We had lots of riders in last Saturday’s Tiny Races – the biggest turnout we’ve seen to date in most categories! In the middle timeslot 131 B riders contested the races. It may be time to spin up a fourth time slot.
I had a long outdoor training ride planned (prepping for a bike trip in a couple of weeks) so I didn’t race the Tiny Races on Saturday. But I sat in and watched the middle time slot, providing some decidedly subpar commentary in a live stream. It was a really fun race, as the two top riders were tied going into race 4!
In the end, the overall winner in the Bs for the middle time slot was Chris Hoelzl of WattFabrik. He messaged what is perhaps my favorite quote so far from a Tiny Racer:
“Seldom have I enjoyed winning less.”
Chris Hoelzl
Congrats to Last Week’s Winners
Overall Podiums
A: Geoffrey Millour (SIGN)
B: Anders D. Christiansen (DZR)*
C: Krzysztof Fizyta (DIRT)
D: Evan Plouhinec (HEX)
A: Jon Werme (eSRT)
B: Chris Hoelzl (WattFabrik)
C: Steve Schilling (CRYO-GEN)
D: Kenneth Yau (Team Vegan)
A: B B (OMG)
B: Sam Atkinson (TBR)
C: Paul Smith (ART)
D: Dom Sim(Team Italy)
*Snowy Pruett actually tied with Anders for points in the Bs, but Anders gets the win because he had the highest single race finish of the two.
Women’s Podiums
A: Åsa Fast-Berglund (SZ)
B: Cornelia Engström (SZ)
C: Julia Volkmann (Crushpod)
D: Sandra Moebius (RCP)
A: Jenny Ek (HERD)
B: Karoline Straßer (CrushPod)
C: Janine Schumann (WattFabrik)
D: Linn Björgvik (SZR)
A: none
B: Anna Russell (Saris-NoPinz)
C: Kelsey Tranel (KRT)
D: Ann Fleming (HERD)
This Week’s Routes
This week we’re going all-in on Makuri Islands, with four fresh routes that have never been seen in the Tiny Races.
Here are photos so you can see the precise location of the custom finish lines:
- Race 1: Railways and Rooftops (5.44km, ends atop Rooftop KOM Reverse)
- The reverse version of the Rooftop KOM in Neokyo isn’t an official segment, and it’s a rather unfamiliar climb to most Zwifters since few routes go this way.
- Powerup: Feather
- Race 2: Chasing the Sun (4.42km, to Railway Sprint arch)
- A flattish race through the streets of Neokyo, this one will encourage long attacks on the ramp up to the railway. On top of that, the Railway Sprint always feels like a long effort!
- Powerup: Draft Boost
- Race 3: Spirit Forest (3.35km, ends partway up Temple KOM)
- You’ll want a gravel bike for this one, as it’s almost entirely dirt and mostly uphill. This route takes us on the rarely-ridden cross trail that connects both sides of the Temple KOM partway up their respective climbs. Then we’ll turn left off that cross trail and continue the Temple KOM for a bit, ending at a custom finish.
- Powerup: none
- Race 4: Two Village Loop (5.7km, ends on the circuit around Village Onsen)
- This is a flattish course as well, although the 1.5km of dirt near the start will make it feel like an uphill effort and encourage early attacks. You’ll do a full lap around the boxy Village Onsen outer roads, finishing partway into the second lap on a straightaway. If that ending doesn’t feel like a crit, nothing will!
- Powerup: Aero
Sign up at zwift.com/events/tag/tinyraces
Join a Chat & Chill Cooldown Event
Immediately following each hour’s racing, we’ve scheduled 30-minute “Chat & Chill” events where riders from all categories can spin out their legs together and have some fun chatting about how it all went down. Find them at zwift.com/events/tag/tinyraces.
ZwiftPower Results
Zwift displays preliminary race results in game when you cross the line, but points are computed after all four races finish, with final results on ZwiftPower. (We have to press a ZwiftPower button to compute results manually, so if your rankings don’t show up right away, just be patient.)
Riders will earn points based on finish position in each of the 4 Tiny Races. The category winner of each week’s series is the rider with the most points across their timezone’s 4 races. Here are the links for each timezone’s results on ZwiftPower:
Questions or Comments
Post below!
Despite the suffering, I‘ll try to be back for these each week. Truly a terrific/horrific workout.
Try being 30 spots behind you…
Did this last week, and really enjoyed it, despite the suffering! Put out my best power in weeks, and love the challenge of hard for 7-8 minutes, then recover for 5-6.
Thanks for keeping these going!
Nice work!
You should have at least one no HUD race each week
Even though I usually don’t get all four races in due to a standing soccer game I really look forward to getting up early and doing the tiny races. My wife and I even have a little song we sing based on “Tiny Bubbles”! Great job Eric!
I was racing with Hoelzl when he dropped that quote and almost couldn’t continue 😂
Race 1 doesn’t show on my companion app (time zone 2)
I’ve joined 2/3/4 but no race 1?
I see it! Here’s the link: https://www.zwift.com/events/view/3122868
The 10 am block may still show last week’s routes. Not what you describe above. Thanks
The course description for Race 3, Spirit Forest, states: “You’ll want a gravel bike for this one, as it’s almost entirely dirt and mostly uphill.” Zwiftpower is now showing the Sept 10th tiny races for 1-2 AM PST, but when you look at the route description and graphics at the top of the page in Zwiftpower for sign-ups for the Spirit Forest route it shows that most of the route is DOWNHILL, with the only significant climbing between the 2.4 and 2.6 kilometer route. Also, this route also shows the finish to be slightly downhill. But the two pictures above… Read more »
We’re just riding part of the lead-in to the route. ZwiftPower is showing the route AFTER the lead-in.
I only managed races 2-4 as was still on my TT bike from Thursday’s WTRL TTT and didn’t manage to change in time for race 1!
one thing I noticed was that the power ups in race 4 were a bit squiffy. I got feather – is this a Zwift bug? Other people were commenting about that straight after the ride as well…
Nice format though- enjoyed it!
Yeah. The powerups appear to be set up correctly for the events, but sometimes Zwift poops itself and gives no powerups, or even the wrong powerups. Not sure why.
Hi, regarding next week stage three text here says we are to expect mostly uphill. At the time of typing this, Zwiftpower (page https://zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=3122786 ) shows a mostly downhill stage. I suppose Zwiftpower shows an other part of “Spirit Forest”.
Yes – we’re just riding part of the lead-in to the route. ZwiftPower is showing the route AFTER the lead-in.
Hi Eric, what do you use to calculate the race distances so that they finish at the arches so precisely? E.g. Chasing the Sun (4.42km, to Railway Sprint arch)
I occasionally set up races with custom distances but struggle to get the finish in the exact place I want them.
I start with a recon bot ride, which lets me guess the distance within about 20 meters or so. Then it’s more recon events with test distances until I get it right.
Stupidly tedious. But I’m building up a library of routes I can re-use for Tiny Races down the road, so it won’t always be a hassle.
I think it’s just you. I see all the races. Go to ZwiftPower and search for “Tiny” and all 12 events (plus 3 Chat & Chills) show up.
Hi all, looks very interesting as a good workout but i don’t understand how it is possible not to be dsq in B as most riders are mostly above 4W for 5mn. Does anybody knows what is the Zada Limit for 5mn? Do we have a risk to be upgraded to A if we are competiting the 4 races ? Tks !
No risk. The 4wkg limit is for 20-minute power, and since these events never get close to 20 minutes, your ZwiftPower category won’t be upgraded.
Your category enforcement category, on the other hand… well that’s another story. 🙂
Hey, any chance of a 2am UTC for us Kiwis who don’t like early starts?
Why not race the 8am UTC event?
Just did my first Tiny Race series. Very challenging but immensely enjoyable, especially since I won the first one. 😏
Thanks Eric for your work creating the routes, I really like the 4 Makuri routes today.
I miss the Friday morning Sprintapalooza ride, but found other similar groups on other days, but they are not the same without Eric.
The winner of Zone 3 Race 3 A Cat seemed a bit sus!