UPDATE (Sept 21, 2020): ZRL is evolving quickly as final decisions are being made heading into signups. We’ve released a post with updated Zwift Racing League information available here.
Today Zwift announced big news for our racing community – the Zwift Racing League! Held in partnership with WTRL, the league is a multi-week, seasonal, team-based series.
Three standout features make Zwift Racing League an exciting and evolutionary development for community racing:
- Community accessibility: the league caters to all time zones and abilities. Past race series organized by Zwift have been for high-level racers only, but everyone can play in the Zwift Racing League!
- Teams and leagues/divisions: cycling is a team sport, broken up into divisions/categories to give more riders access to competition near their ability level. Zwift Racing League is using both teams and divisions to create a structure familiar to all racing cyclists.
- Mixing formats: with a mix of scratch race and time trial formats, the league has more variety than past single-format events.
Details are just emerging, but this is clearly a significant step forward in the evolution of community racing on Zwift. We’ll be publishing a follow-up post later this week with more details, but here’s what we know for now.
League Structure
The league is comprised of 5 divisions: Open Divisions 1, 2, 3, and 4, and the Premier Division. The Premier Division events are invite-only.
Open Division events will have multiple timeslots to satisfy all time zones. The Premier Division is region agnostic, with a single time slot.
Dates
Open Division will run for 8 weeks, from October 13 to December 3.
Premier Division will run for 6 weeks, from October 13 to November 24.
Race Formats
Races will be held every Tuesday and Thursday. The Tuesday series will be comprised of a scratch race and Thursday series will be a Team Time Trial (a format which WTRL has popularized!)
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Team-Based
The league is entirely team-based, with overall season rankings based on accumulated team points.
Open Division races will allow for an unlimited team roster size, but a max of 6 athletes per race. Teams can register at any point during the season but would forego points for any races missed, e.g. a team that registers the second week would only start to accumulate points from week 2.
In the Premier Division, teams can have a roster with up to 10 riders, but are limited to 6 athletes per race, with a 3 athlete per race minimum. Premier Division teams are required to keep the same 10 rider roster for the entire season and cannot rotate riders in/out who were not registered at the start of the season.
Invitational Qualifiers
Qualifiers for the Premier League are already underway. The top 15 teams from the qualifiers (15 men’s teams and 15 women’s teams) will join up to 5 select wildcard teams in the first season of the Premier League.
Multi-Season Ladder System
This is just the first season for Zwift Racing League, but the plan is to follow up with season 2 (and presumably additional seasons). The good news here is that the multi-season approach means Zwift+WTRL are taking a long-term view of this racing league. But what’s even more exciting is that the multi-season approach includes a ladder system wherein the lowest-placing invitational teams will trade places with the top-end community teams in a relegation-style league format!
Organizers
The Open Divisions will be organized by WTRL, a well-respected community race organizer whose most notable accomplishment is the very popular Thursday Team Time Trial Series.
The Premier Division will be operated by Zwift Esports.
Broadcasts
Open Division races will be live-streamed by Zwift Community Live, while Premier Division races will be live-streamed by Zwift Live. Men’s and women’s races will receive equal broadcast coverage.
Questions or Comments?
Post below! We’re talking to Zwift HQ about details and will try to get your questions answered as thoroughly as possible.
How are they going to police only 6 riders per team in an open event? What happens to the team if more than 6 turn up. Hard for a team to stop someone who just has their team registered on ZP from just turning up. Or is it meant to be the top 6 riders count for points for a team?
Open Division races will allow for an unlimited team roster size, but a max of 6 athletes per race. Teams can register at any point during the season but would forego points for any races missed, e.g. a team that registers the second week would only start to accumulate points from week 2.
That’s a good question, Andy. I highly doubt Zwift will have anything in place to prevent additional riders from joining the event, but I’m quite sure WTRL will have stuff in place to DQ riders (and maybe entire teams) who break the rule.
I think teams will take this seriously enough that the problem will be minimal. But we’ll find out soon enough!
So does each team only enter one time zone or can they enter teams of 6 in multiple time zones? While it is an ‘open’ league it does not seem very open if only limited to 6 riders per team. Be better if only the best 6 riders from each team count in a time zone but unlimited can join to race
Lots of detail needing to be fleshed out. But good to see a big team league series starting up. Just hope I get a chance to race it as I’m definitely not in the beat 6 of my tea
As I understand it, big teams (such as ODZ, or DIRT) will be able to create sub-teams… sort of like how WTRL does the TTT now. So you might have DIRT B Team 1, DIRT B Team 2, etc…
More details coming soon, I’m sure.
They will probably use the private events feature to handle this, and rely on team captains providing the private event link to the necessary riders for each event.
Z-Power riders with no HR monitors around the globe are rejoicing at the opportunity of a new Zwift league to ruin!
Please don’t assume anyone without a HR monitor on Zwift does it to cheat. Some of us just find it a bit disconcerting to give total strangers the ability to analyse your heart rate data.
Oh because if they had your HR data then they could devise a strategy to cross the finish line before you. Give me a freaking break dude. If professional cyclists and triathletes can race on Zwift and post there HR numbers, you have no excuse. Really.
It’s not the Z-Power that is the problem for me – it’s the inaccurate and/or uncalibrated smart trainers (especially those that rely on clamping a wheel to the right tension) as they get a free pass. I changed smart trainer to a Tacx Neo 2 and my power output read 10% lower compared to the previous, regularly calibrated, wheel-on smart trainer (the old Tacx Neo reality check!) – that difference is huge in a race!
It all depends. I recently added some Favero Assioma duo power pedals to my setup which already had a 2018 Kickr Snap. I noticed a slight difference in comparison but in the opposite direction, maybe 10 LESS watts registered by the Kickr vs the Assiomas (which are super accurate +/-1%), on sprints the Kicker might overshoot a bit.
Hi Bobby Mac, I’m really sorry you’ve got me wrong – the only strategy anyone needs to beat me is to be a mid-range B class racer; I’m right at the back of B and can’t even keep up with the pack beyond the first couple of minutes!!! 😉
I really love the inclusivity of Zwift, and I definitely focus on the fun. I never would have thought I’d enjoy racing, but I love the fact I can jump on and have a go and push myself.
I really hope racing on Zwift keeps a balance between those who want to compete really seriously and the ones who just like to compete for fun. Different leagues or competitions could be the answer to this – a bit like the difference between 5-a-side leagues you do with your workmates and other, more serious types of football.
For me, I don’t care if the people around me have fancier bikes or fancier trainers – for me it’s just about pushing myself and having fun. And that fun has helped me become a faster rider than ever before. 🙂
Yeah, power at the wheel is usually a bit lower than at the pedals due to loss of watts through the drivetrain
What is the best way to find and/or join a team? Are they providing any resources there? Seems like an opportunity for people to register their current category, w/kg, time of day, etc could be helpful in helping join people together.
I’m sure WTRL will provide resources for that soon. I’ll include it in the next post, if I have that info by then!
Hi, Craig. You’re more than welcome to join Rhino Racing. We are small but mighty! 🙂 Our primary goal is to have fun while riding until we are (mostly) dead at race’s end, and we have teams that fit all cats. We are always open to new members. I’d rather not put my personal info in a web comment, so if this sounds good to you, please ask to join our Facebook group — creatively named Rhino Racing. I can promise a warm welcome and lots of fun.
What happens to the existing WTRL TTT league?
It will continue uninterrupted.
Now I’m really confused. Are you saying that on Thursdays WTRL is going to run the current TTTs and the ZRL TTTs? That doesn’t compute.
Thursday’s will continue to be WTRL TTTs.
Tuesday’s will be this new team race series (not TTT)
If it’s open to all, this sounds interesting!
I’m not currently in any kind of team or club, so how can I get involved? Not sure how competitive I would be but it could be cool to be part of a team.
I’m sure we’ll get more info soon on how to get on a team for the league if you aren’t already on one.
Until then, you might check out this post and consider joining a team: https://zwiftinsider.com/teams-guide/
Hi, Craig. You’re more than welcome to join Rhino Racing. We are small but mighty! 🙂 Our primary goal is to have fun while riding until we are (mostly) dead at race’s end, and we have teams that fit all cats. We are always open to new members. I’d rather not put my personal info in a web comment, so if this sounds good to you, please ask to join our Facebook group — creatively named Rhino Racing. I can promise a warm welcome and lots of fun.
Oops! I mean, Hi Paul! Sorry about that. As you can tell, I copied my note from above. Super-sloppy not to change the name. Please don’t hold my idiocy against our team!
I commend the attempt to make it a team based league but there are just too many challenges in finding people and coordinating schedules. This a problem for cooperative multiplayer video games where decent but more casual players (employed people, parents) find themselves effectively shut out of high level activities. I would expect that pattern to be replicated in this league.
Maybe Zwift could implement a parallel Individual ranking system with perhaps ability- and is experience-based match making for unattached racers if participation is lacking.
Perhaps, although this particular league/team structure hasn’t actually been tried before on Zwift, as far as I can recall… so who knows?
I DO know that WTRL’s TTT events have been a smashing success, and those require people to be on pre-planned teams riding at specific times…
Yup. 430 teams and over 2,600 riders competed last week in the TTT. Finding people and coordinating schedules won’t be an obstacle.
This is some of the most exciting news to come out of the Zwift community racing side of things in a long time! WTRL has done a great job with the TTT and I am sure this will be more of the same. I think this type of league with normal races is exactly what Zwift needs to further drive community engagement. Do we know why the decision to have a TTT as part of it and not just a race series on varying course layouts?
I don’t know the reasoning behind it, although I’m sure it has a lot to do with WTRL’s experience at TTT organization, and the popularity of their TTT series.
It will all become clear shortly Steven and Martin are very experienced organisers and this has been months in the planning.
As a rider and team owner in the WTRL TTT racing series, I’m really looking forward to seeing how this works out. The weekly TTT is a great set up. The only challenge I have is with the time zones. There are currently 8 in the WRTL series with a big gap for the Dubai (GMT+4) Thursday afternoon period. I hope that the new racing league will cover all time zones spaced equally over a 24 hour period – obviously allowing for more starts where demand is higher.
How many zpower riders allowed per team?
Think HR monitors need to be required and No Zwift power riders – differences in trainers is one thing and cannot start telling people to spend lots of money but can at least have a proper power source – it will soon become the Wattbike Atom league or the Wahoo kicker league !!
Tacx Neo is also up there, just as accurate if not more accurate
I hope this will give impetus to Zwift to make use of their iTT technology with the conveyor belt start for TTTs as an outcome of this. Live split times would be nice. WTRL does a great job organizing TTTs with what they have to work with presently but the TTT experience has a lot of room for improvement.
well this looks exciting…
Does anybody know of a women’s team for a fitish 50-something?
Hi Lynn, there are several clubs with women’s teams. I’d suggest investigating clubs such as Evo Cycling Club who put on Ladies Only group rides. That way you can see if you find others of similar fitness before committing to a club.
Dividing Zwifters into there FTP for the suggested divisions works for some but every body, over 50 should have UCI decisions even better all riders in UCI would work the best and linked to Zwift power
So how do we look farther into this. Will the race organizers offer a sign up period soon? I mean the 13th isn’t far off.
There will be more info coming out in the next few days (is my guess). I’ll publish it here on Zwift Insider, and I’m sure WTRL will publish it.
As with many things in the Zwift universe, they’re sort of “building the plane while flying it.” All the details will be out soon, for sure, but not a moment too soon! 🙂
Do we know how exactly the scoring will work? Perhaps a point system depending on each team members place in that race? In that case it’ll feel almost pointless riding with less than 6 team members. Oh well, can’t wait!
Just posted an update with a lot more details: https://zwiftinsider.com/zwift-racing-league-update/
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