Now in its 18th edition (and 9th appearance on Zwift), the Ride Like King event carries profound new meaning following the passing of Giant Group founder King Liu (1934–2026) earlier this year.
Every 500km ridden by the Zwift community means one more Buffalo bike donated to World Bicycle Relief – up to 927 bikes. This year’s theme – “Ride the Legacy. Ride Like King” – reflects a commitment to carry forward King Liu’s lifelong belief that cycling has the power to change the world for the better. Zwifters are invited to join events scheduled through the end of this weekend featuring celebrity leaders, product giveaways, jersey unlocks, and Giant/Liv bikes!
Read on for details…
What is Ride Like King?
In 2007, at age 73, Giant Group King Liu completed a 15-day, 927km ride around Taiwan. This resulted in a renewed passion for cycling and the benefits it brings to the individual, community, and country. Following this, King traveled to countries and spoke with governments to promote the positive impacts of cycling.
His message resonated within the company as well. ‘Ride Like King’ started in 2009 as a small event within the Giant Group to celebrate their founder’s passion for cycling. But it grew to be an annual event and is now in its 18th edition! Zwift is an active partner and has been hosting the event on its platform since 2018.
Event Details
“Ride to Raise” warm-up rides are scheduled hourly from May 11-14. These rides are 45 minutes long, rotate every other hour between two routes (Castle to Castle and Scotland Smash), and are banded so everyone stays together. Open Category D will ride Giant TCR Advanced SL 2025 bikes with CADEX 65 wheels, while Women-Only Category E will ride Liv Langma Advanced SL 2025 bikes with CADEX 65 wheels.
Finishers will unlock the RLK18 kit (see below), and the distance from these rides counts toward our community distance goal to earn Buffalo bikes.
“Legacy Rides” are scheduled from 4am UTC Friday, May 15th to 6am UTC Monday, May 18th and are full laps of the selected routes led by ambassadors and athletes. These rides are not banded. Finishers will unlock the RLK18 kit (see below), be entered to win an IRL jersey (see below), and have their distance added to our community distance goal to earn Buffalo bikes.
The schedule rotates through three blocks of events, with each block hosting at least 7 event time slots:
- Event 1: Yumezi Grit (2 laps: 19.2km, 233m)
- Open Category D will ride Giant Revolt Advanced Pro gravel bikes with CADEX AR35 wheels
- Women-Only Category E will ride Liv Devote Advanced Pro gravel bikes with CADEX AR35 wheels
- Event 2: Waisted 8 (1 lap: 30.9km, 143m)
- Open Category D will ride Giant TCR Advanced SL 2025 bikes with CADEX 65 wheels
- Women-Only Category E will ride Liv Langma Advanced SL 2025 bikes with CADEX 65 wheels
- Event 3: Neon Shore Loop (1 lap: 34.1km, 256m)
- Both categories will ride Buffalo bikes
See upcoming events at zwift.com/events/series/ride-like-king >
Giveaways and Prizes
Finish any of the RLK events and you’ll unlock the exclusive Ride Like King 18 kit in game.
Also, each Legacy Ride you complete earns you an entry to win a limited-edition RLK18 jersey! Three winners will be drawn per main event, meaning 69 winners will be drawn overall. See giveaway rules >
Questions or Comments?
Post below!
I did one of the “Ride to Raise” events as my cooldown/recovery right after VO2sday. My legs didn’t want to give any more watts 😅 so the banding feature was a legsaver. We were chatting about how the ride was a good way to upgrade bikes (using the “forced frame ‘hack'”* explained in a recent article here) because we have both an assigned bike and wheelset. The latter is relevant because selecting a gravel bike in such an event that does not assign wheels means that you would end up on a slow stock wheelset.
*Basically: in events that assign a bike, you get upgrade credit for the bike you have selected in your garage, not the bike you see yourself riding in the event.
To be abundantly clear, I don’t want this game benefit to overshadow the meaning of the Ride Like King events, and in my ride, our ride leader was happy and proud to tell us the story, so it was easy to feel that we’re a part of something important and bigger than us individually. 😊
On that point, I mentioned the win-win: we contribute distance towards the Giant Group donation of Buffalo Bikes to World Bicycle Relief just by riding, and we also get to upgrade bikes easily, chat, and get all the other normal benefits of a Zwift ride. These are great incentives to do as many of these rides as we can. These will be my go-to rides for post-race cooldown and Zone 2 over the next couple days.
Is there a way to check the distance counter?
I am sure Zwift community will get behind it and smash it out of the park.
But it will be good to stay at the top of it with help of a counter.
There is a distance counter! It includes all rides, both outdoor and in Zwift:
https://www.powerofbicycles.org/event/rlk18