Zwift Route Hunter Leaderboards, p/b VeloViewer

August 18, 2020

LAST UPDATED September 23, 2024

The VeloViewer-powered Route Hunter leaderboards were first rolled out in October 2019. They were an immediate hit in the Zwift community because they gave people a tool to track which routes they’ve completed, as well as a competitive leaderboard for anyone wanting to see how they rank against the universe of Zwifters.

Since then, new routes and maps have been added to Zwift, and we’ve created new Rebel Routes as well. All these new routes are added to the Route Hunter Leaderboards soon after their release.

Additionally, in May 2020 Strava made major changes to their services in an attempt to drive subscriber growth. This didn’t change anything if you’re a paying Strava Premium subscriber, but for free users, the Route Hunter Leaderboards no longer show segment times for yourself or others. Instead, they act more as a checklist of which routes you’ve completed.

About the Leaderboards

There are 10 different leaderboards, each containing their own Zwift routes:

Leaderboard rankings are based on points. You receive points for

Completing a particular route/segment (20 points for each), and
How quickly you completed the route

These two numbers are then added together for your total points count for each leaderboard.

Getting Started

Getting your data into the leaderboards is easy! It’s probably easier on a large screen than a smartphone, but it can be done with either.

Start by visiting the Zwift Insider Route Hunter homepage on VeloViewer.

Click “Connect with Strava”. (If you’re already signed into your Strava account in your browser, skip to step 3.)
Log into your Strava account. You will be redirected back to the leaderboards homepage.
Click “View” beneath one of the leaderboard titles.
If you are not yet a member of the Zwift club on Strava, click the link to join the club, click “Join Club”, then return to the leaderboard page and click “Recheck Club Membership”. (If you are already a member of the Zwift club on Strava, skip to step 5.)
Click “Update Your Times” to import your Strava rides into whatever leaderboard you are currently viewing. You may only click this link once per day for each leaderboard.

Using the Leaderboards

Here are a few tips for using the leaderboards:

While they will work just fine on a smartphone, the leaderboards are much easier to browse on a large screen.
Click any column title in a leaderboard to sort by that column.
Click “View” next to the route title to view that segment’s details in VeloViewer. It’s not always clear where particular segments may stop and start, so looking at the actual Strava info is helpful if you’re chasing segment times.
Filter by gender using the buttons at the top-right.
Clicking a rider’s time for a particular route will take you to their Strava activity, where you can look for reasons to rationalize them beating your segment time 😄

Can You Ride Them All?

Very few Zwifters have ridden every segment in the leaderboards (114 segments as of August 18, 2020). Can you do it?

A Note About Group Ride Efforts

Due to the location of start pens in relation to spawn points and lap start/finish banners, we had to make a choice with some routes when selecting which segment would be used for the leaderboards:

Start from the start/finish banner (eliminating group event traffic) or
Start from the start pens (eliminating free ride traffic) or
Start well after the start pens and start/finish banner, creating a rather wacky segment with an arbitrary start point which isn’t accurate when riders do multiple laps.

We chose to go with #1, because we didn’t want this to be restricted to “event-only” efforts, and we don’t want segments with a weird start point.

This means many of your group ride efforts will not be included in the leaderboard times. This is especially apparent on Watopia routes which begin downtown, since the start pen is located after the start/finish banner. You may also notice it with New York routes, and some other routes in other worlds.

Shout Out to VeloViewer

Ben over at VeloViewer is giving us this functionality free of charge. But if you find it useful, please consider upgrading your VeloViewer account to a Pro or Pro+ account. Cost is only £10-£20 per year, and you get lots of premium features–read more about those here.

Changelog

August 15, 2024: get all caught up by adding new routes and KOMs.
July 21, 2020: added France and Paris maps, including their KOMs. Also added Toutes les Routes, Petite Douleur, and Down Up Down Rebel Routes.
March 26, 2020: added Downtown Titans Rebel Route.
Feb 27, 2020: added Three Little Sisters Rebel Route.
Feb 21, 2020: added Eastern Eight Rebel Route.
Feb 18, 2020: added Richmond KOMs in reverse direction (Richmond KOM reverse and 23rd Street KOM Reverse).
Dec 16, 2019: changed Dust in the Wind segment to reflect Zwift’s finish line at the desert arch.
Nov 29, 2019: changed the Road to Sky segment to reflect Zwift’s recent move of the spawn point. Segment now begins at the junction of the new Jungle start pens. Changed Muir and the Mountain to reflect Zwift’s route change, which has this route officially beginning and ending at the Titans Grove KOM.