Last weekend our popular Saturday Tiny Races were replaced by back-to-back-to-back races replicating what the pros will experience for the UCI eSports Worlds events. And we’re doing it once more this weekend!
Sign up at zwift.com/events/tag/worldsexperience
Schedule Changes
Last weekend’s races didn’t have any major issues, but there are two time-related adjustments we’re making this weekend:
- Most of the races will be an hour earlier than last week, matching up with our typical Tiny Race time. This should give more folks access to try out the races.
- Race 3 now begins 5 minutes later, to give D riders more time to finish race 2. (Last weekend some D riders weren’t able to finish race 2 in time, and thus missed race 3.)
Race Results
We won’t list the full results of all 6 zones here, but we’ll mention that it was fun to see many of the UCI Worlds starters racing these events for practice! In fact, 4 of the 6 men’s A winners are Worlds starters. On the women’s side, all the A winners were also Worlds starters.
List of 1st place finishers who are also racing worlds this Saturday:
Men
- Brian Duffy Jr (USA)
- Ben Ruthe (New Zealand)
- Rinus Verhelle (Belgium)
- Jason Osborne (Germany) – 2020 Esports Worlds champ!
Women
- Mary Wilkinson (Great Britain)
- Kristen Kulchinsky (USA)
- Anne Nevin (Norway)
- Imogen Cotter (Ireland)
- Bronwyn MacGregor (New Zealand)
Looking for the full results of last weekend’s races? See them on ZwiftPower:
Race Details
Worlds Experience Races are being delivered in sets of three, and the idea is that you should race all three events in sequence, much like our Tiny Races. This will take about 75 minutes to complete.
Each race uses the same single powerup type that Worlds racers will receive.
Race 1, “The Punch”, is a single lap of Rolling Highlands (14.1km long, 106m elevation). Riders will receive one burrito powerup at the Breakaway Brae banner.
30 minutes later Race 2, “The Climb”, begins: a single lap of City and the Sgurr (8.6km long, 166m elevation). This twisty, climby route will take you up to the Sgurr summit a total of three times, and two of those climbs will be on the gravel side. Riders will receive one anvil powerup early in the ride at Central Station. Use it wisely!
Lastly, Race 3, “The Podium” begins 30 minutes after Race 2. This race will be over 4 laps of Glasgow Crit Circuit (each lap is 3km long, 33m elevation). Racers will receive a burrito powerup at the Champions Sprint banner each lap, which means everyone will get 4 burritos.
At the end of the race set you will have completed three races on three separate Scotland routes, much like the world’s top eracers on February 18.
Ready to sign up? Visit zwift.com/events/tag/worldsexperience
Weekend Timeslots
We’ve tweaked the times just a bit this weekend, moving everything back 1 hour except for the races that happen around the time the UCI Esports Worlds events will take place.
Saturday times:
- 9am UTC (4am ET)
- 3pm UTC (10am ET/7am PT)
- 10pm UTC (5pm ET/2pm PT/Monday 9am AEDT)
Sunday times:
- 9am UTC (4am ET)
- 3pm UTC (10am ET/7am PT)
- 9pm UTC (4pm ET/1pm PT/Monday 8am AEDT)
Ready to sign up? Visit zwift.com/events/tag/worldsexperience
Final Results on ZwiftPower
The final winners for each time slot’s set of three races will be determined by points. You earn points based on your finishing position in each of the three races, then the rider with the most points wins. Points structure can be found on the ZwiftPower results pages below:
Rules
We’re using the same rules as Tiny Races. Category Enforcement will determine each racer’s minimum category.
- No skipping then returning. If you skip race 1 or 2, but finish a later race, your later result(s) will be annulled.
- You must have an active ZwiftPower account
- Heart rate monitors are required for podium positions
- Smart trainer or power meter must be paired as your power source in order to join the races.
Questions or Comments?
Post below!
Burrito power up is the worse when people don’t know how to use it correctly. 1st race, so many dropped it going down the descent straight after getting it, and the front 15ish riders who didn’t use it, just started to roll away, so i ended up putting in a small sprint, just to get back onto them, and all those already struggling with the climb, only harming themselves. I never used mine, as i was never in the position to use it. Last race, getting them every lap was equally painful, after the 1st lap, i realised the best… Read more »
The thing I don’t like about the Burrito is the negative effect it has on the rest of the field. All of the others are based on making the rider a little faster. And if a bunch of riders on the front deploy the Burrito, then the field has to expend a big effort to stay on. That said, if that’s all we got then you gotta use it right. Dropping it when you’re in the front of the pack will make the field work harder to stay on so they’re gonna be more tired later in the race. Doesn’t… Read more »
Yeah, I quickly remembered in the ZRacing crit race that most people have no idea what the Burrito does (I originally learned this in the RGV race in December…). Luckily, it was a smaller field, and I was able to stay at or near the front the entire time without a constant barrage of them. One guy in the chase group was admonishing his fellow riders because they kept sabotaging their attempts to get back on. I will say that it can be interesting trying them in different places. Obviously the hill was a good place to keep people from… Read more »
Too bad about the time change, the later times really worked for those of us on the west coast of N. America.
Actually, if you could stagger the Stage 1 start times between the two days I think you’d get more riders. For instance, it’s easier for me to ride with a 6AMish PST (3PM UTC) start on the weekends and a 5AM (2PM UTC) during the week. This week’s starts work much better for me but if you had the Saturday start at 6AM PST and the Sunday at 8AM I think you’d get bigger fields.
Staggered start times over the two days would be great. It would generate larger fields
The XP power ups seem to be very generous. In the 3 races this morning I got a total of 10 large XP power up giving me 5000 XPs (doubled for banked level 50 XPs), in addition to the 1300 XPs for the kms ridden. This must be by far the fastest way to get XPs on zwift, a total of about 6300 XPs for only 34 kms.
Thanks Eric! I was disappointed last week when scheduling kept me from participating. Having this opportunity the 2nd week was much appreciated!! Thanks!!
Thanks for setting this up, I thoroughly enjoyed it (in a painful way) – even though as a B woman, racing B men over short courses is hard work! And I was glad to have gone with gravel for race 2, but if I did it again would try and go harder at the start as I lost a bunch of places on the tarmac and then had to catch them all up again on the climb.
Hi Eric, I just finished all three races but don’t appear in the overall results. I think this is because in the last race, the crit, I had an ANT dropout and I had to repair my power meter. I came in dead last due to tired legs, an interruption of my elderly father calling, and the ANT drop out. So I’m hoping that my last place result can be reinstated so that I can be in the overall results — reinstating me for that race seems like it would be fair because I finished it and was last. Please… Read more »