting Up Your Drivetrain for Quiet, Smooth Zwifting

Setting Up Your Drivetrain for Quiet, Smooth Zwifting

Cycling is full of small but golden joys. Rounding a corner to encounter an amazing valley view… descending on perfect asphalt… working together in a chain gang to tick off the flat miles quickly.

One of my simple joys is pedaling along on a smooth, empty road atop a clean, quiet bike. Every cyclist knows that a quiet bike is an efficient bike, so that feeling of noiselessly propelling myself forward brings satisfaction on several levels.

The feeling carries over to indoor riding, too. A quiet, smooth drivetrain simply brings more pleasure to the Zwifting experience. Conversely, a noisy chain, skipping gears, or even a whiny trainer can really put a damper on a Zwift session.

If you’re annoyed by the noise of your riding on Zwift, never fear. Here are the tips you need to make your next Zwift session smooth and quiet.

Fixing Foundational Issues

There are some “big” drivetrain issues that no amount of adjustment or lubrication can fix. These problems should be addressed first, since your setup is fundamentally broken until these are fixed.

Wrong Cassette (Direct Drive Trainers Only)

While not necessarily a requirement, the number of cogs (“speeds”) on the cassette on your trainer should match the number of cogs on the cassette on your back wheel. It just keeps things simpler.

In some cases, you may be able to get away with a slightly smaller cassette on your trainer than on your back wheel (say, a 10-speed cassette on your trainer and an 11-speed on your back wheel). But this isn’t ideal, and will require some shifting adjustments whenever you swap your bike on and off the trainer.

In most cases, if the number of cogs on your trainer cassette doesn’t match your back wheel, you’ll have big problems! For example, a 10-speed trainer cassette on an 8-speed bike will be a huge mess, since the 8-speed chain is too wide for the 10-speed cassette.

Save yourself the hassle and just buy a cassette with the same number of cogs as your back wheel. Amazon has plenty, and so does your local bike shop. (Note: you’ll need a chain whip and lockring tool to remove/install your cassette.)

Worn Out Parts

Your bike chain is considered a “consumable” as it wears out and “stretches” with use. If you ride too long with a stretched chain your cassette will get prematurely worn as well. Here’s a video from Park Tool describing how to measure chain wear (your local bike shop can help you here if you don’t have a tool, but they’re quite affordable and easy to use):

If your chain is fairly stretched, it has probably already worn the teeth on your back wheel’s cassette. This means your bike may feel smooth outdoors, but when you put your bike on a trainer with a new cassette, the chain won’t mesh up with the cogs as evenly, and it will be noisy or even skip some teeth.

To quiet things down and avoid damaging (quickly wearing) your smart trainer’s cassette, replace your chain. You may also need to replace the cassette on your rear wheel, if its teeth are worn. Again, your local shop can give you expert guidance.

Indexing Your Gears

The most common drivetrain noises Zwifters encounter are caused by incorrectly indexed rear gears. That is, the rear derailleur is not adjusted to place your chain in the correct location for each of the cogs (speeds) on your rear cassette.

Ideally, your smart trainer will be set up so you can swap between trainer and outdoor use without needing to adjust your shifting one bit. But sometimes, your trainer’s cassette may not be located in exactly the same place (left to right) as your back wheel’s cassette.

Trainers typically ship with a spacer ring or two which can be installed on the inside of the cassette to “bump it out” a bit. This is a good option to try, because again, if you can get that cassette in the right location, you may just be able to swap between indoors and out without adjusting your rear derailleur at all. (Note: you’ll need a chain whip and lockring tool to remove/install your cassette.)

Sometimes, though, no matter what sort of cassette spacers you try, you just can’t get it to line up quite right. In that case, it’s time to index your gears so your bike shifts smoothly on the trainer. This really isn’t a hard job – here’s a GCN vid that walks you through how it’s done:

Chain Lubrication

Keeping your chain clean and well-lubed help quiet your drivetrain, but it will also save you money since it’ll help your chain and cassette last longer.

If you’re using an oil-based chain lube (as opposed to wax-based), you’ll want to clean your chain regularly, too. For a full, deep cleaning, picking up a chain cleaning tool such as this one from Park Tools makes the job much easier, and you’ll need a degreaser as well (I like Orange Degreaser). You can also use a product like Muc-Off Drivetrain Cleaner for a spray-on, wipe-off clean.

Here’s a video from Trek showing how to clean your chain using a chain cleaning tool (or toothbrush) and degreaser:

Not sure which lube to use? There are many chain lubes on the market, and every rider you ask will have a different opinion of what’s best. Here are a few popular products that work well:

I’ve actually been hot-dipping my Zwift and road bike chains in wax for the last few years (and really should write a separate post about this sometime). Chain waxing means my drivetrain is always clean to the touch, lasts longer, and doesn’t attract dirt. I use Molten Speed Wax products, but there are other good ones on the market.

A Note About Sound Absorption

It’s possible that your drivetrain/trainer sounds especially loud because you’re in a noisy room. If you’re on a tile floor, for example, the sound will just bounce off the floor and around the room.

If you’re in a noisy room, you may consider installing foam gym tiles on the floor. They’re quite affordable, feel nice underfoot, give your trainer a bit of side to side movement, save your floor from scratches, and of course, absorb sound and vibrations. (Your downstairs neighbors will thank you!)

There are other steps you can take to quiet your room further, including sound absorption tiles on walls or ceiling, carpet on the floor, etc. Those are outside the scope of this post.

Extra Credit: Quieting Your Smart Trainer

While your drivetrain may be lubed and adjusted perfectly, it’s possible that your trainer itself is noisy. (Wheel-on trainers, for example, are inherently noisy… not much you can do to fix them. Modern direct-drive trainers, though, are very quiet compared to what was on the market several years back.)

If your trainer too loud for your taste, here are two suggestions:

Questions or Comments?

Hopefully the advice above helps you dial in a quieter pain cave setup. Got other suggestions, or any questions? Share below!

Top 5 Zwift Videos: Zwift Update, Endurance Workout, and 100 KPH Badge

Oli Chi
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0
Top 5 Zwift Videos: Zwift Update, Endurance Workout, and 100 KPH Badge

This week’s picks include the latest game release, a Zwifter’s 6-hour endurance workout, how to unlock the 100KPH badge on Zwift, racing up a category, and mind games in a Zwift race.

Zwift Update 1.45

Last week, Zwift released their latest update, version 1.45. Watch this video for a full run-down of the game release from none other than Shane Miller, GPLama!

6 Hours on Zwift

Lachlan Earnshaw recently did a 6+ hour workout on Zwift. Throughout the video, he discusses the workout, his training, and more!

Zwift 100 KPH Badge

While it may seem easy, hitting 100 kph on Zwift is actually very tough, especially for lighter riders. With the recent release of the Climb Portal, hitting 100 kph is quite a bit easier. In this video, The Musette explains how to unlock this badge the easy way.

Zwift Race | Cat C holds front Cat B

In his latest race, Max from The Watt Life decides to tackle a category B race as a category C rider. Can he hold on until the finish?

Beating The Mind Games in a Zwift Race

Jake Sanderson from SNOWMAN Cycling is back! In this video, he tackles a Zwift race where he has to resist the mind games and try to take home the victory.

Got a Great Zwift Video?

Share the link below and we may feature it in an upcoming post!

Can a new Zwift event organizer improve an existing race series?

Paul Southworth
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31
Can a new Zwift event organizer improve an existing race series?

Can a new Zwift event organizer improve an existing race series?

I’ve been on Zwift for close to 18 months and I really enjoy it. A couple years ago I could not imagine riding on an indoor trainer for more than 20 minutes, but after relocating from California to Vermont, I knew I had to figure out how to ride indoors. It turned out to be a life-saving change that has become my primary training mode.

Looking for new things to keep it interesting, I wanted to learn how to organize events on Zwift, so I approached Gordon Sloan of Rhino Racing to teach me the basics of event organizing. He generously agreed to take me on as an apprentice and let me experiment with one of the team’s longstanding event series: Rhino Racing Crit City.

It’s summer in the northern hemisphere, so race field sizes are down. Zwifters love short criterium races, so turnout for the Rhino Racing Crit City events has been pretty good. However, we haven’t put much effort into developing these events to maximize participation. I wondered if there were changes that would increase race entries without abandoning the riders who already enjoy these events. We started by creating a design document with ideas for improvement.

Our Goals

  • Increase participation and compete with more popular events on the calendar such as the ZRacing Monthly Series and Zwift Crit Club which are organized by Zwift HQ. We don’t expect to beat the field sizes in those events, but small increases would be a win.
  • Increase racers’ awareness of the Rhino Racing club and attract people interested in team racing. The off season is a good time to start talking to riders about team events that dominate the fall and winter racing calendar in the northern hemisphere.
  • Retain both casual and devoted racers who participate in the events we’re currently running.

The Strategies

We kicked around ideas to meet the goals we discussed, and arrived at this approach:

  • Vary routes and distances each week. Currently we simply alternate between the two Crit City routes, Bell Lap and Downtown Dolphin. These are very popular criterium routes, but maybe adding a little variety will increase the appeal.
  • Don’t change too much. Keep the short scratch race format. We want the events to appeal to both casual and dedicated racers, but maybe a general classification competition for the series will help.
  • Solicit feedback from racers about the routes and the races they enter. Most Zwift races don’t try to involve participants in the planning process, but maybe we can learn something by surveying racers about their preferred routes, distances, and race times.
  • Write a better race description. The text that racers read about our Crit City events is minimal, so we’re wasting an opportunity to promote the team and increase engagement.
  • Put more effort into promoting the series through social media channels and popular sources of race information such as Zwift Insider.

Starting With Racer Input

Since these are short races, expected to finish in 20-30 minutes, it helps to use routes of 5km or less so there are some laps. The development process began with a survey on the Zwift Forum asking racers to vote on their favorite short criterium routes (the survey is still open and we’d love to hear your input).

The survey results showed that Crit City remains popular, but it’s clear that Glasgow Crit Circuit is also a winner. That route didn’t exist when we originally set up these events in September 2022. To avoid losing the racers enjoying the Crit City events, we settled on a rotation that includes 50% Crit City routes, 25% Glasgow Crit Circuit, and 25% other popular short routes.

We’ll rotate the routes each week, and run the series over 12 weeks to give us some time to understand the effects on participation. A racer’s best time on each week’s route will count toward the general classification over a four-week period. After four weeks we’ll start a new ZwiftPower league to produce a new general classification for the next four weeks. After 12 weeks we’ll reassess the design and decide to either continue or make further changes.

Analyzing The Calendar

When we introduced the Rhino Racing Crit City events, Zwift had recently replaced their Crit City events with the ZRacing Monthly Series. Despite the success of Zwift’s new series, many racers were disappointed by the loss of Crit City events. We stepped in to fill that gap.

Eventually, Zwift introduced another series, Zwift Crit Club. Aside from small differences in the number of laps, there isn’t much to differentiate our events from the Crit Club events. Their events benefit from greater name recognition and nine races every day. Our existing events are scheduled on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, with two race times on each of those days, plus one more on Friday. We need a few more race times, including some on the weekend.

The Negotiation

The Zwift events team manages the calendar for public Zwift events, so I approached Zwift’s main event planner, James Bailey, to get his feedback on our series design and race times. He suggested adding a race time that would be more appealing to riders in the Asia-Pacific region, and he agreed to create events on Saturday.

Although the calendar is pretty packed and race entries are down, we’ll host four races per day on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, at 9AM, 11AM, 8PM, and 10:30PM UTC. Hopefully the availability of Saturday events will help riders who want to compete for GC rankings despite the large gaps in our schedule. If we get enough entries we’ll be in a better position to ask for more race times in the future.

Once events are created, the organizer has control over route selection, distance, race format, and other configuration settings without further interaction with the Zwift events team.

Our Experiment

We want to see if racers find the route choices and series format appealing. Will we get more race entries by adding Glasgow Crit Circuit to the rotation? Will we get more repeat entries by adding a general classification element? Will casual crit racers join our team? Will the race schedule changes help?

We developed another survey to get more detailed feedback from racers about their experiences in the events. Most Zwift race organizers don’t ask for participant feedback in the event description, and it’s often difficult to know how to contact the organizer. We’re making that easy because we want the feedback and we want to adjust our plans based on that information. In addition to the racer feedback, we’ll review the number of event participants to understand if the changes are working.

Series Starts August 12

On Saturday, August 12, our Rhino Racing Crit City events will become the Rhino Racing Crit Series, with a week of races on the Glasgow Crit Circuit! In week 2, we’ll be back on Downtown Dolphin. For week 3, our flavor of the month will be Neokyo Crit Course. In week 4, it will be Bell Lap. Then we’ll start a new GC competition for the following 4 weeks.

You can find the full calendar of Rhino Racing Crit Series events at zwift.com/events/tag/rhinocrits

Will these changes increase field sizes in our events? If you join one of our Crit Series events, please fill out our post-race survey and let us know how we’re doing. If you want to chat about our series design, drop into the Rhino Racing Discord or leave a comment below.

Interview with Keith Roy, First Zwifter to Accumulate 1 Year of Zwift Ride Time

Eric Schlange
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3
Interview with Keith Roy, First Zwifter to Accumulate 1 Year of Zwift Ride Time

Interview with Keith Roy, First Zwifter to Accumulate 1 Year of Zwift Ride Time

A while back I was contacted by avid Zwifter Ryan Snow, who let me know that his friend Keith Roy was about to hit a big milestone on Zwift: 365 days of accumulated Zwift ride time! This is quite an accomplishment, but it’s made more amazing by the sheer length and regularity of Keith’s rides, which happen daily and are typically 100+ miles in length.

I’m nowhere close to the top Zwifters in terms of time/distance/elevation, but I’ve ridden on the platform much more than most. Check out the difference between my stats and Keith’s:

My stats
Keith’s stats

I got in touch with Keith and we chatted about his backstory and motivations. Read it all below…

I was contacted by Ryan Snow several weeks back, who said you were about to hit 365 days in a row of Zwifting. Did you achieve your goal? Are you still going? And how did this craziness all begin?

I did surpass 1 year of total Zwift time on July 21st (see Strava activity):

I’m almost warmed up for my warm-up.

Shortly thereafter I knocked out my 3rd 300 imperial century streak (see Strava activity), my 28th consecutive 1,000+ mile week, and surpassed 10,000,000 feet ascending logged on Strava!

Note: Keith is at 308 consecutive imperial centuries as of August 7.

Those are some amazing numbers. Give me some background about yourself (job, family, location, etc)…

I am in the EMR industry (Electronic Medical Records). I work for a great company that will remain nameless, but I am an ‘Integration Specialist’ or as I like to refer to it: a desk jockey.

I am from the Finger Lakes region of New York.  Not one for travelling but surely it has to be one of the better places on Earth to ride a bicycle!

I live with my girlfriend Tina and our two Australian Shepherds, Bandit and Bowie.

While composing this post, I found Keith on the side of the road in Neokyo… 150km into his day’s ride.

How did you come into cycling, and how and when did you arrive at Zwift?

I stumbled onto road cycling by accident.  I was very passionate about strength training and bodybuilding.  Not being one for running or many other types of cardio, I had the idea that a road bike might be a good way to get cardio work in by riding to and from the gym.  So I tried out a road bike at a local shop in their parking lot – I knew IMMEDIATELY that I HAD to have one.  The rest is history.  I was riding around in gym clothes with a backpack and normal street shoes on clip-in pedals.  Slowly I gained confidence on the bike, learned more, traveled further, and started moving faster.  At some point I learned of Strava and that’s when I caught the attention of a local cycling group who helped guide me towards becoming a ‘real’ cyclist.  I enjoyed riding so much I ended up giving up strength training to ride.

Around work and town people started hearing of my exploits and I became ‘the bike guy’ for lack of a better term.  One day at work a programmer told me about this new video game in beta called Zwift, where you can train and ride a bike inside through a virtual world, up and down hills, etc. He told me I should try it. I responded: Sounds stupid, why would I ride a bicycle indoors?  I’ll stick to strength training and riding outside.  Shortly thereafter another coworker gifted me a dumb-trainer (a rear flywheel setup).  By then my bike had a power meter so one day I popped the bike on that trainer and gave Zwift’s free trial a shot. 

After a few quick rides I called the bike shop and asked them to order me what looked to be the best trainer on the market: the Tacx Neo.  A game changer!  Literally.  That device still works and has well in excess of 70,000 miles!  One of the best investments I have ever made.

The crazy thing about your daily ride streak is that those aren’t short rides. You ride with RoboPacers quite a bit I see, putting in rides 6-8 hours long. Is this your favorite thing to do on Zwift? What are your thoughts on other Zwifty activities (structured workouts, races, group rides, running)?

Running?  No thanks.  Even as an early adopter of Zwift I did not join group activities, never completed workouts, I free rode every ride, just doing my thing, enjoying spinning.  I still do this, however, the pace bots changed Zwift (and my fitness) entirely as now I was able to pace and ride with others.  I prefer to ride with the pace groups as by nature, it seems, I am a lazy cyclist.  The pacers also added a social aspect to Zwift.  In my mind, by far, the best feature added to Zwift.

As someone who has stared at the Zwift screen much more than most… what feature requests would you have for Zwift’s game team?

Before strength training and cycling I was a huge video gaming nerd.  Most games have some sort of ‘end-game’ that keeps users interested and playing, unlocking new things, even after finishing the game.  Zwift could do something like Call of Duty prestige levels where you can reset your account to level 1 but unlock a badge, or a special feature, something, ANYTHING. 

Related Post: Zwift Hot Topic: Give Me Some Motivation!

I have a few more ideas, but Eric Min can come to me with one of those Zwift/Canyon bicycles and a notepad if he wants to hear more. 😊

Anything else you’d like to share?

This story could go on and on endlessly as I have had so many experiences, accomplishments, and setbacks on this journey (who hasn’t?).  I didn’t know/wasn’t aware I was going to be the first to ride 365 days on Zwift.  Ryan is a good friend and often lets me know when I do things he thinks are amazing milestones.  He is a great cyclist and hype man, that’s for certain. 

At the start of 2023 I was riding a lot of elevation during the winter season – come late February Ryan let me know I was ahead of the calendar year climbing world record pace.  We had a discussion and it became a thing.  So now, I will be the first cyclist to surpass 50,000 miles (80,000km) on Zwift and over 3,000,000ft (1 million meters) in one year, having climbed more than anyone in a single year.

I’ve had setbacks in my short time on the bike which have very much hindered what others are telling me is now known as my legacy – if they only knew that I could/would do more if it were possible.  I do this for fun and no other reason as I do not compete, race, etc.  After all is said and done I only have one goal, one vision, one dream.  In 2017 I purchased my dream bike, a custom painted TT frame which I used an inheritance to acquire.  It meant the world to me.  I didn’t even own a cycling jersey before I bought one of the world’s most expensive, fastest bikes! In fact I had never even sat on a TT frame before I purchased it.  Unfortunately this bike was taken from me.  I hope one day I am able to say through sheer passion, hard work, consistency, and goodwill that I EARNED a TT bike, to somehow/some way gain the attention necessary in this industry to saddle up on a dream TT frame once again.

Tiny Race Series – August 12 Routes and Last Week’s Results

Eric Schlange
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2
Tiny Race Series – August 12 Routes and Last Week’s Results

Tiny Race Series – August 12 Routes and Last Week’s Results

This week we’ve got a new set of 4 routes for your racing pleasure. But first, let’s look at last Saturday’s winners!

D racer George Sauer won it zone 3, and made his first-ever YouTube video too! See it below:

Got a great YouTube video of your Tiny Race experience? Post it in the comments and we may feature it on Zwift Insider!

Last Week’s Results

Overall Winners

Zone 1 (9am UTC)

A: Ingo Reichart (KC)
B: Tom Monta (DIRT)
C: Matt Costall (TCRCC)
D: Jens Olesen

Zone 2 (3pm UTC)

A: Daniel Jamrozik (Restart)
B: Stephan Tytgadt (BZR)
C: Martin Skapa (SISU)
D: Chris Felli

Zone 3 (9pm UTC)

A: Dobiacco
B: Evan Bayer (RC2)
C: Jason Funderburk (SISU)
D: Georg Sauer

Women’s Winners

Zone 1 (9am UTC)

A: –
B: Katie Parry (Wahoo Le Col)
C: N Atchon (NICO OZ)
D: Iris Auyeung (RHINO)

Zone 2 (3pm UTC)

A: –
B: KatherineD (WKG)
C: Claire Cameron (Saris+TPC)
D: Linn Björgvik (SZR)

Zone 3 (9pm UTC)

A: –
B: Rebecca Larson (DDC)
C: Brenna Nelson (FC-RACING)
D: –

This Week’s Routes: Trains and Towers

This week’s routes take us on a tour of Zwift worlds with routes that include towers and trains. Four races in four different worlds with four different powerups. Let’s goooo!

Approaching the Bigger Loop finish
Bigger Loop finish line
Approaching London Loop finish
London Loop finish
  • Race 1: The 6 Train (1 lap – 6.4km)
    One quick clockwise loop of Central Park’s inner roads.
    • Powerup: Aero (1x)
  • Race 2: Temples and Towers (5.286km, end at Rooftop KOM)
    Start in Neokyo and climb up, up, up to finish at the Rooftop KOM banner. This is a very draftable climb, so use those wheels!
    • Powerup: none
  • Race 3: Bigger Loop (6.75km, ending at rock underpass heading into the Ghost Town)
    Our flattest route of the day starts with a ride into the desert from downtown Watopia. Then pick up your ghost powerup at the rock arch and sprint for the custom finish line beneath the huge rocks as you enter the Ghost Town.
    • Powerup: Ghost (1x)
  • Race 4: London Loop (7km, near end of first Box Hill straightaway)
    We wrap up our week with a punch finish partway up London’s Box Hill. How’s your 1-minute power?
    • Powerup: Feather (1x)

Sign up at zwift.com/events/tag/tinyraces

Pack Dynamics 4.1

All Tiny Races are currently using Zwift’s experimental Pack Dynamics 4.1.

Read more about PD4.1 on this forum thread, and chime in there after your races to share your experience and help Zwift improve their pack dynamics!

ZwiftPower Results

Zwift displays preliminary race results in game when you cross the line, but points are computed after all four races are finished, with final results on ZwiftPower. (We have to do some data processing on our side to compute results, so if your rankings don’t show up right away, be patient.)

Riders will earn points based on finish position in each of the 4 Tiny Races. The category winner of each week’s series is the rider with the most points across their timezone’s 4 races. Here are the links for each timezone’s results on ZwiftPower:

Rules

Tiny Race rules are simple, but still every week 6-8% of registered ZwiftPower racers get disqualified and removed from the final results. Don’t let that be you! Four races, four rules:

  • You must have a ZwiftPower account, because final results are processed by ZwiftPower (learn how to sign up)
  • No skipping then returning. These races are meant to be raced as a set of 4. If you need to leave early, that’s fine… but once you miss a race in your hour’s set of 4, don’t come back and race another or you’ll be disqualified from that race since you rested while others were racing! (Example: racing only races 1 and 2 is fine. Racing 1, 2, and 4 is not – you will be DQ from race 4. And if you race 2, 3, and 4, you’ll be DQ from all those races, since you skipped race 1!)
  • Heart rate monitors are required.
  • Smart trainer/smart bike or power meter required. ZPower/Virtual power is not allowed.

Join a Chat & Chill Cooldown

Immediately following each hour’s racing, we’ve scheduled 30-minute “Chat & Chill” events where riders from all categories can spin their legs together and chat about how it all went down. Find them at zwift.com/events/tag/tinyraces.

Zwift Insider Kit Unlock

Finish any Tiny Race or a Chat & Chill ride and unlock the Zwift Insider “Ride Smarter // Ride Harder” in-game kit.

Questions or Comments

Post below!

Speed Tests: How Rider Height Affects Speed On Zwift’s Handcycle

Eric Schlange
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4
Speed Tests: How Rider Height Affects Speed On Zwift’s Handcycle

Speed Tests: How Rider Height Affects Speed On Zwift’s Handcycle

Astute Zwifters know the game calculates your virtual bike speed using a combination of “personal” factors (wattage, weight, and height) as well as external factors (bike frame and wheelset choice plus the virtual environment including road surfaces, gradient, etc).

Here at Zwift Insider we’ve already thoroughly tested how height affects speed on Zwift road bikes. But what about Zwift’s newer handcycle? Does Zwift calculate rider CdA differently due to your avatar’s reclined position on the handcycle? Just what sort of performance difference does rider height have for handcycle riders?

Let’s dig in and find out…

Speed Test Data

This chart shows the time it took riders of varying heights to complete our standard flat test course (2 laps of Tempus Fugit) at different power levels. Each rider was set at 75kg weight and used the same virtual bike setup (Zwift’s handcycle) – the only variables across the tests were rider height and wattage.

Height vs Speed at Various Power Levels

Conclusions

  • As we found with our road bike tests, Zwift’s physics hold remarkably steady across a wide range of rider sizes (153cm to 193cm, or approximately 5′ to 6’4″).
  • Zwift’s physics also hold remarkably steady across a wide range of wattages (150-450W).
  • As power increases, speeds increase. As speeds increase, the time gaps between riders of varying heights are reduced.
    • For example, at 150W, the difference between a 153cm and 193cm rider is 201 seconds. At 450W, those riders are only separated by 142 seconds.
    • While the gaps in seconds may change across power levels, in terms of percentage of overall time, these gaps hold pretty steady, with overall time increasing by 5.32% (at 150W) to 5.7% (at 450W) when rider height changes from 153cm to 193cm.
    • Why does the percentage difference increase at higher wattages? Because aerodynamics matter more at higher speeds.
  • At lower heights, adding a centimeter makes a bigger difference. Going from 173cm to 193cm slows you by approximately 2.47%, but going from 153cm to 173cm slows you by approximately 2.78%. This makes sense, because as you get taller each centimeter is a smaller percentage of your overall height.
  • Another way to look at the chart is that it shows how many watts each centimeter of added height costs.
    • For example, we can see that 153cm at ~163W delivers the same time as 173cm at ~182W. So we know that a rider will need to hold ~9W higher to match a rider 10cm shorter. Or looking at it another way, every centimeter costs ~1 watt.
    • At higher wattages this cost is even higher, with a 10cm jump costing closer to ~25W in the 450W range (so ~2.5 watts per centimeter). This is because being more aero matters more at higher speeds.

So how much difference does a centimeter make? Here are estimated numbers based on the chart above:

  • At 150W, every added centimeter
    • Adds ~5.03 seconds
    • Costs 0.8 watts
  • At 300W, every added centimeter
    • Adds ~3.98 seconds
    • Costs ~1.38 watts
  • At 450W, every added centimeter
    • Adds ~3.55 seconds
    • Costs ~1.5 watts

I Wish I Were Smaller

We’ve already discussed height doping a bit in our original height speed tests, so we won’t rehash it here.

Should Height Matter So Much On Handcycles?

Our guess is, Zwift didn’t change the rider portion of their physics calculation when it comes to the handcycle. So while the handcycle itself performs a bit differently than road bikes, rider height and weight changes will have the same speed effects on handcycles as they do on road bikes.

The question is: does this make sense?

Given the reclining position of a handcycle rider, it would seem that height should affect speed here even less than on a road bike. But in the end, for better or for worse, Zwift appears to have taken a very simple approach to calculating rider CdA for the handcycle.

Questions or Comments?

Share below!

Misused Zwift Powerups: the Breakaway Burrito

Eric Schlange
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8
Misused Zwift Powerups: the Breakaway Burrito

Misused Zwift Powerups: the Breakaway Burrito

The Breakaway Burrito, more than any other powerup in Zwift, has a rather sordid past.

Still learning about Powerups? Read our “Guide to Powerups in Zwift” >

It was around in Zwift’s early beta days, but was removed before Zwift came out of beta in October 2015. Then in June 2019, it came back. Zwift was embracing esports, and the Burrito seemed like an interesting offensive weapon. (Importantly, it was and still is an event-only powerup, meaning it only shows up if an event is configured to use it.)

More than a year later, the Burrito was modified. Now, instead of “making you undraftable for 10 seconds”, as Zwift originally described it, it would turn off the draft effect for all riders within a 2.5-meter radius. This seemed like a sensible change since deploying the Burrito in a pack was pointless when it only made you undraftable, since riders were benefiting from the draft of others in the pack.

But what many Zwifters didn’t realize was that the Burrito also turned off the draft for the rider who deployed it! For 2.5 years Zwifters blissfully deployed the Burritto in races, not realizing it was making them work harder, as well as nearby riders. Eventually it came out that the Burrito was a truly suicidal powerup, and we published an updated version of this post in February 2023 to help get the word out.

Then in May 2023, Zwift “rebalanced” some powerups, including the Burrito. No longer would it turn off the draft you were receiving, and now it would turn off the draft benefit for riders behind you in a cone shape. This was sensible change which, in my opinion, makes the Burrito work how it always should have worked. (Zwift also extended the Burrito, doubling its length from 10 to 20 seconds.)

The Breakaway Burrito: How It Works

As the name lightly suggests, the Breakaway Burrito is the only powerup that affects those around you. All the other powerups directly affect your speed by making you more aero, lighter, etc… but when you deploy the Burrito, it slows nearby riders.

When the Burrito powerup is activated, it turns off the draft benefit for riders in a cone shape behind you. This powerup lasts for 20 seconds.

Here’s a graphic showing how the old Burrito functioned vs the current (new) Burrito. (Note that this is for illustrative purposes only – the Burrito’s “effectiveness window” is not precisely sized.)

Where should it be used? In three places:

  1. When you’re attacking off the front, and want to make it hard for others to follow. This is where the “Breakaway” Burrito got its name. It was designed to facilitate solo breakaways.
  2. When you’re in a pack and want to make it harder for riders behind. Deploying the Burrito in this scenario forces riders behind to increase their power to maintain their position.
  3. When you’re contesting a sprint. A deployed Burrito in a sprint gives you the best of both worlds: you still benefit from the draft of riders ahead, but riders just behind receive zero draft. This is ideal if you’re contesting a finishing sprint or mid-race sprint points.

How It’s Misused

The most obvious misuse of the Burrito is if you’re riding solo or have no riders just behind you. Using it in this scenario is the same as throwing it away, since there is no one nearby whose draft will be disabled by your Burrito.

But there are other ways the Burrito can be used poorly – ways which can mess up your race much more than a solo deployment would!

Killing the Breakaway

The Burrito is used to hurt nearby riders. If you’re in a small pack (perhaps a breakaway off the front of the main peloton) deploying the Burrito will make any breakaway teammates behind you work harder.

Unless you want to reduce the size of the breakaway, this is a bad idea. If you still have some distance to go, deploying a Burrito may cause riders in your Breakaway to get dropped, which would mean you have to work harder to stay away from the chasers behind.

That said, the Burrito can be a potent tool in the final meters of a race if you’re looking to keep riders from following your wheel. Just realize that deploying it in a small group says, “We are no longer working together.”

Friendly Fire

It’s important to remember that the Burrito hurts everyone behind you – and that may include teammates. Don’t be “that guy” who activates a Burrito just ahead of a struggling team member!

Communication helps in these situations. I’ve had team members warn the team over Discord that they were deploying a Burrito. “Make sure you’re ahead of me, I’m deploying it in about 10 seconds…”

If you’re in a Chase (Cat & Mouse/Handicap) race and still riding with just your category, deploying the Burrito is seen as bad form, since it hurts the team you’re working with.

Climbing Burritos

Deploying the Burrito while everyone is moving slower up a steep climb is less effective than deploying it on flat ground, because the draft benefit is higher at higher speeds. If you want to maximize the Burrito’s effect, use it when the pack is charging hard on a flat or even descending stretch of road.

Advanced Burrito Usage: the Leadout Draft Killer

Using the Burrito makes sense when attacking solo off the front, and that’s where most sensible Burrito usage happens.

But there’s a related, more advanced use case perfectly suited to team racing. Here’s the 3-step process, which really requires Discord comms:

  1. Heading into a finishing (or even intermediate) sprint, the Burrito holder moves to the front of the pack, possibly even pushing a little extra so they’re a bike length or two ahead.
  2. The Burrito holder’s teammate then jumps from within the pack, slingshotting around the Burrito holder as the Burrito holder activates their powerup.
  3. Now the teammate is off the front, and everyone behind is gapped and receiving zero draft. The Burrito holder’s job now is to keep pushing, removing the draft from the chasers while staying behind his sprinter.

This was executed perfectly in a ZRL race by my team captain Antoine, who gleefully exclaimed, “I burritoed them!” as teammate and eventual race winner Arjen sprinted away. Watch it below:

Will You Be Eating That?

If you’re riding with others and don’t want to make them work harder, throwing away the Burrito so you can get a better powerup at the next arch may be your best choice.

Here’s how to do it >

Questions or Comments?

Share below!

Notable Zwift Events for the Weekend of August 5-6

Oli Chi
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1
Notable Zwift Events for the Weekend of August 5-6

This weekend is a pretty busy weekend in both Zwift and real life! With the UCI World Championships underway we’ve selected an extremely popular event that aims to mimic the world championships. Additionally, we have selected a memorial ride, experimental race, crit racing series, and a social endurance ride.


🤝Chasing Tour | Chasing Rainbows – Road

✅ Popular Event 　✅ Highly Competitive

The 2023 UCI World Championships are happening this weekend! In order to celebrate, Chasing Racing will be hosting a Chasing Rainbows race. Currently, this is the hottest event of the weekend, rocking over 200 sign-ups. Expect lots of hard and competitive racing!

This race will be taking place over the Muckle Yin in Scotland. Pretty cool because the pros will be racing around the roads of IRL Glasgow!

Saturday, August 5 @ 12 pm UTC/8 am EDT/5 am PDT
Sign up at zwift.com/events/view/3781853


🤝 BanditZ/Herd Bike 4 Kyle Memorial Ride

✅ Popular Event 　✅ Beginner-Friendly　 ✅ Feel Good Factor

Just over a week ago, Kyle, a beloved member of HERD and BanditZ passed away unexpectedly. Kyle was one of the founding members of BanditZ and was an early member of HERD. In order to honor him, HERD and BanditZ are hosting a 120-minute social group ride.

The group ride takes place on the Watopia’s Waistband course.

Saturday @ 12:30 pm UTC/8:30 am EDT/5:30 am PDT
Sign up at zwift.com/events/view/3785590


🤝 Split-Cats 50k Race by VirtuSlo 4Endurance

✅ Popular Event 　✅ Innovative Format

VirtuSlo is hosting a pretty unique race this weekend. Instead of the traditional categories, VirtuSlo will be using split categories. In addition to this, custom category enforcement parameters will ensure that riders are in their correct category. Pack dynamics 4.1 will also be utilized in this race.

Riders will be racing one lap of the Eastern Eight course in Watopia. Note: 5 different categories are available.

Sunday, August 6th @ 8:45 am UTC/4:45 am EDT
Sign up at zwift.com/events/view/37863814


🤝 Galaxy Crit Hits Racing Series

✅ Popular Event 　✅ Highly Competitive

Galaxy Cycling Club is starting a new racing series, and this month will be all crit-themed races. Throughout the series, there will be multiple time slots for each of the stages. For each of the races, there will be a segment where FTS points are available. On ZwiftPower, there will be both individual and team standings.

The first race starts with a classic, Downtown Dolphin in Crit City. FTS points are available on the Prime Sprint.

Multiple time slots throughout this weekend
Browse events on Zwift Hacks


🤝 Zwift NL – The Longer Ride 1.8/2.3 wkg

✅ Popular Event　 ✅ Beginner-Friendly

Looking for a social endurance group ride? Join Team NL for a relaxed ride around the roads of France. The goal of this ride is to work together and socialize with other riders on the ride. The leader will be holding a steady pace of 1.8-2.3 w/kg.

This group ride takes place on the R.G.V. course in France – a flat course with a few rollers towards the end.

Saturday, August 5th @ 7:15 am UTC
Sign up at zwift.com/events/view/37855

How We Make Our Picks

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!

Your Thoughts

Got other events that stand out this weekend? Share below in the comments!

Zwift Update Version 1.45 (116914) Released

Eric Schlange
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59
Zwift Update Version 1.45 (116914) Released

The latest Zwift update has been announced and will be released in phases over the next few days.

This release has some small new features, including new badges for Climb Portal lovers. Let’s dive in!

Climb Portal Badges

After the Climb Portal launched, we said we’d love to see some associated achievement badges. It looks like Zwift was listening! They’ve added three new badges: Portal Climber, Climb Portal Pro, and Legs of Steel. These are awarded for doing 1, 10, and 25 Portal climbs and are worth 100XP, 500XP, and 1000XP, respectively.

It doesn’t matter which climbs you do – you could do Cote de Pike 25x to earn “Legs of Steel”, or go big and earn it on the Tourmalet. Or mix it up with whatever combination of climbs you’d like.

Climb Portal Schedule

Zwift has shared the Climb Portal schedule for August. It begins with two climbs we’ve already seen, but finishes with two new climbs from real-life Scotland: Crow Road and Bealach na Bà!

We’ve created a dedicated page at zwiftinsider.com/climb-portal-schedule/ which (like our Guest World Schedule and RoboPacer Schedule) will be regularly updated to show the current Climb Portal calendar.

New Race Results Screen

Zwift says, “Added a new results screen for races only. This will show a more simplified results view with more important data post race.”

I did a race just this morning (and had a power dropout, so no judgment on me finishing at the back 🥺) that ended with the new screen. Here’s a shot of it:

A few thoughts:

  • It’s definitely simplified, which is great.
  • We like the power numbers on the left. We’d like to click them to toggle between W/kg and pure watts, and we’d love it to show a badge or trophy next to numbers that are a new 90-day PB.
  • There was nowhere to click and see the full finisher’s list, but we think that is a bug, since we’ve seen such a link in other mockups. (We would also like a way to click to see the results of other categories.)

More Release Notes

Here are additional tweaks and bug fixes Zwift provided for this update, with notes from us in italics:

  • The Alpe du Zwift road line on the mini-map is now highlighted correctly.
  • Fixed an issue that caused steering to not work after switching from Running to Cycling.
  • Zwift Play:
    • Fixed an issue that could cause a delay between pairing the controllers and the controllers being usable.
    • Updated the battery indicator icon on the Pairing Screen.
    • Fixed an issue that could prevent one controller from auto-pairing.
    • General improvements to haptic feedback.
    • Fixed an issue where unpairing Kickr Bike steering during a session would also prevent Zwift Play controllers from steering.
    • Fixed an issue where if Kickr Bike steering was not paired, the Kickr Bike steering buttons would still work if Zwift Play was paired.
    • General improvements to navigating the UI using Zwift Play controllers.
  • Improved the description of the Trainer Difficulty setting in Zwift Settings. “Adjust the gear bias for your ride type” wasn’t clear? 🙂
  • Fixed an issue that could cause intermittent swerves when cycling with a steering device: this is a welcome fix, but the issue doesn’t appear to be completely resolved based on some quick tests in a tightly packed race group of ~80 riders.
  • Fixed a potential crash that could occur when navigating Workouts.
  • Fixed an issue where the list of Pacer Groups in the Teleport menu was missing icons and w/kg information.
  • Fixed a crash that could occur when closing the Zwift Settings menu.
  • Fixed an issue where a runner’s shoes could be reset back to Zwift White when customizing their avatar’s hair or facial hair. We assumed this was just Zwift giving us fashion advice. “Changing to a goatee? You need white shoes…”
  • Apple TV: Fixed a crash that could occur when navigating from Zwift to the Apple TV home screen and then back to Zwift.

See Zwift forum topic on this release >

Questions or Comments?

If you spotted any other changes or bugs in the update, please comment below!

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