Announcing the Tour de Zwift Chase Challenge

Tour de Zwift 2024 is fully underway, with hundreds (sometimes thousands) of riders jumping into group rides and races. It’s Zwift’s biggest annual party on wheels!

The vast majority of TdZ events are group rides, not official races. But of course, that doesn’t stop some riders from going all-out and treating them as a race!

Other riders treat them as easy recovery rides, while others choose a longer-than-comfortable route for the challenge of completing it. Lots of riders. Lots of goals.

Today we’re announcing a fun little challenge to add another dimension to your TdZ group rides: the Tour de Zwift Chase Challenge! The idea is simple: catch as many riders as possible during your TdZ group ride, record your numbers, and share them on this page. The two top chasers will receive our Watopia map poster as a prize.

One Challenge, Two Contests

The big idea of this challenge is to catch riders up the road during your Tour de Zwift group ride. But group sizes can vary a lot from event to event and category to category, so we’re actually awarding two winners in the challenge:

1. Overtaker Award: for the rider who passes the most people, as documented by their screenshots.
2. Pack Gobbler Award: for the rider who passes the highest percentage of the group, as documented by their screenshots.

Challenge Rules

1. To document your TdZ Chase Challenge, you must post screenshots or video(s) showing your full Zwift screen. Two screenshots are required:
   • Starting Shot: your starting position is the position shown at the top of the rider list on your screenshot/video at least 1km into the ride. (The 1km requirement is in place so you can’t just sit in the pens for a few seconds to let everyone ride away before taking your first screenshot.) If you’re sharing via video, the starting number is what’s shown when your distance ticks over to 1km (or 0.6 miles).
   • Ending Shot: your ending numbers screenshot can be from any location within the final kilometer (final 0.6 miles) of the event. Most riders will just use the screenshot automatically taken when you cross the finish line.
2. After getting your screenshots, you must share them as a comment on this post. Three sharing methods are allowed:
   • Upload your screenshots as part of your comment on this Zwift Insider post. Only one image is allowed per comment, so you’ll need to post two comments.
   • Video links to YouTube or Twitch are allowed.
   • Links to public Strava activities including the necessary screenshots and/or videos are allowed.
3. Your comment on this Zwift Insider post is your official entry. Along with the necessary photos/videos/links, your comment must include a summary of the final numbers, so we don’t have to do the math on our end and people can scan comments to see how others did:
   • You’ll need three numbers: your Starting Position (S), Finishing Positioning (F), and Total Riders In Event (T). Note that total riders in event is the second number showed at the top of the rider list on your ending shot.
   • Your comment/entry can just be something simple like this: “S-F riders overtaken, which was (S-F)/T percent of the group.” See example below…
4. You can enter as many times as you’d like.
5. Poster prize (see below) is only offered for smart trainer/power meter users. (Simply put, the lightning bolt must be visible next to your power number in screenshots.)

Entry Example

From the screenshots above, I can get the following numbers:

• Starting Position: 507
• Finishing Position: 202
• Total Riders in Event: 1022 (from ending shot)

I would then share those two screenshots in comments on this post, along with the following summary:

305 riders overtaken, which was 29.8% of the group.

Poster Prizes!

We will ship a Watopia map poster to the “Overtaker” and “Pack Gobbler” award winners once TdZ ends.

We assume someone (or multiple someones) will probably gobble the entire group. If there is a tie of any sort, the win will go to whoever rode in the largest event (highest total rider count in the ending shot) because gobbling up a pack of 100 riders is easier than gobbling up a pack of 300!

Alternative Contests

Along with the official Chase Challenge contest, consider making your TdZ group rides more interesting by taking on a few alternative personal challenges:

• HR Efficiency: can you overtake many riders while keeping your average heart rate down in zone 2? This pushes you to ride as efficiently as possible.
• Power Efficiency: similar to HR efficiency but based on power. Keep your overall average power low, while overtaking as many riders as possible.
• Most Improved: you may have difficulty competing with the Chase Challenge numbers of super strong riders. But you can still compare your own personal numbers and try to improve them as TdZ goes on.

Ride Smarter (and Harder?)

To perform your best in the Chase Challenge, you’ll have to ride efficiently and make lots of strategic decisions:

• Know the course
• Use steering to cut corners
• Use powerups at the perfect time
• Put in a well-timed dig to bridge up to the next pack of riders. Or don’t put in the dig, because you know your pack will reel in the riders ahead within a few minutes!

Good luck, and Ride On!

Up for It?

Let’s go! Post your entries below!