A noteworthy new race series has been announced beginning November 5, 2022 and running through February 2023. The unique setup of the series was designed to appeal to all types of riders, with races for climbers, sprinters, and those in between.
You can race as a team or as an individual, and there are a variety of race lengths and courses on offer. Let’s dive into the details!
Split Categories
The number of categories is (nearly) doubled, with the typical A, B, and C categories split into two apiece so there isn’t such a wide performance window in each category. Here are the specific categories:
| Race Category | FTP | Wattage Floors |
|---|---|---|
| A+ | 4.60 w/kg and above | 300 W |
| A | 4.00 w/kg to 4.59 w/kg | 250 W |
| B+ | 3.60 w/kg to 3.99 w/kg | 225 W |
| B | 3.20 w/kg to 3.59 w/kg | 200 W |
| C+ | 2.85 w/kg to 3.19 w/kg | 175 W |
| C | 2.50 w/kg to 2.84 w/kg | 150 W |
| D | 2.49 w/kg and below | 110 W |
3x3x3 – Flexible and Unique Race Selection
World ICR races are held on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays – 3 days per week. On each of those days, events are scheduled in 3 different timezones for easy scheduling:
- 10:30am UTC/6:30am EDT/3:30am PDT
- 7:30pm UTC/3:30pm EDT/12:30pm PDT
- 12am UTC/8pm EDT/5pm PDT
You pick which events you want to race. Each day features a different type of event – one may work better for climbers, one may work better for sprinters. You choose which races you want to race, and race as many as you’d like.
At the end of the month, your top 3 scores count toward your overall series total.
3 Event Difficulty Levels
Events are categorized by their length, with longer events giving out more points. This makes sense, of course. If you ride for 60 minutes, you should be able to earn more points than you would in a 15-minute effort.
Regardless of race length, finish points are always awarded to the top 50 riders, and fastest through segment (FTS) points are always awarded to the top 10 riders.
 |  |  | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Winners Points | 250 | 500 | 1000 |
| FTS Points | 199 | 398 | 795 |
| Race Time | 15-20 Mins | 30-40 Mins | 60-70 Mins |
One Powerup Type
Similar to the Zwift Insider Tiny Races, each race will feature just one type of powerup, so everyone has the same advantage.
November Schedule
| Wed | Fri | Sun | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 2–6 | Innsbrucking 1 Lap FTS: Innsbruck Forward Sprint Powerup: Aero | Chain Chomper – Finish at the end of Temple KOM Rev FTS: Castle KOM Powerup: Feather | Lady Liberty – Finish at the end of New York Sprint FTS: NY KOM Rev Powerup: Draft |
| Nov 9-13 | Three Little Sisters – Finish at the end of Titans Grove FTS: Hilly KOM Powerup: Draft | Downtown Dolphin 15 Laps FTS: Prime Climb Powerup: Aero | Surrey Hills – Finish at the end of Leith Hill FTS: Fox Hill KOM Powerup: Feather |
| Nov 16-20 | La Reine 1 Lap FTS: Petit KOM Powerup: Feather | 2019 UCI Worlds Harrogate Circuit – 3 Laps FTS: Yorkshire KOM Powerup: Draft | Electric Loop 6 Laps FTS: Alley Sprint Powerup: Aero |
| Nov 27 | No Race | No Race | Dust in the Wind 1 Lap FTS: Titans Grove KOM Rev No Power Up |
Rankings
As the series progresses, team and individual rankings will be available on the World ICR website at https://worldicr.com/rankings/.
Team Competition
You can race the World ICR series as an individual, or as part of a team. Teams can be made up of as many riders as you like. The top 10 individual point scorers from each team will then be added together each month. The total amount of points will then give you your team ranking.
It doesn’t matter what time zone, category, or gender your team member earns their points.
Team prizes are on offer for the 10 people who make up the winning team’s total score at the end of the series.
Prizes
Prizes are on offer for both individual and team competitions. See details here.
Rules
We always advise Zwifters to check out the full rules before committing to an event. See the full World ICR rules here.
Registration
To register, visit https://worldicr.com/register/
At press time several hundred racers were already signed up, with race organizers anticipating approximately 1000 signups before the event begins.
When I signed up, I received this message: Thank you for registering for the World Indoor Cycling Rankings. All race links will be sent out via email on the 30th October for the first week’s races and then every Sunday after that, for the rest of the series.
Learn More
Looking for more info?
Check out Si Bradeley’s intro to the World ICR series:
And of course, the excellent World ICR website is a good resource.
Lastly, the World ICR Facebook group is a great place for discussion.
Questions or Comments?
Post below!
I think that this series has many cool ideas inside and could be the future on Zwift : individual AND team rankings in one series over one month, smaller or bigger teams where EVERY member can race how often he/she wants, members can be from different Cat’s and different genders (so a possible new Zwift-Cat-System with smaller Cat-ranges would be no problem to build a team from only the same Cat like in ZRL !), different routes for different phenotypes with the SAME offered points value per week (good news for climbers & allrounders !), it’s not only a race… Read more »
Thank you for the feedback, the series will definitely adapt and improve over the months 😊
sounds good Lee 🤗 … first collecting experiences and then making possible adjustments
Shame they haven’t put any thought into the women’s categories. And neither does this post really…
yes, they should split the women’s cat’s, too … if the packs are big enough
Hello and I completely understand your frustration with the women’s categories and I worked with a lot of women zwifters before announcing the categories and the feedback was always numbers, no one wants to race 4 or 5 people and this was the experience of a lot of them. However, this was the feedback before the season even had a website and we had any idea of numbers. So if the numbers are good in November, we will 💯 be adding more women’s categories. I hope that all makes sense and please know that, we want the same categories for… Read more »
“Time Zone 2” is probably a bit too late … I think that 20.00 or 20.30 CET would fit much better than 21.30 CET 🤷🏻♂️
When i signed up it said 20.30
ah … perfect … 19.30 UTC looked like 21.30 CET … Thank you Michael 🙋🏻♂️
Shame they did not divede D cat in 2, so as a sub 2 rider I would get a chance to race for victory. But probably they did not split D is becuase the vast majority of D racers are over 2.0, with only a few under that value.
Quick question, what are the wattage floor values indicated?
Let’s say you have 4.1 w/kg but only 240w. You would normally have to ride in A but because you are below the wattage floor of 250 you are allowed to race in B+
Very selfish perhaps but the lack of an early timezone so that EU/UK can race before work is disappointing with so many events recently.
Would love to race this if they were offering a nice 7-8am start
Not at all selfish, I think a lot of people would like more time zones and hopefully, if numbers are good, we can add more 😊
Could you explain what the Watt floor is please. I’m obviously asking for a friend…
How exactly do the prizes work? Is it just the highest score at the end of the month? Or the winners of the finals in ~February?
Just late at night… around 7:30 p.m. would have been perfect
Where do i get the info if I am A or A+.? i am just at 4.5-4.6.
ZwiftPower … Profile … click on 2nd Info button … your 95% avg of best 3 races decides
Interesting series for sure, copies what TFC started with Mad Monday but hasn’t really tried to address fundamental issues with wkg and the watt boundaries to protect riders…… anyway I’m sure we will try it…. that said FRR ran its Tour France this week (finishes tomorrow) 8 stages 9 days – Tour Style GC, Polka, Sprinter, Team and 7 rider categories – 1350 riders registered and you’ll go a long way to find an unhappy rider…. http://WWW.flammerougeracing.com to register for Tour Britannia which start Nov 26…. toughest Series on Zwift…. with 3 more to come!
Isn’t there a way to enforce Zwiftpower sign up BEFORE a rider is allowed to enter a race?
The damage is already done even if they a DSQ after the race. They are affecting the race if they are allowed to enter.
I did a B race recently where there were guys in my chase group pulling 4 to 4.2 w/kg continuously for the last 10km.
Afterwards 8 of those riders were removed from the results in Zwiftpower. But I shouldn’t have to race them (unless I join an A race).
Agree but this is where zwift can’t decide/figure out how to set up a proper race management feature within the actual zwift software.
It’s kind of mad that we need to have a separate website (and another for zrl) because zwift themselves just can’t havent pulled their finger out on it.
Searching for events on the zwift website is still garbage, it’s better on the companion app at least but not by much, and ZP the best…
I’m confused about the “top 3 scores count towards overall series”. So does that mean, if I win all three of the races on the last week (Wed, Fri, Sun), it wouldn’t matter if I had won any of the other races, because that last week is worth the most points?
Yes, your highest 3 point totals of all races will count for November … Gold week races are much longer than Bronze/Silver, so they have more value … and it would be very impressive if you could win in flat Neokyo & the long climb at “La Reine” 😉
not saying that I would per say…haha. But a hypothetical
Love the concept and idea, and I am going to participate for sure. But I’m not sure why we need to continue to have watt floors. The featherweights will win the climbing stage easily, and in theory the can just do the “La Reine” stage twice and they’ll win the rankings.
Furthermore, I’m wondering what happens after November? Do you carry your rankings over, or do you start again with blank sheets?
the December series will start at 0 points again … but you collect your points in Nov/Dec/Jan for the big finale in February (100 riders per Cat.)
Thanks for the response mate.
Would you pick 33-34 riders from Nov/Dec/Jan respectively, or would you look at the 100 highest monthly scores regardless of in which month they came?
I understand the rules like this, that you sum up your points (3 best races in Nov, 3 best races in Dec and also Jan) and then the best 100 per Cat. will get an invitation for Feb.
This scoring system seems broken to me. It will push people to ignore the short races and maybe even the middle distance races since long races are worth 2x-4x and only three scores count.
A mediocre result on a long race will trump a victory in a short race or a podium in a medium race.
I think the organizers should instead pick each racer’s best short, medium, and long result each month.
Hi, re World ICR races, I’ve looked
for Innsbruck event on Wed 2nd but can’t seem to find it in Zwift events?
Yeah same, I also registered as an individual a couple days back but haven’t had anything by email to confirm or give more info
The only place other than the WICR website site that I can find the races listed is on ZwiftPower. Not in companion app that I can find.
I also registered as an individual on 2-Nov and have not received anything by email. Guess I’m not racing that series at 17:00 Pacific 😞
The message after I registered talked about race links being sent out on Sunday 30-Oct and Sundays after than. I wonder if one had to be registered before some deadline on 30-Oct to race this week?
I registered last week Wednesday or Thursday and didn’t get any confirmation email. OK. So maybe on Sunday an email with the race links in for next week?
Nope. Nothing yet. I’ve tried chasing on their contact form. We’ll see. Perhaps they’re overwhelmed? Either way, the series looks good and I want in.
The w/kg for the C/C+ categories you have above don’t seem to match with what’s on their race passes. The race pass for C+ is 2.8 to 3.2 w/kg not 2.85 w/kg to 3.2 w/kg. I’m 2.81 w/kg from zwiftpower, so should I be C+ or C. Very confused, or have I missed something?
You’ll have to ask WorldICR, I guess. My table above matches what’s on https://worldicr.com/how-it-works/