Hi there. Will try to keep this short.
I’ve enjoyed racing in the Zwift monthly series the last few months. Its good to have the competition against others, pushes me to go hard that final couple of km just to try to beat the guys with me for 30th place!
However, the one thing I’m missing is the “healthy competition” from riding against the same people week-in week-out. It just creates healthy rivalry / competition and pushes me if I “know the person” and simply motivated to beat them
So… what I’m looking for is some suggested series where its typically the same group each week. I did try the HERD summer racing league (great friendly group), they had six races over the week, and in each race 3rd place got 48 points. My problem was that if only three riders turned up, 3rd place got 48 points, but if 200 turned up then you have to legit finish 3rd out of a huge group for the same 48 points.
Not a criticism, its a great group, but I want something where scoring was more “level”
HERD group member suggested time trials where its me vs others on the same route to set our times. Sounds great.
Open to any suggestions (time trial or not) or other advice. 1) Has to be a competition or league format. 2) Ideally where you get a decent group of riders so I know I’m “fighting” with. If a race format, great, can look for that person on track. If time trial then great, can look at the standings - would be nice for an active group / bit of banter / messaging to create that “rivalry / motivation”.
Thanks all.
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We run a Time Trial series and a Climbing Series (basically a TT uphill)
TT: The at Home Cycling & Running Virtual Training App
Uphill TT: The at Home Cycling & Running Virtual Training App
However I don’t think those are going to fill the gap that you’re looking for with racing the same people each week.
There’s the excellent Dirt Racing Series that has just finished and I’m sure Kev and Justin will be putting on another one soon.
If you have a Facebook account. I would strongly urge asking the same question in the Zwift Racers group as you’re probably more likely to get a bit more info in there.
You possibly need to look at more of the private series. TFC Mad Monday is always a good one against similar riders every week.
Valhalla also have an endurance series Fridays starting tomorrow and Tuesdays with WMZ/Valhalla there is a mini 3 week series. Both of these i expect the same riders to turn up week after week.
Do you race with a team?
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Hi. No, I dont race with a team.
For now, happy to jump onto any individual series so I’m not being relied on each week, but open to listening more about team series if worthwhile looking at.
Going to try the TT tonight - but yes - probably gives me a decent competition just like the great Zwift monthly race series, but not quite the group / rivalry aspect.
Going to be different people (strangers) in and around me.
The series i mentioned are individual in terms of signup but there is some team scoring based on whoever races but no commitment as such. Some do ride them as individuals.
it’s not quite the same where you have to be part of a mini team like for ZRL or Dirt series.
good luck, make sure you get discord setup if the team users it.
Excellent. Will check them out in more detail.
Zwift has been great so far - started with the racing and loved it, made notes on a spreadsheet to try and compare myself to previous finishes against same cat riders (sad like that).
But finding a group, having the same names pop up in races would be the final piece of the puzzle in terms of overall motivation.
That said, also set myself a loose aim of doing all available routes on Zwift by end of the year (not aiming for any times). But nice to stick on a movie, cycle steady, enjoy just being on Zwift and seeing it in all its glory.
What might be interesting is for Zwift to visualize how many people in any given race you’ve raced with multiple times before.
For instance: Today you see the indicator for the number of “friends” in a race, but if right beside that it also showed the number of people in the race you’ve raced with more than ‘x’ times you could click on it and see who those are and possibly form some friendly rivalries (frenemies) that way. Maybe it could show you how many wins/losses you have with them when you dig into it as it does for the nemesis/victims UX on your profile on ZP - just exposed in the companion app when you’re looking at races to add to your calendar.
Great idea. Its amazing in one sense that there are so many people on Zwift, going into their races.
But having some form of identifier sounds good. “Oh, this is someone you’ve raced against 10 times (bet you didn’t know that). Well hes beat your 7 times.”
!!RIGHT - lets knuckle down and make sure its not 8. Its that mentality. Good shout.
Or:
Even whilst in the pen (and / or during race), a list of riders near me in the current standings. “Oh, that guy is 120th and you are 124th … he’s ahead in standings by 3 seconds.”
!!RIGHT - let’s beat him by 4 seconds then if I can, knuckle down, 8km to go…".
James. Suggested lower down but wanted to send in a reply.
What I think might bridge the gap for me (and I assume others) during a race is for a display to show the current standings of riders (including myself) and (ideally) the gap between us.
I’m in a group, 8km to go. I see Mr Bloggs is currently 120th in the standings, I’m 124th and he’s only 3 seconds ahead in the standings). I’m going to try and make a break, try and beat him by 4 seconds so I jump above him in the standing (and hopefully the 121st to 123rd riders who aren’t in this race, but are between me and Mr Bloggs)
I think this would be a great motivator.
Karl,
I think this already exists.
Overall GC: ZwiftPower - Login
Weekly GC: ZwiftPower - Login
Out of interest, does Zwift have a freely available API.
I’m thinking I may create a small app if I can:
- Get a list of riders in a race.
- Get current standings of a series.
Then, simply to look up each rider and get their current racing position, name, overall standing position and overall total time.
Eg
1… Mr Fast 1st 01:20:35
34th… Mr Bloggs 120th 01:52:20
35th… Mrs Doe 128th 01:52:35
36th… ME 124th 01:52:23
In this example, can see that I’m riding with Bloggs and Doe, they are in and around me in the standings. So I need to keep with Doe to make sure she doesn’t close me in the standings, but also need to think about breaking away from Bloggs to beat him by 4 seconds to jump above him in the standings.
DBR races generally attract the same riders every week, they have races on monday, wednesday, saturday, and maybe other days too. but pretty much anything that’s well attended and not a zwift HQ run series will have regulars
You can see that in the links above that I shared.
Zwift does not have a publicly available API.
I can see the standings, I can see who is signed up (though not everyone does till last few mins).
But during the race the page doesn’t update regular and not sure how I see the people around me in the race and their current series standing.
Ultimately as I’m riding I want to know about anyone who is close to me in the series standings. If I’m missing the obvious, apologies.
Are you referring to the TT series or other? If it’s the TT one it’s largely irrelevant due to the staggered starting times.
I think what you’re asking for would be nice to have but relaistically not something we would do in the short or medium term and there’s definitely nothing proposed in UI changes that would support this.
Taking just the monthly Zwift races as an example.
I loved the racing element. But every week I had no idea of who was in the same race. I just concentrated on the race itself and try to battle the “strangers” with me come the end.
If I had notification / visual that a guy (Steve) in my group was 3 secs ahead in the standings, that a girl (Jane) was 2s behind me in the standings it changes the dynamic.
I’m less concerned about keeping with the other “strangers” and now concentrating on 1) How to try and get away from Steve (need to try and beat him by 4 secs) and 2) Keep with Jane if she breaks away as I don’t want her to beat me by 2 secs or more.
Likewise Steve is thinking “Keep with Karl and Jane”. Jane is thinking “Should I push with 3km left to try and open a gap, I feel fit, maybe I can break from them and close up the standings”.
Its - to me - a whole new dynamic.
For TTs, its not an issue as I can have the current standings for that week up on my phone and set myself a target time. Yesterday I did 39.07 in the TT. So I know I’m in the bottom half of Cat D. So next week I’d look up the current times people have set, look at the bottom half and get a rough idea of what I need to do.
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All nice ideas, but I’m afraid unlikely to factor into our development plans.
The difficulty also with GC on the monthly racing events is that riders can get an advantage from taking part in the larger events (large groups, better draft, more speed).
Sure, multiple races can give different groups, speeds, draft. But if Steve and Jane are in my race then to know this would be great.
Shame I can’t grab the series standings just before race starts, then current race positions. Simple comparison at that point.
Appreciate in the scale of things, its not a huge deal. Races are popular regardless, so goes under the “nice to have” category (or the bin).
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