How the Race Was Lost: ZRacing with Zwift Play Controllers

June 15, 2023

LAST UPDATED June 15, 2023

I’d been craving a Zwift race for weeks, but traveling combined with wrapping up my Build Me Up training plan meant I just hadn’t been able to get one in. Today was the day, though: I was jumping into Zwift’s “OG Racing” June series for a quick 3 laps of London’s Classique route, and using Zwift Play controllers for the first time in a race!

Race Plan

Since this was my first time racing with Zwift Play, I wanted to run the controllers through their paces. Sure, sure, call it an early excuse, but the truth was that I wasn’t singularly focused on winning the race. I wanted to test steering as much as possible, including during attacks. And of course, I wanted to use the various shortcut buttons on the controllers to do the typical race things: powerups, minimap zoom changes, and camera changes.

So I resolved to put in an attack or two, use steering on the turns to my advantage, and generally try to use the controllers as intended throughout the race.

The Start

The race began with 34 B riders and a rather tame pace. I had my eye on T. Williams, S. Hotvet, and Michael L10 since they were the top-ranked riders.

I landed a Feather for my first powerup and used it on the first little climb (Northumberland Ave) to put in a bit of a dig along with D. Ivey from Torronto Hustle. We stretched the pack out and dropped a few riders, but it was too early to attempt any sort of breakaway with just a couple of riders.

Playing with Zwift Play

As we finished the lead-in and began the first of 3 laps, I started noticing an annoying steering bug: the game kept bouncing my avatar to the right. See it here as I approach the lap banner for the first time:

This continued to happen throughout the race, whenever the pack of ~25 riders was tight around me. I never noticed it happening when the pack was stretched or I was off the front with just myself or a handful of riders.

That was the only annoying thing I noticed as I raced with Zwift Play, though. Here are some of the things I actually liked about Zwift Play:

Cutting corners made me more efficient. The hairpin at the top of Consitution Hill is a bit annoying, because it’s overly wide so even when you “cut the corner” there’s still a lot of road you can’t ride on the inside of the turn. But I was able to take efficient lines in the turns thanks to steering.
Steering to the side when attacking seemed to make it impossible for other non-steering riders to follow my wheel. That was fun.
Powerups at my fingertips: it felt easy and natural to just push “Y” to activate a powerup while keeping my hands on the hoods.
Minimap changes: sometimes I like to toggle between different minimap zooms, and the left arrow let me do just that.
Rearview cam: the down arrow activates the rearview camera for 5 seconds, which is really handy when you’re attacking off the front and want to see what’s going on behind!

Lap After Lap

Nothing remarkable happened during most of the race’s 3 laps. A few riders attempted to stay off the front for a bit, but they were no match for the pack of 20-25 riders behind.

I tried my own attack near the end of lap 2, just to see what would happen if I went off the front and steered to the edge of the road. Would chasing riders without steering be able to get on my wheel? It sure didn’t look like it:

We shed a few riders as the laps went on, but it would all come down to the strategic final ~2km as we climbed Whitehall one last time then went flat out to the red brick finish.

The Finish

I was holding a Draft Boost powerup heading into the finish, which wasn’t the one I was looking for. I had hoped for an Aero Boost so I could attack off the front whenever I wanted, because the Draft Boost was only useful when I was drafting.

So I decided I would follow any wheels that jumped on the way up Whitehall or soon after, using the Draft Boost to conserve energy so I would have the legs to put in a second attack once the boost ran out.

With ~1.2km to go we hit the last hairpin and one A. Baxter attacked. I revved up the power and activated my Draft Boost while S. Brosda jumped hard, flying past Baxter. I kept pushing, getting on Brosda’s wheel then quickly coming around him as A. Chadha blew past us with his Draft Boost.

With ~500 meters to go I had steered onto Chadha’s wheel when S. Hotvet (the top-ranked rider in the race) zipped past us with an Aero Boost and 13+W/kg! I kept hammering on knackered legs and Sammy C joined Chadha and I in fighting for the scraps as Hotvet cruised to victory a few seconds ahead.

I finished 4th on the day with a weak sprint that wasn’t helped by my deciding to chase the attack from way out. But that was part of the fun of “Playing with Play” today.

See activity on Strava >
See results on ZwiftPower >

Watch the Race

Watching the video back, I realized in my “race brain” state I forgot I needed to steer into the draft of other riders in the final sprint. Zwift also bounces me right and further out of the draft mid-sprint. Would it have made a difference in my result? Perhaps.

Takeaways

The Zwift Play controller was helpful in this race, apart from the wacky “bouncing to the right” bug mentioned above. I’m still not sure Zwift has the steering/pack movement thing dialed, but it does provide for some fun elements like cutting corners or steering to the edge of the road to avoid wheelsuckers.

After the race I learned about one place on the Classique route that allows for real corner-cutting. Check this out:

If Zwift implements auto-braking on tight corners, and more riders get steering devices like Zwift Play, I think the “feel” of Zwift racing will change dramatically, in a good way.