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Zwift today, win a TdF stage tomorrow: Michael Matthews takes stage 10

Eric Schlange
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Zwift today, win a TdF stage tomorrow: Michael Matthews takes stage 10

Zwift today, win a TdF stage tomorrow: Michael Matthews takes stage 10

The day before stage 10 of the Tour de France, Michael “Bling” Matthews of team ORICA-BikeExchange tweeted a question about joining a group ride on Zwift, as he hopped on for a ride during his rest day.

(Incidentally, we’ve got a post covering how to join a group ride–it’s easy!)

The next day Matthews got into the break along with two teammates (Luke Durbridge and Daryl Impey) and a few other strong riders including Peter Sagan, Edvald Boassen Hagen and Greg Van Avermaet.

The ORICA-BikeExchange trio worked their team advantage perfectly, placing Matthews in an ideal position for the win. He executed a fast and precise sprint to take the stage.

More and more pros are using Zwift–it was even featured in the TdF newscast. As Zwift HQ’s Charlie Issendorf likes to say: “Zwift now, win later.” (Note: this philosphy also worked for Matthews’ teammate Matt Hayman who won Paris-Roubaix after a month of Zwifting earlier this year.

JZRA season 1 ends

Eric Schlange
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JZRA season 1 ends

JZRA season 1 ends

JZRA (Jones Zwift Racing Association) is the brainchild of brothers Tim and Arnold Jones (read an interview with Tim here). Besides organizing races themselves, they also put together the first-ever ranking scheme for a multiple-race season on Zwift, helping to transition Zwift racing from a single-race focus to a full-season focus, much like outdoor racing.

Beginning with the Zwifta Bianche on January 28, 2016 and ending with yesterday’s ZTR, the race season included 42 different race events such as KISS, ZTR, dZi Summit Races, and more.

View the first season’s results here. Results are available by rider, team, and nation.

Here is a summary Arnold posted at the conclusion of this first season.

Starting by saying a huge well done to our top 3 riders, Frank Garcia (Team X) is our first champion, Quentin Lafaye (PTz/Vision 2) a worthy second place and Mark McIntosh (Team X) was Mr Consistent throughout the season to take 3rd.

Congratulations to Team X who stormed away with the team win with 4 riders in the top 5, and I say a begrudging congratulations to the USA for beating the UK for the top spot in the nations rankings! (but seriously well done USA)

Brief Statistics

3710 individual points were scored, Frank Garcia actually had 9.84% of all the points on offer. The top 5 had 26.7% of all the points.

Most wins: Lafaye: 7, Garcia: 6, Schumm: 4, Louge: 3, Little: 2, Schmidheiny: 2 and Kuhn: 2

Thanks

Huge thanks to Glen Knight for bringing KISS in and Christian Wiedmann for bringing in ZTR and Frederic Jacquemin and co for the dZi Summit Races.

Special shoutout to Alex Callejo who upgraded our spreadsheet to a super-savvy version to help us keep it all under control, without it there would be alot more errors and alot more time required to input the points.

Also James Hodges for Zwift power and his and Glens hard work on the logger And thank you to anyone who showed up to race, we like organising stuff but that’s no good if there’s no one to organise it for.

Please do check out the post in the KISS Zwift Road Race group specifying details of the KISS/ZTR league that will be filling in for us over the next 6 weeks if you need your fix of points.

Next Season

So what of next season? Well it will kick off on 1st September. With hopefully more counting events and an improved ranking system with separated categories in parts, points to all finishers and a more competitive system (we hope). We’ll reveal specifics nearer the time.

Sponsorship?

We’re open to the idea of welcoming a sponsor for the next season and put their names to the rankings. We wouldn’t ask alot in return just to supply some prizes for the overall winners. If you have a product/charity/organisation/company or anything you want to advertise please drop me a private message and we can talk about it.

Race Team

Now this one I’ve mentioned before but we’re hoping there is some interest in riders forming a race team for the JZRA (although it might not be called JZRART as that’s a bit of a mouthful). We’d be open to having any category riders hoping to build a core before the influx of new Zwifters over the winter. Again if this interests you please do send me a private message and we can talk and gauge who’s interested.

Next Event?

In the summer we think we’ll be having a “Race to the Beach” in August, a fun race without points with a different finish line: The beach on ocean Boulevard of course! Very summery, it’s always sunny on Watopia (unlike the UK I must say!)

And the next TTT we will announce now, and it will be in align with an event recent announced by Tam Burns (see Zwift riders) and if you’ve seen his post you may realise now that this means it will be a World Championships Edition! Details will follow and don’t worry there will be opportunities for everyone to race it.

Extra little bit of news

This September Tim is off to university and since he does the bulk of the work with JZRA (in the background!) it’s likely it will be going with him, I’ll still be invlolved and around and most certainly watching intently as the season unfolds but he will become the main man as he should be and I will be taking a slight step back.

Well done you made it to the bottom of the post congratulations! A special well done, I would give you a point or 2 but it’s a bit late! See you at the Race to the Beach 😀 and we look forward to next season!

More reasons to ride indoors this summer

Eric Schlange
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More reasons to ride indoors this summer

More reasons to ride indoors this summer

Yesterday’s post on fair-weather Zwifting generated a lot of feedback, with Zwifters around the world chiming in with their reasons for riding indoors during nice weather. Here are more reasons that weren’t covered in the original post:

  • Riding late at night: Fitting a ride in can be a challenge regardless of the season. Rob M. said “I’m only Zwifting in the summer when it’s too dark to go out, the wife goes to bed at 22:30 and that’s my turbo time. That way I get to see my wife and son, eat dinner after work and train without it impacting my family.”
  • Family time: Lots of Zwifters are stay at home parents with young kids, or simply want to spend as much time with their families as possible. Ayrton S. says “With a 3 month old baby in our house, zwift has been a lifesaver. I sometimes manage 80 – 100 zwift miles a week and a day or two on the weekends to ride outdoors for a few hours of climbs.” Derek B. says “I’m a full time dad and Zwift gives me the flexibility to do the kind of training for my epic outdoor rides (got the Race Across Germany next week – 1,100 km’s non stop as RAAM qualifier)…”
  • Avoiding sunlight: I certainly understand this one, being a fair-skinned redhead who requires sunscreen prior to any summer rides. Darren B. mentioned the benefit of no sun exposure (ie skin cancer), and Warren T. added an interesting note: “Recovering from Lyme disease so it’s a great help to get me riding since I have to avoid direct sunlight with meds I’m on.”
  • Avoiding bad air: Air quality can fluctuate seasonally, especially when it comes to pollen counts. Jon C. says “For me, the reason I’ve used Zwift more lately has been the poor air quality and exceptionally high volumes of pollen this year.”
  • Get riding quickly: I live in a small town with just one stoplight and low traffic, so finding a quiet road is easy. But that’s not the case for everyone! Kevin F. says “I live in a city of ten million and it takes me a good hour of riding to get to a good, relatively safe place to ride a bike at speed. I can do that on weekends, but during the week I just hop on Zwift.” George B. says “I would have to drive hours to get some safe hills to ride. With Zwift I get the option to ride hills everyday.”
  • No zombies: I missed this in my original post, but it’s certainly a valid fear. Randy S. says “Rain or shine, my plan is to Zwift all the time. No need to worry about getting killed by a car, dog, sunburn, bees, zombies, etc.”

Trek/Segafredo Coffee Rides announced

Eric Schlange
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Trek/Segafredo Coffee Rides announced

Trek/Segafredo Coffee Rides announced

Zwift HQ has announced a series of daily coffee rides celebrating the Tour de France. Four rides are happening daily for the duration of Le Tour (July 2-24), with each ride beginning at 6AM in a different time zone: AEST, BST, EDT, and PDT.

Each ride will take advantage of a new Zwift feature–audio playback! Participants can listen in on exclusive behind-the-scenes audio from renowned U.S. cycling commentator Dave Towlealong and the Trek-Segafredopro cycling team.

Additionally, Zwifters who complete any three of these rides will be eligible to win swag from Trek, Segafredo and CycleOps.

trek-segafredo

What’s a Coffee Ride?

Don’t even think about it!

While some cyclists (and Trek themselves) may argue that every ride is a coffee ride, a true “coffee ride” is meant to happen early in the morning in a fasted state, with the rider only consuming coffee prior to the ride.

Riding in a fasted state can help train your body to burn fat for energy, while the coffee’s caffeine stimulates your system and wakes you up.

(Just make sure you drink your coffee black, or with just some heavy whipping cream. You don’t want any sugar or lactose in the mix… and you definitely don’t want to work off a 500 calorie Starbucks Frappuccino.)

Learn more about fasted training from this Trainer Road post >

Fair-weather Zwifting (why everybody’s doing it)

Eric Schlange
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Fair-weather Zwifting (why everybody’s doing it)

Fair-weather Zwifting (why everybody’s doing it)

“Indoor training” was a phrase cyclists used to mutter angrily… something we only did when the weather grew so terrible that it left no other option. But this season, arguably for the first time ever, we are seeing massive numbers of cyclists riding indoors despite beautiful weather outside.

Is it mass hysteria? Some sort of cycling brain flu?

trevor-heather
Trevor and Heather Wurtele Zwifting away

A recent post on the CycleOps blog from professional triatheletes (and Zwifters) Trevor and Heather Wurtele discussed this phenomenon. For Trevor and Heather it comes down to two simple reasons:

  1. Getting shorter rides done more quickly: “For me a 1500 kilojoule ride often takes around 1 hour and 50 minutes outside, but I can finish that off on the trainer in 1.5 hours, and spend all of that time in the aero position.”
  2. High quality interval sessions: “Putting these shorter, hard workouts, on the indoor trainer keeps them very specific. We can control every aspect of the workout with no risk of interruptions.”

These are excellent reasons, and I could add many more to the list. Here are just a few:

  • Easy race access: it may be racing season, but my closest races are a 2-3 hour drive away. Thankfully I can clip in and compete whenever I’d like thanks to Zwift’s busy race schedule–and I don’t have to pay an entry fee!
  • Safety: whether you’re recuperating from an injury or just concerned about the dangers of real-world riding, moving the ride indoors keeps you out of harm’s way.
  • It’s cooler: when the temperature starts to hit 90+ degrees Fahrenheit, the coolness of my garage and a big fan become quite appealing.

Yes, I’m currently doing most of my riding outdoors here in northern California. But I’m still enjoying regular Zwifting sessions as well.

What about you? Are you finding yourself riding indoors in good weather this season? Why?

EDIT: many Zwifters have chimed in with their reasons for riding indoors in good weather. I’ve created a new post with those reasons here.

Zwift course schedule for July

Eric Schlange
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Zwift course schedule for July

Zwift course schedule for July

Here is July’s course schedule. Richmond has moved from Tuesdays to Thursdays, although Zwift’s Jon Mayfield notes: “this may change towards the end of the month if/when the London course is released.”

Keeping our fingers crossed!

schedule-july

Pleasenote: the course changeover happens at 21:00 Los Angeles time (PDT) or UTC-7hrs.

Zwift version 1.0.12817 released

Eric Schlange
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Zwift version 1.0.12817 released

Zwift version 1.0.12817 released

Yesterday Zwift rolled out its latest update. According to lead developer Jon Mayfield:

One notable change is that we’ve added the ability to have pre-recorded audio feeds playing during some of our events, much like a podcast. We’ll be testing the new feature in the coming days during some of our daily rides, and if you get to experience it we welcome feedback you may have on them.

Jon also included this blurb which makes it sound like the new London course will be released towards the end of this month:

Richmond is now on Thursdays in July (note: this may change towards the end of the month if/when the London course is released)

See the official update announcement with a detailed list of changes here >

Canyon Ultimate winner announced

Eric Schlange
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Canyon Ultimate winner announced

Canyon Ultimate winner announced

The winner of Zwift’s Canyon Ultimate giveaway is David Phillips from the UK. Congrats, David!

Watch Hannah Barnes of the Canyon//SRAM Racing Team make the announcement here. According to Hannah 2,690 Zwifters completed the challenge, with an average ride time of 2:50.

Canyon//SRAM Ultimate: quite a machine!
Canyon//SRAM Ultimate: quite a machine!

 

Team dZi offering daily, weekly, monthly rides

Eric Schlange
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Team dZi offering daily, weekly, monthly rides

Team dZi offering daily, weekly, monthly rides

dziTeam dZi is one of the most active, global teams on Zwift in terms of riding, racing, and organizing events for other Zwifters. You likely have seen them riding in their distinctive Nepalese Red, Le Col sponsored kit with “dZi Riding for Nepal” written on it.

I recently chatted with founder Kevin Connors about dZi’s slate of popular group rides–here are the details of each ride:

Weekdays: dZi’s Daily Zwift Igniter (DZI)

Less than 60 minutes long at a moderate pace (2.5 w/kg on flats, 3.0 w/kg on hills) with efforts made to keep dropped riders to a minimum. Usually led by Frederic Jacquemin or Bruno Fernandez-Ruiz. Each day features some different sprints or other efforts which are always voluntary and announced by the Ride Leader. The group comes back together after all efforts.

Start Times:

  • 21:30 PDT (Monday for USA-West)
  • 00:30 EDT (USA-East)
  • 05:30 GMT (UK)
  • 06:30 CEST (Europe)
  • 14:00 ACST (Australia – Adelaide)
  • 14:30 AEST (Australia – Sidney)

Learn more >

Weekends

Saturdays: dZi’s Watopia Group Ride (WGR)

This is dZi’s most inclusive weekend ride, with a pace of 2.5 w/kg. Every effort is made to keep the group together, so there are no sprint sections or raced sections. Ride length is just 3 laps of the Watopia’s flat route (~30km).

This is a great event for someone trying their first group ride and keen to learn how to draft efficiently. Team dZi’s Cassie Baldi is the regular leader, but other Team dZi members will lead at times too.

Start times:

  • 07:30 PDT (USA-West)
  • 08:30 MDT (USA-Mountain)
  • 09:30 CDT (USA-Central)
  • 10:30 EDT (USA-East)
  • 15:30 BST (UK)
  • 16:30 CEST (Europe)

Learn more >

Pro-Style Events

Both of dZi’s pro-style events below are uniquely set up to help you train like a pro. These rides have “tempo” riding at 3-3.5W/KG to get rider hearts and muscles pumping. They then add 1-2 sprint intervals per lap. Finally each event closes with a full gas race of the fifth and final lap. This combo of high tempo, interval, and full effort riding/racing for approximately 50km is very similar to how pro teams train to drive improvement.

The results of the raced sections are displayed via ZwiftPower technology on that and Team dZi’s website. Race results will be part of the JZRA rankings too.

These rides are usually led by Frederic Jacquemin, Bruno Fernandez-Ruiz, Kevin Connors, or Hugo Vegter and take place on Watopia’s flat route.

Saturdays: dZi’s Aussie Watopia Roll (AWR)

Start Times:

  • 09:00 BST (UK)
  • 10:00 CEST (Europe)
  • 15:00 AWST (Australia-Perth)
  • 17:30 ACST (Australia-Adelaide)
  • 18:00 AEST (Australia-Sydney)

Learn more >

Sundays: dZi’s Oz Sunday Spin (OSS)

Start Times:

  • 09:00 BST (UK)
  • 10:00 CEST (Europe)
  • 15:00 AWST (Australia-Perth)
  • 17:30 ACST (Australia-Adelaide)
  • 18:00 AEST (Australia-Sydney)

Learn more >

Monthly: dZi’s Nepalese Summit Race (NSC)

The very popular Nepalese Summit Race happens on the second Monday of each month. This is an all-inclusive multi-category race (9 different categories!) with a staggered start so riders come together on the final climb.

The race features a significant amount of climbing since it ends at the very peak of the Radio Tower climb. It is named the “Nepalese Summit Race” because of the race’s long and steep finishing climb, but also because of Team dZi’s link to its eponymous foundation supporting mountainous Nepal. This race is a true dZi team effort, with all of dZi’s almost 30 team members contributing in different ways to make the event happen.

Learn more >

Team dZi is obviously putting a lot of effort into these events for us Zwifters. They are doing this to help the Zwift community, but also to create exposure for their title charity sponsor, dZi Foundation, who helps some of the world’s most remote communities with agricultural assistance, sanitation improvements, transport efficiency, and education in Nepal. All help for Nepal and dZi Foundation from the Zwift community is very welcome!

You can sign up for all of these events beforehand or even while Zwifting up until just before they start on the Zwift Mobile App under the brand new Events tab. Learn more about joining group rides >

These dZi events are hosting between 300-500 riders each week, so it seems the Zwift community understands that daily, pro-style, and race training in combination is a great way to improve fitness while having some fun in a group. Thanks to the Zwift platform and organizers like Team dZi this training is now available even to time-crunched or weather-bound riders.

Feedback on the events or those with interest in Team dZi can get in touch via www.teamdzi.org.

Zwift version 1.0.12372 released

Eric Schlange
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Zwift version 1.0.12372 released

Zwift version 1.0.12372 released

Last night Zwift pushed out a release which updates the game to version 1.0.12372. This isn’t a major update, but fixes a few bugs to improve accuracy and reliability.

The most exciting thing about this update is the teaser shot included of the soon-to-be-released London course… it’s beautiful! 

london_preview

 
See the official notice from on Zwift’s support portal >

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