Originally titled “Real Cyclists Use Zwift,” Beth Bradford’s video pokes fun at Peloton’s viral holiday advertisement. From her elation at the reveal of “My bike!” to her grateful “Thank you” at the end, she nails what it might look like for a cyclist to get the gift of Zwift. No giant windows here!
This page includes route maps and basic details for all Zwift routes on the Crit City course. For additional route details, click the corresponding link to be taken to that route’s detail page.
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Downtown Dolphin is one of two routes on the racing-focused Crit City map released in the December 6, 2019 update. Featuring dead turns, an uphill prime section, a lap counter, and sharp corners with sightlines on city streets, this route’s layout nicely replicates the visuals of a downtown crit.
Length: 2 km (1.2 miles)
Elevation: 17 m (56‘)
Lead-In: 0 km ( miles)
Map: Crit City
Restriction: Event Only
Achievement Badge: none
Downtown Dolphin is one of two routes on the racing-focused Crit City map released in the December 6, 2019 update. Featuring dead turns, an uphill prime section, a lap counter, and sharp corners with sightlines on city streets, this route’s layout nicely replicates the visuals of a downtown crit.
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The Bell Lap is one of two routes on the racing-focused Crit City map released in the December 6, 2019 update. Featuring dead turns, a rolling uphill section, a lap counter, and sharp corners with sightlines on city streets, this route’s layout nicely replicates the visuals of a downtown crit.
Length: 2 km (1.2 miles)
Elevation: 17 m (56‘)
Lead-In: 0 km ( miles)
Map: Crit City
Restriction: Event Only
Achievement Badge: none
The Bell Lap is one of two routes on the racing-focused Crit City map released in the December 6, 2019 update. Featuring dead turns, a rolling uphill section, a lap counter, and sharp corners with sightlines on city streets, this route’s layout nicely replicates the visuals of a downtown crit.
Looking for route details of other Zwift worlds? Jump to:
It’s going to be a busy day in Watopia this Saturday as thousands of riders don their World Bicycle Relief kits, pull their Buffalo bikes out of the garage, and put in miles to raise support for WBR!
This is the 5th year Zwifters have pedaled to support WBR, and our community has already helped raise over $500,000 since 2015.
This year’s WBR day is being spearheaded by Team 3R, a large Zwift team that rides in support of WBR.
While Zwift isn’t giving a “Zwiftathon” mileage challenge to the community like we’ve had in years past, riders are being encouraged to put in big miles as they work with WBR and Team 3R to help meet two of the goals for this one-day event:
Events kick off Friday at 11:45PM Pacific time when Chris Hoppo, Kurt Pauwels, and Marko Baloh begin their attempt to break 1000km in 24 hours. Join them and lend a helpful draft! (You can find them on Tempus Fugit throughout the day and join their pack whenever you’d like.)
After that, 3R is hosting an hour-long social ride every two hours on the Watopia’s Waistband route.
The purpose of this event is to bring awareness and raise funds for WBR. You can easily register to fundraise on WBR’s event page. You’ll get your own fundraising URL which you can share with family and friends via social media.
You can just send the link out and ask for donations, but traditionally, Zwifters give themselves a big mileage challenge for the day and ask others to donate to support the effort and WBR’s cause.
Here’s the coolest part–your fundraising efforts will be doubled, since Trek is contributing up to $40,000USD in matching funds for donations made to this campaign!
The top 10 fundraisers over $500USD will have the opportunity to win a variety of incredible prizes!
Cuore of Switzerland is the exclusive apparel supplier for the 5th Annual Ride On for WBR 2019. Proceeds of the kit benefit WBR. Order by 12/31!
Purchase the limited edition kit here >
World Bicycle Relief mobilizes people through The Power of Bicycles. They envision a world where distance is no longer a barrier to independence and livelihood.
Learn more at worldbicyclerelief.org >
After my first Crit City race on Monday, I was anxious to try out the course in the other direction. (The “Bell Lap” route from Monday traverses Crit City in the counter-clockwise direction, while the “Downtown Dolphin” route goes clockwise.)
So last night I found a Downtown Dolphin race that fit my schedule: 5:45AM, 8 laps. I woke up at 4:45, did my usual pre-race prep of 100mg of caffeine via a piece of caffeine gum and a little help via some PR lotion on the legs. Then it was off to Fuego Flats for a warmup.
I hit the pens with 5 minutes to spare, and noticed I had a few DIRT teammates in this race. Fun stuff! Maybe we’d be able to implement some team tactics?
This would be my first Downtown Dolphin race, but I had the route layout memorized after doing so many Crit City-related Zwift Insider posts. I knew the key attack point would be the prime section, where the road turns to brick and we ride through a couple of 90-degree uphill turns to the banner.
I also knew the finish would be tricky, with the downhill rolling twisties leading into a hairpin before the straightaway. I wasn’t sure how to best time that final effort, so I figured I would do a little research doing the race.
Like Monday’s race, I found the start to be a little tamer than the typical Zwift race. 90 seconds at 348 watts got us through the first prime banner before things settled down. That’ll wake the legs up, but it’s not exactly an explosion out of the gates.
Our starting group of 30 was quickly whittled down to 18 before two laps were done.
The pack settled into a rhythm that was even more pronounced than that of the Bell Lap. Because while the Bell Lap has two sections where power noticeably ramps up, Downtown Dolphin really has only one: the prime segment.
So we would hammer up the prime climb (~15 seconds), feather powerups flying every which way, then settle back into threshold pace as we passed Zwift HQ and descended the twisty rollers. Our lap times were consistently in the 2:34-2:36 range, just like Monday’s Bell Lap race.
I tried a cheeky attack over the top of the prime on the 5th lap, and got off the front a bit–but it was just too hard to get away from the pack.
Mental note: get on Discord with teammates for one of these races, and try a group attack where we can work together to stay away.
The start/finish banner hands out powerups every lap, but the prime banner does not. My luck was bad today, though: three laps in a row all I got was a 10XP bonus. $@#%!
As we neared the end, I had a few riders marked who seemed especially strong. Two South Koreans who had been near the front most of the time (Woo and T.aero), a guy decked out in virtual Rapha kit (Carr), and another wearing the distinctive 3R kit (Shoebridge).
The watts revved up a bit as we began the final lap, and the Zwift gods smiled upon me with an aero powerup. Finally! Things really broke loose up the final prime climb when our Rapha rider attacked hard (I saw his avatar sprinting, which is saying something nowadays). He got a good gap on the group, but the high sustained effort meant I didn’t have the lungs to chase him, so I stayed on the wheel of a certain “H.ugh Jass” and hoped ol’ Hugh would be hammering hard enough for me to catch the break.
Down the twisties all hell broke loose: DIRT teammate Ridings flew past me with an aero helmet, and it was carnage left and right and riders battled in the final seconds.
Me, I kept hammering to hold a decent pack position, then deployed my aero powerup just a few seconds before the hairpin turn. (My goal was to time it so it would last until just before the finish, and on previous laps I had noted that the final straightaway was about 10 seconds long.)
I upshifted, got out of the saddle and into the drops, and hammered for the final 15 seconds. A glance at the screen saw me passing a few riders, which was just the encouragement I needed to keep going!
I crossed the line in 3rd place. On the podium! But also… not a win. My teammate Brian Roberts took 1st, so congrats to him.
The final lap I averaged 388 watts, and our lap time was about 6 seconds faster than all the previous laps.
The similarities between this race and Monday’s Bell Lap effort are startling:
Comparing the power graphs of the two races, you can see that the Downtown Dolphin route produced a more pronounced short interval (up the prime section) on each lap, while the Bell Lap was a bit more of an even effort. This makes sense, given the differences in route profiles between the two.
See it all on Strava >
See results on ZwiftPower >
There’s a weird issue with the Zwift Insider verified Strava segment (and all full lap segments) for this route. Because the roads are so close together at the bottom of the twisties and on the sprint straightaway, Strava is leaving out the last few hundred meters of the course when it calculates lap times.
I’ve filed a bug report with Strava, but I don’t expect anything to come of it.
Debriefing myself on this race effort, I’ve come away with the following:
Have you raced Downtown Dolphin yet? What did you think? Share your comments below.
Ross Duncan is a Scotland-based Zwifter who just last month completed a triple vEveresting of Box Hill on Zwift.
You read that right. A triple Everest. That’s riding 8,848 meters (the height of Mt. Everest) three times, while following the Hells 500 vEveresting rules.
Crazy.
But that wasn’t enough. Now Ross has something even more audacious planned: a ride to set three world records at once.
Beginning today at 9:30am GMT, Ross will be attempting to climb 50,000 meters (the elevation required to unlock the Tron bike) in one session!
You read that right. While most Zwifters spend a season or two working to unlock the Tron bike, Ross will be doing it all in one session.
If he is able to complete the ride Ross will have achieved three things no one else has (as far as we know): gaining 50,000 meters of elevation in one ride, unlocking the Tron bike in one ride, and completing five vEverests in one ride.
Ross will be using Watopia’s Epic KOM climb for this attempt, and he has calculated that 107.5 repeats will be required to reach 50,000 meters.
The 2018 Tour de France’s overall elevation gain was 44,465 meters.
Ross calculates that ~55,000 calories will be burned in this attempt, since it took him 28,000 calories to reach 27,000 meters.
He plans to finish the ride in 3-4 days, spending 11-15 hours per vEverest.
Ross will be using the Hells 500 eVeresting rules for this ride, so max sleep allowed is 10 hours and his trainer (a first-generation Tacx Neo) will be set to 100% Trainer Difficulty.
Ross will be using the Specialized Tarmac with Zipp 202’s for the climbing portion of his ride.
If all goes according to plan and Ross feels he can continue, his plan is to swing off to the Tempus Fugit route after finishing his 50,000 meters of climbing.
Why? Because, as Ross explains, “The average grand tour in the last 5 years is 3,425.4km. It seems silly given doing more height than a grand tour that I don’t match the average distance – as this could be the only time I may get close. To do extra distance will be about 30 hours. So a grand tour in what, 5 or 6 days?”
Ross will change his bike to the Specialized Venge with Zipp 808 wheels for the final flat portion of his ride. Solid choice, Ross.
Ross will be raising funds for World Bicycle Relief through this ride. (The big WBR day on Zwift is this Saturday, so his timing is perfect!)
Some of Ross’s attempt will be live-streamed on YouTube and Facebook by Damon Bates over at Zwift Multi Streamers, so check that out to see how he’s doing.
You can also follow Ross on Zwift and join him during his ride at any point.
Here’s a fun little hack/tutorial from everyone’s favorite Aussie Lama, Shane Miller. He explains how to create and install a “sprint shifter” using a Makey Makey (and, of course, a cutout photo of Cavendish’s face).
For anyone not familiar with the term, a true sprint shifter is a push-button shifter mounted within reach of your thumb while in the drops, making it easy to shift while sprinting.
Shane doesn’t actually create a sprint shifter here, but instead makes a shortcut button which activates a Zwift powerup (such as the aero helmet) at the push of a button on your handlebars. He does this by wiring the Makey Makey button to emulate pushing the space bar on the keyboard (which is how you activate a powerup in Zwift).
As such, this hack only works for Mac and PC users.
Learn more about Zwift powerups >
Our donut-obsessed friends at DIRT/Indoor Specialist have announced their next Zwift race series beginning this week. Named “The Baker’s Dozen”, this 13-week, points-based series features a different Zwift route every week!
Races are on Wednesday each week, and there are three different time slots so riders can find the slot that best fits their schedule:
See upcoming Baker’s Dozen races on ZwiftHacks >
Race schedule (click for route details):
Races will be scored based on your ZwiftPower finish. Points will descend from 10, 9, 8… to 1 point minimum.
You must have a functional ZwiftPower profile to be counted for race results. Learn how to set up your Zwift profile >
Your best 9 finishes count toward your overall total. Series points can be found under “Leagues” on ZwiftPower.com.
Race categories are the standard breakdown, based on your FTP/weight in kilograms:
Race category starts will be staggered starting with A category, followed by B, C, and D categories at one-minute intervals.
Races will have 4 power-ups enabled with equal odds (25% each): draft, feather, burrito, and ghost!
Follow the Baker’s Dozen Race on Facebook for more new, fun posts, and results!
It was killing me: Crit City had been live for a two days, and I still hadn’t raced it! (Sure, I’d pedaled around a bit, but that was for research so I could write insightful blog posts like this and this.)
You see, I’d fallen prey to some sort of cold/flu bug a couple days before Crit City released. With a sore throat, runny nose, and nagging cough making things generally miserable I took the adult approach and reduced my cycling efforts, knowing that hard rides stress the immune system.
But after a few days I was on the mend, so last night when my local buddy Zane asked if we were doing our regular early-morning Monday Zwift ride, I proposed a Crit City race. Zane was in–let’s rock!
My alarm sounded at 4:45AM: time to wake up, kit up, and warm up. It was too early to eat, and the race was short. So I followed my usual pre-race ritual: a piece of caffeine gum and some PR lotion on the legs. Then it was off to Fuego Flats for a warmup in my ugly Christmas kit.
Get advice for pre-race warmups on Zwift >
With plenty of time before the race began, I ramped up my effort slowly, letting my legs wake up after a few days of essentially zero effort. They felt good! I kept my cadence high, put in a few digs to get my heart rate up into the 160s, then it was off to the Crit City start pens.
The start pen was lively, with 40 B’s ready to race the new course. At least several riders were racing it for the first time, as I was. We engaged in the usual banter…
Then the clock hit 0 and it was time to go!
It’s been a long time since I’ve done a short race on Zwift. I typically prefer longer efforts, something in the 75-90 minute range. But this was just 8 laps of Crit City’s Bell Lap route, which I knew took around two and half minutes per lap. That means the race would only last about 20 minutes–a less miserable FTP test format, perhaps?
I thought the first lap would be pretty brutal, with riders trying to split the group. But it actually wasn’t bad at all! My guess is many of the riders were more interested in sightseeing than racing.
That’s not to say the start was easy! It wasn’t. As one Zwifter recently said:
So it’s like a typical Zwift race, right?
Big effort at the start…
Max wattage in the middle…
And a sprint to finish it off!
The group quickly settled into a rhythm with its efforts–go harder up the twisties, descend the bricks easy, ramp it up again on the false flat leading to the eSports stage, then keep it steady through the start/finish and do it all over again. With the laps being so short (our lap times were consistently 2:34 to 2:36), this simple rhythm kept things mixed up nicely.
After just two laps our group of 40 was whittled down to 27. On the third lap I decided to pop my feather powerup and put in a small attack up the twisties, trolling for others willing to work together and split the pack apart. Unfortunately, nobody went with me! I got a gap of a few seconds on the group, but I knew I couldn’t stay away on my own for 5 laps, so I sat up as we descended the brick section.
My lungs were starting to burn, and coughing was beginning to set in. Was I clearing out this sickness for good, or making it worse? No time for silly thoughts about personal health, Eric. We’re racing!
I defaulted to my standard race strategy: sit in until the end, chasing any substantial attacks, then see what I had left for the final sprint.
When the final lap began I could sense the group surging ahead as the power ramped up. A rider or two immediately popped aero powerups heading into the twisty climb. Like the last lap of many outdoor crits, this was going to be a test of who still had big sprint power after holding on for a fast lap.
I got an aero helmet through the arch into the last lap, so I was happy with that. My legs were burning, and so were my lungs–and as much as I love the drama of a MVDP-style long attack, I didn’t think I had enough to stay away. So I decided to sit in as long as I could, then go hard and use the powerup in the final stretch.
The Bell Lap finish is actually very crit-like: it reminds me of some races I’ve done where you recon the course and make a mental note that I need to be 3rd wheel or better going into this last turn to have a chance at a win.
Unfortunately, I was sitting around 15th going into that turn, because the pack was going all-out and I was gassed. I activated my aero powerup, shifted, and got out of the saddle to hammer to the finish. 8th place out of the finishing pack of 26.
The final lap was 2:27 long, a full 7 seconds faster than any other lap of the race. My average power in that final lap was 364 watts.
Bonus: I hit the highest 20-minute power number I’ve seen in months (309 watts)!
See it all on Strava >
See results on ZwiftPower >
After every race I try to debrief a bit, analyzing how things unfolded and what I could have done better. Being a brand-new route, this was definitely a learning experience for me! Here are a few takeaways I’ll use in future Crit City races:
Crit City is full of corners, which combined with the short lap length really make the course special. But could the corners be improved? I think so.
Most crits feature multiple tight corners, and your ability to position yourself properly and take the best line play a huge role in determining how much speed you’ll carry through the corner (and therefore, how much you’ll have to hammer after the corner to get back up to speed).
I really enjoyed the many corners of Crit City–they gave the course a completely unique feel compared to other Zwift routes.
You know what I’d love to see, though? I’d like to see my avatar (and the pack as a whole) taking more realistic lines in the corners. That means hitting the apex, instead of staying in the outside lane on a left-hand turn.
With no other riders visible on course, it seems silly to leave an entire lane empty.
As already mentioned above, the course’s small climbs, short laps, and abundant powerups help keep the race from turning into the steady threshold effort that some Zwift races can become.
That said, I think a bit of automatic braking into (at least) the two sharpest corners on the course would add another level of crit-like realism to Crit City races.
There are many ways this could be done, and I’ll probably focus an entire post on this topic soon. But just a basic “slow every rider to a maximum speed” on the two sharpest corners would be a great place to start. (Zwift already does this on one turn of the London Classique route, so we know it can be done.)
On the Bell Lap route, slowing the hairpin just after the start banner would really turn the uphill twisties into an attack section, as riders would need to hammer and regain speed after slowing on the corner.
I thoroughly enjoyed my first Crit City race, even though I was a bit under the weather. As a bigger rider (~83kg) with a decent sprint, the course suits me nicely since it doesn’t have long/steep climbs. Plus there are lots of powerups available to allow for strategic attacks, which I enjoy.
Well done, Zwift HQ. I’ll be racing again here very soon!
Have you raced Crit City yet? What are your first impressions?
This is a special episode of the Zwiftcast, dedicated to those who run on the platform. Some of you might ride too, but the focus here is wholly on running.
Mike McCarthy is one of the original Zwift execs–a very early hire to the company when it was first set up.
Known as a talented and successful cyclist, at Zwift Mike concentrated on a senior Business Development role, but recently he has been made VP of Running.
It’s fair to say Running has got off to a slow start on Zwift–so what does this appointment mean for Zwift’s Second Sport?
I hope the wide-ranging interview provides some answers. Hope you enjoy listening.
In Episode 41, Zwift’s very own Matt Noble chats with host Matt Rowe about the latest update, which brings off-road bikes into the game. Eager to get your dirt on? We review the new mountain bike and gravel-specific training plans!
Matt R., Kristin and Greg also cover the usual topics, including tips on how to prepare for your next Zwift Fondo!
The Zwift PowerUp Cycling Podcast features host Matt Rowe (Rowe & King), with regular co-hosts Greg Henderson (Coach Hendy) and Kev Poulton (Powerhouse Cycling). The hosts share tips on how road races can get faster in-game and outdoors.
