Today we kick off the series with a well-known race format: the elimination race.
Elimination Race Basics
Fans of track cycling will already be familiar with elimination races. The basic idea is that riders are removed from the race based on their position over the line on particular laps.
There are lots of options here: it may be the last rider(s) who is eliminated (known as the “miss and out” or “devil take the hindmost”), or it could be a “win and out” format where the first rider across the line is removed and given first place, the first rider on the next lap is given second place, etc.
Lap count can vary, of course. Additionally, eliminations may happen on every lap, or at some other lap interval (every other lap, every third lap, etc).
This is how elimination races basically work in real life, on the track. But how would they work in Zwift?
Elimination Races On Zwift
If there was a velodrome in game, races could have very short laps and thus more options for elimination. Currently, though, the shortest lap route in Zwift is Crit City at 1.9km, which takes around 2 minutes per lap for a fast A/B race pack. New York’s LaGuardia Loop is the next shortest at 2.8km.
The challenge with longer laps is that you can’t eliminate just one rider per lap from a pack of, say, 50 riders, if laps take 2 minutes apiece. Unless you want a really long race.
But this is a video game, right? So there are ways to make this work. In fact, what intrigues me most about Zwift is that it allows cyclists to do things that are impossible in real life, but make indoor riding really fun.
The game could auto-calculate how many riders will be eliminated on each lap based on the organizer’s target race length, chosen course, and the number of starters. Two theoretical race examples:
- Crit City Cull
- Format: Miss and Out
- Target race length: 30 minutes
- Chosen route: Downtown Dolphin
- Start list size: 115 riders
- With an estimate of 14 laps completed in 30 minutes, you’ll need to eliminate 8 riders per lap in order to have 11 riders left to contest the top spots on the final lap.
- NYC Ya Later
- Format: Win and Out
- Target race length: 40 minutes
- Chosen route: LaGuardia Loop
- Start list size: 25 riders
- With an estimate of 12 laps completed in 40 minutes, you’ll need to eliminate 2 riders per lap in order to have 3 riders left to fight for the last 3 places on the final lap.
To make things even more strategic, every banner on a course could be used as an elimination point. So Watopia’s Hilly Route, for example, would eliminate riders at the Hilly KOM banner, the JWB Sprint banner, and the lap banner. This option would give an advantage to those with course knowledge and greatly increase the list of courses that could host an elimination race.
Fun For All
Zwift wants all racers to have a fun race experience, and getting booted partway into your event isn’t much fun. What could happen in Zwift’s virtual world to make the experience better for eliminated riders?
Here’s an idea: allow riders to continue racing after elimination. Once eliminated they would become invisible to anyone still in the race, but the eliminated rider could see all the racers (including other eliminated riders) and keep riding until the event was finished.
It’s fun when Zwift races emulate IRL races. But it’s even more fun when those races function in a way that is impossible IRL but improves the experience for Zwifters!
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Why Join an Elimination Race?
Why would Zwifters pick an elimination race over some other race format? Several reasons I can think of:
- It’s a great sprint workout, since you’re doing a hard interval at every elimination point.
- It’s exciting/engaging. There’s no sitting in and spinning to the finish. You’ve got to pay attention to avoid elimination.
- Fresh strategy is required. Whatever works in scratch or points races probably won’t work in elimination races. You’ve got to figure out how to maximize your chances in this format.
- Multi-lap events become more interesting. On a route like a Velodrome or even Crit City, this adds excitement and a new dimension to each route, instead of feeling like you’re just racing on repeat.
- It emulates an IRL race format. Elimination races are well-known in the track cycling world, and this would bring that format into the game.
Required Game Changes
Elimination races can already be held in Zwift – sort of. The race organizer can join the event, watch the race, and message the riders to say who was eliminated. Riders just need to obey the organizer. We’ve seen this in some top-level elite races. The community has done it themselves, as well:
What would Zwift need to implement in order to make elimination races work as a native race format? With the disclaimer that I’m not a game developer or platform engineer, here are a few things I can think of:
- Orientation UI: riders need to know what they’re signing up for, and how the event will work. On-screen messaging should explain this clearly and succinctly.
- Elimination UI: what happens when you’re eliminated? Does your listing in the rider list change color? Does your avatar become transparent, or perhaps glow a different color? Does a message pop up on screen?
- Elimination Logic: organizers would need to have a set of options available for configuring their event (how many riders are eliminated per lap, on which laps) including the option to let the game decide elimination parameters automagically based on race length, route choice, and start list size.
- Results Screens: result logic would need to be specially created for elimination races, as it would be different than scratch race results.
- Helper UI (Optional): the game could somehow highlight the riders at risk of being eliminated, so you know if you need to move forward.
Your Thoughts
First: what do you think of the possibility of elimination races on Zwift? Would you give ’em a go? Can you think of any improvements to my ideas above?
Secondly: what other race formats would you love to see on Zwift, and why? Share below. Your idea may spark a future post in this series!
Instead of hiding the eliminated riders,turn their avatars into holo-pacer “ghosts” that everyone can see (or make that an option for the race director to either hide or ghost the eliminated riders)
I would absolutely love to see (and participate in!) elimination races. But at the end of the day, they make the most sense in a velodrome. That shouldn’t be too hard to implement, should it?
Also, for the record let me state that I don’t want steering in races, and a velodrome would be no exception. I will freely grant that this makes Zwift less like outdorr riding. But the thing I love the most about Zwift is that it *isn’t* outdoor riding! There is no wind, no cars, no sharp turns, no pedestrians, no danger in steep downhills, no ice patches etc. That’s what so great about it!
When I race in Zwift, I wants to spin my legs and, well, that’s it.
Trying to replicate a velodrome would be hard, I think. When you consider, say, the 41% gradient on the bends, the straights, the feeling of G force when coming off the banking and the different feeling even between each line, it would, IMHO, be super-hard to provide the same feeling. It would probably mean everyone having to use the steering gadget that Zwift are selling?
41 degrees even
Would make an excellent addition to ZRL! I fear that it would be many years before Zwift ‘natively’ supports anything else though. They let us all manually count down to TTT starts until fairly recently, and their ‘Zwift Labs’ offerings didn’t shown any appetite for creativity of any description. Would love to be proven wrong though.
Even with big loops they can add elimination banners on the road.
Surely they could be added every km or other suitable fixed distance. That way there could be mix of hill and flat éliminations
I’ve done a number of elimination races in indieVelo’s velodrome. They’re a lot of fun (and a tough workout) and might be interesting to see in Zwift, especially if you could put one at the prime banner of Crit City as well as the lap banner.
The win and in or reverse elimination races are fun too. That’s an interesting strategy. Do you go all in to try to get the first banner and be done? If you get it, great. If not, you’ve just burned a lot of matches and now will likely have to miss out on your shot at the next several laps as you recover. Do you go just hard enough to stick on lap one and then go all out for lap 2 or 3 while the others are recovering? Lots of fun stuff to play with.
my thoughts? Indievelo…
indieVelo offers all these features natively build in.
Would love it. And on circuits like Glasgow you can have two points of elimination. Top of the Clyde and the Finish.
RGT had these as community events, WKG used to run them on Fridays & they were great – fun way to do a really hard race. Makes you think it wouldn’t be ‘that’ hard to implement on Zwift.
I’ve been track riding for a few years and love the different race formats because they require thought and each favour different physiology. Zwift points races are quite good but there always seem to be some who have signed up last minute and just race for the overall win!
Possible formats to consider:
Reverse win-out – first sprint winner comes sixth, next fifth etc until a bunch sprint for win or bust at the end
Danish pursuit – two teams in a hare-and hounds race that ends in a sprint between the members of the faster team
Tempo/Devil – sprint winner gets a point and last through is eliminated, so winner is one of the last remaining with the most points
Great idea! (Says a former track racer 😀)
Zwift needs a velodrome! It’s not just elimination races; there could be individual/team sprints, keirin, TT, pursuits, scratch, points, and Madison races. Zwift could easily handle all the bookkeeping for times, points, laps, etc., which is much more difficult in the real world. Also, while I don’t think the Zwift Play controllers have really taken off for current race formats, they would be essential for track events.
How about in Tiny events?
25% out first event.
33% out second event
50% out third event
Keep you busy all Saturday.
Would be super fun, IF it could be automated.
But yeah, that’s an elimination-style event that I didn’t even mention above. More along the lines of what Zwift did in the elite GP races, where they did small events, with the field getting smaller and smaller each event as riders were eliminated based on finish position in each race.
We’ve run these as ‘closed’ club events or by invitation events within the Level eSports team. I did produce a draft spec which we sent to Zwift through Si Bradeley, but I’ve never had a response from Zwift. I’m happy to share this with you if you want to drop me an email to the address associated with this post. I’m happy to merge the work I did with your proposals if it helps to move this forward
You should write about indieVelo more directly.
You can not reinvent Zwift from what it is. The code base has to be rewritten or Zwift should ask indieVelo to be skinned to look like Zwift for racing….these indieVelo folks got it sorted out well.
I don’t think you can definitely say Zwift can’t do it unless you’ve programmed for Zwift… Zwift was able to (finally) get the TTTs to have individual start times after several years of us using our stopwatches. And why would a website called ZWIFT Insider cover indieVelo? lol
Aren’t chase races (fox and hares, etc.?) natively supported too? I haven’t seen as many of those lately, but that was my first taste of racing on Zwift many years ago.
Hmmm… maybe. Yes, Chase Races work alright within Zwift’s current functionality. But I’d say it’s a stretch to say they’re natively supported, when so much of the experience of organizing and riding a chase race is pretty hacky. For example: you have to compute your own time gaps when setting it up, and in the actual race you can’t easily track various groups.
Don’t get it… Every race I enter is an elimination race! (of me!) LOL
It’s a game … why not have the avatar “die” just like in a game. You’re out, you get the sound FX and poof, you’re gone. Sure there is the whole “wow I got in one lap and died”, but that’s how it works in a shoot ’em up game too.
Certainly an option. My thinking was, why not maximize the fun for all participants?
It is fun for all but one to see him explode😁
Point taken. 😀
I don’t race very much in Zwift, but I would probably do so in this kind of format. And, it would be really fun to have a velodrome in Zwift, as well as an appropriate bike choice – or make the bike choice automatic for velodrome races.
Hey Eric,
Is this purely a “wish list” article, or is there a chance we could get something like this in the foreseeable future? 🙂
This is a wish list, for sure. But there’s also, of course, a chance that Zwift will release other race modes in the future.
For Velodrome races I would like to see a lobby style “join race and wait to be placed in a race” type of signup.
so you join an elimination race and when you get eliminated you can join another one and quickly get back into it. Not having to wait until next scheduled race.
+1 for the velodrome
Indievelo.
The whole article feels like you did some track racing on indievelo, you liked it and decided to write this article about it. Somehow without even mentioning once indievelo, which is btw run and developed by an ex-Zwift employee.
Credit to Indievelo for supporting track formats, for sure.
But to be clear: we were talking about elimination races on a virtual Velodrome in Zwift before Indievelo was even a glimmer in its creator’s eye. Before he was ever employed by Zwift, in fact.
I think in that paragraph you’ve just summed up zwifts problem. Users have been asking for developments for years, they’ve just not come. George and the team at indivelo seem to have sorted the physics and racing out, and being developed in unity should see far greater development speed. If the racers make the switch to unity zwift will start to feel like an empty space as the training will follow. Starting to feel like carpet Starting to slip from under zwifts feet unless they can pull something out of the bag rapidly
64 riders, first gate eliminate 50%. Top 50% (32 riders) continue racing with each other, bottom 50% continue racing with each other (32 riders as well). Top 50% cannot see the bottom 50% and vice versa. There are now 2 groups of riders that cannot see each other, each group to their own race.
2nd gate: remove 50% of the riders in each of those 2 groups again. We now have 4 separate races of 16 riders each.
3rd gate: 8 groups of 8 riders
4th gate: etc…
Everybody races until the end, racing with riders of increasingly similar levels as the race progress. Works with powers of 2 numbers of riders (16/32/64/128..). if there is not a power of 2 available (at the start for because people living), well.. round the numbers accordingly to get close enough 50%. 17 riders become 8+9.
And if a rider ends up being alone in the race before the finish line, move the rider up one group. Ensures everybody really has something to race until the end.
Hey Eric, that’s some great daydreaming! In an elimination race, it is all about those frequent sprints. It would not make sense to sprint and then just cruise for 3 km until the next sprint. Sure, you could place artificial banners every 1 km, but without proper race infrastructure and the tendency of Zwift programmers to mix things up, racers will be left guessing when the next banner will appear. In the meantime, enjoy indieVelo.
I have looked into doing this in an external app. I can’t do it all exactly like you would like but I think it would be playable.
First thing is that instead of banners you sprint to a time (race time is synced for all riders so everybody knows that the last N riders at race start + 3 minutes are eliminated)
Results are scored by the external app. They are displayed in messages. And sent to a discord chat as well.
There is no way to eliminate riders this is definitely an honour system sort of event. If the message says you are out you just have to drop from the pack. That said riders that are out can form another unscored sprint group a few minutes back.
The number of riders is limited to ~100 (visibility of rider position is limited to about 100 riders)
I think there will be scoring issues with junctions/loops (rider visibility is reduced) so I had planned on using a long stretch like Tempus Fugit, though some of the big hills might be better)
There has to be a ride leader (runs the external app)
I have the external app written for matched sprint events but it could easily be transformed into a miss and out. I have been trying to find the time to try the matched sprints but haven’t had the time.
The biggest issue I see is requiring the ride leader. I have been looking at porting the external app into sauce, but just haven’t had the time.
Is this of any interest/use?
I love the idea of elimination races. It would be a bit like a points race except that everybody has to try. No prioritizing some segments over others. And your idea of letting the eliminated riders continue riding to the end is great; everybody gets the workout regardless of results.
Well, given the recent price hikes, you would hope Zwift will have the resources to develop this sort of thing.
Hi Eric firstly I don’t know where you get the 2 minute lap from?.I ride in the C group. My best time for a single lap is 2.38. Normal time for a lap is 2.57/3.05. I think the way to alert you that you are out is if your name flashes for 10/15 seconds after you cross the line. Then you can have 2 laps to cool down. The rest will not then see you. The other thing I would like to see on Zwift are RELAYS. You can have lots of fun with them. I.E. Men, ladies, and mixed teams. Long/ short laps, each team has 4 riders, all doing the same or not. First rider does 1 lap second 2 laps and so on. 2 riders do short laps and 2 long laps. Some riders might enjoy hills the list goes on. I look forward to hearing from you. Thanks.
2 minutes is fast A/B pace. I kept it simple to keep the math simple.
Relay races are on my list to write about, for sure!
They need to build a velodrome on zwift and do this kind of elimination race at the velodrome. I like the idea of picking sprint banners or segments also as spots to eliminate.
You could do a team elimination race where eliminated riders go into a pen where they can keep pedalling to generate a boost or watt advantage for their remaining teammates.
Strong teams with multiple riders remaining then have to keep working hard together, and eliminated riders continue to have a role to play.
as already said, IndieVelo has this option since.
Also Points races. And highly customizable (different courses, not only Velodrome, different points, different elimination places…)
Sometime Zwift seems Apple: they are probably the best but it takes to them years to get where others are already there.
I discover this few years ago on RGT, I love it,
if then RGT were most popular with bigger field in the race, I will definitivly have change to RGT
I really look forward to this improvement, what ever happens when we are eliminated
Just remember the UCI final in Glasgow, with a perfect tactical plan on the Danish rider
I love it! And avoid steering.
We used to have ‘devil’ races on RGT – they were superb. A short course is needed.
I like how you have thought through some ideas. I’d definitely be up from trying an event like that.
Now, just try to work out a madison idea… 😉