People love carrots. Figuratively speaking, at least. And Zwift is full of them – those little achievements that encourage you to push a bit further or try something new.
Perhaps the most popular achievements on Zwift are route badges. The first time you complete a route you earn its badge, along with some extra XP, effectively doubling the points you earn for the route.
Zwift HQ has just released a new series of “Z Badge Hunt” rides featuring some of the more challenging routes in game. If you find it hard to ride tough routes on your own, this is your ticket to route badge glory! Here are the details…
Short Thursdays, Long Saturdays
Z Badge Hunt events happen on Thursdays and Saturdays. Shorter routes are scheduled on Thursdays, and long routes on Saturdays.
Current event times are as follows:
- 6am UTC/1am EST/10pm PST (previous day)
- 12pm UTC/7am EST/4am PST
- 3pm UTC/10am EST/7am PST
- 7pm UTC/2pm EST/11am PST
- 12am UTC/7pm EST/4pm PST
- 3am UTC (next day)/10pm EST/7pm PST
Route Schedule
Zwift crunched the numbers and chose the least-achieved routes for this series. There are good reasons why many Zwifters haven’t ridden these routes: they aren’t commonly used in events, and always feature some climbing!
Note: while the route schedule is locked in through early January, Zwift HQ has told us they may make some scheduling changes as time goes on.
Thursdays
- 12/16/21: Tour Of Tewit Well
- 12/23/21: The Highline
- 12/30/21: Spirit Forest
- 1/6/22: Suki’s Playground
- 1/13/22: Greater London 8
- 1/20/22: Roule Ma Poule
- 1/27/22: Lutscher
- 2/3/22: Mighty Metropolitan
- 2/10/22: Rising Empire
- 2/17/22: Serpentine 8
- 2/24/22: Greater London Loop
- 3/3/22: Knickerbocker Reverse
- 3/10/22: Kappa Quest Reverse
Saturdays
- 12/11/21: London PRL FULL
- 12/18/21: The Uber Pretzel
- 12/25/21: Dust In The Wind
- 1/1/22: Bigger Loop
- 1/8/22: Petit Boucle
- 1/15/22: Tire-Bouchon
- 1/22/22: Quatch Quest
- 1/29/22: London PRL Half
- 2/5/22: The London Pretzel
- 2/12/22: The Mega Pretzel
- 2/19/22: Big Foot Hills
- 2/26/22: Achterbahn
- 3/5/22: Four Horsemen
- 3/12/22: Surrey Hills
Optimized for Earning
Z Badge Hunt events use challenging routes, but they’re also set up to give you every advantage in your quest:
- Double draft mode is enabled for easier riding on flats and downhills
- Only useful powerups are being given: the feather, draft boost, and aero boost
- Steering is allowed – because why not?
Zwift Insider-Hosted Events
Zwift Insider is hosting some of the Saturday events, including tomorrow’s PRL Full at 7am PST and next Saturday’s Uber Pretzel at 7am PST. Join me and many others for these rides, which should be the biggest events of the series in terms of turnout!
Questions or Comments?
Post below!
Why do the toughest two first when people moving indoors for the winter and just getting reacquainted with Zwift (other than rainy days). My rear end is not ready to be on the bike for 6-7 hours. The Uber Pretzel and PRL Full should came later in the winter season. Just my two cents.
Totally agree!
Might be wise to repeat these 2 monster rides at the end, so people can build up to them…But love the series idea!
not everyone is in the northern hemisphere
Need to do the mega and Achterbahn routes so my list of events to do. Hopefully full and unber will be done again.
During events such as these (group rides vs races), can you do a workout at some point during the ride and still be ‘in’ the event?
Did the full prl on Saturday. Started at 7 in the morning and finished 7 hours later. 41 people took part, half of whom saw it as a race, so I cycled almost alone for 7 hours. so no double draft for me then.
But I’m going for the uber pretzel on Dec 18th then I’ve got all the badges
good luck! what level are you? must be pretty high having done almost all of the routes
nope just level 29..
the uber pretzel was also long for me… 5 hours
Eric will there be more “ZI sponsored” ones with yellow banner (especially Saturdays but ? your plans at this point?)
GMT times would’ve been great 🙂
Oh ignore the above 🤐
You do not get the badge for doing the Bigger Loop as the start pens drop you in after the downtown banner. Poorly thought out.
@Diego, I received the badge today.
Generally, you should get the badge from an event on the route even if you miss the start banner. You might not get the strava segment though.
I see PRL Half listed for 1/29/2022 but on the Zwift events calendar I see Big Foot Hills only?
Is this list still accurate? I see different routes on different data on companion???
A lot of the longer badge hunt events lately won’t match the veloviewer leaderboard segment (because they start from the event pens), so I’ve been skipping them. 🙁 I’d rather have the veloviewer leaderboard segment then the badge really.
Are these going to be continued past April? Either in the (northern hemisphere) summer or in the fall when more people are on zwift again?
Will these series restart this winter? And what pace will they be driven at?
I’m guessing no. They didn’t have too high of partcipation and it seems Eric has moved on to organizing races.
This is a Zwift series, not a Zwift Insider series. I haven’t heard of them starting it up again, but you never know…
Will this be repeated for winter 2022?
Haven’t heard of any plans from ZHQ…
Will this series return for winter 2023?
Haven’t heard of any plans from ZHQ…