This week, Zwift announced major changes to the platform’s schedule of women-only races. It’s all part of a long-running collaboration with a number of key community organizers and racers looking for increased participation in all levels of women’s racing. Read on for details…
Summary of Changes
Spearheaded by James Bailey – a long-time Zwifter turned key member of Zwift’s events team – changes to the women’s racing schedule can be summarized thus:
- The women-only category E has been removed from all mixed-category races
- Some women-only race events have been removed from the calendar
- A new slate of women-only races has been added to the calendar, housed under the FemmeCycle Collab (FCC) club but managed by various race organizers
The Big Picture
So why the change? Here’s what James says:
The attendances on both Women’s only events, and mixed events which have a women-only E category are as a rule, poor in attendance (sub 5 starter average). It is my belief that these are damaging to women’s only racing – turning up to your first race with no one else in your category, or a single person that drops you by some distance will not encourage you to come back.
Leading up to this change, there have been approximately 75 weekly events that were women-only races or mixed races with a women-only E category. Those E events typically saw 3-4 people show up, with a broad range of fitness levels, meaning women in these events didn’t generally get the experience of racing “together.”
Of course, low turnout in women’s races isn’t just a Zwift problem. It’s an ongoing challenge for outdoor race organizers as well! Zwift realized early on that their platform was an ideal home for both aspiring and experienced women racers, so they hosted women-only race events and group workouts. They also pioneered the Zwift Academy model just for women in its initial years, placing aspiring pros on WorldTour women’s teams. And Zwift is a multi-year sponsor of what are arguably the two biggest women’s races of the season: Paris-Roubaix and Tour de France Femmes.
Given Zwift’s investments in women’s cycling, it only makes sense that Zwift’s events team, in collaboration with the women’s racing community, would make strategic changes to the women’s race calendar with a view toward creating more compelling events. James says:
Having events created by a number of different teams increases fairness (and a lack of favoritism) as well as there being a single place where all upcoming events are easily seen. It also improves the ability to market the events.
New Schedule
The new women-only race events p/b FemmeCycle Collab are scheduled 5x daily during the week, and 4x daily on the weekends.
- Weekday times:
- 9:30am UTC/5:30am EDT/2:30am PDT
- 5:30pm UTC/1:30pm EDT/10:30am PDT
- 6:30pm UTC/2:30pm EDT/11:30am PDT
- 10:30pm UTC/6:30pm EDT/3:30pm PDT
- 12:30am UTC/8:30pm EDT/5:30pm PDT
- Weekend times:
- 9:30am UTC/5:30am EDT/2:30am PDT
- 2:30pm UTC/10:30am EDT/7:30am PDT
- 5:30pm UTC/1:30pm EDT/10:30am PDT
- 12:30am UTC/8:30pm EDT/5:30pm PDT
So far, September’s race schedule has women on the planned Zwift Racing League courses, giving them a nice preview of the routes they’ll be racing if they’re participating in ZRL.
See upcoming races at zwift.com/events/tag/womensracing >
Note: the above schedule may change in the coming weeks, as James will be reviewing the numbers to determine if the daily event volume needs to be modified.
Want to host a women’s race?
If you’re interested in hosting a women’s race event on Zwift, James says it’s best to email [email protected] with your event proposal. You may also submit the event request form here.
Fair warning, though: Zwift’s events team plans to closely evaluate race schedules and participation levels before adding more women-only race events. It may be that the best way to influence women’s racing on Zwift is to join the FemmeCycle Collab (see below) and let your voice be heard in that forum!
Connect with the Collab
Women interested in racing should join the FemmeCycle Collab (FCC) club on Zwift, since that makes it easy to find upcoming FCC events via the Companion app.
If you want to get involved in race planning or just want to offer feedback to race organizers, join the FCC Discord server: https://discord.gg/u5G3wbXZ
Full Speed Ahead
Several months ago, in partnership with the FemmeCycle Collab, we launched Zwift Insider’s women’s racing portal as a central place for women to learn about racing on Zwift. The portal’s pages (including weekly racer profiles, a women’s racing calendar, and a big list of women’s teams to join) have proven quite popular. We look forward to continuing our support of more women racing more often!
Questions or Comments?
Post below!
530pm & 630pm are too close. Doesn’t work for women who work during the day and don’t get home in time. 730pm would be more inclusive
Times are UTC, not BST Susanne.
What’s the BST then James? Thanks for replying
6.30 and 7.30
Perfect. That makes more sense. Thanks James 👍
Why does every activity have to have certain quotas of certain people? Just make general categories so people can race against anyone they are similar in fitness to. Gender and race and age shouldn’t matter as long as people are similar in fitness. I see all these black only races too… What would happen if there were white only races? How about if we all just race together?
Joel, women’s only races tend to be a lot more supportive than mixed, especially for those newer to racing. There are no races restricted by ethnicity.
I think another thing that would make racing more appealing to women would be to allow women to always race down a category (like in the US’s outdoor racing categorization). Mixed racing can be pretty fun and draws the big field sizes, but when my FTP is just slightly over 200 and I’m stuck in the Bs with men who can easily push 250 without breathing hard, and can sprint with 800+ watts vs my measly 350-ish, it is a battle to even stay in the pack! And there is no physiological possibility that I will ever be in the mix near the front.
Judy – the racing score system should do pretty much what you’re asking versus the existing power catgories.
James, I am sorry to say this, but ZRS is not going to solve the race inequalities unless you guys get rid of the 30s component and bring in some endurance metrics instead. I got dropped in every ZRS race I participated in, and it really made me lose my confidence in it.
Jessica – We’re bringing in the ability for your score to drop below your base score, so if you are seeded to highly, it will drop you to a more sensible score and thus range. the metrics are 30s, 10min and weight and are relevant for racing. Normally I’ve been seeing women at the lower end of the scoring ranges so i would expect this to be less of a problem, unless you have a great sprint already.
James, the main issue we are facing is that we have got a ton of racers with crazy endurance flooding into our pens. They have got artificially low sprint numbers, which messes up their scores. Every ZRS race I have been in feels like a constant push until everyone gets dropped. You do not really see that in CE races, at least not to this extend. My issue is that I focus on sprinting during workouts and love to tackle short hills at full speed. So, my numbers are super high, but they only show what I can do when I am fresh. In a race, I cannot even hit half of those numbers. It is like I am being pushed to train on other platforms just to keep my seed score from skyrocketing. Dropping below my seed is just a temporary fix since the pen boundaries keep shifting, and I will end up in an unmanageable spot again soon. This is not going to fix the systemic problem caused by the wrong choice of 30s/10m powers. Why not just take the whole curve and let the AI handle sorting the racers?
Jessica – Yeah, I get this. Scores are artificially low because you have riders who are either coming back indoors, or haven’t raced before, or simply don’t sprint. We’re looking to add incentives to complete a workout where there is a 30s mash the pedals as hard as you can interval, which should help at least a bit to improve the accuracy of seed score.
Additionally, the more data we get (and remember this is still in beta) the better estimates of score we will have and it will improve in time.
My experience in ZRS races was that the pace felt right for me and I hope you’ll get that experience also in a bit.
Thank you for the effort!
It’s puzzling why there’s so little female participation in races both on Zwift and outdoors while IRL group rides are well attended. Especially compared to running where at local races it feels like half the participants are women.
We are trying to fix this 🙂 But it does need community (and our) support to help spread the word.
Really excited to see a more coordinated effort for women’s racing. Thanks @james.
I hope that Zwift opens up the ability to join more than 10 clubs. Now I have to choose which one to leave so that I can join this one, which seems antithetical to the intent.