This season especially, a lot of the athletes I coach have turned to Zwift to get their racing fix. More often than not they will start off saying something like, “Well there aren’t any tactics are there? It’s just a time trial with a sprint at the end right?” That is exactly what I thought when I started poking around the early racing scene on Zwift in 2016. Right out of the starting pen I was on the back foot, clamoring for a draft that didn’t seem to be there and desperately trying to stay at the front of the group holding 5-6 w/kg. There was no relief – at least none that I could find. That first foray ended quickly!

The following indoor season, I came back to Zwift racing. I figured out the requisite “hard start” and saved myself a lot of agony moving up the pack but I still didn’t really get it. I thought that to stay in the action, I needed to be in the top 5-10 riders like in real life (IRL) road races. I would ride hard the whole way to ensure that and then a bit harder on the climbs to try to break free.

It was great training but I wasn’t racking up any results. I’m sure I would have learned more but after that my road career started picking up speed. I began spending winters in Arizona instead of on the trainer, so Zwift racing faded into the background.

Into the Deep End

In 2020, Zwift racing roared back to the forefront. The Echelon Series stage races in May and June were a big opportunity to race against our usual professional competition and some top e-sport teams and gain bright exposure in a season of static.

I read all I could about how to actually compete on the platform and watched big races regularly on Zwift Community Live. As a team, we did practice races and gradually the tactical nuances came into focus. I started to understand the timing of attacks and response and how to dial in the minimum effective power to stay in the draft. Looking back, I still barely knew what I was doing and good legs saved me from more embarrassment as the real Zwift racers surgically attacked the courses. But I kept watching and racing and gradually came up to speed.

Pinch Points and the Psychological Battle

No one would argue that racing on Zwift is the same as racing on the road. You can tell instantly the difference between an IRL race power file and a Zwift race file. The drafting dynamics make the difference.

On Zwift, it is harder to ride in the draft – on the flat at 45kph you might need to do 200-225w on the road but 250-275w on Zwift. It is also is much harder to ride away solo, since the power of the pack is bizarrely cumulative and 50 riders all pedaling at 250w will likely keep pace with an attacker doing 350w. That changes everything from start to finish, promoting a defensive grind rather than the start/stop frenzy you see on the road.

Still, you can attack and break a race apart. There are actually similarities to IRL racing when it comes to making that happen. There are pinch points: climbs, turns, dirt sections, and undulations where things happen in Zwift just as they do on the road. Their importance is magnified in the Zwift peloton. If you hit certain points in certain ways and employ the strength of your team you can gain a big advantage. You can also get spat out rapidly here and left for dead if you aren’t anticipating the movements! If you want to make an impact, studying these parts of the course is paramount.

Additionally, there is a psychological similarity between attacking on the road and on your laptop. An experienced pack knows the pinch points and sometimes you still can’t find daylight with smart riders on alert. One of the only backup strategies for a rider like me (lacking a decisive 10-30s attacking punch) is to play on the mental and physical fatigue of the field.

As a time trial type rider who can manage sustained pressure, I am usually better in the hardest parts of a race. Still, even a tired group of 20 drenched in lactic acid can bring back an attack from me or almost anyone on the flat if they want to. So I have found it is important to find the moments that they don’t want to. If it has been full-on for 45 minutes, teams have lost riders, and sprinters are doubting themselves – it is a good time to go. It’s no guarantee for success, but it’s probably the tactical similarity to road racing that makes me enjoy Zwift racing the most.

Figuring it out with Finesse-Wahoo

When I came to Finesse-Wahoo this fall they already had a reputation as an aggressive, entertaining team willing to try multiple moves in any race. In my first real event with the team, we made the popular and usually sprinter-friendly Austin Driveway hard from the start and ended up winning out of a breakaway. That worked for me.

I have started to find my best role in forcing moves away and backing up the attacks of my teammates with sustained pressure. That worked perfectly in week 5 of the Zwift Racing League race on the NYC Everything Bagel course. I pushed hard up the last KOM with around 10km to go and we escaped with 3 riders out of 6. I stayed on the gas, pressed our numbers advantage, and the guys crushed it at the end for a 1, 2, 5 result.

We are all still learning, though. This game moves too fast and has too many variables for anyone to gain complete mastery. This is poker, not chess – the human element can cast your “20-moves in advance” strategy into shambles at any moment.

Unfortunately, that was the case in our latest ZRL outing in France in week 7. We had an ambitious plan based on careful analysis but we outmaneuvered ourselves into our first scratch race loss of the ZRL season. Tactics rely on fluidity and communication just as they do on the road. It stung but I learned more about my own racing and the game itself than I have all season.

Next time we will be that much smoother in our execution. It’s all going in the bank and I’m hoping I can make the right moves at the right time in the UCI Esports World Championships on December 9th.

Have you ever seen the best sprinters in the game and wondered “How many watts can they really put out?” Here at No Breakaways we have, so we figured we should have a competition to find out!

We pulled together 5 of the biggest wattage Zwifters in the game to see who could throw down the biggest numbers:

• Holden Comeau – 2019 USA National Champion
• James Phillips – 2019 British National Champion
• Joel Carroll – Multiple TX State Champ
• Scott Gleason – Top 50 Ranked Zwifter
• Chris Ostberg – Iceman and Berry Robaix AG Winner

Check out the video:

We had a lot of fun making the video and hope you enjoy it. Ride On!

Being new to Zwift, I have undertaken long rides in the quest to tick off the different route badges but had not participated in one of the exclusive “one day only” Zwift Fondo events. So when I saw them promoted on Zwift Insider, I signed up!

I debated which of three distances to partake in before finally settling on the shortest, the “Bambino” – I say shortest, it’s still over 50km so a substantial ride by anyone’s standard. But not quite the 90km epic of the Gran Fondo. 

Race Prep

Sunday morning, “Race Day” – I had ensured I had a good solid breakfast and had my bottles of water lined up on the small camping table next to my bike, used to hold all required items for a session of Zwifting such as the Bluetooth speaker, sweets (a mid-ride necessity when energy is low), and a battery charger for my iPhone, which is used with the companion app.

I was sure to arrive early to the start line to bag a position at the front. I had read that with mass participation events, if you are not near the front of the race from the start, it is virtually impossible to get into the front group. So I sat, patiently warming up on the trainer for 20 minutes. Editor’s note: there are other ways to save your spot at the front of the start pens…

The Fun(do) Begins

As the blue clock ticked to 0, there was the mass explosion! I was out of the blocks pushing 350 watts as the pack started to swarm and form.  The number of people was easily the most I had experienced, with the counter showing 1200+. 

I couldn’t quite see the last digits and despite having my iPad connected to a large 32” TV, I’ve noticed that my eyesight seems to be failing me as I struggle to make out the small text.  (Perhaps it’s not my eyesight but in the “heat of the battle” it is difficult to focus on all of the data that Zwift displays.)  My eyes dart from the power stats to my heart rate then across to my RPM.  I’m always conscious of trying to put the right amount of power in without exerting myself too much, to avoid the inevitable “blow-up” that occurs when we think we can hold watts that are above our capability.

The first few minutes of the race were frantic, but it appeared I made the top group, which was huge.  Easily 100 riders and the pace wasn’t slowing.  We weaved our way around Watopia for ~10 minutes, before this big pack suddenly split apart.  What I hadn’t realised is that the entire Fondo started together and rode en masse for the first several kilometres, before suddenly and without warning we turned left and the rest of the bunch went right.  Each distance had their own route around Watopia.  This top group instantly divided into 3, with our group being probably only 20 riders.  This was good, as now I could see who I was riding with. At one point I was 1st out of 1200 and was desperately trying to capture this image with my IPhone for posterity… but fumbled and failed.

Gapped

20 minutes into the ride, the pace was still high and we approached the Hilly KOM.  I knew this to be a short but tough, punchy climb, so I got to the front of the group and tried to keep my nose ahead.  We passed the banner in 1:56, which is probably one of the fastest climbs I’ve had.  Despite this, I was near the back of the group and as we descended, the pace upped and I started separating from the group and sprinted to get back on. But I couldn’t get back in touch. 

Sprinting downhill, the bunch was pulling away and there was nothing I could do.  My legs spinning like windmills in a hurricane, I was having no impact. I could feel the race slipping away after only 20 minutes.  One lapse of concentration, one bit of bad positioning and I was shelled from the front group. 

Working Together

The descent took us down some rolling hills and I could see the bunch turn right in the distance as they ascended.  More riders were shelled.  Fortunately, as I raced to catch on, two of these fellow riders latched onto my wheel and we had a mini bunch. (I say mini bunch, it was just 3 of us!)

In desperation, the 3 of us grouped up and trying to save the race. I typed, “Let’s do a Team Time Trial” – naively thinking that if we could form up and do 1-minute turns on the front at a high wattage, we would make some gains into the group ahead. Who was I kidding, our attempt at the Team Time Trial lasted only 1 turn each and the gap to the front group grew from 10 seconds to 40 seconds. 

By this time we were approaching the junction where you go right into the Jungle.  Our little trio was looking around for help and coming up quickly behind us was a rider called “Berchtold” – his numbers were impressive,  5 watts per kilo and by the looks of it, he had bagged the previous KOM jersey.  He was flying, so we desperately tried engaging him on chat, willing him to form part of our group.  He certainly was flying, he flew right by us at 5.2 watts.  So, the trio pushed on until the Jungle. 

Suddenly our trio was down to a duo.  At this stage, I knew the game was up, the front group was several minutes ahead and there was a rear group 1 minute back, with one rider bridging the gap –  we were in “no man’s land” and so we sat up.  It gave me a rare opportunity in race to engage in a bit of chat with my follow rider.  A Dutch rider, Michael. 

The rider bridging caught us as we sat up and like the previous rider, blew right on by.  I asked Michael if he wanted to chase his “fellow countryman,” only for him to point out that the rider was French.  Again, from the distance of my bike to the TV, I can only make out blues, whites, and red and could not see the difference in the flag as I only see the colours. I apologised to Michael for my oversight and our attention was quickly on the fast-approaching group from behind.

The Group Grows

Now, the danger when waiting for a group to come is that if you are not careful, the group can swamp you and you are left trailing in their slipstream.  Careful to avoid this, we upped our speed and as the first rider came, full sprint mode was engaged to ensure I caught the draft.  

As we exited the Jungle, the pace upped and I was at the back of the group – panic and a sense of déjà vu entailed but armed with the feather powerup I lightened my load for a few seconds and within a few pedal turns, was at the front of the group.  

We sat in the group and meandered our way through the Italian Villas and out towards the Volcano, the scene of the final showdown on the Volcano climb. 

Volcano Finish

The Volcano climb is actually quite a tricky one.  It’s short but the sections where it levels off and descends give riders chance to bridge across any gains that you have made by attacking too soon, so the tactic was to pick your moment to attack.  My tactic was to get to the front of the group to raise the pace, to ensure that any of the weaker climbers were distanced.  This worked as I could see individual time gaps start to appear on the riders near me. I waited to attack until just after the wooden bridge, moving to the front and grinding.  I got a message from my fellow ride Michael in capitals “GO GO GO!” so I took it that I was doing well. So I kept pushing!

No one was with me, I could see the finish line but could see one rider bridging my gap.  The finish was approaching, and I was 11th. Right about now, the feather powerup that I had used earlier would have been handy to have, but having already used it already, I was down to sheer effort.  Just as the hill crested and the finish line appeared, I was passed. 

I trundled over the line in 12th position*. 1 hr 23 mins 27 seconds.

For my first foray into a Fondo, it was a positive experience, but I was left wondering what might have been had I made the front group.  But the beauty of Zwift is there is always and another race… and so there was, the Zwift Hill Climb, the following day! More on that later…

*Note my position was upgraded on ZwiftPower to 11th.        

Your Comments

Did you participate in November’s Zwift Fondo? If so, how did it go? Share below!