How do you find your next race series? I refuse to use facebook for anything so that is not an option. Just using the zwiftpower leagues dropdown you cant tell what is current or historical, and there is no upcoming. Looking through the events list you can sortof figure it out, but then you always find them in week 3 of 8 or whatever so you are already out of the points. Even for people willing to use facebook, you would have to be part of 20 groups to have a chance of knowing when a new series was starting just for the established clubs. A new one starting up has no way to get word out.
Is there an email list you can signup for to get spammed for when a new league or series is kicking off?
Those series should have a forum (or at least topic) here or somewhere else within zwift (not other social media) where people within that series can talk, or at least where the organizers can tell us what courses all the future events will be on. It would sure be nice to plan more than 7 days out…
No easy way that I know of either, it just takes time hanging around relevant forums/social media tools, or, going through tools like Zwifthacks and searching out the events for keywords .
The question popped up recently so a tad more info here too:
Completely agree. Any chance the powers that be could set a new section in the forum just for racing leagues? Will be easier to find people within your categories for team racing too
I think the main problem is simply the way race series are set up: as weekly repeating events that (hopefully) get updated with the correct details at some point before the next event. Allowing race organizers to set up the entire series correctly at once would make things much clearer and remove the need for (further) additional tools.
Just going to surface this again in hopes zwift sees it some day. Just let the big race series have some way to get the word out? Sticky posts? Spam list? Something.
Missing the only 2 I currently know of that do half classes (2.5->3.2 is a big difference. races with 2.85->3.2->3.5 etc are a lot of fun cause people are closer to your skill)
Team TFC Mad Monday - mondays, has eu and US time slots. (forum wont let me include links in post for these)
SZR midweek (season) series - Wed 1pm EST
No mention of the legion 4 race series.
There were lots of winter break short series that were past their first race before you would see them pop up on zwiftpower.
Join a club. Yes this involves Facebook (at least for the vast majority, there may be exceptions). Chances are the admin/organisers will be arranging teams for many of the major series, so at least you only have one group to follow.
Yes FB sucks but it’s what people use so you can’t really expect everyone else to change their approach just to suit your preferences.
Sure I can I am wildly not alone in refusing to use facebook so once per year I will ■■■■■ a tiny bit, into the wind, that a project that would help them make more money and could be solved in a matter of minutes using tools they already have has not yet been solved and requires sending their users to someone else’s website.
Setup a notification system within their app (already exists) that lets people toggle a flag (already exists) to learn about new series. Get more people who sign up for 4 months each year to sign up for 6 months each year to catch fall series they didnt know about. Make more money, spent almost none. YAY!
Check back again next year for more complaining I know nobody who can do anything about it will read.
The majority of race clubs use discord for at least voice chat and many use it for much more team communication. I know we have a number of riders that are purely on discord without facebook.
Agree -1 for FB - though I have to admit I use FB for Dave’s page and a work related one
+1 for Discord. I also use it for my work interest groups, RGT and Virtupro teases.
Part of the trouble though is that regardless of the app, you have to know who to follow in the first instance.
I doubt Zwift would prioritise any work for a low’ish demand requirement like this so my ideal state would be something published on Zwifthacks or Zwiftinsider that provides a high-level global view of series as soon as they are planned by the organisers (and before Zwift schedules where poss) with key attributes provided (length, focus, cats, period events cover etc) so that I could make a call well before the series even hits the schedules. Discovering them once they hit Zwift schedules is fine for one-offs but a series commitment needs a bit more notice.
I do use discord, and I am part of a club. How do either of those things help me learn that some swiss club I had never heard of is having a weekday race series with half classes that would be perfect for me? Other than dumb luck of someone in my club having found it by chance and word of mouth-ing it (which is how it happened) how would we know?
How do you train for some big upcoming 6 week long event if you dont know its coming. How will they have stage races if you cant plan a month+ in advance. Can you rearrange your life to do a 5 day stage race with 3 days notice?
I am not asking for $1,000,000 in development work. 2006 can come to the rescue and give us a blog post they keep updated with the major events next x months? Hell, how about we see if 1997 can come swoop in and give us an opt-in email list you can signup for to get these event notices.
Every race is mostly 40+ year old people, give us a web page not an instafacesnap post damnit!
This is just crazytalk to me. They sell product. This is the product they sell. Returning customers are the best path to revenue. Why would any sane business let other businesses monetize their core business? How are they not hyping a ride the monuments series RIGHT NOW to keep those of us that quit every spring here. How is there not a ride the tour stage race with a training plan to keep people from leaving. They already have the partnership, the impossible part.
I dont understand how whoever runs marketing over there is not losing their mind that such basic blocking and tackling is not getting done.
I fully agree with you that zwift could certainly do a better job of it but there are benefits of being in a club as other members share that burden of looking at social media and suggesting rides.
For me I do a weekly news post on discord of the upcoming week, usually an event per day where you might find more of us racing. As for the longer out series like ZRL, Flamme Rouge i’ll post separately and do signup polls where required if it’s team events. Then each even has their own chat channel for discussions with members assigned to groups so you can easily tag/message those that are interested.
The other downside is when Zwift do directly market an event it gets huge numbers drawing riders from the great community events and more numbers is not necessarily better. The whole system needs a bit of a rework on how rides are advertised and prompted on the event calendar.
I love the idea ofzwiftinsider or similar having a list of upcoming race series. I too would always find out about such events after the fact.
Perhaps the organisers of these events would like a central point announce these? Wouldn’t they have better turn out?
Maybe zwiftinsider should set up a webpage and then the organisers can post them to his site? His page is my go to point to see what the zwift world schedule is.
I would love to have a single page on Zwift Insider that shows all the upcoming/currently underway race series.
The challenge is logistical, really. There’s no way I can maintain such a list - details would have to be entered by the organizers themselves. I’ll have a think about it…
I am wildly not alone in refusing to use facebook so once per year I will ■■■■■ a tiny bit, into the wind, that a project that would help them make more money and could be solved in a matter of minutes using tools they already have has not yet been solved and requires sending their users to someone else’s website.