Tiny Race Series – Results and December 31 Routes

Last week’s Tiny Races were all held on Watopia’s Two Bridges Loop, but each race got longer as we progressed through the set of 4. Riders seemed to enjoy this approach to the races, so we’ll probably do it again with another route in the future!

Congrats to William Ng, a D rider in Zone 3 who took 1st in all four races. Watch him with the first three below (check out that Sauce for Zwift overlay!)

Last Week’s Results

Overall Winners

Women’s Winners

*Shonagh Pinecone tied with Manja Peters for points, bu Shonagh takes 1st with the higher race finish.

This Week’s Routes: Short Circuit

This week’s short circuit theme finds us racing around tiny loops. Some are so tiny that we’ll race multiple laps, while others will just be a lead-in plus one lap. Either way, each course has its own challenges, spots for early attacks, and strategic finishes.

• Race 1: Downtown Dolphin (3 laps, 5.7km)
  Racers know this route well. The question is: who will go long, and can they stay away?
  • Powerup: Feather 2x
• Race 2: Volcano Circuit (1 lap, 6.9km)
  After a lead-in from downtown Watopia we’ll hit one hot lap of the Volcano, finishing at the banner. This finish is always an interesting one, timing-wise. Use your aeros wisely!
  • Powerup: Aero Boost 2x
• Race 3: LaGuardia Loop (1 lap, 4.4km)
  A quick lead-in, then a hot lap in Central Park that ends in a tricky sprint. The shortest race of the day will be fast… but you can catch your breath afterward in preparation for the race 4.
  • Powerup: Anvil 2x
• Race 4: Mech Isle Loop (6.06km, ends atop dirt climb)
  This is approximately 1.5 laps, finishing atop the dirt climb. Gravel bike or road bike? Choose your weapon!
  • Powerup: none

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

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:

• Zone 1 (9am GMT/4am EST/1am PST)
• Zone 2 (3pm GMT/10am EST/7am PST)
• Zone 3 (9pm GMT/4pm EST/1pm PST/Sunday 8am AEDT)

Rules

Tiny Race rules are simple. 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 for podium finishers
• ZPower/Virtual power is not allowed. Smart trainer/smart bike or power meter required.

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 out their legs together and have some fun chatting about how it all went down. Find them at zwift.com/events/tag/tinyraces.

Questions or Comments

Post below!

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Zwift Announces Race Calendar Cleanup

On December 7, Zwift’s James Bailey announced in the Zwift Riders Facebook Group that Zwift would begin working in January to clean up the platform’s race calendar. Zwift believes that larger racing fields make for a better race experience, so they are looking to remove low-participation events from the public calendar (the calendar you can easily browse in Zwift Companion or at zwift.com/events).

Let’s dive into how this will work… and where things might go in the longer term.

Why Is Culling Needed?

James’ post says, “larger racing fields provide a better racing experience and therefore we are now seeking to increase minimum race fields on the public calendar.” Digging into the specifics a bit more, he says:

Detailed analysis of all racing events demonstrates a very clear correlation between the number of participants in an event/subgroup and the percentage of starters that go on to complete the race – (finishing %s are one of our clearest measures of race quality) -. This correlation is not surprising – we know that in smaller races and/or subgroups it’s more likely that you’ll end up alone and you’ll be less likely to finish the race. This is also supported by a range of qualitative feedback we receive.

My guess is most Zwift racers would agree with what James says. It’s really not much fun to race against 5-10 riders. I’ve found that a group of 30+ is about the minimum if I want a good race experience. And the longer the race, the more starters you need, as attrition continues while the race is underway.

How Will Culling Work?

James explains how Zwift will cull races:

• From January 4th onwards, we will review existing racing events on the public calendar
• Races with an average attendance of under 50 over the previous 4 weeks will be transitioned to shareable Club events.
• These races will not be on the public calendar, but they will be available to all members of the club, as well as anyone that the event is shared with.
• When a race is removed from the Public Calendar, the organiser will be contacted to let them know that it has happened, why it has happened and the criteria for the event to be readded to the Public Calendar.

This seems sensible enough, although there are three “gotchas” which Zwift will need to look at closely.

#1: Low-Traffic Time Slots

Zwift traffic varies widely based on time of day, and race participation varies accordingly. Requiring 50 participants during high-traffic times may be perfectly sensible, but during low-traffic times it may wipe out every race on the calendar!

The solution? Zwift will have to pay attention to the density of race events, not just the number of participants in specific races. The good news is, James says, “I’m not going to allow a situation where there are no races to choose from.”

#2: Women-Only Races

While Zwift has always done a good job of supporting women’s racing, participation in women-only races is still much lower than mixed/open events. Simply put, a 50-participant requirement would mean that most women’s races would be removed from the public calendar.

James says Zwift is looking at a threshold of 25 participants for women-only races. That may or may not be the right number, but Zwift has the data. I’m sure they’ll run the numbers and make sure whatever threshold they set doesn’t erase women’s racing from the calendar.

#3: Seasonality

Zwifters know that numbers swell during the Northern Hemisphere winters, specifically from around mid-November to the end of February. I would say traffic during these times is 3-4x what we see during the summer months.

Does a year-round 50-participant requirement make sense when traffic is so seasonal? Probably not. If the 50-participant requirement stays in place during the summer, we may see a very sparse race calendar June thru August.

Converting Club Events to ZwiftPower Races

One reason Club organizers don’t like the idea of their races being “privatized” is that Club events don’t show up on ZwiftPower. But James mentioned in the Facebook thread that “Club events can be added to ZwiftPower,” and this is an intriguing proposition.

Additionally, Club owners can’t just create race events. All Club events are automatically defined as group rides or group workouts, and can only be changed by Zwift staff intervention.

If Zwift is going to get more picky about races on the public calendar, they should feed the race ecosystem by giving Club organizers tools to create great races via their Club, so those events can grow in popularity and eventually be upgraded to public races.

Auto-Upgrading

This leads me to another thought. If Zwift is going to set requirements for races on the public calendar, they should have a process in place whereby popular Club events can be “upgraded” to the public calendar.

James says that’s the plan: “Race organisers will need to provide evidence that the event is achieving attendances of over 50 people for the last two weeks, as a club event.”

Easy enough. But I think this process should be automated, so organizers of big one-off events can blast the event out to their networks, get enough signups for the event to go public, then watch it explode in popularity. Everyone wins in this scenario: the organizers get more event participation, and Zwift gets more engagement.

What About New Events?

James says race organizers new and old will still be able to ask Zwift to put a new event on the public calendar:

• These will initially be on a 4-week trial period to ensure that attendance reaches desired levels.
• We will, however, expect the Club of the group requesting an event to be placed on the Public Calendar to have at least 100 members.

Automation

Overall, it sounds like Zwift has put some good thought into the process of culling the race calendar. I, for one, fully support this initiative. It’s a topic I’ve bugged Zwift about for a year or more because I agree that too many races within a timeslot just thins the competition and reduces the quality of the race experience.

While Zwift’s initial culling looks to be a rather manual process, I’m hoping they will automate this in the future. Participant thresholds should automatically fluctuate along with overall Zwift traffic, races should be automatically culled based on set criteria, and race organizers should be automatically contacted when any changes are made to their events.

Additionally, organizers should be encouraged to publicize their events well, boosting participation so they can be automatically moved from the Club-only calendar to the public calendar (assuming that’s what the race organizer wants).

All of this could be automated to work efficiently and effectively with very little ongoing input from ZHQ. We have the technology. Make it happen, Zwift!

Your Thoughts

Do you agree that the race calendar needs some cleanup? Got any concerns? Share below!

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“Flat is Fast” ZRacing January 2023 Series Details

Zwift’s monthly ZRacing series is now in its fifth round following September’s Get Rolling, October’s Race Like a Champ, November’s Race Makuri, and December’s Race Like a Pro. Each month has brought more and more racers out to compete for the monthly GC.

Today Zwift published details for January’s ZRacing Series, where the theme is “Flat is Fast”. Let’s dive into the details!

Flat Is Fast – January’s Route Schedule

This month’s routes follow the “flat” theme… mostly. All the routes apart from Mech Island Loop feature no significant climbs.

• Stage 1 (Jan 3-8): Tick Tock
  • 1 lap (19.2km, 53m elevation)
• Stage 2 (Jan 9-15): The Fan Flats
  • 3 lap (19.4km, 57m elevation)
• Stage 3 (Jan 16-22): Volcano Flat Reverse
  • 2 laps (24.9km, 100m)
• Stage 4 (Jan 23-29): London Classique
  • 2 laps (16.5km, 50m elevation)
• Stage 5 (Jan 30-Feb 5): as in past months, this stage is actually 2 short races, meant to be raced back-to-back.
  • Part 1: Mech Isle Loop (1 lap, 4km, 38m elevation)
  • Part 2: Watopia Flat Route (1 lap, 10.7km, 61m elevation)

See upcoming Flat is Fast events >

Series Structure

The ZRacing series consists of monthly sets of weekly races. Each race is scheduled for seven days (beginning 1:10am UTC on Monday and running through to the next Sunday). Timeslots are consistent week to week and month to month.

Races are scheduled ~15 times each day, so there are plenty of available times to find a race.

See upcoming events at zwift.com/events/tag/zracingjan2023

Monthly GC on ZwiftPower

Each monthly set of races has a time-based GC (general classification) which tracks riders’ best finishing times for each week’s race. The overall winners in each category for the month will be the riders with the lowest overall time for that month’s set of races.

See January’s GC on ZwiftPower >

With over 100 weekly timeslots available, riders can race each week’s event multiple times and try to better their finishing time.

Note: you must use a heart rate monitor and be on a smart trainer, smart bike, or power meter to show up in ZwiftPower results for this series.

If you aren’t signed up for ZwiftPower, check out our post How to Sign Up for ZwiftPower (and Why Every Zwifter Should Do It).

Get the Badge

Each month’s series has its own achievement badge which you can unlock by finishing every stage for the month.

One and Done

Zwift has planned these events around the idea of a solid 1-hour workout. So each race should only take around 1 hour to complete, including your warmup and cooldown.

Questions or Comments?

Post below! 

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