Ride All Zwift Routes and Get All the Badges in 12 Weeks

Early in 2020, Monica (my wife) and I were chatting about fitness goals for the new year. After setting a goal of riding 5 days a week for the first three months of the year, Monica upped the stakes even more: she asked me to create a plan for her to ride all of Zwift’s routes in 90 days.

It sounded like a fun challenge, so I dove in. And what you see here is the result, although it’s been updated since its initial release to account for new routes.

The route list can be found here.
The schedule was last updated August 25, 2021, but is no longer being maintained, since it’s a pain to re-juggle the schedule each time Zwift releases a new route.

How It Works

The schedule is now outdated, since we haven’t been updating it to account for new route releases.

When it was last updated, there were 92 “free-ridable” routes on Zwift. (There are many other “event-only” routes available, but we’re leaving these off the list since they are event-dependant, don’t give you a route completion badge, and are not included in the Zwift Insider Route Hunter Leaderboards.)

I broke the routes into 5 groups, roughly based on difficulty as described by the number of water bottles (bidons) you may need to finish the route:

Once we had that list, I organized it into a progressive schedule of 60 rides. (That is 12 weeks of 5 rides per week, or you can complete it in under 9 weeks if you ride every day.)

The schedule doesn’t tell you specifically which route to ride, until the very end when we’re on the hardest routes Zwift has to offer. Instead, it will have you choose a route from the list based on bidon count – so you may need to select a 2-bidon route for the day, or a 4-bidon route, or perhaps 2 different 1-bidon routes.

This gives you the flexibility to choose routes you want to ride, especially since some won’t be available based on the guest world calendar if you’re not interested in world hacking.

Recovery Is Essential

The schedule begins with easy efforts, having you ride just one or two of the easy 1 bidon routes per day. The idea here is that even a beginning cyclist could take on this challenge.

But as it builds to the 3 bidon routes, we intersperse difficult rides with recovery rides, so your body can properly recover. Remember: you don’t get stronger while you ride, you get stronger afterward when your body recovers! So take it easy on the recovery days so your body can be ready for the harder rides.

The Final Five

The final 5 hard rides of the schedule are Zwift’s toughest routes:

Make sure you are well-hydrated and stocked with necessary nutrition before you take these rides on, as they will take you anywhere from 3-6+ hours to complete.

Get the Files

Here are two printable PDFs to help you with this challenge. You’ll need them both!

  • List of Zwift Routes by Difficulty: check off each route as you complete it, so you don’t double up your efforts!
  • 60-Ride Schedule: work your up from easier rides to tougher challenges with this schedule of 60 rides. That’s 5 rides a week for 12 weeks!


She Did It!

On April 10, 2020, Monica completed the the Couch to Route Hero challenge! She began on January 5th.

Read her weekly progress posts >

Questions or Comments?

Thoughts on the schedule? Thinking of taking on the challenge? Comment below!

Eric Schlange
Eric Schlangehttp://www.zwiftinsider.com
Eric runs Zwift Insider in his spare time when he isn't on the bike or managing various business interests. He lives in Northern California with his beautiful wife, two kids and dog. Follow on Strava

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Catherine Allen
Super Member
Catherine Allen(@catherinetherunnergirl)
3 years ago

Brilliant idea. I love these sort of challenges! As soon as the route badges were released I started ticking them off and now just have 4 left to do. It’s been hard work!! Shame there is no public sharing of how we are all progressing.

Rabbit Dave
Rabbit Dave
3 years ago

would be great to have stickers for the bikes or a jersey like the movember that you can have the badges. LIke the Jeep Badge of Honor you can get.

Bracken Christensen
Bracken Christensen(@bracken)
3 years ago
Reply to  Rabbit Dave

Now I’m picturing riding with a sash of merit badges, a la The Boy Scouts. 🙂

sven
sven
2 years ago
Reply to  Rabbit Dave

that would be awesome

Jason W
Jason W
3 years ago

This is fantastic! Thank you! I had already started keeping track of those badges I had, but I didn’t have a plan of which I would attack first. Happy New Year!

Nathan Lipke
Nathan Lipke(@nlipke)
2 years ago
Reply to  Eric Schlange

I created a Google spreadsheet here try copying it your drive.

Brian Ambrose Gefroh
Brian Ambrose Gefroh
2 years ago
Reply to  Nathan Lipke

Hey Nathan. Thanks – exactly what I was going to do.

Renato Nardello
Renato Nardello(@renato-nardello)
2 years ago
Reply to  Nathan Lipke

Thanks Nathan, I was actually going to do this. not as neatly as you did 😉

Cindy
Cindy
3 years ago

These plans are truly a thing of beauty. Thank you! One thing that might them even more useful would be to have the rides highlighted for the colour of the world; i.e. pink for NY, blue for London, etc.

Mike Wall
Mike Wall
3 years ago

Hi – day 55 says Ride London’s London’s on my copy?

Jim Spencer
Jim Spencer
3 years ago
Reply to  Mike Wall

I believe that is “The PRL Full”

Mike
Mike(@noisufnoc)
3 years ago
Reply to  Mike Wall

unrelated, your name is 70% my name.

Jim Spencer
Jim Spencer
3 years ago

Wow, that would be a challenge for me to complete the last two weeks.

Marcus Haughton
Marcus Haughton(@haughton-marcus)
3 years ago

Thanks Eric, that check list is very useful, I had been working my way through all the routes but didn’t really have and easy way of ticking them off. That doc is just the job.

Joey King
Joey King
3 years ago

Super idea and the organization you provide is awesome. On at least three occasions I’ve completed a route (verified using Strava, no manual turns) and have not received the badge. Will she count the route completed should this happen to her? Hope it doesn’t but I would. Perhaps it would be smart to save Dust in the Wind for as late as practical since others have reported the same on that route. I’ve completed Everything Bagel twice without earning that badge.

Kevin
Kevin
3 years ago
Reply to  Joey King

I completed the Quatch Quest before Christmas and got no badge 🙁
At least it wasn’t the Uber Pretzel!

Paul
Paul
3 years ago
Reply to  Kevin

Yeah same here. No badge for Quatch Quest recently 🙁

Keith Mawdsley
Keith Mawdsley(@kmawdsley)
3 years ago
Reply to  Joey King

I’ve found that on some routes (royal pump room 8, the high line might be two) the route starts after the banner meaning you have to complete two laps. I’m not sure if a u turn past the banner and then a u turn to complete the route will get the badge.

Theo
Theo
3 years ago

Took your master list of courses and ticked off the easy ones. The new list is perfect if you are only starting now. Thank you for all the hard work maintaining this site.

Chris
Chris
3 years ago

Wow, thanks for this list.

..Alien King..
..Alien King..
3 years ago

I can only say I love you sir for this idea!!!!!! You’re a true master and this shows why they picked the right man and woman to collaborate a carrot, a goal, and fitness into a great undertaking of crazy

Drew
Drew
3 years ago

This is really great! What’s the best method for completing multiple routes at once? Do you have to split it into two separate rides? Thanks!

Claude Langlois
Trusted Member
Claude Langlois(@nockonlanglois)
3 years ago
Reply to  Eric Schlange

Zwift needs to fix this. Exiting the game to change route is not acceptable

Lee Meyer
Lee Meyer
3 years ago

Great idea, and duly ambitious! Be careful though… Did Quatch Quest (a tough one!) and didn’t get credit. Wrote to Zwift and they said they were aware of some glitches in the Badging code. (and that they couldn’t manually award the badge using the .fit file as proof). This just happened over the last two weeks, so unless something changed asap, that could be a bummer when trying to ‘bag the badges’… Good luck!

Eric
Eric
3 years ago

Super useful, thanks. I’ll Naver make 5 rides a week but nice to have the list.

Already 15 Achievements under my belt…40 to go?

I added it up and it looks like 31,328m of climbing to get them all. Great way to get most of a Tron Bike too. With what I have left to do, I’ll be at 90%.

Thanks for the downloads.

Kristian Mickelson
Kristian Mickelson
3 years ago

Could you also post the Google sheet of these .PDF?
I did get credit Quatch Quest on Dec 31st. It was brutal, I that was even doing it via workouts.

Jim Haysom
Jim Haysom(@haysom)
3 years ago

Fantastic resource Eric. I often do my structured ZA workouts up the Alpe, but useful to widen the routes to tick some of these off.

Tim G.
Tim G.(@tim_3)
3 years ago

This is awesome. Care to do one for the running routes? 🙂

Oliver Radermacher
Oliver Radermacher
3 years ago

Fantastic idea and work. I love it. but have many routes to ride :-). Good training

Duncan Kneller
Duncan Kneller
3 years ago

Great idea Eric, I’m certainly going to give it a go. Thank you for your efforts in creating this schedule

Rob Buckingham
Rob Buckingham
3 years ago

Love it! Defo doing this, been looking for inspiration and motivation, this maybe it! Thanks for doing this

ArT
ArT
3 years ago

He doesn’t agree with my results :). 4 ALPE water bottles? On the way I would have to stand on pee 2x :). I used 4 water bottles at the 160km 3300m UP race.

Martin Jensen
Martin Jensen(@martinhjensen)
3 years ago
Reply to  ArT

Would also say 4 Bottles/Bidons would be overkill for the Road to Sky, i use 2 bottles/Bidons or a little less on a trip up and down. 🙂

Keith
Keith
3 years ago

Can you post a chart/table grouped by World? That may make it easier to select routes based on the Guest World Calendar. Thanks!

Mike
Mike
3 years ago

This is exactly what I have been looking for. It seems like every moth runners world was a “couch to running a marathon in 3 months” comprehensive training plan but finding a couch to anything biking plan requires hiring some.

I have not ridden in 5 months and I look forward to precisely this.

Robert Andersson
Robert Andersson
3 years ago

Hi Eric! Thank you for a great challenge. Me and my wife did RAZ two years ago and this seems like the perfect way to kickstart 2020. 🙂 I just wonder about a few routes that confuse us. I remember that, when doing RAZ, we had to ride 5.5 and 7.7 km respectively to achieve the Volcano loops because of lead-in and to complete a full lap even if the distance stated in Zwift is about 4 km. We are looking at Lutscher and Lutscher CCW which are 13.7 km and 401 height meters but in your checklist they are… Read more »

Robert Andersson
Robert Andersson
3 years ago
Reply to  Eric Schlange

Thank you for your answer Eric!
That just means more and better training 🙂
I’ll start the challenge tomorrow!

Nathan Lipke
Nathan Lipke(@nlipke)
3 years ago

Yep I did Lutscher last night, and I got the badge at the top of the KOM the 2nd time through.

Jesse
Jesse
3 years ago

Great work, this is awesome! Any chance you could organize group rides targeting the six hardest rides so we don’t have to attempt them by ourselves?

Jez
Jez
3 years ago

This is great – I had been trying to cobble something like this together myself. Thanks Eric!

Judith
Judith
3 years ago

Thank you, my goal will be to ride them all in 2020, challenging enough for me 😉

Joey
Joey
3 years ago

This is so useful. Thank you! One of my pet peeves about Zwift is the disconnect between the virtual incentives offered and the UI to track progress and select your plan for the day.

Nathan Lipke
Nathan Lipke(@nlipke)
3 years ago

Should the highline bump up to 2 bidons for the lead in? Otherwise it’s 300m of climbing for one bidon!

David Gardiner
David Gardiner
3 years ago

Fantastic resource. I have been doing this for weeks now. Only thing that drives nuts is that some of the routes are actually longer than what zwift says it is, I did tick tock today and it was almost 20kms instead of the 16 it says when you sing in, I was a little late to work because of that! Would be amazing to update the list with correct distances.

Joe Pautler
Joe Pautler
3 years ago

This is awesome!! Thanks Eric!!!

Josh Hageman
Josh Hageman
3 years ago

Love this and it feeds my need to ticking off those boxes for badges! Awesome work, as always

Matt Wilson
Matt Wilson
3 years ago

A very useful set of columns for this might be average times for each route based on certain WKg average (2.0, 2.5, 3.0, etc). That would help people figure out which routes will fit into the allotted time they have for a workout, especially when it comes to the longest ones, where “between 3 and 6 hours” leaves a lot of wiggle room… I take a look at zwiftpower results to figure it out, but having a one stop shop would be great. Keep up the good work!

Paul Prince
Paul Prince(@paul-prince)
3 years ago
Reply to  Matt Wilson

I found a Zwift Predictor today for exactly this scenario. It is available through an app called ‘Open as App’ on Google Play/Appstore. You can input your data and it will give you a predicted time. It needs a bit of playing around with, I think. As an example I tried inputting previous data to see if it was accurate. I completed Innsbruck-Lutscher in around 1:25, with an average of 190W. Inputting 190W gave me a predicted time of 57 minutes at my weight and height. It might be I am missing something in order to maximise the accuracy. Watch… Read more »

Yoann Lecoeur
Yoann Lecoeur
3 years ago

Happy Zwift Year !!!
Thank you for the Routes List. I try to do my own list last week 😉 Howerver, I do not find “Gotham Grind” in the list.

Louise somerville
Louise somerville
3 years ago

Fab idea and just starting only following the routes and trying for one per day- So i did 1 bidon last night and it did not stop at the 1-9 miles – do people get a bagde for every route that is On the list.

Todd Busteed
Todd Busteed
3 years ago

The excitement experienced upon finding the checklist… #kidatchristmasmoment Been doing phone photos of the Badges page. This is so much more elegant! Thanks Eric!!!

Tracey Richardson
Tracey Richardson
3 years ago

soo… if I completed a badge in 2019 and now would like to be anal and follow your list of badges for 2020 will the badge achievement come across the screen even though I’ve already completed that particular one? I am guessing I will only get confirmation ONE time no matter how many more times I may do that route.

Tracey Richardson
Tracey Richardson
3 years ago
Reply to  Eric Schlange

that’s what I figured. thanks for the lists!!

Billy Beasley
Billy Beasley(@billy-beasley)
3 years ago

This is fantastic!!! My teenage son is going to love this!! He’ll be back zwifting after soccer and tennis season are done this spring, and he will love this checklist of accomplishments!!!

Ossett Mark
Ossett Mark
3 years ago

Thanks Eric for this, I had a similar one going but yours has more detail. I’ve converted the .PDF to an Excel spreadsheet and marked which ones I need to collect the badges for and also to complete for the Veloviewer table!

Matt Wilson
Matt Wilson
3 years ago

Another possible addition, a checkbox for whether or not a route can be completed in an event? Easy example from this morning, went to ride Watopia Figure 8 in an event, then realized we immediately turned CW out of the pens onto the circuit and skipped the start banner, so assumed we wouldn’t get credit, and quit/restarted to ride solo (which is obviously less fun). Was going to ride a long Big Foothills event tomorrow and it’s a bit vague on whether from the pens plus lead in will end up getting credit…

Matt Wilson
Matt Wilson
3 years ago
Reply to  Matt Wilson

For those curious Big Foothills did count via an event, since the pens were earlier than the rock arch start/finish. 128 min ride at 2.0-2.5.

Shel Thieszen
Shel Thieszen(@sthieszen)
3 years ago

Excellent resource!! Thank you for doing this.

Sheldon Thieszen
Sheldon Thieszen(@sthieszen)
3 years ago

Thanks for this! Super helpful resource!

Julian Kirkland
Julian Kirkland
3 years ago

Thanks for sharing these Eric. Im new to Zwift and looking forward to working my way through this list. Good man!

Shawn Schmitz
Shawn Schmitz(@beachgrad05)
3 years ago

I’m using this to track mine. I rode Dust in the Wind yesterday and it really was a 3 Bidon ride! I drank 3 Bidon’s during my ride. I noted that the elevation was higher and distance less than what is listed on master list. My distance was 52.6km and elevation was 582m. Spawn point may have been changed but not sure how I would end up with more climbing. Either way….I stopped at top of climb toward the Jungle before descent started and put my avatar on gravel bike…then on the way out stopped again and put her back… Read more »

stephanie fisher
3 years ago

I would have loved to do this! Just saw it today. Maybe I’ll see what I can do between now and then and try to catch up

Michael Snasdell
Michael Snasdell
3 years ago

Love it, thank you for putting this all together Eric.

Doug Kelley
Doug Kelley
3 years ago

Brilliant! New to Zwift and planning to use this into springtime. To better facilitate scheduling (worlds), resorting, and making notes, I exported Eric’s fine document into Excel but don’t think I can upload in comments. Will email… DK

Paul Kirchhofer
Paul Kirchhofer
3 years ago

Thanks for putting this info together!!

Mikael
Mikael
3 years ago

How come Watopia’s Waistband (and possibly The Magnificent 8) isn’t included in Veloviewers Route Hunter under Rebel Routes?

Ray Morro
Member
Ray Morro(@rpm_bikes)
3 years ago

I converted it into a nifty Excel spreadsheet as well, making a few changes like adding separate columns for metric and english distances and elevations, and the totals of those, as well as the totals for all the bonus eXperience Points…If you would like to download the file, I will post it on the Bear Mountaineers Facebook group page. The Bear Mountaineers are a Zwift club I ride with regularly, especially on the weekends.

Tim D
Tim D
3 years ago

Thanks for the list, amazing work!

Some route badges still seem to be buggy as mentioned on zwift forum https://forums.zwift.com/t/multiple-badges-still-not-working/181416
Please consider upvoting this topic

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