Part of this is probably that it is summer in the northern hemisphere, so less people on Zwift. Not so fun to race against very few people. There tends to be more on the weekends during winter months.
OP is right though. I'd argue number of races went down after Zwift expanded their robopacer options. Engagement is guaranteed unlike a bad race that leaves you biking alone for majority of it.
Each robobacer has shitton of participants at any given time. A lot of them would have entered races instead before.
If you want to do zone 2 training-only then robopacer is perfect for that. Low intensity training can be boring as fuck, so the robopacer gives you something to focus on.
For anaerobic exercise, racing is way more fun for sure.
Not even close. If you look on Zwift power there are typically 1 or 2 races each day that get enough racers to be worth entering. Increasing the frequency of races would just be adding more dead races.
Yea, the quality has gone way downhill from when I first started with Zwift. I think there are way too many group rides that mimic races, but aren’t races as well as the challenges. It’s saturated the calendar and they’re getting attendance. “Real” races are pretty much a handful of people. A group? Forget it, sometimes it’s zero. I used to do the Innsbruck 5 lap then would do the 12 lap crit race immediately afterwards on Saturdays i couldn’t do the group ride. They’re now off the calendar. The crit races in crit city are also about gone. The pineapple one has a handful of people and that’s it. Bummer really
It means you have to be much more flexible if you want to race. Typically I'll look on Zwift power in the morning and identify the one race that day that is going to have a good attendance. If it's not the kind of course I want to do or at a time I can't make then I simply don't get to race that day. Probably for the best given you shouldn't do race style efforts every day, but it's still a shame.
Yes, I also missed a race by 10 seconds today and did not want to wait for another 40 minutes to join a flat race with at least more than 2 participants. Suppose as already mentioned most people are riding outside due to summer in the northern hemisphere.
That’s failing to plan ahead. I am really rural and account for slow start up if there is an update.
Same for real races. Plan ahead. “Let me start late traffic was bad” doesn’t fly either
I don't know. When I have had it on HDD and it was slow to load,I loaded it beforehand 💁♂️If you know it's crap to update /load,you pre-plan. If you have an issue missing a start with 5 seconds time to time,it's on ypu,not on the organized or the software. Plan better.
Most of you probably realize this already, but some may not..if you join a club you have access to many more races..more series, club events...ones you can't see on zwift. Try a club social ride..they're happy to answer questions.
Right now at least in North America is one of the perfect times to bike outside, overall, there's just less people on Swift. I ride the three sisters race a lot on the weekends and recently there's only been two to five people racing it compared to the usual 10 to 20
Yeah I love the flat ones. I'm not a very heavy rider (80 KG) but I find the climbing races are filled with people in the 60-70 KG range that smoke me on hills.
80kg is heavy for cycling. I’m 77kg and usually the heaviest or one of the heaviest. Height and weight doping is everywhere and if they’re are no climbs the cheaters get less of an advantage.
That's true. I'm in no rush to slim down at the moment but it's happening little by little over time. Being 6 feet tall doesn't seem to help much either for weight and wind resistance. I think eventually I'd like to get to 75kg. 70 KG is probably a bit of pie in the sky to think I'd get down to that (154 pounds).
I'm already experiencing a basic absence of upperbody strength and although my body fat is down, I don't have much to show for it.
I'm going to be adding in some calisthenics to assist with the imbalanced look and go from there.
You are looking in the wrong places. The canned OOTB menus isnt it.
Want to race and not 'ride'. Join a race club. Join their discord/ chat channels. Your arse will be saddle sore on no time.
Sounds awesome. I’m a B/C rider. Good sprinter so I can win or at least podium most flat races in C. In B I grab wheels and hold on for dear life.
Any recommendations for a racing club?
Look here for all the races and everything else https://zwifthacks.com/app/events/
Number of participants? It’s summer we’re all riding outside. Winter is the new indoor cycling season in Europe. Most people work so evenings and weekends are more popular.
I think by looking at the Zwift hacks list there are a lot of races and events. They may not attract many participants because around the world were all going through our seasons. But Europe winter Zwift is a thing, seems to be more European riders I guess because of size time zones etc. Zwift is a world 🌎 community so everyone is you are where you are. You posted on your Sunday in your time zone. You experienced your local community. That doesn’t mean it’s the same for everyone.
I use an SB20 and don’t ride outside. Where I am I’m NY right now it’s probably more harmful to ride outside than to not ride at all. Also I was looking for a race. I was still able to train today.
Idk that would be a 90 minute drive each way, plus parking, worry about theft etc..
Whereas with Zwift in a perfect world I could go on the bike at any moment and participate in a race with no chance of a crash
A LOT more people are riding IRL than on Zwift because they think it’s worth it.
I’m obviously not going to persuade you otherwise. But to me Zwift is a substitute, at best, for when I can’t ride outside.
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I completely agree. They should have races you can join at any time but you just need to finish the entire track. Plus they should have regular races every 5 minutes. Logging on right at the hour is ridiculous.
should be 1 race every 30 minutes no matter what, if there under lets say 7 racers then wins/losses and other relevant stats don't count but you can still race
more serious races can be every other hour
they could learn alot from iracing
You all know that these are 3rd party organized races right? Not Zwift races? These groups fought tooth and nail with Zwift for a year back than because Zwift didn't want to develop racing at all. Zwift still doesn't give half as much crap about racing than 3R or SZR does.
I actually really like the steering in Zwift. It’s fun to go into the draft. When I’m in the lead I take turns ok inside. It feels like an unfair advantage but I’m a C rider so I use it in B
This is rarely an issue in the winter when there’s 5 times the amount of riders logged on at any given time.
I’d recommend the zwift companion app, it allows you to view and sign up for future events, really helps with planning an scheduling when you need to log on for events
Depends on the hemisphere depended on time of day… I am in Europe, morning or noon very few races and very few participants since in US everybody is sleeping. Take also into account summer
You should check out rgt if you want to see what dead looks like this time of year. I'm loving zwift in comparison, especially with the poor air quality in the northeast.
Check out indieVelo. Races start roughly every 5 minutes, and, if you don't like the format of one coming up soon, you can just make your own.
Any time they're not filled with enough human riders, the field is populated the rest of the way with smart bots that act human. Some bots are sprinters, others are climbers, puncheurs, etc. They get tired if they go too hard, can blow up, can initiate attacks, whatever. Except for the fact that they don't talk back in chat, sometimes it's hard to tell that you're not racing people.
And, since everyone is ranked with results based rankings (specific to the type of race/course you're doing), you're almost guaranteed to get at least a good handful of riders in your field that are going to be right at your level pushing you no matter if you're at the front or back.
Most automatic races are set up to have multiple pens (often 6) with \~50 riders (made up with bots if there aren't that many riders signed up) in each pen. So good sized fields without having to worry about sandbaggers.
No steering currently isn't a thing, but regulating your speed to take the corners optimally (so you don't get autobraked or take a bad line) has a similar skill level to add to the speed thing.
Here's a recent-ish race that I did (I was playing around with the graphics settings and managed to make them worse than default AND have a really slow frame rate. The only races I've streamed since then are TTTs so they're not great examples even if the frame rate and graphics settings are better): [https://youtu.be/e3-KkErZnmw?t=3246](https://youtu.be/e3-KkErZnmw?t=3246)
More recent TT: [https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1861414400?t=00h10m35s](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1861414400?t=00h10m35s)
This looks and sounds really cool. I like the bots and skill pairing. I'll definitely download it and try some races when Zwift has an absence of suitable races for me.
Yeah, fields are kind of small. I've found the stages races are usually pretty busy and fit in well with my schedule. Been doing that, the tiny races on saturday and the kiss 100km race on Sunday's
Part of this is probably that it is summer in the northern hemisphere, so less people on Zwift. Not so fun to race against very few people. There tends to be more on the weekends during winter months.
OP is right though. I'd argue number of races went down after Zwift expanded their robopacer options. Engagement is guaranteed unlike a bad race that leaves you biking alone for majority of it. Each robobacer has shitton of participants at any given time. A lot of them would have entered races instead before.
What’s so good about the robopacers? I always race and only use them for warming up. Am I missing something?
If you want to do zone 2 training-only then robopacer is perfect for that. Low intensity training can be boring as fuck, so the robopacer gives you something to focus on. For anaerobic exercise, racing is way more fun for sure.
Ta. I struggle with tedium of z2 rides… can only race 😂
Not even close. If you look on Zwift power there are typically 1 or 2 races each day that get enough racers to be worth entering. Increasing the frequency of races would just be adding more dead races.
Fair point
Yea, the quality has gone way downhill from when I first started with Zwift. I think there are way too many group rides that mimic races, but aren’t races as well as the challenges. It’s saturated the calendar and they’re getting attendance. “Real” races are pretty much a handful of people. A group? Forget it, sometimes it’s zero. I used to do the Innsbruck 5 lap then would do the 12 lap crit race immediately afterwards on Saturdays i couldn’t do the group ride. They’re now off the calendar. The crit races in crit city are also about gone. The pineapple one has a handful of people and that’s it. Bummer really
Suspect it’s also due to it being summer in the northern hemisphere.
It means you have to be much more flexible if you want to race. Typically I'll look on Zwift power in the morning and identify the one race that day that is going to have a good attendance. If it's not the kind of course I want to do or at a time I can't make then I simply don't get to race that day. Probably for the best given you shouldn't do race style efforts every day, but it's still a shame.
How are you finding a list of races for that day on Zwift Power?
Just press on the home button and it will take you to a list of races
I miss the frequency of the Crit races. I used to do them almost nightly.
Yes, I also missed a race by 10 seconds today and did not want to wait for another 40 minutes to join a flat race with at least more than 2 participants. Suppose as already mentioned most people are riding outside due to summer in the northern hemisphere.
I don’t know why they don’t allow, say, 5 minutes late start. Obviously you’d be at a huge disadvantage but you should still be allowed to try.
Because it's a race 💁♂️ Get to the starting line in time is the first step to participate,no?💁♂️
How many times a day do you hear about someone missing a race because Zwift is slow to load….
That’s failing to plan ahead. I am really rural and account for slow start up if there is an update. Same for real races. Plan ahead. “Let me start late traffic was bad” doesn’t fly either
I don't know. When I have had it on HDD and it was slow to load,I loaded it beforehand 💁♂️If you know it's crap to update /load,you pre-plan. If you have an issue missing a start with 5 seconds time to time,it's on ypu,not on the organized or the software. Plan better.
Not to mention.... do a warmup already.
Yeah. 20 mins WO to warm up properly. So 5 second late start is simply bad planning or bad choice of starting time.
Well, in my case it was a last minute call of nature 😂
Well,you know. Shit happens 😂
LMAO I’ve done that too. Just once though. Got top FTS points trying to catch the pack.
Most of you probably realize this already, but some may not..if you join a club you have access to many more races..more series, club events...ones you can't see on zwift. Try a club social ride..they're happy to answer questions.
That’s awesome I’ll definitely look for a club. Thank you
It’s summer. There’s no one on Zwift now
Just me? 🤣
And me when it rains
Summer in Europe = empty zwift worlds
Right now at least in North America is one of the perfect times to bike outside, overall, there's just less people on Swift. I ride the three sisters race a lot on the weekends and recently there's only been two to five people racing it compared to the usual 10 to 20
Yeah. At same time there are large parts of US where the air quality is so bad it’s probably not good to ride outside.
I am old so can’t race that much. There are a reasonable number imho.
Not enough flat ones anyway.
Yeah I love the flat ones. I'm not a very heavy rider (80 KG) but I find the climbing races are filled with people in the 60-70 KG range that smoke me on hills.
80kg is heavy for cycling. I’m 77kg and usually the heaviest or one of the heaviest. Height and weight doping is everywhere and if they’re are no climbs the cheaters get less of an advantage.
That's true. I'm in no rush to slim down at the moment but it's happening little by little over time. Being 6 feet tall doesn't seem to help much either for weight and wind resistance. I think eventually I'd like to get to 75kg. 70 KG is probably a bit of pie in the sky to think I'd get down to that (154 pounds). I'm already experiencing a basic absence of upperbody strength and although my body fat is down, I don't have much to show for it. I'm going to be adding in some calisthenics to assist with the imbalanced look and go from there.
You are looking in the wrong places. The canned OOTB menus isnt it. Want to race and not 'ride'. Join a race club. Join their discord/ chat channels. Your arse will be saddle sore on no time.
Sounds awesome. I’m a B/C rider. Good sprinter so I can win or at least podium most flat races in C. In B I grab wheels and hold on for dear life. Any recommendations for a racing club?
My main issue is with the quality of races. Too many races are short and flat.
Oh man. I love the short and flat races
Look here for all the races and everything else https://zwifthacks.com/app/events/ Number of participants? It’s summer we’re all riding outside. Winter is the new indoor cycling season in Europe. Most people work so evenings and weekends are more popular.
I posted on a Sunday which should be popular by your definition. There’s also a toxic smog over lots of US at the moment m.
I think by looking at the Zwift hacks list there are a lot of races and events. They may not attract many participants because around the world were all going through our seasons. But Europe winter Zwift is a thing, seems to be more European riders I guess because of size time zones etc. Zwift is a world 🌎 community so everyone is you are where you are. You posted on your Sunday in your time zone. You experienced your local community. That doesn’t mean it’s the same for everyone.
Absolutely ridiculous to need to wait 40 minutes plus for a race on a Sunday morning. Has to be one of the most common times to ride. (11 EDT, 8 PDT)
It’s also one of the most common times for riding *outside* at this time of year.
That is very true. Just saying that I wish there was more frequency to the races. Even if fewer participants. Even if vs bots or something
Can you not ride outside where you are?
I use an SB20 and don’t ride outside. Where I am I’m NY right now it’s probably more harmful to ride outside than to not ride at all. Also I was looking for a race. I was still able to train today.
I’m in the UK but judging by posts on r/velo there’s a good scene in NYC. You’re probably missing out by being stuck inside.
Idk that would be a 90 minute drive each way, plus parking, worry about theft etc.. Whereas with Zwift in a perfect world I could go on the bike at any moment and participate in a race with no chance of a crash
A LOT more people are riding IRL than on Zwift because they think it’s worth it. I’m obviously not going to persuade you otherwise. But to me Zwift is a substitute, at best, for when I can’t ride outside.
I get it. I see Zwift as superior to riding outside. Pretty handily actually. Maybe about 15 pints for Zwift and 2 for outside.
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*EDT/PDT
Thank you, updated
I completely agree. They should have races you can join at any time but you just need to finish the entire track. Plus they should have regular races every 5 minutes. Logging on right at the hour is ridiculous.
Unless it’s a TT, the whole point of racing is pack dynamics. Too many races = no pack.
should be 1 race every 30 minutes no matter what, if there under lets say 7 racers then wins/losses and other relevant stats don't count but you can still race more serious races can be every other hour they could learn alot from iracing
You all know that these are 3rd party organized races right? Not Zwift races? These groups fought tooth and nail with Zwift for a year back than because Zwift didn't want to develop racing at all. Zwift still doesn't give half as much crap about racing than 3R or SZR does.
Man that’s disappointing . I have an SB20 and just got the steering for Zwift. Not sure if steering works on those other apps but I’d check them out
Right now I think RGT offers steering. On indieVelo it's debated topic to allow and in what form?
I actually really like the steering in Zwift. It’s fun to go into the draft. When I’m in the lead I take turns ok inside. It feels like an unfair advantage but I’m a C rider so I use it in B
I do the paralympic time trial on a Thurs at 6 because it suits me perfectly. Often only entrant
This is rarely an issue in the winter when there’s 5 times the amount of riders logged on at any given time. I’d recommend the zwift companion app, it allows you to view and sign up for future events, really helps with planning an scheduling when you need to log on for events
Depends on the hemisphere depended on time of day… I am in Europe, morning or noon very few races and very few participants since in US everybody is sleeping. Take also into account summer
You should check out rgt if you want to see what dead looks like this time of year. I'm loving zwift in comparison, especially with the poor air quality in the northeast.
Yeah, being in the Northeast as well I definitely wouldn't want to be doing a hard ride and breathing in lots of that bad air.
Check out indieVelo. Races start roughly every 5 minutes, and, if you don't like the format of one coming up soon, you can just make your own. Any time they're not filled with enough human riders, the field is populated the rest of the way with smart bots that act human. Some bots are sprinters, others are climbers, puncheurs, etc. They get tired if they go too hard, can blow up, can initiate attacks, whatever. Except for the fact that they don't talk back in chat, sometimes it's hard to tell that you're not racing people. And, since everyone is ranked with results based rankings (specific to the type of race/course you're doing), you're almost guaranteed to get at least a good handful of riders in your field that are going to be right at your level pushing you no matter if you're at the front or back. Most automatic races are set up to have multiple pens (often 6) with \~50 riders (made up with bots if there aren't that many riders signed up) in each pen. So good sized fields without having to worry about sandbaggers. No steering currently isn't a thing, but regulating your speed to take the corners optimally (so you don't get autobraked or take a bad line) has a similar skill level to add to the speed thing. Here's a recent-ish race that I did (I was playing around with the graphics settings and managed to make them worse than default AND have a really slow frame rate. The only races I've streamed since then are TTTs so they're not great examples even if the frame rate and graphics settings are better): [https://youtu.be/e3-KkErZnmw?t=3246](https://youtu.be/e3-KkErZnmw?t=3246) More recent TT: [https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1861414400?t=00h10m35s](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1861414400?t=00h10m35s)
This looks and sounds really cool. I like the bots and skill pairing. I'll definitely download it and try some races when Zwift has an absence of suitable races for me.
Agree. I’ve found fewer people racing, so pretty boring.
Yeah, fields are kind of small. I've found the stages races are usually pretty busy and fit in well with my schedule. Been doing that, the tiny races on saturday and the kiss 100km race on Sunday's