BamBam: Ok, everyone – it’s TTT week. I’ve filled in this really pretty coloured chart which shows clearly what output everyone will be doing when they take their turn on the front. I have absolutely no idea what any of it means, but it is very pretty and uses a lot of red and orange…
Dutchland: I think it means that when you are leading, and I’m on 2nd that I will need to spontaneously combust in order to have any chance of staying with you.
Disco: Or that I will have upgraded to a B Cat by the end of the race…
Dutchland: I normally sweep; why can’t I just sweep? I like sweeping.
BamBam: OK, you can sweep. (deep sigh). But if we use the chart…we can see how to ride this TTT – it’s flat that’s in our favour.
Janaroo: Flat? But is it? What about…?
BamBam: Right! Let’s not worry too much about the pretty chart (which I spent hours on) – let’s focus on changeovers.
Toblerone: Do we have numbers? Other teams have numbers.
BamBam: Numbers – yes – numbers are good. Toblerone – you be 1.
Toblerone: But what if I’m not at position 1?
BamBam: Then 2 becomes 1, and you become 5. Little Spice Girl reference there. Did you all get that?
Raquel: I think we’re all choosing to ignore that, and could you stop snorting in our ears, your brilliance is a little deafening at times…
Raquel: Surely, I’m 2. According to this chart, I need to be at 2.
BamBam: No – we’re not using the chart now; we’re using numbers.
Dutchland: But what if I can’t make it? Do I keep my number or does the reserve get my number? What happens to my number?
Janaroo: Maybe not numbers… just a thought… now what about the flat thing?
BamBam: Si said it’s not flat! Apart from this week’s hill – which is actually just a ramp…
Dutchland: … makes a change from a kicker I guess…
Disco: … or a bump…
Raquel: Do we have to be on TT bikes coz I’ve just got my Tron and it’s sooooo pretty. I’m doing green this week.
BamBam: Yes TT bikes coz they’re the fastest and you know my feelings about Trons – pretty or otherwise.
Dutchland: TT bikes are not the fastest when Raquel uses the wrong tyres.
Raquel: Once, it happened once. Let it go!
BamBam: Focus laydeez – so we won’t use numbers or the pretty chart, but we will be on TT bikes. None of us like that coz there’s no sitting up in Zwiftworld or remembering to drink; coz we can only do that when it happens on screen rather than when the sensation of thirst occurs in our own mouths. BUT, if we’re all happy with all of that, there’s just the final thing which is…
Toblerone: Don’t say it…
Raquel: She’s going to…
Dutchland: Surely not this time…
Disco: I thought we agreed…
Janaroo: Well, I’m not doing it…
Dutchland: She’s gone quiet – you know what’s coming.
BamBam: PACELINE! Yes! Let’s go with a paceline. This time we’re bound to smash it. We’re riding the same team as before. We know what we’re doing. Paceline it is….
Lucianotes: Aidan Goes Epic for a Good Cause (Episode 1)
I have been writing a lot about the Zwift Community, the incredible people I have been given the chance to meet virtually or IRL. Our craziness makes us the collective producing the most quantity of lactic acid in the world. That makes me super proud.
What has been more surprising over time is to discover that many of us share a set of common values, a sense of purpose, bringing together the notion of effort and the willingness to do the right thing for ourselves and also for others. That makes me even prouder.
Two weeks ago the following was posted on the Coalition Discord Server:
I was overwhelmed by Aidan’s over-the-top craziness of course (1400km in 10 days!!!!), but also by the feeling that we, Zwifters, are definitely part of something bigger than what happens in Makuri or the Über Pretzel. It was the perfect example of the universality of Zwift, what makes our community so unique.
I thought, “What a great thing would it be if we could follow Aidan through his adventure?” And I left it there. Only until Roger (another COALITION teammate) told Aidan to tell me to tell Eric to tell me to tell Aidan to tell Roger… I am lost now. The thing is Roger thought it would be a great story for ZI.
After throwing the idea to Eric (he obviously hated it, which is why you are reading it now, ha!), here we are. We are going to regularly report about Aidan’s adventure and since I am utterly evil the only thing I really care about is how I am going to make fun of his misadventures.
Aidan and the Virtual Flat Tyre
Aidan landed in Watopia, like most of us, by coincidence.
“I used to be a competitive age group cyclist during my school and early university days. Because of the low prospects of making a profession out of the sport coming from South Africa, I decided to give up on the dream and focus on university and a career. 15 years later, with 1 year back on the bike mainly spent Zwifting, I have moved from the infamous route badge hunts in the solo days, to racing, and eventually joining The Coalition which has provided a community of like-minded and supportive people.“
Aidan became addicted, like most of us. It’s like we all have a hidden Zwift gene in our DNA, waiting to be activated the first day you hit Titans Grove. He has also experienced some of those ridiculous experiences only Zwifters can relate to.
“I had this idea that things were easy now, safe, no punctures, and plain sailing. But on one particular ride, I found myself both injured and with what I call a Virtual Flat Tyre, otherwise known as ‘Load Shedding’. Here in South Africa, ‘Load Shedding’ is when the national electricity supplier cannot generate enough electricity for the country and they, seemingly randomly (although they do have schedules), turn off your power for anything between 2, 6 or even sometimes 12 hours per day. No power = Virtual Flat. Basically your Zwift is still running on your laptop but your power source is off. Your legs spinning at one hell of a cadence but your avatar isn’t going anywhere.”
Extreme Ride 4 Hunger
“The first time I heard about Extreme Ride 4 Hunger was from Wesley, a friend who was planning to participate in the charity event in March 2022. At the time, he tried to convince me to join in, but the distances were rather daunting. I did not feel ready to take on this challenge having just started riding on and off and of course the sacrifices that go with such a challenge.
After Wesley did the tour earlier this year, I offered him a place to stay for a few days. During this time Wesley told me more about each day, and that after completing these great distances, the stage would end with an outreach to a community in need. This is where the cyclists hand out much-needed food and supplies.
If you know a little about South Africa’s past, then it should come as no surprise that even to this day there are many underprivileged and uneducated people, where every day is a struggle for survival and basic needs like food and water.
I have contributed through charities like many of us, but actually being on the ground, experiencing what Wesley and others had experienced in the 2022 edition was something that I have always wanted to be part of.
Zwift played a major role in the decision-making process, as it provided me with a safe and convenient place to train, the confidence that I could accomplish this distance and contribute to this amazing project, and a community to count on when in doubt during the preparation.
This time, encouraged by Wesley and Amarel, my wife, I felt the purpose and the mission was way bigger than the daunting distances. I was in for 2023.”
Not Alone In the Big Challenge
Following the euphoria and excitement of entering the adventure of a lifetime, by the time you understand that it is too late to revert your promise, that initial feeling of plenitude is replaced by an ocean of doubts. That’s exactly what happened to Aidan.
“What went through my mind at first was yes this sounds like a great idea, I have made a great decision. Some moments later ‘What did I just get myself into?!?!?!?’ and self-doubt creeps in. This is the moment you lean on your support structures to help rationalise your decision. Some of the responses can be hilarious and others really do help you come to peace with your decision.
You have got plenty of time to train.
Remember that your butt will hurt for a good cause
Do you even still know how to change a puncture?
The answer is no, he doesn’t know how to change a puncture (does he?). Aidan also did not know how to raise funds or have some exposure.
“The fact of the matter is I’ve never taken on a challenge quite like this before, taking on a charity drive, taking on the responsibility of more than finding money in sponsorship but going that step further and taking it up myself to raise additional funds has given a great feeling of responsibility towards community and helping others. Quickly you become humbled by others that have done similar in the past. Deep respect. Much time and dedication goes into it. Since this journey began I noticed lots of fundraising from zwifters streaming, for all sorts of causes and charities.”
In the next chapter of Aidan’s saga, you will laugh at his struggle learning how to stream his Zwift rides.
In the meantime, you can show him he is not by himself in his extreme saddle sore adventure by following him on Strava or Twitch TV, or contributing to his fundraising here. You can also spread the word by sharing his story on social networks. For the most motivated, on top of that you can ride with him in Watopia and overwhelm Aidan with Ride-Ons by adding him as a friend in Zwift Companion.
This week, several thousand Zwifters took part in Zwift Racing League’s race #4 across three laps of Sprinter’s Playground in the Makuri Islands. For one very special Zwifter, this was their first ZRL race ever. And that Zwifter was none other than Eric Min, Zwift’s CEO!
He chose a challenging race for his ZRL debut. With 12 sprint intermediates plus the inevitable pack finish, performing well in race #4 took a combination of fitness and race smarts. But what you may not realize is that Eric Min has both of those qualities in spades, and he put them to work this week to finish atop the podium in his first ZRL race.
I called Eric up and we chatted about the race. Below you can watch his recording of the final seconds, then an edited version of our conversation follows. Enjoy!
(Eric Schlange) You raced yesterday and won in ZRL on Sprinter’s Playground. We’ll talk about the actual race in a bit, but first I’m curious: how did the ZHQ Rockets convince you to join?
(Eric Min) I signed up earlier this year to race with them, but my traveling has been so challenging, it’s difficult for me to commit to a Tuesday afternoon race. And it’s only because I’ve moved out to California that I’m finally in line with the time zone! I moved in July, but this was the first time I actually found the time, made the time, and committed to showing up.
I have to say I was pretty intimidated.
But I’m in the team’s WhatsApp channel, and I can just feel the enthusiasm ahead of each race. This is why people do it, right? Because they want to hang out with their friends, and it’s fun as a group. So I totally get it now.
Yeah, ZRL is definitely a bit intimidating to jump into. But also, there’s absolutely a cool new dynamic when racing as a team.
I know enough about you to know that you’d be a strong rider in any B team. Any Zwifters who have been around a while will know your background, but for the rest of us, can you summarize your bike racing history and describe yourself as a racer today?
I raced competitively as a junior cyclist. I raced as a senior, seriously for one year, and then after that, I kind of gave it up when I realized I didn’t have what it took to be a really good elite racer.
I pretty much gave up serious cycling at that point, but I love cycling. I’ve always enjoyed the training and enjoyed the chain gang rides. Those are, to me, just as fun, if not more fun than competitive racing.
So I have a long history of cycling, and once a racer, always a racer, right? Once a sprinter, always a sprinter. I have memories of what it takes to win a sprint or to train, to get into that pain of hurt, to get to the finish line first. I still have those memories, and I can bring back those muscle memories when needed.
Eric racing with Charlie Issendorf in a criterium in Hartford CT, in 1985. (Charlie is in the orange jersey, Eric is in the light blue jersey.)
I want to talk about race prep. I know you’ve raced a lot on Zwift (over 500 races), but I assume you felt some extra pressure since this was your first ZRL race. Is that fair to say?
Absolutely, especially since this was the first one. This is by far as competitive as any race out there when you bring all the top racers together.
There’s a lot of pressure, especially with this being a points race with 13 sprints! That’s a lot of sprints. I was really intimidated, and I did do some prep. I did a recon the morning of but even then I still got lost on the course. There were so many turns involved!
Charlie Issendorf says, “I raced against Eric Min when he was a junior and I can say he was very, very good. He was definitely one of the best juniors in the country. Here we are racing together in a junior criterium in 1984. I’m in the orange jersey and Eric is next to me in the light blue jersey.”
What about the ZHQ Rockets team? Was there chat among the team leading up to the race, strategic planning, anything like that?
Yeah, sure. We shared the YouTube video by Si, who described the course. That was really helpful. I watched that video twice, but that wasn’t enough. I had to do the recon myself. I did two laps, then I had a good feel for how much rest I would have after each sprint, which was not very much in the first three, and then enough rest for the fourth one and then back to the first.
So it took me a while to figure that out. And also just the general feedback from the team that even if you’re not going for the points, you have to still kind of sprint to stay with the group, otherwise it’s easy to get distanced from the lead group.
The experience of the team was super helpful. There wasn’t that much strategy beyond that, other than “try to get as many points as possible”. But I had my own strategy, which was taking it easy the first lap, just to see how I felt. Warm up to it, then see how I felt for the second and third laps. And if I wasn’t getting many sprint points, my default would be to just save myself for the final sprint, which has a lot of points for grabs. 40 points for the finish!
I think Zwifters would be really interested in knowing who else is on the ZHQ Rockets team, at least in this particular race. Who are they, what do they do at Zwift, etc?
Besides myself we had Steve Beckett, Chief Marketing and Revenue Officer, Mark Riedy, COO of Zwift’s lead PR agency, “In Good Taste”, Jason Donaldson, Associate Director, Creative Advertising, Andrew Seay, Lead UX Designer.
And Bruce Weyman, a longtime friend of ZwiftHQ. He was actually in the original advertisement for Zwift! If you remember that ad, he’s the one wearing the inGAMBA kit. A good friend of mine from New York, many years ago.
How is the ZHQ Rockets team structured? Is there someone leading it? Are you all on Discord? Do you have a DS in your ear?
Unfortunately, we did not have a DS. We talked about being on Discord, but everyone decided that they wanted to just tune out and listen to music. We got on Discord for the prep, so we all signed in 15 minutes before the race started, talked about strategy, and then once we knew the strategy, logged out of Discord.
I think Discord is useful during the race if you have a DS. We didn’t have one, therefore we did not use Discord.
(By the way, we just released a Companion app update that lets Clubs put a Discord link in for their Club/events!)
Eric Min, showing off Zwift’s new kit in a recent photo shoot
Next question: is racing considered work time at Zwift?
I think riding on Zwift is part of our job, and I see no problems with that. We encourage everyone to ride Zwift, even during work hours, to fit it into their day somehow, because we want that product feedback. I think it’s important to experience what the customers are experiencing, both good and bad, and this is one way to ensure that happens.
I love that attitude. As I see it, there’s no downside to Zwift employees using the product!
Talk me through the start of your race, and the 12 sprints before the finish. Did the start speed surprise you? Were there sprints that you actually contested and tried to get points on?
On the first lap, I purposely did not go too hard. I just kind of went with the flow. I think I got a few points in the first or second lap, top ten, but it was really about making sure that I didn’t get gapped. It wasn’t too bad until the first sprint, and then I realized, okay, this is going to be a lot of work just to stay with the group.
I had thought I should probably go for two sprints a lap, not four. Probably the second and fourth sprints each lap. Strategically that would make sense because you have plenty of rest for the first one, but then everyone else is going to be fresh for the first one too. So you go for the second one, and there’s a long rest to get to the fourth one and another long rest to get to the second on the next lap.
But honestly, I was not fit enough to even stick to that strategy. So when I realized that on the second lap, I said, okay, I need to put everything into the final laps because then I can bag those points at least. But I did have a strategy.
How about the finish? Can you talk me through how you approached your finish and executed it?
I figured that the fastest sprinters were all pretty tired from going after all the sprints, and I knew I was going to be relatively fresh for the final sprint. I didn’t go for any other sprints on that third lap, so it was really a matter of timing and a bit of luck because two or three guys rolled off the front and we caught them with maybe 500 meters to go.
I had an aero powerup, which I think I executed to perfection, and I didn’t even have to put down a lot of watts. I was just fresher than everyone else. I think I was hitting ~800 watts, which isn’t that much for sprints, but it was because everyone else was so tired. I think the fastest sprinters were there sprinting with me, but they had been going for more sprints than I had. My strategy had become, “Stay fresh and grab the 40 points.”
It was a good strategic pivot to make, once you saw you weren’t going to be grabbing many intermediate sprint points.
Of course, we know that in ZRL it’s not all about who crosses the finish line first. These are points races and the winning team is the one with the most points at the end. How did the Rockets finish in terms of points? Were there standout performances from any of your teammates in terms of points?
Yeah, Steve Beckett I think was the most consistent. We finished 8th, sort of midpack, and I thought that was good, given that we didn’t have a really strong strategy.
We weren’t really working as a team other than all of us trying to survive the race. Literally, that’s what it was. “Hey, let’s not get dropped.” When that’s your strategy, you don’t worry about points much. We lost one guy pretty early and the rest of us were just floating around, but not really making a dent in the sprints.
For me, it was about getting the first ZRL race under my belt. So now I know what ZRL racing is all about: super fun, super competitive. These racers are not like what I’ve seen in most B races. They’re stronger, and smarter!
What’s next? Will you retire from ZRL with a perfect record, or will you be joining the Rockets again?
Yeah, I’m hooked now. I’m already signed up for December 13th. Another points race. And this time it’s uphill, on the Richmond Cobbled Climbs course! The good thing about that course is that it’s got a bit of a hill. That’s going to help me a bit. I’m not particularly good at the flattish finishes. I’m much better at the uphill segments and finishes.
But I definitely need to do more ZRL races. One of the reasons I haven’t been wanting to do this is because it looks so damned hard. And in fact it is hard. But it’s fun and everyone should take part.
I don’t think people realize how much fun it can be. You have to be in the right category. You have to do it with your friends. But it’s so much fun. I can’t believe I waited this long to try one.
The Zwift Fondo Series has been going on for a few years and is back for 2022-2023! This is the first of five opportunities to ride the fondo series and there will be multiple time zones throughout the day. The 2022-2023 fondo series has a few notable changes that have been highlighted in this Zwift Insider article.
Similar to last year, riders can join any of the three distance-based categories. However, this year, each category will unlock a different kit and the kits remain the same for all five weekends. Can you complete all three distances in one weekend?
Fancy a ride with a professional cyclist? Here is your chance to ride with pro Victor Campenaerts, who has been making loads of fun Zwift YouTube content which I’ve enjoyed watching. During this ride, Victor will aim to answer all of the questions that are sent to him. He will also have his friend onboard to answer any questions that he is unable to answer.
For this ride, riders will be riding ~3.5 laps of Magnificent 8 in Watopia. The ride does offer a B, C, D category but in order to ride with Victor, make sure to join the C category and tune into the live stream on his YouTube channel. (Note: categories B and D will not have leaders.)
The VirtuSlo 4Endurance League is a pretty competitive and unique racing league for a few reasons:
It features dynamic watt floors to accommodate lighter riders, and several rules are enforced for inclusion on Zwift Power.
The series is also points-based with races taking place every weekend. Unlike ZRL, your score for each race is determined by your finishing position. (Note: this is the second to last week of racing in this series, but the next series is starting soon after.)
Every week, riders tackle a different course. This week’s race will take riders through two laps of Greatest London Flat, adding up to around 56 km or 35 mi. (Note: double draft is enabled for this event, so don’t lose those wheels!)
Rules: Category Enforcement, Power Meter Required, Heart Rate Monitor Required
The herD Beginner Racing series is a fun series organized by, well, HERD, whose goal with this series is to get more riders involved in Zwift racing. The race is category enforced to make sure no one who shouldn’t be racing in D joins, helping to provide a more safe and fun environment for more Zwifters to get into racing.
This race takes riders around the all-new Island Hopper course in Urukazi. The course does feature a few rollers, but it avoids any large KQOMs. The race will likely take riders 30-45 minutes depending on rider level.
🤝 Handcycling Ride for Int. Day of Persons with Disabilities
Saturday, December 3rd, is International Day of Persons with Disabilities. To celebrate this, the Handcycling Club on Zwift is hosting a 40-minute social ride around Tempus Fugit for riders of all abilities. The goal of this ride is to celebrate and bring awareness to this special day.
As you would probably expect, all riders will be placed on handcycles in this event. Late join and rubberbanding is enabled for this ride, so riders can go at whatever pace suits them.
Zwift Grand Prix Tomorrow: Team Elimination Omnium Details
Tomorrow (Friday) at 7pm UTC the Zwift Grand Prix’s penultimate round kicks off with the men’s teams racing the Team Elimination Omnium. Women will race the same format next Friday.
After four rounds, here are the men’s overall standings:
The Team Elimination Omnium contains three points races, where the field is reduced in each race. Race 1 has 60 riders, race 2 has 30, and race 3 has 12.
Riders who continue on to the next race earn the chance to grab more points for their team, and the team with the most points earned across the three races is the winner on the day.
Zwift TT Club Series Announced Starting December 5
Zwift event guru James Bailey has spun up a new pile of iTT events to test-drive the concept of an ongoing iTT series from ZHQ, because community-organized iTT races are rather sparse lately.
It’s a weekly series that begins Monday, December 5. Event distances increase over the course of the five weeks, starting with a chaotic 4km event before ending the series with a more measured 23km.
Check ZwiftPower after your event to see how well you stack up against the competition for that week’s course.
If you complete each week’s race, you can track your overall time placing (General Classification) on the overall series GC at https://zwiftpower.com/league.php?id=1352.
James is also using this series to test the concept of “Content-Based Clubs” on Zwift. That is, what if clubs were formed based on the content (events) they held?
The penultimate race of Zwift Racing League 2022/23 Round 2 happens Tuesday, December 6th. It’s our second TTT of this round, and the second time in ZRL history that we’ll be racing Watopia’s Waistband in a TTT format!
Let’s dig into the race, including tips for bike choice, powerups, strategy, and crucial segments.
Looking at the Route: Watopia’s Waistband
We’ve never raced Watopia’s Waistband in ZRL as a TTT, but it’s made several appearances in the Thursday TTT series WTRL organizes, so TTT enthusiasts will be quite familiar with the route.
The route totals 27.8km and 101 meters of climbing including the lead-in, and all categories will race the same distance.
This is one of the flattest routes in all of Zwift, so most of your winning strategy will revolve around how you structure your rotations, how efficient your team formation is, and of course the power of each rider on the front.
That said, there are a few key sections of this course where you’ll want to have a plan of attack:
9.8km: Col du Saddle Springs (900m): the first real rise on this course, you must hit it hard to keep your speed up and avoid losing seconds. Recovery awaits on the other side!
13.7km: Dirty Marina + Snaking Climb (3.2km): beginning with the kicker climb out of the Ocean Boulevard tunnel, this section requires hard work to maintain speed through the dirt and slight inclines.
19.5km: Volcano Bumps (400m): attack this short double-bump to keep speeds high!
23.8km: Rise to Fuego Flats (1km): hammer your way up the false flat. You’re almost there!
27.3km: 500m Sprint Marker: now it’s time to go all-in. Empty the tank.
Riders are awarded powerups through all lap, KQOM, and sprint banners, meaning we’ll get just 2 powerups in this race (at the desert start/finish and downtown Watopia start/finish). Only one type of powerup, the draft boost (van), will be given out at each banner:
Draft Boost (van): increases the draft effect you are experiencing by 50% for 30 seconds. Use at higher speeds (flats and descents) when you are already drafting off another rider (since this powerup only helps when you are drafting.)
This powerup should be seen as a recovery tool in the TTT context since it won’t do you any good if you’re on the front. Ideally you’ll use it just before or after taking a pull, to give you a much-needed break so you can pull harder when the time comes.
Bike Frame + Wheel Choice
This week, bike choice is easy: grab your most aero TT setup! The newish CADEX Tri is the fastest frame in game, and the DT Swiss disc wheels are the fastest wheels. If you don’t have access to that setup (level 42+) then see this post to determine the fastest TT setup available at your level.
CADEX TriCanyon Speedmax Disc
Whatever you do, do not use a road frame. Even a “slow” TT frame is faster than a road frame, so now that we’re able to use TT frames and get a draft in TTT events, you’ll want to take advantage of that!
Like the first TTT of this round, this week’s course will give valuable seconds to teams who can keep their speeds high over the short rollers that pepper the course. Staying in formation while surging your power for these rises is a challenge, especially if riders use various Trainer Difficulty settings. For a flat course like this, we recommend your team uses a high trainer difficulty (75-100%) so you feel the inclines and can automatically boost power accordingly.
Your goal in this week’s TTT is to get four riders across the line in the shortest time possible. That means every team’s pace plan will be different, based on the abilities of each rider. We highly recommend having an experienced DS on Discord directing your team, especially if your team contains some inexperienced TTT riders.
Last week’s Tiny Races with their “Tricky Mix” theme were indeed challenging, forcing riders to have not only the legs but the brains to come out on top. Timing was crucial, and many riders got it wrong… but some got it right!
Friend of ZI Nathan Guerra won Zone 3 A’s two weeks ago, so we encouraged him to try the more competitive Zone 2. He did it, and finished a respectable 5th, with Thrall and Bruhn from NeXT taking 1st and 2nd with a Tiny Racing masterclass. Watch Guerra and Thrall’s Tiny Race streams below – two incredibly gifted racers with varying strategies:
A: Oliver Dowd Restart)** B: Kaj Emanuel (Team NL) C: Michael Nechemia (Herd) D: William Ng (Rhino)
*First Kinz tied with Aleksei for 1st, but Aleksei had more 1st place finishes, so gets the overall win. ** Joe Endersby (Electricspirit.co) tied with Oliver for 1st, but Oliver had a first-place finish and thus gets the overall win.
This week’s routes begin flat, but the finishes get steeper with every race, adding insult to injury as your legs get increasingly tired. Who will have what it takes to finish first on the final race up the Leg Snapper?
Approaching Volcano Circuit CCW finishVolcano Circuit CCW finishApproaching Railways and Rooftops finishRailways and Rooftops finishApproaching the Innsbruckring Leg Snapper bannerThrough the Leg Snapper banner
Race 1: Neokyo Crit Course (1 lap, 4.7km) We start off with a fairly flat route, just to get the legs churning and hearts pumping. Will you go early on the Castle Park rise, or save it for the finish?
Powerup: Aero x2
Race 2: Volcano Circuit CCW (4.84km, ends at Volcano Circuit lap banner) Covering the lead-in section only, most of this course is flattish. But this finish is famous for being one of the most technical in all of Zwift! First you have the longish ramp that saps your legs and encourages early attacks…then there’s still a few hundred meters of twisting, slightly uphill road. Good legs will keep you in contention, but timing will get you the win!
Powerup: Feather
Race 3: Railways and Rooftops (5.44km, ends at Rooftop KOM banner) The reverse version of the Rooftop KOM in Neokyo isn’t an official segment, and it’s a rather unfamiliar climb to most Zwifters since few routes go this way. It’s also a very draftable climb, so we’re giving you a draft van. Because we care!
Powerup: Draft
Race 4: Innsbruckring (5.434km, ending atop Leg Snapper) Always a crowd favorite, Innsbruckring’s Leg Snapper is made even more dynamic when the race finishes at its top. Will you save your legs for that final effort, or try to sneak away early with the help of a ghost?
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:
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.
With over 2600 riders and 370 teams, DIRT Racing Series has grown quickly over the last two seasons. After a successful second season, Team DIRT Racing has recently announced the launch of DIRT Racing Series, Season 3. The new season will run from December 20 to January 3 (in-between the Zwift Racing League seasons) and promises to be even bigger, better, stronger, and more widespread across the globe!
Here’s how they describe it:
“DIRT Racing Series is open for everyone, all Zwift Racers (new and experienced), all Zwift Clubs, all genders and ages. Whether you’re a sprinter, a climber or a diesel – we think you should always be able to contribute to your team. With our well-balanced points structure everyone can contribute so you’ll have to push hard wherever you are in the race!
One of the most exciting things about the DIRT Racing Series is that its shaped by the riders feedback more than any other series. Every series so far (including the very first trial) has garnered feedback from what is now hundreds of racers and team captains – and it is this feedback that continues to set the direction. It’s still got growing to do, but it will be THE Team Racing series shaped by the racers themselves!”
DRS Basics
Here are some key things we spotted that make the DIRT Racing Series special:
Split categories (A+, A, B+, B-, C+, C- & D) so the competition is tighter
Team racing: open to teams of up to 8 riders (no rider minimum), best 4 riders per stage contribute their points to the team
Team DIRT Racing shared additional details about their oncoming season:
“Something exciting for Series 3 is the trial of some new race-up rules. We’ve set thresholds for ZwiftPower Race Ranking as well as the normal power metrics that mean approximately the top 50-150 racers in each half category will need to race up one half category. We think this is about 1-2% of all racers in a category, and we believe that by making the top 1-2% race up we’ll stretch the most talented racers and make the categories more competitive for all.
Lastly, there is a fantastic Discord Captain’s community with currently nearly 250 Team Captains part of what has been some fantastic fun and respectful chat between the Race Control team and the captains themselves. For the Race Control team, it’s one of the most rewarding parts of running the DIRT Racing Series.”
Series Schedule
The 5-stage series is held on Tuesdays in four different time slots:
Atlantic US: 05:45 ET / 10:45 UTC
EMEA C: 19:15 CET / 18:15 UTC
EMEA W: 19:15 GMT / 19:15 UTC
US W: 18:30 PST / 02:30 UTC (+1 day)
The series begins with an individual time trial but also features three points races and a team time trial:
