Zwift’s “ZRacing” is the platform’s most popular ongoing race series, and in January we’re racing flat, fast routes… the perfect way to rack up XP and level up faster.
Read on for details about race routes, the overall monthly GC competition, and more!
[adinserter block=”4″]
Flat Is Fast – January’s Route Schedule
Here are the routes we’ll be racing in January (click route for more details):
- Stage 1 (Jan 1-7): Tempus Fugit
- 1 lap (19.6km, 31m elevation)
- Powerup: Large XP bonus 🛈
- Stage 2 (Jan 8-14): The Fan Flats (13th?)
- 3 laps (19.3km, 68m elevation)
- Powerups: Aero Boost, Steamroller 🛈
- Stage 3 (Jan 15-21): Volcano Flat
- 2 laps (25.2km, 98m)
- Powerups: Feather, Draft Boost 🛈
- Stage 4 (Jan 22-28): Douce France
- 1 lap (24.8km, 133m)
- Powerups: Draft Boost, Aero Boost 🛈
- Stage 5 (Jan 29-Feb 4): Greater London Flat
- 1 lap (17.3km, 97m)
- Powerups: Draft Boost, Cloaking (Ghost) 🛈
See upcoming Flat is Fast events >
Zwift Community Live(stream)
Nathan Guerra at Zwift Community Live is providing commentary and a live stream of each Monday’s 6:10pm UTC/1:10pm Eastern/10:10am Pacific race. Click here for the playlist of upcoming ZRacing broadcasts.
Series Structure
The ZRacing series consists of monthly sets of weekly races. Each race is scheduled for seven days (beginning 1:10am UTC on Monday and running through to the next Sunday). Timeslots are consistent week to week and month to month.
Races are scheduled ~15 times each day, so there are plenty of available times to find a race.
See upcoming events at zwift.com/events/tag/zracingjan2024
[adinserter block=”1″]
Monthly GC on ZwiftPower
Each monthly series includes a time-based GC (general classification) tracking riders’ best finishing times for each week’s race. The overall winners in each category for the month are the riders with the lowest overall time for that month’s set of races.
See January’s GC on ZwiftPower >
With over 100 weekly timeslots available, riders can race each week’s event multiple times and try to better their finishing time. Tip: the fastest times usually come from the largest race fields!
You must use a heart rate monitor and be on a smart trainer, smart bike, or power meter to show up in ZwiftPower results for this series.
If you aren’t signed up for ZwiftPower, check out our post How to Sign Up for ZwiftPower (and Why Every Zwifter Should Do It).
Get the Badge
Each month’s ZRacing series has a unique achievement badge, which you can unlock by finishing every stage for the month.
There are no makeup events, so if you miss a stage, you miss out on the badge and competing in the GC.
One and Done
Zwift has planned these events to deliver a solid 1-hour workout, so each race should only take around 1 hour to complete, including your warmup and cooldown.
Questions or Comments?
Post below!
Any word on results based categories?
Sounds like we’ll see something in January.
Large XP Bonus for Stage 1? Sounds like u can make a bit more XP that way 😀
Profound
Given the large xp bonus on the first stage this event might be worth farming for xp. If I’m not incorrect there are two banners on the route: start line and finish line. If both upgrades would be xp boosts that would be an extra 500xp on a 20km ride. If you’re feeling lazy or off only the start line counts you can also just drop out after the lead in after collecting the first 250xp.
Isn’t there power-ups when going under the arches in the reverse direction as well? That would give 500 XP even if the finish line doesn’t count…
Finish line counts too, so u get 3x 250 XP. Nice.
No, finish line does not count. But still 500XP!
Well, for me it does. I did 3 races today and got 3x 250 XP.
Did it 2x and got only 2x250XP. Interesting.
Finish line counted for me as well.
I did it 7 times now and the finsh line never counted. That’s what we like about Zwift …
If you du a u-turn after the finish banner, and do another u-turn and ride the last segment/sprint again, you get 250 XP when you cross the sprintfinish.
you can do this as many times you want, and get 250 XP every time. I did this 23 times, and got 250 XP every time.
A better system for determining the GC standings is needed. Currently the top of the GC standings consists of the riders who guessed best which races would have the biggest fields – and have the freedom to enter them whenever they’re scheduled. It doesn’t make any sense. You put in a monumental effort and win a sprint finish by 0.5 seconds, then the next race finishes 30 seconds faster and 50th place in that group is ranked ahead of you in the GC.
Maybe something like ZwiftPower’s ranking system, but dedicated to the monthly ZRacing series.
The current Total Time approach would work if the races were all Time Trials. But they’re not and I don’t think that’s the solution we want.
Perhaps the format could be changed so that there’s a GC ranking for each weekly time slot, so you race against the same group each stage.
A) The series is “for fun”. Not like there’s a big cheque to be won
B) The current time based standings is simple. People understand it. It’s less work to implement.
C) There are many races per day AND on the weekends.
First grade basketball is “for fun”. They don’t keep score.
Is there a reason I cannot use an aero frame? When I try to use my Cervelo frame it defaults to a Zwift steel frame. I can use any of my other road frames though.
That’s… odd. I’d ask Zwift support if a reboot doesn’t fix it.
Are you trying to use a TT frame? Cervelo P5 or PX? Those aren’t allowed in races and it will change you back to the zwift steel. If you’re trying to use the aero-road cervelo S5 and it’s not working then there’s an issue.
Thank you, Tom. I was trying the TT frame and did not know that it was not allowed, so I just learned something new. Still trying to figure all of the ins and outs of Zwift but it beats riding in the rain in 40-degree weather, road rash, and a concussion, and I don’t have to worry about a $5,000 ambulance an ER bill since I doubt I’ll ever wreck in Zwift. Well, if I do fall over on my trainer, there is definitely something wrong. 😆
Even if TT was allowed, you wouldn’t want to use it. You’d be dropped most likely.
Are there going to be any “make-ups” for Stage 1 (for those of us numbnuts that missed week 1?
Nope. There are never makeup stages for ZRacing. But someone asks about it every month! (You win the prize! 😂)
Three weeks in and the link to results still doesn’t work?
Whoops! Fixed.
Flat is fast but Fat is Last™
I missed the first Flat is Fast session. Is there a way to catch up session 1
sorry, found the answer below