Are you interested in racing on Zwift? ZRacing is a great place to begin. These events are popular because they’re made to fit anyone’s schedule, delivering a solid 1-hour workout (including warmup and cooldown) on an ever-changing set of courses.
Here’s everything you need to know about Zwift’s “ZRacing” – the platform’s most popular ongoing race series.
August’s Routes
Here are the routes we’ll be racing in August:
- Stage 1: Mech Isle Mayhem (Aug 10-16)
- Distance: 20.4km / 12.67 mi (1 Lap)
- Elevation: 121m / 397 ft
- PowerUps: Feather, Ghost
- Stage 2: Urumaze (Aug 17-23)
- Distance: 26.8km / 16.65 mi (1 Lap)
- Elevation: 202m / 663 ft
- PowerUps: Feather, Aero
- Stage 3: WhatYumeziWe’reLost? (Aug 24-30)
- Distance: 17.6km / 10.93 mi (1 Lap)
- Elevation: 288m / 945 ft
- PowerUps: Feather, Draft
- Stage 4: Twilight Crit (Aug 31-Sep 6)
- Distance: 21.2km / 13.17 mi (5 Laps)
- Elevation: 116m / 381 ft
- PowerUps: Draft, Aero
See Women-Only ZRacing events >
See Range 1 ZRacing events >
See Range 2 ZRacing events >
See Advanced ZRacing event
XP Bonuses
Zwift has replaced the achievement badges you could formerly earn for completing every race in a ZRacing series with XP bonuses. You will now earn a 1000 XP bonus for completing stage 1, then additional bonuses for each stage thereafter.
GC Leaderboards
Zwift’s web-based leaderboards track the monthly GC competition. Access the ZRacing leaderboards at zwift.com/racing/leagues/zracingaug2026.
Access all ZRacing leaderboards at zwift.com/racing/zracing >
Your GC ranking is based on your best finishing time for each stage, and you can race each stage more than once to try for a better time.
Choosing Your Category
Zwift schedules three different flavors of ZRacing events in order to encourage “Fairer, more competitive racing for everyone.” They are titled Advanced, Range 1, and Range 2. Read on for details!
Read all about Zwift Racing Score >
Advanced Category Races for 650+
One common complaint among top-ranked racers is a lack of participation in the top category of ZRacing events. Zwift is working to change this by hosting special “Advanced” category races targetting riders with a Zwift Racing Score of 650+.
Advanced races are held less often than the Range 1/2 races in order to focus participation and improve competition at the top level.
Tighter, Alternating Categories for 700-
For riders with a Zwift Racing Score of 700 and below, ZRacing events feature tighter categories that alternate hourly between two different sets of ranges:
- Category Range 1: 0-160 | 160-270 | 270-390 | 390-510 | 510-650
- Category Range 2: 0-210 | 210-330 | 330-450 | 450-570 | 570-725
A few interesting things worth noting:
Category ranges flexing across events has implications for riders competing in the overall monthly GC. More on this below…
Riders with scores between 650-700 have the option of racing in the new Advanced events, or in the top category of Range 2 events.
If you’re looking for a race where you have the best shot of winning, the alternating Range 1/Range 2 events give you access to an event where you are fairly close to the top of the category range.
Looking for a harder workout? You can always race up a category, or choose a category range that puts you near the bottom of the category.
Monthly GC Competition
Every race event is a competition itself, but each month’s series is also a time-based GC (general classification) competition based on riders’ finishing times on each stage. The rider with the lowest overall time for that month’s races wins!
Access the ZRacing leaderboards at zwift.com/racing/zracing >
With three different flavors of ZRacing events being scheduled (Advanced, Range 1, and Range 2 as explained above), riders chasing the GC need to consider the following:
- Field Size Matters: all else being equal, the fastest times will come from the largest fields. So riding in the most popular races can help your GC results. But also…
- Category Range Matters: a group of riders with scores between 330-450 will be faster than a group of riders at 270-390. So while Zwift may recommend either of these categories for you if your score is 350, and you may have a better chance at a race win in the 270-390 group, the upper category may very well give you a better finishing time. But also…
- Your Abilities Matter: neither of the above considerations matters if you get dropped from the front group midway through the race.
While the GC results pages at zwift.com let you filter by score range, those are really artificial groupings at this point since the actual events aren’t using those score ranges. It may be most helpful to see the GC as a way of ranking yourself against the entire universe of ZRacing participants, which means it’s up to you to choose your events and execute your races strategically to maximize your GC ranking.
Also worth noting: you can race each stage multiple times to improve your finishing time!
Questions or Comments?
Post below!
I didn’t realise that it counted towards the Tour of Watopia, I was quite surprised to get the cap after stage 1. I don’t know whether this had an influence on the riders. I did my normal 6:10 Tuesday race, and was delighted to finish 4th, which is far higher than usual. Then when I looked at the results, saw that the normal people that kick my butt weren’t there.
Not enough gas in the tank to participate in so many of these cool races. Hard to decide.🤔
Hello, no team GC by categories?
Nope.
Information about being able to “race up” in Advanced is outdated if I’m not mistaken
Ah, correct! Removed.
Do you have to complete all the races up to a certain point to be included in the GC standings?
If you complete any of the races for the current month, you’ll be in the standings for that month.
But you need to complete every week’s race in order to have an accurate overall GC ranking.
I’m a novice racer and 75 years young. Is my age taken into account?