The fourth race of Zwift Racing League 2022/23 Round 3 happens Tuesday, January 31st. Sprinters, tighten your shoes: this is the most sprinter-friendly race of the round!
With Segment Battle Points officially delayed until a future round, this race is all about sprint segment points, with first-across-the-line (FAL) and fastest-through-segment (FTS) making up over 75% of your team’s potential points. Simply put: if you don’t sprint the intermediates, your team’s not going to win.
Let’s dig into the race, including a look at each sprint segment plus tips for bike choice, powerups, and overall race strategy.
Looking at the Route: Makuri Islands’ Neon Flats
Each lap of Neon Flats is 14.7 km (9.1 miles), and we’ll all be racing 2 laps for a total race length of 29.7km. This route lives up to its name, with no climbs of any significance – just a few small rollers. Total elevation for the race will be 144m (472′).
This route is a sprint fest, pure and simple. Think of it like last round’s race #4 on Sprinter’s Playground, except we only have 8 sprints to contest this time around instead of 12. Let’s talk through each of those sprints…
Tower Sprint
When you take a hard right around 2.3km into your first lap, the Tower Sprint starts just a few hundred meters up the road. 320 meters long and slightly uphill at the start, the key here is to make sure you hit the false flat at the start of the sprint with plenty of power to keep your speed up.
Alley Sprint Reverse
In this direction the Alley Sprint Reverse is 100m shorter than its forward cousin (380 meters, and not the 480 meters shown in game). It’s also slightly downhill for the first half, so expect it to be fast. You’ll hit it around 5.6km into your first lap, after zooming up the biggest uphill on course (which is just a short rise).
There’s a descent leading into the start of this sprint, so use it to pick up speed, then keep the power on to carry that speed over the flats to the line. Brave riders may attack the climb leading into the sprint, trying to create a gap large enough to let them stay away to the line.
Castle Park Sprint
Around the 7.5km mark, then again at the 11.4km mark, you’ll hit the Castle Park Sprint for back-to-back efforts. It’s only 220m long, with a slightly downhill lead in and a slight downhill gradient throughout.
With it being such a short sprint, expect riders to go early and try to stay away, perhaps deploying an aero or ghost powerup for a bit of help.
Read more about the Neon Flats route >
PowerUp Notes
Riders will be awarded powerups through each sprint banner, meaning we’ll get 4 powerups per lap, for a total of 8 powerups in the race. Three powerups will be given out at each banner:
Aero Boost (helmet) (40%): 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.
Draft Boost (van) (30%): increases the draft effect you are experiencing by 50% for 30 seconds. Use at higher speeds (flats and descents) when you are already drafting off another rider (since this powerup only helps when you are drafting.)
Cloaking (ghost) (30%): makes you invisible to other riders for 10 seconds. Disabled within 200m of the finish line. Use when you want to get away from one or more riders. Deploy then hammer, in hopes that you will create enough of a gap that your opponents can’t grab your wheel.
Bike Frame + Wheel Choice
Bike choice is simple this week: go with the most aero bike you’ve got. That means one of the fastest frames + a disc wheelset, or if you don’t have that, the Tron bike. Don’t have either of those? Read Fastest Bike Frames and Wheels at Each Zwift Level.
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 Neon Flats events.
Looking for a video recon? Check out our favorites:
Si Bradeley
Oli Chi
Strategic Options
Points Distribution, Neon Flats (2 Laps)
These charts show the maximum points a team of 6 could earn.
As the chart above shows, this race is all about the sprint points, particularly those first-across-the-line (FAL) points. Here are the strategies we predict racers will employ:
- Pick and choose: no rider can put in a max effort for 12 sprints, so smart sprinters will be picking their efforts based on their power profile, current powerup, and how the legs are feeling. Are you a 30-second sprinter, or a 10-second? Can you attack and stay off the front for a bit? Make choices that maximize your strengths.
- Tag team: teams, with the help of Discord, will do some coordinated efforts on particular sprints. This can be quite effective when attacking off the front for FAL points, as riders can trade pulls and stay away from the hard-charging pack.
- 2-sprint breakaway: with the Alley and first Castle Sprint happening within a 2km window, a small breakaway (perhaps 2-3 riders from one team) could potentially gap the peloton and grab top FAL points for both sprints. It’ll take a big effort to stay away, but the rewards will be rich!
Your Thoughts
Any insights or further thoughts on this race? Share below!
Si has reposted his video to note that SBPs aren’t in play.
Correct. That’s what I mention at the top of this post.
I think he mentioned it because the link in the article is now broken.
What link?
the one that says Video Unavailable, Si Bradley’s recon video
Oh, I see what Rob was saying now. Oops! Fixed Si’s video link.
So, it seems that the grat novelty of this edition, SBP, may not be deployed after all. Are the reasons known why it was canceled yesterday? I’m guessing that maybe thecnical issues with accounting from everyone in each of the KOM/sprints.
Have a look at the WTRL Zwift Racing League Facebook page for the in-depth discussion on this subject. Bring popcorn!
For the Castle Park Sprint, we’re doing it twice on each lap. Does that mean that there are going to be 2 sets of Castle Park FTS points (1 for the first time each lap and the other for the 2nd time each lap) or just one where all 4x through are counted together?
There’s always just 1 set of FTS points per segment. If you go through the segment once or 10x, it’s still just a single top 10 list of times that determines which riders get FTS points.
FAL, on the other hand, gives out top 10 points each and every time through the segment. That’s why FAL is so big this week!
That’s what I figured, but then I saw the schedule says Castle FWD (x4) under FTS while the other two said (x2). I figured that just means the number of times you have a shot at getting FTS rather than that there were twice as many FTS points available at Castle, but just thought I’d verify. It’s odd that the Castle Sprint leaderboard in game still says the sprint is 320 m, but the actual distance I rode when doing a recon last night matches up with the 220 m that you post here.
Yeah, the x counts are just the number of times you go through that segment.
Segment details in Neokyo have been rather sus since the day it released. It’s like they copy-pasted info in and didn’t think to actually measure both sides…
I still think the testing is missing something re sprints. Modelling using a bot doing 300w and extrapolating to all flat riding might be giving info that’s not nuanced enough. I know myself that using the enve 7.8s instead of the disc ‘feels’ like it gets up to speed better. The extreme example which I’ve tested is using the TT bike with a disc (fastest setup on the flat) I can’t get near to my times on the Scott with 7.8s for a flat sprint segment. I’d love a bot test of say 200w to the line, then 1000w for… Read more »
If you’re “getting up to speed” at/during the segment, you probably aren’t winning any sprint points and shouldn’t be so concerned and trying to guess about what you can “feel” virtually. Of course it’s easier to propel less weight quicker when looking at short surges…you need speed for aero to matter.
I didn’t say I was….and most sprints on Zwift are short surges. What are the results of your testing with disc vs non disc in sprints?
Lighter gets up to speed faster. Aero, can go faster. So ya, take the same bike with 7.8s vs Rear Disc, the 7.8s will accelerate faster. But in the long run, the Disc wheels will win. And then take the road bike with 7.8s vs a TT bike with Disc, definitely, the Road + 7.8 will beat the TT off of the line. As for testing, there’d be too many variables. A lot of these tests I assume, are done individually and not as part of a group. So the results wouldn’t be the same as in a group. In… Read more »
Needs testing though! I always followed the guidelines on here, always did terribly on sprints. Started using the non-disc wheels and am doing better. Many variables but it might not be a coincidence!
The sprint KMs are not fully correct. I did a recon with lead out the other day:
LAP1
* 2.3k 320m Tower Sprint
* 5.6km 380m Alley Sprint ReverseÂ
* 7.5km 220m Castle Park Sprint
* 11.4km 220m Castle Park Sprint
LAP2
* 17k 320m Tower Sprint
* 20.4km 380m Alley Sprint ReverseÂ
* 22.2km 220m Castle Park Sprint
* 26.1km 220m Castle Park Sprint
What’s not correct? These are the same distances as he mentions in the post
Mine were slightly different (off by .1km). I tweaked them in the post above after Zika’s comment.
I’m confused now about double points. Is it FAL or FST?! Your diagram and the wtrl rules condtadictory. b. Intermediate points for predesignated intermediates and laps. i Fastest Through Segment (FTS): points awarded to a number of the fastest times through the intermediate segment(s) each event (not per lap). ****Note that a single racer may score multiple times on each segment if it is traversed more than once in the same race.**** ii First Across the Line (FAL): points awarded to a number of racers for their position in the race when they cross the finish line on designated intermediate… Read more »
I’m not sure what you’re asking. But as far as I can see, my diagram matches WTRL’s rules perfectly.