I am talking about Zwifts website, not third party sites, which obviousliy have to do the job for Zwift. The Zwift website often advertise Events without further detailed information. I don’t feel like searching for all the information on the web. I expect a clearer and more thoughtful website layout, sites like Zwiftinsider do a good job, but Zwift itself obviously can’t (or won’t?) - and that annoys me time and time again. Thank you for your hint anyway @Martin_Reading
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The screenshot I posted is from the Zwift website.
If you go here Tour of Watopia 2023 - Zwift, I see what @Erik_Schumacher_MIN means, it might list the dates of the various stages but out doesn’t list the routes
Yeah, you have to go to Events and find the current stage to get the routes. And then it’s only for that stage. Less than ideal for sure. The Zwift website has always been a bit of a UI nightmare.
My wife and I!
It is obvious that a lot of other people feel the same as my wife and I do about moving the TOW up into the fall of the year in the US. The group size numbers on the rides we have done (10 between my wife I) so far have consistently been substantially smaller (by a factor of 4 or 5) than in previous years.
That’s fine, I’m just pointing out that maybe they’re trying to appeal to people who live in different places than you do. What if their goal is to have a Tour for people who, because of where they live, aren’t in a good time of the year for riding outside? Should it always only be at a time that benefits, for example, Northern Hemisphere people?
We might say ‘that’s where the majority of users are’, but maybe that’s their point–trying to appeal to other people to try to grow their market, increase participation from people in other places.
I live nearby a city in the US that used to have a World Cup cyclocross race. And plenty of European-based riders complained every year. “We don’t want to have to travel that far!” Their argument was, because most cross riders are Euro-based, that all of the racing should be in Europe. Meanwhile, the UCI was trying to grow participation and interest in the sport in the US. So they thought that it was reasonable to have one or two races in the US, even if that was inconvenient for the majority of the racers.
Sometimes there are reasons to do things that aren’t what the majority of people would want.
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That might also be because you can do the routes on your own, no need to do a scheduled event. Normally I’d do all three courses for each stage as an event but this year I did 2 of 3 solo due to timing.
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I do them the same way every year. So I believe I am comparing ‘apples’ to ‘apples’ participant wise. Unless something was changed in that regard this year.
But the On Demand option is new this time, isn’t it? I think that’s Jimmy’s point. Others who might otherwise be riding in the group events are doing the stages on their own.
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OK! Now I think I get it. I didn’t realize that it was no longer necessary to sign up for a TOW ride at the prescribed time. I suspect if you don’t sign up you can start riding at any time but you don’t ride as a group and it is just like a free ride!? But isn’t that the point of the tour? Group rides?
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Pretty sure a previous one was on demand - might have been tour of zwift though, can’t remember.
Tour of Makuri Islands
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You have to sign up to the tour but not a specific group ride as long as you do one of the routes for the stage in teh week it is on.
For some it might be to encourage group rides but a big part of it is to encourage people to try different routes and explore parts of watopia they might not otherwise ride.
ToW now has the welcome back to zwift for the indoor season role. Then tour of makuri moves to early spring in time for cherry blossom festivals, a major party time for many in Japan and other parts of the world which makuri islands takes it inspiration from
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You can do any of the routes anytime, the stages will tick off ahead of time.
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ah cool, i thought you had to do them the week they’re on
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Didn’t know that either, that’s good to know.
Why on earth doesn’t the website list the routes for each stage? I just tried to help my son (who’s quite new to Zwift) figure out how to do an on-demand ToW ride and it was quite the pain. The Zwift website lists the dates and stage numbers but not the routes. Yes, you can look that up be finding ToW events and checking what routes are being used, but that’s a bit clunky to say the least.
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@Steve_Hammatt , yeah its very clunky, full route details can be found on zwift insider website
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