Zwift’s “ZRacing” is the platform’s most popular ongoing race series, and in June we’re heading to the seaside to race four different coastal routes, including one that hasn’t yet been released.
Read on for details about race routes, the overall monthly GC competition, and more…
New: Power Meter Required
New this month, Zwift is requiring all racers to use a power meter, smart trainer, or smart bike when entering any Zwift-owned race events. Virtual power, which is based on a speed sensor on your wheel, is being disallowed due to unreliable power accuracy.
This hardware requirement removes “zPower Rangers” from the mix, especially in the A category where riders with dodgy virtual power often land.
Sea Breeze – June’s Route Schedule
Here are the routes we’ll be racing in June (click route for details):
- Stage 1 (June 3-9): Going Coastal
- 1 lap (18.7km, 69m elevation)
- Powerup: Draft Boost, Aero Boost 🛈
- Stage 2 (June 10-16): Island Hopper
- 1 lap (18.1km, 129m elevation)
- Powerups: Steamroller, Draft Boost 🛈
- Stage 3 (June 17-23): Beach Island Loop
- 2 laps (26.3km, 96m)
- Powerups: Draft Boost, Ghost 🛈
- Stage 4 (June 24-30): Mayan San Remo*
- 1 lap (21.4km, 219m)
- Powerups: Feather, Draft Boost 🛈
* we don’t yet have details on this route, but assume it is part of the Watopia “The Grade” Expansion happening mid-June. We’ll add a link to route details once we have them.
See upcoming Sea Breeze events >
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 23 times each day at 10 minutes past the hour nearly every hour, so there are plenty of available times to find a race.
See upcoming events at zwift.com/events/tag/zracingmay2024
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.
With over 150 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 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!
And for the first time ever, ZRacing has a power meter requirement
Forgot to mention that! Added above.
Big change this month is the events now have hardware enforcement. No more zPower in races organised by Zwift HQ.
Next, they need to address the unlisted trainers that read 399 watts almost the entire time.
Thanks as ever, Eric! Seems they’ve changed to 23 times a day too. Unbelievably the 1 slot missing is the one I want the most.
Rob, when is your favorite time slot? Good luck at the races.
It was the 4am BST slot but thankfully I now rarely have to be up at that time
Just updated the above to mention that increased frequency. Sounds like that change was made after Zwift Games.
Me too! 8pm PST (just after my kids go to bed
Word is they’re adding that time slot for July
Eric, fairly new to ZRacing and just curious have they ever mentioned giving time bonuses for the GC competition? Almost seems if you don’t race the one Monday prime time slot(fastest) it’s tough on time alone to match those times during other time slots?
There is no time bonus for GC, it is just the sum of your best times for each weeks race. And yes, if you want a good position in the GC, you must race the prime time Monday race. Even if you get dropped somewhere close to the end, you will still achive a better time, than winning a race with a few riders anytime during the week. But I like this Monday race, as it attracted many riders, so it was more fun to race.
Does this not illustrate that there are too many opportunities to enter races and therefore too many races set up on Zwift at the moment, which is dilluting the competition overall? (Especially during the summer months) – Zwift Racing every hour, and Hill Climbing Club, Crit Club, TT Club every 2 hours….Perhaps you could do a seperate article on this Eric, and get some feedback?
Given so many time slots, I’d much rather GC was done on points for position per stage.
If we had to have a tie-breaker, use the aggregate times over some or all official timed segments.
I support the time bonus idea. I won the Cat. C “Bad that Badge” series this month, without achieving one podium in a ranked race. I am not the best sprinter, so my goal is to make the race faster by taking pulls. But ultimately you have to race (and finish in Top 20) the fastest race each week to win the GC. A time bonus of 5, 3 and 2 (or even 10, 5 and 3) seconds for the podium finishers would be fair, I think.
Any chance you’ll start using miles and ft as well in the course description?
We are cyclists, not neanderthals!
Yep. Roll my eyes at Americans with metric setups on Zwift. Don’t @ Me. 🫣
I ride Imperial miles, but when I switch to the treadmill I also switch to Metric
Hey, don’t blame us for what government policy makers choose. The switch should have taken place decades ago. Face it, all the sciences are SI (metric), why shouldn’t the speeds and distances.
Cheers Bryan!
I won the first stage in cat D and got bumped up to cat C. Does that mean I cant compete in GC now?
You have to do race 1 again in cat C to make it count and you can only compete in the GC of Cs now…good luck!
Yes, what Torsten said! Race again this week!
As I found out, winning doesn’t mean a GC bump, if your 90 day average is over 2.5 w/kg, you will get moved up
I know you cannot use TT frames in regular races. But you can use disc wheels, right? I just bought the level 39 disc wheels and would like to use them in this week’s race. Especially as I won my first race last week and was “punished” by being promoted to C category, so I need all the help I can get to not finish last! 😁
Yup!
Thanks for responding!
I was bumped up to Cat ‘C’ after week one so I how have two separate entries in the “Sea Breeze” series. One in cat ‘D’ and two in cat ‘C’. Can first week be changed to cat ‘C’? If so, what are the steps?
Nope – you’re basically screwed at this point in terms of the GC. But congrats on the upgrade! Next month, it’s cat C GC time!