The Zwift Games 2026 series began this week, with popular races on new routes! So I decided to join in the fun. This week’s stage is in Makuri Islands on the new Kaze Kicker route, which has just enough climbing to make the race hard and interesting without it feeling impossible for an “overmuscled cyclist” like me:
The “standard” race events alternate hourly between two different racing score range schemes:
- Range 1: 0-159 | 160-269 | 270-389 | 390-509 | 510-650
- Range 2: 0-209 | 210-329 | 330-449 | 450-569 | 570-725
With my racing score of 555, range 2 gives me the better chance at a win (since I’m only competing with riders up to a score of 569), while range 1 will probably give me a bigger challenge and a faster overall race time, since I’m competing with riders who have scores up to 650.
As it turned out, my schedule for the day meant I had to race range 1, like it or not. So I jumped in, warmed up, then joined the pens on my virtual Pinerallo Dogma F 2025 with DT Swiss 65 wheels. Let’s roll!
A Hard Start (Pain Cavern)
We rolled out of the Mech Isle start pens, the pack of 38 quickly dropping to 32 as we hammered up to speed.
The route begins with a short (3km) lead-in which (a bit of Zwift nerd trivia here) includes the Tidepool Sprint Reverse segment. It’s the only route in-game that traverses this segment, in fact, but this doesn’t really matter much, as nobody is going to attack a sprint segment on a scratch race, especially with a hard effort just up the road.
One thing worth noting, since some riders in my race clearly didn’t realize it: you only get one powerup for this entire race. Everyone is given a feather at the start, and you get to choose where to use it! Save it for the Pain Cavern climb, or even better, if you know you’ll survive Pain Cavern, save it for Mech Isle corkscrew near the end. (I must say, I do prefer the single powerup approach to the default random powerup approach that randomly gives some riders an advantage over others.)
The longest, hardest effort of the race begins in Pain Cavern at the 3.3km mark, when the road tilts up to 5%. The climb is 2.16km long, averaging 3%, and will take most riders 3.5-4.5 minutes to complete.
I’ve been dropped on this climb more times than I haven’t, and it usually happens somewhere in the figure 8 section midway through. So I saved my feather as long as possible, waiting until I was fully in the figure 8 before activating it. Several riders around me had the same idea!
The pack often stretches out as the climb slackens yet continues after the figure 8. Finding a strong wheel can be helpful as speeds increase and drafting becomes more of a factor, and that’s exactly what I did. We had two riders on a breakaway 5 seconds up the road, but I was sitting in the pack of 21, near the limit, as we finished the climb.
I had survived! I was still in the peloton, and discovered after the race that I had shattered my Strava Pain Cavern PR with a time of 3:45 (my previous best was 4:02). Let’s goooo!
The Easy Middle
From 5.5km to 15.3km you’re essentially on flat or downhill roads. This doesn’t mean your race will be easy, since riders may choose to push the pace on the front. But chances are, this bit will be the easiest part of the race.
As we exited Pain Cavern, I just tried to sit efficiently in the draft to grab a bit of recovery time. My heart rate dropped from 172 to 154 over the next 5 minutes, and the burning in my legs went away as I spun a higher cadence at tempo power. Around the northern part of Neokyo we went, the two riders off the front staying away but not increasing their gap in a meaningful way.
(Zwift’s HUD doesn’t do a great job of showing gaps to riders up the road, since you don’t see them in the rider list if you’re sitting in a group of any size. But I was running Sauce for Zwift, so I could see the gap. Gotta love that rider groups feature!)
Exiting Neokyo, we caught the two attackers off the front, then turned into the Slot Canyon for a long descent. Zwifter “MC Hammertime” was providing plenty of color commentary from the peloton, and announced that he was going to take a hard pull on the front. It’s always nice when riders announce their intentions, since it gives everyone time to grab their wheel, which helps the group’s pace stay high and improves our GC rankings (more on that below).
Mech Isle Kicker
At the 15.3km mark we crossed the wooden bridge and hit the final obstacle of the day: the Mech Isle corkscrew! This little bugger is short enough that I can typically survive it in the peloton, but stronger riders often attack and get a gap. And that’s exactly what happened! I steered to the inside of the turn to shave off precious meters, then one rider, two riders, three riders attacked hard.
I found myself sinking backward, dropping from 3rd to 5th to 7th, with a gap building up the road. I was on the limit in a strung-out group, my legs heavy and burning as we crossed the bridge at the top. And all I could do was watch the race ride away, despite attempting to give chase.
The Finish
After the short descent, there were several riders around me, but everyone had given up on chasing the six riders ahead:
Maybe I’m a nicer guy when I’m glycogen-depleted. Or maybe I’m just dumber? Certainly the latter. I decided to put in a hard pull on the front to try to reel in some riders.
Unfortunately, 40 seconds of hard work did nothing but make my legs hurt. I eased up when it was clear we wouldn’t catch anyone, and a few seconds later, it was time to sprint! I pushed hard for ~10 seconds, crossing the line in 8th.
Watch the Video
Final Results
ZwiftPower gave me a finishing place of 6th, thanks to two riders not being signed up. But does that even matter anymore? Not really, since Zwift Racing Score doesn’t care about ZwiftPower, and neither do the Zwift Games GC Rankings at zwift.com/racing/leagues/zwiftgames2026.
As I write this post (10am Tuesday, Feb 17), my ranking shows as 1646 out of 11298 riders for race 1, with a race time of 24:56. We’ll see how that changes as more riders participate.
This race bumped up my ZRS from 555 to 561, my first score change in two months, since I haven’t been racing scored races.
In terms of my actual performance, this was a decently challenging effort, giving me a new power curve PR for 2026 in the VO2max time window:
Could I have raced it smarter for a better result? I don’t think I had the legs to grab onto the riders who got away over the top of the Mech Isle corkscrew, so the only thing I could really change would be not taking that short pull near the end, to save my legs for the final sprint. This may have allowed me to outsprint the one rider in my group who finished ahead of me, improving my result by just one place.
What about you?
How did race 1 go for you? Share below!
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