All About Next Week’s TNP Summer Championship Races
Club TNP (Team Not Pogi) ran a successful private Spring Championships, so they’re following up with a public summer version next Monday and Tuesday (July 28-29) at 6:45pm UTC/2:45pm ET/11:45am PT. It’s a unique race setup, with events on back-to-back days and separate competitions for GC, sprint, and KOM. Read on for details!
Livestream
The race will be livestreamed on the popular Inside Cycling World (youtube.com/@insidecyclingworld) channel, which boasts over 30k subscribers.
Stage Details
Stage 1 – July 28
Route: The Muckle Yin, with custom finish at 33.7km (Sgurr North KOM arch)
Sprint segments: Champion’s Sprint, Breakaway Brae, The Clyde Kicker
GC, Green (Sprint), and Polka Dot (KOM) winners based on combined time
Results
Race results will be posted on the TNP Race Results Discord page (discord.gg/VeZw2jgk2m) and their Club page in Zwift Companion.
About TNP (Team Not Pogi)
The TNP club was established by Oliver Moore from his YouTube channel (youtube.com/@notpogi). They are a small but inclusive team looking to grow and attract riders to a welcoming, friendly community that encourages progression from bottom to top.
Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift 2025: In-Game Events, a Custom Zwift Ride, and More
The women’s top teams will soon be racing the fourth edition of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift! Launching July 26 and ending August 3, the 9-stage race begins in Vannes and travels coast-to-coast to finish in Châtel.
This edition of TdFFaZ features a total of 17,240 meters of climbing across 1,165 kilometers, beating the previous records for both elevation and distance. Stage highlights include stage 8, which boasts a total of 3,490 meters of elevation and the hors catégorieCol de la Madeleine. See route details >
Table of Contents
Zwift has spun up a host of events to immerse us in the excitement of this year’s Tour. You’ll even see #watchthefemmes-themed road art and robopacers in game! Read below for complete event details and more…
Club Series
New this year, Zwift is partnering with eight community clubs to host a Watch the Femmes Club Series:
QueenBee Ladies
Zwift Insider
Her Spirit
FemmeCycle Collab
Fietsvrouwen
Rocacorba Collective
Female Cycling Force
The Female Cycling Tribe
Each club is hosting events for one day during the Tour on a route of their choosing. Finishing one of these rides unlocks a unique Club version of this year’s Watch the Femmes kit:
Zwift Insider is hosting the first set of events this weekend – come out and join us on France’s Three Musketeers route!
L’Etape du Tour de France is one of the biggest amateur gran fondos in the world, with over 16,000 registrants. Zwift is an official partner of L’Etape du Tour de France, and this year, they’re hosting Virtual L’Etape du Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift events hourly from August 2 to 9.
These events celebrate the legendary climbs of the Tour by putting riders on the Power to the Portal route with a finish up the epic Col de la Madeleine (14.3km, 1118m elevation), the same climb this year’s IRL L’Etape event ascends. Finishers unlock the new 2025 Watch the Femmes kit.
Zwift’s Workout of the Week series will be Watch the Femmes-themed from July 28-August 24 with four weeks of workouts featuring different pro women:
Puck Pieterse: Vo2 Surges
Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney: Classics Workout
Evita Muzic: VO2 Max – 3×4 Tabata Style
Zoe Backstedt: Sevens
Complete a Workout of the Week to earn 20% off the new Zwift H20 Headphones and unlock them in-game! You’ll also unlock the new 2025 Watch the Femmes kit. (Completing the WoW on your own as an on-demand workout will not unlock the headphones, discount code, or kit.)
These “second screen” rides are held during the live race broadcasts, so you can ride with fellow Zwifters while watching the race on another screen. Chat about race highlights with Zwift friends in real time, in rides led by pros and ambassadors and women’s cycling fans!
Not sure how to Watch the Femmes from your country? See this page.
These are open-paced 60-minute events, and each stage is held on a different route. Finishers unlock the new 2025 Watch the Femmes Kit.
Want to support the Femmes all year ’round? For the first time ever, Zwift is selling a limited number of Watch the Femmes Special Edition Zwift Ride frames. Only 124 frames were created! These frames feature a custom paintjob, adjustable “bear claw” cranks, and include a Watch the Femmes sticker pack.
Zwift has made big moves into the fitness tracking space in the last few months. To summarize:
Fitness Tracking was added to the Companion app, giving you a current training score and status, among other things (read more)
You can now automatically sync outdoor rides recorded on a Wahoo or Garmin head unit into Zwift’s ecosystem, so those workouts are factored into your Zwift training score/status (read more) (Note: Hammerhead support is coming very soon.)
A recent Companion update lets you see your historic fitness trend, giving you a historic view of your progression (read more)
There’s still work to be done in order for fitness tracking to work well for multi-sport athletes. But if your primary training is done on the bike, Zwift now tracks your fitness quite nicely using trusted, industry-standard, TSS-based metrics.
But it only works if you get all your bike rides (indoors and out) into Zwift’s fitness tracking system!
Recently, I ran into an issue when I found myself on a mountain bike ride without a head unit. (Most cyclists will know this is a rare but not unprecedented situation. It’s easy to find yourself on a bike without a head unit, perhaps when renting or borrowing a bike, or starting a ride only to realize your head unit battery is dead.)
No big deal: I opened the Strava app on my phone and recorded the ride. (Because if it’s not on Strava, it didn’t happen, right?) But when I finished the activity, it didn’t pop over to Zwift. Because Zwift’s fitness tracking only pulls in outdoor rides from Garmin and Wahoo – not Strava.
Why Not Strava?
Zwift has never said why they don’t support imports from Strava, but my hunch is it has to do with Strava’s API Agreement, which is so far-reaching that following it to the letter would mean you couldn’t do much of anything with the data pulled from their API. A few examples:
“You may not use the Strava API Materials in any manner that is competitive to Strava…”
“You may not use the Strava API Materials (including Strava Data), directly or indirectly, for any model training related to artificial intelligence, machine learning or similar applications.”
“You may not process or disclose Strava Data, even publically viewable Strava Data, including in an aggregated or de-identified manner, for the purposes of, including but not limited to, analytics, analyses, customer insights generation, and products or services improvements. Strava Data may not be combined with other customer data, for these or any other purposes.”
How could I get my ride from Strava to Zwift, so my Zwift training metrics would be accurate? I poked around and figured it out, and now I’m sharing the details with you. (This, incidentally, is how many articles on Zwift Insider come about.)
2 Steps: Download and Upload
As it turns out, the process is fairly straightforward – although not as simple as I’d like it to be.
The first step is to download your ride’s .fit file from Strava. You can’t do this from within the Strava app on your phone – you have to pull up the Strava website in a web browser, and go to your activity’s detail page. Use the 3-dot menu at the bottom-left to select “Export Original”, and you’ll download the .fit file:
The second step is to upload that .fit file into your Garmin or Wahoo account.
Uploading to Wahoo
The only way to upload a .fit file to Wahoo is via the Wahoo app (note: this is different from Wahoo’s ELEMNT app.) In order to do this, you’ll need to have the .fit file saved on your phone (I did this by emailing myself the .fit file I had downloaded from Strava, and saving it to my phone).
Here are the simple steps to upload your ride to Wahoo via their app:
Open the app and tap “History” at the bottom
Tap the + sign at the top left
Select “Upload”, tap the upload button, and select the file saved on your phone
The only way to upload a .fit file to Garmin Connect is via a web browser (not the Garmin app). To do this, sign in to connect.garmin.com then click the cloud at the top-right and select “Import Data”. Choose your .fit file, and you’re all set!
I should add that you don’t actually need to own or use a Garmin or Wahoo head unit in order to use their apps and import .fit files from Strava as outlined above. For the purpose of this post, the Wahoo app and Garmin Connect web interface are simply tools to get your Strava activity into Zwift.
These apps from Garmin and Wahoo are free, you just need to create an account to use them.
That’s all, folks!
Once you’ve uploaded your .fit file to Wahoo or Garmin (and soon Hammerhead), it will pop into Zwift’s ecosystem and appear in your Fitness Tracker in the Companion app, as long as you’ve properly connected your Zwift account to Wahoo or Garmin (instructions here).
The latest game release brought long-awaited data fields to Zwift’s HUD and a new ride stats panel. In this week’s top video, learn everything you need to know about the new features.
We’ve also selected videos about replacing a KICKR Bike with a Zwift RIDE, a guide to Zwift racing, a brutal Zwift race, and a review of the Elite Avanti.
ZWIFT Update 1.93: NEW Pedal Balance Data // More HUD Options
Learn all about version 1.93 in Shane Miller, GPLama’s latest video.
Wahoo Let Me Down (Again)… Meet My New Zwift Ride! Is it an upgrade?
After poor luck with the Wahoo KICKR Bike, Ride n Thrive tries the Zwift Ride. How does it compare to the KICKR Bike?
Complete Guide to Zwift Racing: Every League & Format Explained
Looking to start/improve your racing on Zwift? Chad Rides gives an in-depth guide to Zwift Racing.
I Entered the Wrong Racing Category. On Purpose.
Road to A tackles the first stage of the SISU Tour. How long can he hold on to the front group?
Elite Avanti In-Depth Review [2025] // Better Than Wahoo?
Hear from me, Oli Chi of ZRace Central, as I share an in-depth review of the mid-range Elite Avanti smart trainer. How does it compare to Wahoo?
Got a Great Zwift Video?
Share the link below and we may feature it in an upcoming post!
The Tour de France is well underway, and Zwift has been holding a variety of events to celebrate. The most popular events this weekend are the Virtual L’Etape fondos, but we’ve also got a few more tantalizing picks listed below. Enjoy!
The 33rd annual IRL L’Etape du Tour happens this Sunday as riders take on the queen stage (18) of the Tour de France 5 days before the pros.
Zwift is hosting a virtual version of the ride – which is much shorter than the 131km IRL stage! The Zwift events are mass-start, fondo-style rides held every two hours on the Zwift Bambino Fondo route (53.3 kilometers with 398 meters of climbing).
Women’s Mini Races (3 races in an hour) happen each Sunday, but the ULTIMATE Mini Races are a bigger monthly event. If you’re looking for some punchy women-only racing, check out these events.
The 7-stage SISU Tour is well underway, and lots of racers are taking part in the competitive series. This weekend is stage 5, and it’s a tough one: France’s new Ven-10 route, which takes you up the first half of the Mount Ventoux KOM for 815m of climbing spread over just 10km!
One in eight women will experience invasive breast cancer in their lifetime, so the Cycle Nation team is holding a massive 500km ride on the flat Tempus Fugit route to help the South African I Love Boobies charity (donate here).
The event linked below is the 100km kickoff for the ride. Join the event, or find the group still riding after the event on Tempus Fugit and join for as long as you’d like!
Lots of riders are jumping into the Tour Fever-themed Workout of the Week because completing the event unlocks the in-game Zwift headphones, plus a 20% discount code to buy the IRL version from H2O Audio.
This week’s workout is the “Pre-Race Warm-up.” It’s only 20 minutes long, and ramps up your power intervals to get your legs and body ready for a race effort.
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!
The first week of August will see the Aussie Hump Day Ride Team (AHDR) kicking off their second annual Winter Tours. Aimed at Aussies with a 7:15pm AEST timeslot (that’s 5:15am EDT and 9:15am UTC), there are Women’s Tour events on four consecutive Monday nights and Open Tour events on four consecutive Tuesday nights.
The Tours group riders using Zwift pace categories (A-D), and each grade gets to race its own race. With General, Sprint, and KQOM Classifications, there’s something for everyone! Read on for details…
Route Descriptions
The Tours feature four iconic Zwift race courses in Neokyo, France, Austria, and Scotland.
The first week kicks off in Neokyo and the All Nighter course. 24km of racing with an elevation of 241m should see racers battle it out early over the opening 4 sprints before racers hit the Rooftop KOM, which will be the place for any climbers to launch their attacks to go for the win!
The following week, the Tour heads to France and the Hell of the North course for a 19.8km race with 4 sprints before racers contest an uphill finish up the Petite KOM.
Week 3 sees the Tour head to Austria’s Innsbruckring course for 3 laps of the Legsnapper raced over 27km. The Legsnapper will be the place for anyone to launch their attacks. With KOM points on the climb followed shortly after by the Sprint prime, this course will see climbers having a dig at both the KOM and the Sprint points.
The last week is one for the all-rounders with Scotland’s Muckle Yin providing plenty of opportunities to grab those KOM and Sprint points as you race for glory.
The Zwifty socials were all abuzz last week when Mathieu van der Poel donned Zwift-branded headphones for his TdF TT warmup. Turns out, these headphones are a collab with H2O Audio, headquartered in San Diego, California just a bit south of Zwift’s Long Beach headquarters.
Mathieu’s headphones basically match the in-game headphones which were originally available via the Big Spin 2024 prize spinner:
Unlock In-Game Headphones
The in-game headphones are available through some time in August as a reward for completing one of the Tour Fever or Watch the Femmes Workout of the Week events. You’ll also receive a 20% discount code when you complete the workout!
Wireless, Bluetooth, with active noise cancellation and a built-in microphone for seamless calls (and Discord!)
100% sweatproof design with removable and washable silicone ear cushions (Patent Pending)
Powered by custom-developed 45mm drivers that deliver rich sound and deep bass
50h battery life
To be clear: this isn’t Zwift getting into a new line of hardware. These are simply a Zwift-branded version of H20 Audio’s flagship “RIPT Ultra” headphones.
The most popular response to over-the-ear (OTE) headphones + Zwift seems to be “it will be too sweaty.” (It reminds me of the concerns people have with Zwift and virtual reality glasses. The concepts have merit – virtual reality, high-quality audio – but there are potential sweaty downsides…)
Riders are concerned about possibly damaging their expensive headphones or experiencing discomfort caused by sweat accumulating around the ears. Both valid concerns, which I share as well.
H2O Audio claims this a 100% sweatproof design, and I’ve got a set arriving today to test. I’ll be wearing them in some very sweaty Zwift heat training sessions in the coming days… for science! Watch this space for a full review.
Questions or Comments?
These headphones are eliciting some very polarized opinions. Most Zwifters seem to be saying either, “Take my money!” or “Way too sweaty!”
What about you? Thoughts on this product? Share below…
