The second race of Zwift Racing League 2021/22 Round 2 happens Tuesday, January 18th (Monday the 17th for Premier Division), and this week is certainly one for the sprinters as riders take on London’s Classique route.
Let’s dig into the course, including tips for bike choice, strategic options, and crucial segments:
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Looking at the Route: London’s Classique
The Classique loop itself is 5.4km (3.4 miles) long, with 19m (62′) of elevation per lap. But you’ve got a 5.8km lead-in to get to the start of your first lap, and that lead-in will see the race’s first attacks.
A/B categories are racing 6 laps (for a total of 38.7km, 196.8m according to WTRL) and C/D categories are racing 5 laps (32.8km, 170m).
This course is a sprinter’s paradise. Mostly flat, with just a few slight rises to make things a bit spicy. Here’s the profile, which looks much lumpier than it really is!
Rather than taking you through a turn-by-turn, let’s just discuss the three key sections of the race.
First, the lead-in. This features short rollers where attacks could happen if teams think they are strong enough to go hard on the front and drop other riders. But we doubt this will happen. Instead, the first riders will be dropped when the road turns a sharp right and heads uphill at 3.6km.
This short kicker up Northumberland Ave is actually the longest climb of race, even though it’s just 400 meters long 4-5%. Be ready for efforts to ramp way up here, and if you’re wanting to attack and stretch the field, this is a great place to do it.
Second, the sprint segment (and finish). WTRL calls it “Mall Sprint REV”. We call it the Mall Sprint Forward. In game, it just says “Sprint”. Regardless, the sprint is just short of 200m long, and slightly downhill. Expect segment times in the 8-10s range, but you’ll have to rev it up early (starting around the 300m sign works well) in order to hit top speeds.
FAL points will be awarded, and FTS times tracked, each time through the sprint banner. This includes the lead-in and finish! (We’ve confirmed this with WTRL.)
Third, the key “climb” section of each lap, when riders turn left onto Whitehall Hill. This is where riders traditionally push to break up the race. If you’re concerned with your ability to hang with the pack, start near the front of the group, but stay in the draft. The group will be stretched at the top of the climb, but just find a wheel and sit in… it will all come back together. Probably.
Read more about the Classique route >
PowerUp Notes
Riders will be awarded powerups through each segment banner, meaning we’ll get 7 powerups during the race (one each time through the Classique sprint banner, plus one at the start through the main London lap banner).
Three powerups will be randomly given out at each banner:
Aero Boost (helmet): makes you more aerodynamic (reduces your CdA by 25%) for 15 seconds.
Best used when you’re going fastest and air resistance is highest. Very handy in sprints and attacks off the front.
Draft Boost (van): 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.) Useful for increasing recovery while sitting in the pack, or boosting your speed sprinting through the pack.
Cloaking (ghost): makes you invisible to other riders for 10 seconds.
Use when you want to get away from other 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
Aero rules the day here, no question. If you have the disc wheel and a fast frame, use that. Otherwise, use the Tron bike. And if you’re in the Premier Division where discs and Trons aren’t allowed, we recommend the Specialized S-Works Venge + Zipp 858 combo.
Read Fastest Bikes + Wheels at each Zwift Level to learn the fastest setup available to you.
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More Route Recon
Many events now being consistently planned each weekend on the upcoming ZRL route. If you’re not familiar with this course, jump into one of these events and do some recon! Here’s a list of upcoming Classique events.
Looking for a video recon, with lovely British commentary to boot? Here are our two favorite recon videos this week:
Sherpa Dave
Si Bradeley
Strategic Options
Points Distribution, Week 2
The maximum points a team of 6 could earn in this race. Since the race ends at the final sprint banner, we’ve added those Sprint FAL points to the finishing points total in the chart.
As you can see from the chart above, this race is all about sprint points.
So what strategies will riders employ in race 2? Here’s what we predict:
- All Your FTS Are Belong To Us: since FTS points are given to the 10 fastest times across the entire race, it’s possible for a strong sprinter to get points for, say, the fastest time as well as the 3rd and 5th fastest. Expect strong sprinting teams to attempt a complete FTS grab. Visibility of current FTS standings will be key.
- Save It For the Sprint: ZRL racers are learning that competition is tight in their divisions, making it hard to split up the pack on flatter routes. Why burn matches attacking on short climbs if it’s not going to drop or hurt anyone sufficiently? We expect to see only limited attacking apart from the sprint segment and finish.
- All In On Whitehall: The final Whitehall climb comes 2.2km from the finish. Riders who don’t fancy their chances in a pack sprint will attack here on the last lap, in hopes of staying away to the end. A solo rider probably won’t manage it, but a small pack could. It could get very interesting.
- Ghost Attacks: with the ghost powerup in play, plan on seeing some invisible sprinters each lap, in the finish, and on final-lap attacks up Whitehall Hill.
- Saving that Aero Powerup: the finish is slightly downhill and fast. Chances are, the win will go to a rider who saves and uses their aero powerup properly.
- Audacious TTT: we doubt this will actually happen, but we’d love to see it: a team attacking early in the race and sticking a TTT effort out front to grab all the FAL and finish points.
Watch the Premier Division Race
Zwift’s top racers will go head to head in the Premier Division the day before the community races. Watch it below on GCN Racing’s Youtube channel:
Your Thoughts
Any insights or further thoughts on this sprinters’ race? Share below!
Question about FTS: in the WTRL Rules (2.4.2.C.i) “The Fastest Through Segment (FTS): points awarded to the top 10 times through the intermediate segment(s) each event (not per lap). e.g.: race has 1 sprint segment on a 3-lap course, the times from all 3 laps are combined and the top 10 times are awarded points.”
This could be interpreted as they add all three of the times and then award points based be your cumulative times or it could mean that they take all the segment times regardless of which lap and then use the fastest 10, do we know which this is? The first part of the rule make is sound like each sprint is individually compared but the example they give makes it sound as if it is cumulative.
Definitely not cumulative times. They’re just saying the 10 fastest segment times for the race will get the FTS points.
So this week, with 7 times through the sprint segment, a single rider could actually grab 7 FTS point slots (if, for example, they had the fastest time through the segment the whole race, as well as 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 5th, and 7th-fastest…)
Well technically for some of us it’s the first race of the season, as last week’s never happened…
Nevertheless, a great guide as usual Eric, thanks!
I thought about mentioning that at the top, Steve, but decided not to. It’ll be my team’s first race for sure… not one of us could join the pens on Tuesday! #sad
@sculliford57, did you Warm up with a Pace Partner, or select a friend to ride with on the route selection screen? There are lots of reports of this being a common scenario when people end up following the wrong route on an event. Report to Zwift blamed my wifi and bad internet, although I’m wired gig directly to a modem that has 500Mbps internet, so… I doubt that had an impact.
Whitehall is the key on this race…
It’s where the weaker riders will be hurt/dropped every lap, for sure. I don’t think you’ll see a lot happening there in the B and A divisions, though. They know they can’t drop each other on such a short climb. Until the last lap, at least…
The sprint will also be selective, if you don’t hammer for the sprint itself, you still need to hammer to make sure the people who did sprint don’t get a gap and split the field ahead of you. The best advice is to be near the front every time.
I did a decent-sized C race on this course yesterday. About half the field (2/3 the final Zwiftpower results) finished in a cluster of 5 seconds from first. Even the A and B sandbaggers weren’t able to drop the field. It’s just too fast with so much draft benefit. Sure, we shed a few on Northumberland Ave and every time up Whitehall Hill (and the last time up the hill it got really spicy), but the ending all came down to who had legs left for the bunch sprint. If the course skipped that flat hairpin out to the Classique banner and just turned left to the Sprint directly after the hill, it might be different.
given the matches burned in the sprints, any thoughts on attacking after the sprints? would make those contesting the sprint to really think about the next lap and whether to go “all-in” or save some for the next lap.
Hi Eric,
firstly of course a big “thank you” for all your efforts to keep us on top of the game – great job!
In your write-up you mention to keep track of the visibility of the curent FTS times (quote: Visibility of current FTS standings will be key). We are a new team and are clearly lacking experience in using the interface to our advantage … hence my question: Where and how can we keep track of the FTS times during the race?
Thank you,
regards,
Thomas!
ZwiftPower is where you want to go. Navigate to your event and select the Primes tab. This will show you the first 10 riders at each banner crossing, if you select “Fastest Time”, you see the data basics for the FTS table. However, you will basically need a DS to make the table out of it on the fly because it is really hard to extract the best 10 times out of (successively growing) 7 sprints * 10 best times (usually the first crossing is the core of the final table as the pack slows down afterward but with this short sprint, there will be some continued movement). If you know a little bit of scripting, you could also use ZwiftPower’s API to extract the current FTS table yourself and automatically.
I’d love to hear if Eric has a more convenient way for monitoring the FTS standing on-the-fly though. Asked this myself when I read the post.
I would also be really interested in knowing how to access this information during race. When I read the line “visibility of FTS standings will be key” it made me wonder if other people are able to see this data during the race and how!
Due to the slow death of zwiftpower, this only works if you’re an A.
No, this is not true (anymore). Works again since this afternoon.
It’s fixed finally? Awesome!!!
Last week, ZwiftPower only showed the top finishers regardless of category. Not sure if it was a glitch on their part, but could not see data for top riders in the C category. Even the next day it wasn’t updated. Going back this week, the data is now correct. Is there a delay for ZwiftPower to show category based FST?
No, it’s live data you can even follow during the race. There was just a long-standing bug (since last autumn) that has been corrected last week.
Eric, Looking forward to racing against you and your Dirt team on Tuesday. Assuming we make it into the pen this time! I reckon if any team can TTT it it’s yours. 😉
@eric I’ve heard that for the premier league lap 3 is double FAL points. Have you heard anything to suggest this is the case for the community races?
Definitely NOT the case for community league. Premier League is totally different!
Thanks Eric
Thanks for the analytical review.
How might a rider who’s in about the 25th percentile for both 20 minute power and 15 second power in the signups go about maximising points for this race? I’m thinking try and hang on for dear life with the lead group, don’t burn any matches contesting the intermediates (unless the opportunity presents itself) and compete for the highest possible placing at the finish?
Asking for a friend.