UPDATE July 16, 2026: Zwift will be reverting back to the separate Route of the Week and Climb of the Week beginning July 20/21. See this forum post for more.
Yesterday, Zwift launched a change to the “Route of the Week” and “Climb of the Week” feature, combining them into a single challenge named “Ride of the Week”. Here’s how it works…
One Challenge, Two Rides, Lots of XP
The “Ride of the Week” challenge consists of a rotating selection of routes and climb portals. Each week, a fresh route is selected, as well as a fresh climb portal.
Ride one of them and you’ll earn a 250XP bonus. Ride both of them and you’ll earn an additional 500XP bonus!
Getting Started
Riding the featured route or climb in any fashion (in an event, as a workout, as a free ride, etc) will earn you completion credit and the XP bonus. You can only earn the bonuses once per week – that is, you will only get the XP bonus once when completing selected route and/or climb.
The best (and only) way to access the Ride of the Week selections and see your progress is via the challenge card on the homescreen:
From there, you can track your completion progress and choose a featured route or climb to ride:
Ride of the Week Calendar
Wondering which routes or climbs are featured in the coming weeks? Here’s a schedule:
Questions or comments?
Share below!
Uh. Isn’t this less xp than before? Are they deincentivizing these? Or is it in addition to the 500xp we got
My first thought. 750xp instead of 1000.
I read this as you get 250 for doing one of the two (either one), then 500 additional xp for doing both. Same 750 total as before but now it doesn’t rotate each week to be 500xp for the route and 250 climb then vice versa. So the totals are the same. This takes away the ability to pick one over the other for 500xp for only doing one of the two.
It used to be 250 & 500 but in June we got 500+500 4 weeks in a row iirc
Oh wow, missed this!
Yeah, that’s how I remembered it too. I had assumed the change was to coincide with Zwift handing out stacks of XP in June along with the “Level Up” ZRacing series, and the XP Express group rides.
After this update “XP Express” no longer seem to match the Route of the Week.
@Eric Schlange once a week or once?
once a week would mean I could do it today and again next Monday and get the same bonus XP
Once a week. Because the routes change each week.
Would be nice to have option to start climb portal straight from end of the featured route
Now if only I could add the Climb of the Week (or anything in the Climb Portal) to the planner. Why doesn’t Zwift already do this? Is it too complex with the rotating schedule?
What were already boring and repetitive tasks has inexplicably been made even more insignificant by Zwift so now I feel fully justified in not doing them at all. Thanks Zwift!
Before the change, was Hardknott Pass the scheduled ‘Climb of the week’ this week ?
(It’s on my to do list)
Yup!
Damn Eric, I want to know what bike you’ve selected to complete Downtown Eruption in an estimated 20 minutes!
sharp eyes ^^
Ha ha! Wish I had a bike that fast. That screenshot was taken from our bot account, who likes to ride behind a firewall at 600+ watts steady. 😂
600+ watts steady you say? I see that routinely on Zwift LOL. That and folk pushing 7+w/kg and then doing a quick calculation based on their watts realize they would have to weigh like 30kg. LOTS of world class riders just slumming on Zwift LOL.
My plan today was to ride the Downtown Eruption route and Col du Rosier during the same ride. I did Downtown Eruption first and then rode around Watopia for almost two hours, but the Climb Portal no longer offered me Col du Rosier — it offered the Col de la Croix Saint-Robert climb when I reached the Climb Portal junction. I didn’t save and end the ride after Downtown Eruption, I kept going and chose turns manually at intersections and eventually rode to the Climb Portal junction. Is this how it’s supposed to work?
Yes, that’s how it works. The Climb Portals that are featured and open to free riders when riding around Watopia are determined by the Climb Portal schedule, shown here: https://zwiftinsider.com/climb-portal-schedule/
Based on the activity of a person I follow on Strava, they completed both the route and the climb in the same ride. It looks like they didn’t manually merge two activities into one before uploading to Strava. In the Companion app as well, the effort appears as a single session. Based on this, I assumed both could be done in one go.
I bet they rode it on June 30, when Col du Rosier was the scheduled climb!
Quick question Eric – when I rode the Downtown Eruption route I passed the climb portal and at that time it had the Col du Rosier on it, which was the climb of the week.
If I had turned off onto the climb and then back down again would I have been spat out on the route of the week because I left that or back onto the French exit as is normal for the climb portal.?
Edit – just seen your earlier reply. Am I correct then that if a route and climb are scheduled together then both can be ridden on the same ride?
can’t see the ride of week on the section of this week in zwift. How to ride this week’s climb route?