As we head unto Autumn here in the northern hemisphere, Zwift is rolling out a fresh set of races with some welcome twists sure to get “more Zwifters racing more often.” Called the “ZRacing Monthly Series”, these races actually function much the same as the just-finished Zwift Classics series, except each series happens on a monthly basis… and includes badges!
Series Structure
The ZRacing Monthly Series is made up of monthly sets of weekly races. Each race will be on the schedule for seven days (beginning 12:10am UTC on Monday and running through to the next Sunday). Timeslots will be 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/zracing
One and Done
Zwift has planned these events around the idea of a solid 1-hour workout. So each race should only take around 1 hour to complete, and that includes your warmup and cooldown.
Monthly GC on ZwiftPower
Each monthly set of races will have a time-based GC (general classification) which tracks riders’ best finishing times for each week’s race. The overall winners in each category for the month will be the riders with the lowest overall time.
See September’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.
Note: you must use a heart rate monitor and be on a smart trainer, smart bike, or power meter in order 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 series will have a theme (September’s is “Get Rolling”), and you can unlock an achievement badge by finishing each week’s race for the month.
September’s Route Schedule
September’s routes match the “Get Rolling” theme, as each course features rolling hills for most or all of its profile. None of the climbs are particularly long, but their rolling nature means you’ll have to push hard up repeated bumps while keeping your eyes open and racing smart so you have enough kick left for a strong finishing effort.
- Stage 1 (Sept 5-11): Queen’s Highway
- 5 laps (17.6km, 245m elevation)
- Powerups: Draft Boost and Aero Boost
- Stage 2 (Sept 12-18): Sand and Sequoias
- 1 lap (22.5km, 181m elevation)
- Powerups: Feather and Anvil
- Stage 3 (Sept 19-25): Douce France
- 1 lap (24.3km, 133m)
- Powerups: Feather and Draft Boost
- Stage 4 (Sept 26-Oct 2): Park Perimeter Loop
- 2 laps (19.5km, 251m)
- Powerups: Feather and Draft Boost
Race Categories
Separate events will be held as women-only races 3-4 times daily.
Races will use Zwift’s Category Enforcement tools to ensure riders don’t sandbag by entering too low a category.
Dino-Might!
Some of the ZRacing events will have a bit of extra fun added – this month Zwift has designated special “Dinosports events”. Look for the special event banner to join one:
At the time of this post, the only Dinosports events on the calendar were for stage 2, and they happened daily around 3:10am, 11:10am, 6:10pm UTC.
See all upcoming Dinosports events on ZwiftHacks >
Questions or Comments?
Post below!
The only ROARSOME stage is stage 2.
Sad. We need MOAR DINOSAURZ!!!
Fun! Zwift classics was extremely successful in terms of participation so I hope that this series, as zwifts own series, can get the casual masses to keep racing.
That being said I personally am not interested in races that are this short.
I like the reduced number of potential PowerUps from the traditional 3 to 2.
Would be fun if they also tested changes to PowerUp durations. Ex. 20 second Feather or 12 second Aero for flatter (sprinter) courses in order to reduce the luck component.
It’s way too many events. The Zwift Classics fields towards the weekends barely got double digits even with events two hours apart. The field is too small to make it a real race and the race times will vary greatly depending on how large the groups are.
And regarding category enforcement, does this actually work on Zwiftpower? Several riders I’ve seen that has higher 20 min watts for more or less every stage is even still in the GC.
This looks like it could be fun, but I’m still 100% waiting for them to release some new routes . . . I swear there’s a road off left from the loop on top of the Alpe that wasn’t always there.
There is! It’s a downhill start pen. What’s it for? That we do not yet know…
With so many races it seems the smart tactic will be to find the largest field and then convince everyone to ride it as a massive TTT every week.
Were the classics really a success? They didnt excite me at all. Some of the fields were really small because of the volume of races and it looks like the same thing has been repeated here.
If anything you lose race choice as each week there will be all these races on the same course which could otherwise be split amongst different courses
I hope all these races won’t pollute the companion app. Sometimes it is hard already to find a decent length race with more then 10 participants. Especially when big events are ongoing like the WTRL series, or a ZWIFT campaign like of the MAAP
Like the idea and the use of Cat Enforcement but just a bit concerned that the sheer volume of race options will quickly lead to very low racer numbers – maybe half or fewer events spread throughout the day would be better?
So, with the emphasis on Zwift Power GC rankings and Zwift’s new category enforcement in play, is there any chance they can just align the two? It seems a bit daft that Zwift owns Zwift Power but they use two different formulas for categories…. 🤪. I prefer the way it is done with their new ‘category enforcement’ and would love to see it shifted over to ZP.
Do you have to ride all events in a month (i.e 1 each week) to get the badge or 1 event a month?
Agree with what others are saying about too many race times leading to small fields. Granted there will probably be more users on Zwift over the fall and winter months but maybe not enough. Also, I feel like with Zwift running sooo many races everyday it may cannibalize a lot of the community run races that really built the racing community on Zwift.
So…outside of the overall GC ranking these races are like 95% of Zwift races being shorter than an hour.
I may be in the minority but I enjoy the longer races.
Is there any information on how often the “League standings” on ZwiftPower pages will be updated? Now I can see only the status “Last updated 22hrs ago”.
why are people without HR showing up in the results on ZP?
If they are, that means Zwift needs to change event settings. Do you have a link to said results?
I checked a few events and all of them had a few people (even in category A) without HR. A winner in a linked event has no HR data (has no HR in any of his races and no weight set in his ZP profile) https://zwiftpower.com/events.php?zid=3099650
Love it. But TEAM STANDINGS seems to have disappeared from Zwiftpower. How should I find the results? Thanks
How often do they update Zwift Power on the GC standings?
Any clue as to why I would show up in ZP race results but not in the series standings even from efforts a few days ago? I’m racing in Cat, with HRM and have not been filtered from race results. Thanks
My guess is ZHQ hasn’t hit the button to re-compute the series standings. Far as I know they have to manually do this, to bring new race results into the league table.
I missed stage 1, will there be an opportunity to catch up at the end?
I follow this question as Well…
No makeups planned that I know of.
nuts…
I like the series!
Now, does anyone has an idea on how the ranking actually works? I raced two events and am classified at the same position, for instance, as someone who got 1 gold and 1 silver (i didn’t), has lower points and lower percentage (whatever that is).
Thanks!
And do the primes play into the points?
No. There are no primes in this series. It’s just scratch races, and on overall time-based monthly GC.
I missed September stage 2 will there be re runs of the events
Nope.
Any documentation on how scoring works?
How are points calculated?
Points does not seem to dictate position. I am placed higher than people with more points.
what is the percentage score on some people – not all have this
There are no points for the overall monthly GC – it’s time-based. (Yes, I know it shows a crazy points number if you expand your results in the GC table – not sure what that’s about. But it really is just time-based.)
The percentage score seems to be a percentile rank, but only applies if you’ve done all the races. (For example, right now I see it only showing for people who’ve done 3 races, but not for people who’ve done 1 or 2.)
If you’re talking about ranking points for individual races, that is explained here: https://zwiftinsider.com/zwiftpower-rankings/
Just learned that you shouldn’t switch categories between races if you want to do well in the league rankings. I got demoted from B to C after the first race so entered C for the second and third race and now I noticed that my name shows up in the league standings twice…
Yup.
I know this from experienc as well.
I was auto swtiched from C to B after 2 races
Now, after 3 races, I appear in the C standings with only 2 results and the B standings with only 1 result.
Therefore my GC times are meaningless.
I reckon I should still be in the standings but my C times should be merged into my B time.
I think that would be fair.
Any thoughts ?
Knowing how ZwiftPower works – and how Zwift works – I just don’t see that happening, Chris. Too much manual labor required.
Good news is, this GC restarts each month. So you’re only hosed for September.
Hmm, Pity – the new autocat (that prevents you entering once you’re deemed “too good” for the lower cat could be really frustrating when it happens mid series). I was fortunate, I got promoted from D to C after a particularly good Bologna TT at the end of the Zwift Classics – ie in between that series and this one, so I could enter the same GC categories for each. I wonder if series with so many start times as this could maybe have 30-50% of the start times be “in between” the normal categories? (eg an A/B 3.5-5, B/C… Read more »
Is there a deadline for registration?
I don’t plan to move indoors till Nov 1 but the sign on states registration closes in 6 days.
Is that for Oct only and we can sign up later for Nov?
Make-Up Ride will be scheduled on September’s “Get Rolling”?!
Sigh … I missed the first week and no makeups nuts
If you miss a stage, do you get another chance?
No. They’re scheduled for a week, no makeups.