We’ve already announced the Zwift World Series, which is Zwift’s new flagship race series that encompasses both elite and community-level events for peak Zwift season. This week, Zwift posted the first set of community races, happening on August 29-September 1 on the new Richmond Loop Around route.
Here are the big reasons why the Zwift World Series community races are interesting:
- They function as a monument race one weekend per month from September to January, offering a chance to challenge and test yourself against the Zwift racing community
- Plenty of opportunities to participate, with races scheduled from Thursday to Sunday across multiple time slots
- Global Leaderboards for each month’s races, plus a General Classification that combines all the monthly races to see how you rank against your peers throughout the series
- Zwift World Series Community kit unlock when you complete any of the five races
- Elite riders can use these races as recon events prior to the big elite races, and community riders get to race the same course as the elites to see how they compare.
- Three brand-new courses and two never before featured in Zwift racing.
Route Details: Richmond Loop Around
This new route has never been ridden in Zwift, although Richmond’s roads will be familiar to many riders! It’s a punchy, attritional course with key climbs that reward a high VO2 max. Visualize it as three laps of the Cobbled Climbs Reverse (featuring the 23rd St Reverse, Libby Hill Reverse, and E Main St climbs) followed by one lap of the standard Richmond 2015 UCI Worlds route with its three climbs: Libby Hill, 23rd St, and Governor Street. See more route details >
- Format: Scratch Race
- Laps: 1
- Distance: 42.5km
- Elevation: 550m
- More Route Details >
- Powerups: Aero awarded at the Lap Arch on each passing (2x)
- Primes (elite races only):
- 23rd St KOM Reverse on the 3rd time passing
- Broad St Sprint
Race 1 Schedule and Signup
Community races August 29-September 1, 2024
Elite qualifier: September 5 (Men 17:10 UTC, Women 18:30 UTC)
Elite race: September 19 (Men 17:15 UTC, Women 18:40 UTC)
Sign up at zwift.com/events/tag/zwscommunity
See complete World Series season schedule >
Kit Unlock
Complete any Zwift World Series race and unlock the Zwift World Series Community kit:
Questions or Comments?
Post below!
Eric, do you have any info if the general classification will be based on the traditional A B C D categories or the new Racing Score? Or a single GC for all? It seems that if it went by the ABCD we would have the old system until spring, which would be…gutting.
This would be a great series for doing mass start races with everyone in the same pen. Probably never going to happen unfortunately.
Agree, this series would have worked very well for mass start races. You’d expect good numbers, and the courses look challenging enough to break up the packs quickly. Shame they’ve gone the direction they did.
It just uses category enforcement, not racing score. If you click the link to see the upcoming events above, you can see how it works.
From James on the Zwift Forum – Single category for overall GC for world series
Do we know if the route will have a badge yet? That kinda determines if I’ll set aside time to enter.
It sounds like all routes will have badges moving forward. It’s just a question of WHEN Zwift decides to add the badge to the game….
Oh wow…that 2nd aero helmet is going to be soooo hard to hang onto until the end!
Nice jersey but my god, what a route …
I do love the fact that this race happens, and then they update Zwift to add it as a badge route afterwards, so I’ve got to ride it again in the future.