Zwift Racing

Tim Sullivan

I thought I would start this thread for us to share our tips and thoughts on our races we do on Zwift.

So, if you don't already know, there are lots of us racing on Zwift, including @Coach Patrick (believe it or not his HR actually gets pretty high during the races ).  We even have a team "TeamEn" set up on zwiftpower.com.  Zwift Races are super fun, but incredibly HARD!.  The races are for everyone. It doesn't matter if you are at 2.3 w/kg or 4.5 w/kg.  Don't get frustrated when you first start racing. Your first few races can be tough. Remember, its not where you place in a race, but how hard you work during the race. I have established new FTP levels during races. For me, I can push much harder when I'm trying to hang on to others in a race, or I'm trying to stay ahead of others.

1) How do I find a race on Zwift? - you can go to http://zwift.com/en/events/ to find the events, or an easier way is to use the mobile link Zwift app and click on events. You can also find race schedules at zwiftpower.com

2) How do I race on Zwift - there is tons of information out there, but here are couple links
https://zwiftblog.com/how-to-race-on-zwift-strategy-tips-etiquette-and-more/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3obmT_cMXc

Here is an actual race
https://youtu.be/prhjz7eOpvk

3) After I race, where are the results? - For most races, the results get posted at zwiftpower.com.  It is useful to register on Zwiftpower.com.  When you do register put "TeamEn" in under the profile section for the team affiliation.  Here is some of the information that ZwiftPower.com keeps
 
A schedule

Selecting one of the races - this is a snippet from a race today

Here are the current members on TeamEn

There are others racing on Zwift also. Try it out!

Scott Giljum

I will just add one question (and answer it):

WHY should I think about racing on Zwift?  The short answer is because I want a fun way to do threshold work.  The longer answer (at least for me) is that I just have a hard time getting my head around pushing through the old standard 2x20 intervals or the like to maximize training value.  Trying to numb my brain during that so I could hammer myself was hard to get up for.  Zwift races changed that.  I am not nearly as strong as some (I was in the same race Tim is showing there and you don't see my name which should give you an idea), but I can hammer myself for the race trying to keep up with a group.  And to add further testimony to the positive effects, I have set higher FTP's twice in a three month period during the races.

So in short, it's fun (type A, I just killed myself fun) and it's super effective.  Give it a whirl a couple of times and I bet you too may get sucked in like I have!

Bill Manard

I'll add this, from a BOP->MOP point-of-view:

• I've used Zwift for a while, but I've just started racing.  It is definitely easier to push oneself if you're struggling to hold onto a wheel.  I've done group rides, but if the whole group isn't pushing, then it's hard to get good threshold work in.
• There are races for every category of rider; just look for the FTP categorizations when signing up.  I realized that I'm actually a solid C where I thought I was a borderline C/D, just because I can push myself harder with others around.
• Today I did a smaller race, and I signed up as a D.  I ended up holding the wheel of a B rider for much of the race, which made zwiftpower.com tell me that I'm really not a D (note I was 10' faster than the next closest D, so, yeah, I'm not a D...):
• What does the motivation of racing do for threshold values?  This:

Summarizing - come to the dark side...

scott dinhofer

help me out as a newbie... I have always thought that riding zwift requires you to ride the course roadie style, surging, hanging with the crowd (or trying to). Am I correct in understanding that i can do my intervals, APB, etc and not focus on beating others, which would clearly have me breaking out of my power zone?

Tim Sullivan

@Scott Dinhofer you could definitely ride that way if you wanted and I have done that in the past. It's fairly funny to do as the others must think you are crazy.

The races are really just to push you beyond what you think you are capable of. The races can replace FTP workouts. You will have some surging and easing but the breaks are not even enough to recover. If you want to see your FTP improve and your one hour power improve the races will help tremendously.  My power numbers are always better in a race as compared to riding a planned workout. 

Im sure @Coach Patrick will chime in on this topic

Scott Giljum

@Scott Dinhofer my two cents on your question are these. Zwift in general can be done any way you would like. I ride my own plan many times while both passing and being passed. If I don't want to ride like a roadie I don't have to. In the races themselves, it is like Tim said, you basically start at FTP plus and just hope to hang on. You end up riding a bit like a roadie in that you are trying to stay with a group, but you are hammering yourself to do it. As I said earlier, I tended to have little to no motivation when it came to the super structured FTP intervals. I would do them and get results, but it was a mental drain. I have used the races to replace that work and at the end I still feel mentally drained, but only because I basically used up everything I had. And the results are there. Since I started, my FTP has increased a few times by a decent amount all because of the motivation the format creates. And I want to go back for more, unlike the 2x20s that I would dread for days in advance. 

I know you're a solid type A guy. I promise if you try it, the set up will appeal to that inner competitor. 

Lastly, I have thought about it this way. We all are looking for a higher FTP, right? I would have been willing to pay a lot of money to pump mine up like I was a madden character. Here is a way that doesn't cost much and has worked for a good number of people in the haus. We speak about ROI a lot (as we should). This is a tool that provides great bang for the buck. 

scott dinhofer

@Scott Giljum - I've found that doing structured intervals, while mentally taxing, build my FTP best.. that's why we do em, right? Plus, the mental battle adds in the fortitude that one needs on race day to stay in a zone and keep at it!

that said, there  are times to ride this way, and after IMKY, i plan on it with my roadie friends, plus all winter we do rides on dirt roads at night with gravel bikes and a ton of lights... cars are freaked out when they come across 4-12 people with a ton of lights that don't look like a car! These are great rides and I am generally hanging on to the back as these guys are all pure cyclists... 

and again, I am looking to join the Sunday AM APB ride, so I am trying for THAT, this sunday... I will check out the racing as it could be an interesting diversion, but my intervals and trainer road, do provide me the time to binge watch my shows as well, it's about the only time I watch TV!

thanks for putting this up and expanding the knowledge base. Will be giving Zwift setup a test run tomorrow before sunday's APB ride.. 

Scott Giljum

@Scott Dinhoferas the saying goes different strokes for different folks. If that method works for you, great. This is just an alternative to try and see if you like it more. For me it has been years of pounding the round peg into the square hole. I did it, and saw gains, but not as much as I have now and I think that largely has to do with what's between the ears. 

Mark Moore

Thanks for all the info. I'm looking at getting setup on Zwift. I am thinking about using rollers with p1 pedals and garmin speed sensor. Anyone have any thought on that setup or should I look at something else?

Tim Sullivan

@Mark Moore you can generally use any trainer on Zwift and pair it with a power meter (don't need the speed sensor as Zwift just uses the power when you have a power meter). You are much braver than me in choosing rollers. I know that some people use rollers on Zwift, but I don't think many.  I think its like when you go downhill snow skiing and see the people using telemark skis.  I have periods during some of my Zwift rides where I just wouldn't have the focus to stay on the rollers without crashing. I also don't think I could push as hard on rollers as I do on a stationary trainer. I really enjoy using a smart trainer on Zwift as I can incorporate as much or as little feeling of the hills by just changing a setting in Zwift. Using a smart trainer you can also ride in ERG mode which allows you to set a desired wattage target and then Zwift will control the resistance of your trainer to the wattage target based on your cadence.

Francis Picard

RACING IS COOL PERIOD.

Brian Hagan

IMHO Anything that can get you to at or above 100 TSS in around 75 minutes works.  For some, a  structured FTP wko works and for others Zwift race does the trick.  @Bill Eckert's 150 TSS was a bit high, but then he learned he had an FTP bump.

I have not been doing the races, because the EN plan has our FTP work on Wednesday, and there has not been a race that fits my schedule on Wednesday.  This week, I am changing things up a bit and will be doing the XRS - ZTR Tuesday Night Worlds Race tonight.

Also, racing is way more fun than training!  

Tom Glynn

Zwift is peaking my interest!  I've been thinking of the Sunday morning ABP ride with the EN group.  How does the group stick together if everyone has different FTP numbers? Are the races filled with time triallers/triathletes trying to hold a constant high power output or is it almost all roadies surging away with triathletes kind of out of place? 

Scott Giljum

@Tom Glynnwe all stick together because your pace is determined by your watts/kg. We set around what we want to do at set times. 

As for races, I am pretty much at top end power (or what I can do at that point) most of the race. There is certainly some "surging" but the let ups are barely enough time to catch a breath or two. It isn't as roadie as many imagine. I would say give both the Sunday ride and a race a try. I was hesitant at one point too and now only wish I had started both sooner!

Brian Hagan

@Tom Glynn - for the ABP rides - we started off doing a cadence of starting at 2.0 W/KG increasing every 15 minutes by .3 W/KG. Now, since we all know each other for the most part, we just start out at a comfortable pace (like 2.3 w/kg) and it just seems to naturally increase to 3.0.  Also, you earn green jersey's for sprints if your the fastest, and polka dot jersey's for the climbs if your the fastest.  We started having fun with that and the ride has really turned into an easier social ride that gets interrupted by all out sprint or mountain climbs.  We tend to recover and regroup and continue chatting between them. 

The big benefit is we all ride harder than we would by ourselves and have fun!

Here is an example of last weeks ride:

Brian Hagan

As for racing, I did a race yesterday instead of my weekly FTP wko.  It was a long race relative to others.  The distance was 35.1 miles and it took me 1:36:20.  Here is the data from my Garmin file (included warm up and cool down Z1) that shows my time in zones.  I would not have been able to do this without a race environment.

Tom Glynn

@Scott Giljum and @Brian Hagan you guys are really working - thanks for the data!

I'm 99% sure I'm in this Sunday.  I need to sign up for Zwift, do some tinkering and look at this thread in more detail to get logistics squared away.

Thanks everyone for sharing!

Tim Sullivan

Tim Sullivan, @Coach Patrick, @Shaughn Simmons, and @Trent Prough are doing an early KISS Americas AM Zwift race tomorrow morning if anyone wants to try it out and join us.  It starts at 6am eastern and will be done within an hour

Shaughn Simmons

Had some equipment issues and ended up having to do my own thing 30 minutes later......looks like you animals tore it up!

Brian Hagan

I like the recap from @Coach Patrick

Awesome racing @Tim Sullivan @Jenn Edwards - that's the fastest I've ever gone in a 25 mile race. For those of you who missed it, the recap was I hung on the back of A group a little longer than Tim. Jenn brought the B group up till they caught Tim. Tim brought the B Group up to me for the final lap to the finish until Tim crushed me. Epic. 

Tom Glynn

Just confirming that Patrick's instructions, here:  https://endurancenation.vanillacommunities.com/discussion/22881/sunday-zwift-abp-8am-est-updated-instructions-inside/p1 are the most current way to walk through the setup process.

scott dinhofer

@Tom Glynn - highly recommend getting in on the sunday ride as your 1st ride. It's like riding on the road with your buddies, without having to watch for traffic. the big key is to get the Discord app up and running for communication, as that makes it all. Best set up is apparently an Iphone with WIRED headphones. I am trying it on an ipad this weekend as there are 'droid issues with it. There is also an untried PC version. 
I am going to have it set up to test on Sunday on both the ipad and PC and see how they both work. I won't be riding as I have a family brunch & a 3 pm flight to my bike camp for next week. 
@Brian Hagan - is there a wiki on the use of discord? is there any alternative to discord? @Coach Patrick  - did some searching after sunday's ride and discovered a trove of entries on issues with discord's and droids... if we want to make this easy for more peopel to join, we really need something that works as well but is multi-platform friendly.

also, what is most current setup coach P's instructions on the thread that Tom references above this post? or is there now a wiki entry? 

Paul Hough

Sounds like cool stuff, although when I upgraded my Cyclops Powerbeam to the Cyclops Hammer I went with the Rouvy premium edition (formerly Cyclops virtual training).  You can set up races as well, but what I really like are all the video routes including all the big climbs in the Alps and Pyrennes.  I like watching the real scenery as I'm struggling up a hill.  And like @Scott Dinhofer, I'm hoping for a big FTP bump after a winter of doing something different.

Attila Matyas

Question about user names when joining races like the KISS races series.  Are you all just leaving your name as first last TeamEN (category)?  Just wondering since all the series mention that their race name should be in the rider name.

Tim Sullivan

I just leave my name the same as it always is @Attila Matyas. It used to be hard to tell in Zwift who was in an event and who wasn't. That isn't the case any longer.  Zwiftpower.com has never missed me as being part of an event since I've stopped changing my name

Bill Manard

Thanks for that @Tim Sullivan, because I’ve been changing my name every race...

Tim Sullivan

Ha @Bill Manard I changed my name for about 50 races before I stopped.  The rider list on the right side of the screen shows the classifications of the riders now.  It used to just show a list of riders so you didn't know who you were racing against.  The only time I may change my name is if the race doesn't have different classifications to select when joining a race.

Attila Matyas

@Tim SullivanThanks sounds great. 

Tim Sullivan

Article about drafting in Zwift during races

https://zwiftblog.com/positioning-in-the-peloton/

Tim Sullivan

Who wants to participate?

https://thomasburns61.wixsite.com/team-worlds-2017

scott dinhofer

can't find the reference to setting up zwiftpower that @Tim sullivan referred to in the group me, so asking here. 
I screwed up my Zwift power account and my "name" there is my email sd@twgco.com. can't seem to edit that and can't figure out how to delete my account and start over. 

that said, I did get it to sync to my Strava account & I added TeamEN <-that capitilazation; and added my zwift user number as per instructions, does this mean I am good to go? or should i figure out how to delete my zwiftpower profile & start over?

note that the "rider name" was pulled from my Strava account. Does Zwiftpower track us by user name? or user #? I assume the number since that is what they ask for, and it's unique to each.  

assuming I will test tonight if i actually finish a race