Important note: we discuss Segment Battle Points several times in this post, but WTRL just announced yesterday (Monday) that SBP will not be used until race 3.
The first race of Zwift Racing League 2022/23 Round 3 happens Tuesday, January 10th. And it’s a doozy!
The Chain Chomper in Makuri Islands features tough back-to-back KOM climbs, and we’ll be hitting those climbs twice. Additionally, Segment Battle Points have been introduced for this race, adding a layer of complexity and effort to what was already a grueling and strategic race.
Let’s dig into the race, including an intro to Segment Battle Points plus tips for bike choice, powerups, strategy, and crucial segments.
Introducing Segment Battle Points
WTRL is introducing a new way of earning points this round, and it’s big news for ZRL racers! Segment Battle Points (SBP) are designed to keep everyone pushing hard on the intermediate sprint and KOM segments, no matter where you’re at in the race.
SBP works like this: your team members are ranked 1-6 using a secret algorithm from WTRL. This happens for all other teams as well, so all the #1 riders are in an SBP group, all the #2 riders in another, etc. You compete against the riders in your group to be first across the line and earn points on each segment.
To take a deep dive into Segment Battle Points, read All About ZRLS’s New Segment Battle Points.
Looking at the Route: Makuri Islands’ Chain Chomper
The distance math on this race is a bit challenging, but we’ll spell it out for you:
- The Chain Chomper route is 13.6km long
- It also begins with a 2.3km lead-in
- WTRL says the custom race distance is 23.3km
- This places the race finish 23.3-(13.6+2.3)=7.4km into the second lap, or right at the top of the second Temple KOM Reverse. The KOM banner is your finish line.
All categories will be racing the same route, for a total elevation of around 368 meters.
We’ll be contesting two KOMs and a sprint segment for points, hitting each one twice over the course of the race for a total of six segments. These segments are shown in the profile below:
You’ll begin with a slightly downhill lead-in to the Country Sprint Reverse. It will be hard for attacks to get away early on the lead-in with pack speeds high, but watch for riders with fresh legs to hit the sprint well before the start line in a bid for big FTS/FAL points.
Country Sprint Reverse
We hit the Country Sprint Reverse twice: once on the lead-in, and again at the end of the first lap. The segment is only 150m long, and has a slightly downhill lead-in, so it’s going to be fast! Expect attacks well before the start line.
Castle KOM
This 2.5km climb begins not long after the Country Sprint Reverse ends. It’s actually more of a two-part climb, with ~1.1 km of flat roads mixed in. Riders usually don’t get dropped on the first climb (across the bridge and twisting up through the village). Then you have a flat bit, and the real work begins as you climb to the castle. This is where the pack will stretch and snap!
Temple KOM Reverse
You won’t have much time or flat ground for catching your breath after the Castle KOM before the road takes you outside the castle walls and you hang a left onto the dirt Temple KOM Reverse.
The Temple KOM Reverse isn’t raced much compared to the Temple KOM. It’s shorter in this direction (1.9km vs 2.5km) and just a bit less steep (3.5% vs 3.6%). It’s a fairly steady climb that turns to a false flat in the final ~600 meters. Does it make sense to swap bikes for this dirt climb? See the “Bike Frame + Wheel Choice” section below…
Descend the dirt path from the top of the Temple KOM and hit the pavement to ride through the Fishing Village and descend through Village Onsen and back to the Country Sprint Reverse to begin your second (partial) lap.
This lap will end atop the Temple KOM Reverse, meaning the second Temple KOM Reverse climb awards both top finishing points and FAL points to the first riders across the line!
Read more about the Chain Chomper route >
PowerUp Notes
Riders will be awarded powerups through the KQOM and sprint banners, meaning we’ll get 5 powerups during the race. Three powerups will be given out at each banner:
Lightweight (feather) (33%): reduces your weight by 10% for 15 seconds. Use on climbs, when weight matters the most.
Aero Boost (helmet) (34%): makes you more aerodynamic (reduces your CdA by 25%) for 15 seconds. Use this if you’re contesting a sprint or attacking in the wind at high speed. Also useful when bridging gaps on flats or descents.
Anvil (33%): makes you 50kg heavier for up to 30 seconds, so you can descend faster. Safe to use whenever you’d like, since it is only active when the road is at a -1.5% decline or greater.
Use this on downhills. Really only useful if you’re attacking on the second Country Sprint lead-in, or when descending the Temple KOM.
Bike Frame + Wheel Choice
This custom Chain Chomper route has an uphill (mostly) dirt finish, a flat sprint intermediate, and a paved KOM. What’s the best bike for this tricky course?
We ran some tests on the Temple KOM Reverse with three different bikes at 4 W/kg (75kg rider). Here are the results:
- Specialized Crux + CADEX wheels: 5:12.24
- Tron: 5:35.26
- Specialized Venge S-Works + DT Swiss Disc wheels: 5:36.79
What does this tell us? First, it tells us you definitely do not want to use the popular Venge + Disc combo, unless you’re only going for sprint points.
The gravel rig (Crux) is 23 seconds faster up the Temple KOM than the Tron bike. Is it worth swapping? Possibly.
- Swapping on the first time up the Temple KOM Reverse doesn’t make much sense, because you’ll need to swap back to a road bike before hitting the pavement again (which will cost you more time). That said, if you’re a strong climber chasing KOM points this may work for you, as long as you can make both swaps quickly.
- Swapping on the final run up the Temple KOM Reverse makes good sense, as a good swap may only take ~12s, meaning you’ll gain ~10s by swapping. (This gain will be greater for D and C riders, less for A riders.)
See Speed Tests: Tron Bike vs Top Performers (Scatter Plot) for more nerd-level detail on frame and wheel performance.
More Route Recons
Many events are now being planned each weekend on the upcoming ZRL route. If you’re unfamiliar with this course, jump into an event and do some recon! Here’s a list of upcoming Chain Chomper events.
Looking for a video recon? Check out our favorites:
Si Bradeley
Oli Chi
Strategic Options
Points Distribution, Chain Chomper
This chart shows the maximum points a team of 6 could earn in the race.
How will the race unfold, and what strategies will riders employ in the first race of round 3? Here’s what we predict:
- Country Sprint Reverse, First Time: Most or all of the Country Sprint Reverse FTS times will be set on the first attempt, as the pack will be largest and freshest.
- Castle KOM, First Time: Most or all of the Castle KOM FTS times will be set on the first attempt because legs will be fresh, the pack will be large, and the second time around most riders will be saving their legs for the finishing climb.
- Temple KOM Reverse, Second Time: Most or all of the Temple KOM Reverse FTS times will be set on the second attempt, as the race ends atop this climb and therefore riders will be pushing max efforts for finishing + segment points.
- Stay in Front: This was already going to be a hard race, but the introduction of Segment Battle Points means getting dropped from the front pack will lose you a lot of SBP, and the “spin easy then go hard for FTS” strategy is going to cost major points as well.
- Breaking Up Ain’t Hard To Do: This race will break up more than your typical ZRL race. If you’re able to track the other riders in your SBP group, you’ll be able to ride smarter. A good DS may be very helpful.
- Final Climb Swap: skilled bike swappers will hop onto their gravel rigs for the final climb, knowing it will trim ~10s off their climb time.
Your Thoughts
Any insights or further thoughts on this race? Share below!
The schedule posted on WTRL’s ZRL site only lists each segment as (x1) for both FAL and FTS. Is it fair to assume that’s a typo on their part?
Yes they confirmed on fb that 2nd lap has fal and fts as well. (Of course 1 set fts)
Thanks, I usually miss what gets posted on facebook as I’m rarely there.
This whole season is starting to feel like punishment for people running Zwift on Apple TV.
Agree. Trying to bike-swap with the stupid ATV remote is a nightmare!!
Easily a 15-20s swap with ATV with a fairly equal chance of it going wrong and taking longer! 🙄
Thanks as always and extra thanks for the extra testing re bike selection! Really helpful.
Minor notion: “… second Temple KOM Reverse climb awards both top finishing points and FAL points to the first riders across the line!” plus SPB 🙂
EDIT: Just realized your bike choice section “only” dives into the dirt section. Do you have a recommendation for the rest? Tron? Or would Venge+Disc be viable for Castle KOM?
in my testing Venge & DT Swiss is ten sec faster than Tron up the castle climb (C Cat)
err wow, that’s somewhat surprising. Was this a controlled bot test or did you ride it once with this and once with that bike? Thanks for your reply!
237 watts with tron and 238 watts with venge. 5min 11 for Venge. 5.21 for tron. about 5 in the group both times so a little bit of drafting, but not on the steep sections as I was on the front anyway for those. Would different drafting account for ten seconds quicker?
Well, I don’t really know. But if the drafting (and the group speed) was very different on the long and flat intro to the KQOM and maybe the flat last couple hundred meters, it might add up to quite some seconds, I’d say. Also, power averages over 5mins can look similar, but you could also have put more of the Ws into the flat and less into the uphil for the slower lap. So … It might be an indication, but a noisy one. Thanks for sharing!
just note: this was two separate races, not two separate laps :)) but both of them were my first times up the climb. I can’t recall they exact drafting nature, but I am the type of rider that tends to sit at the back on the flat and on the front on the climb
Yeah, you’d need to check the time difference when you hit the bridge after the flat intro between the two races. The group speeds might have just been very different there and this can make up such a difference, I guess.
Do climb times listed include drafting? Climb is slow but I’d imagine the benefits of drafting somewhat offset time lost by being dropped to swap bikes on final climb. Unless we hope that an equal number of people choose to swap.
More reason to just do it on the second lap as the pack will be thiner!
Climb times listed here do not include drafting.
Zwifterbikes is recommending the Pinarello Dogma F with DT Swiss ARC 1100 Dicut Disc wheels.
Any way you could test that combo out Eric?
It doesn’t take into account the road surfaces and just assumes tarmac from my understanding
Andrew you are correct. Back to the drawing board.
Ehh? Zwifterbikes does not account for different road surfaces? If yes, then what is the point of route selection? (other than to get distance).
So SBP is FAL on each segment then not FTS?
Yes, it’s about the rider’s final rank on the segment, not their time. FAL and FTS are awarded *on top* still.
https://www.wtrl.racing/zwift-racing-league/#scoring
Eric, is there also data about an mtb up the gravel climb? I thought those were faster than gravelbikes
Not faster than the Crux if you use the new (brand name, not generic Zwift) gravel wheels.
Didn’t even test them for this route, since they’re heavier and climb worse than a gravel bike.
Eric have you ever written an article about the crr of the Tron bike on various road surfaces?
It’s the same as any other road bike.
How much quicker is the Crux on the descent back down the KOM? Wondering if a switch in lap 1 might be worthwhile. If in total it takes me 25 to 30s to switch both ways, and I gain 23 seconds on the way up, would I gain the extra 5 seconds or so I need on the way down?
Switch at the bottom is a bad idea. You lose all the speed you have. Also, it’s harder to gain time on fast moving road bike packs on a descent vs a climb.
Will anyone go gravel the whole way?
I saw someone try this in a race last week. They struggled on the road sections to stay with the pack and got dq at the end for being over powered (C race)
If I’m on Venge & DT swiss, when I switch to crux, do I have to switch wheels as well to be on the better gravel wheels?
Only wheels are affected by the rolling resistance on different surfaces, but you can only put gravel wheels on a gravel frame… so yeah, you need to change both.
when I switch bikes in my garage, it puts wheels I do not possess (Cadex gravel) on the crux. Then when I go back to my venge it has put bontrager wheels (again which i do not possess), instead of dt swiss arc. Very worrying. However, despite the picture being Bontrager wheels, the dt swiss arc wheels are ticked in the wheels section of the garage. No idea what wheels I’ll actually be on!
Yeah, the wheel/frame selection thingy is a bit clumsy, you need to always pick both instead of having a garage with pre-configured bikes. I believe that is a long standing feature request…
Is an MTB even faster option than Gravel??
Nope. As long as you use one of the name brand gravel wheelsets, that’s faster than MTB.
Any thoughts on the Meilenstein wheelset for the first lap until the switch? Wonder if this would be any better than the Tron bike…
only 24 hours until the start of the season but we have no race pass and still can’t see the internal rider ranking for the new SBP on this complicated route 😳 … is the secret algorithm perhaps too secret ??? 🙈
SBP cancelled for this race!
The switching bike thing is pushing Zwift into the world of gaming hacks and wish it wasn’t part of races. Some people have quick scripts, others can’t swap bikes easily. Urgh, ZRL is becoming less about riding ability and more about IT know-how. Won’t be long and we’ll be getting snipers on the climbs.
I’ve recon’d it a bunch. it is the country FWD sprint, not reverse. WTRL’s website shows FWD as well.
Depends on whose naming scheme you follow. In game it’s just called “Country Sprint” in both directions. I call it reverse because it’s the opposite direction from the “normal” direction of the loop. Which is what Zwift advised me to do.
Would riding the whole race on gravel bike make sense?
Only if everyone else is. Otherwise I doubt you’ll be able to hold onto the pack, unless you’re significantly stronger than the rest.