IRC Zwift Racing

Virtual racing during the lock down is happening on Zwift!

Given the current difficulties getting out as a club, we thought it would be fun to have some ‘friendly’ competition on Zwift instead.

For those of you new to Zwift – sign up here: https://zwift.com and follow the instructions for getting started. there’s a free trial period to start with.

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If you want to be included in the results, you’ll need to upload your ride to Strava and join the IRC Race Club (https://www.strava.com/clubs/IRCZwift) – the easiest way to do that is to link your Zwift and Strava accounts in Zwift, but manual downloads and uploads are also possible.

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You’ll also find it helpful to have the ‘Zwift Companion’ app on your phone: Info Here

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If you want to participate in the races, you’ll need to follow me on Zwift (Zwift name: Matt Wilmington IRC). It would also be helpful if you add ‘IRC’ to your name to make you easy to find too.

Chat and banter in the WattsApp Group: Join The Chat Group Here. Zwift isn’t perfect for private racing, but we’ve tested a method which worked pretty well and produced a few power PBs over the past few weeks!

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Each week I’ll set up a ‘Meet Up’ on a specific course to run on the Tuesday evening at 7.30pm.  I’ll invite everyone from the club who has followed me on Zwift – if you can’t make it or don’t want to ride on any week then just ignore the invite.  The easiest way to accept the invite is using the Zwift Companion App.

We’ll race over a specific Strava segment – usually a banner-to-banner race over a lap of a course.  I’ll post instructions on the WatssApp and Facebook each week.  There is often a short lead-in as Zwift tends to drop you off a little way before the actual start.

Races should last between 15 and 30 minutes depending on the course. Now and again I’ll set up a longer 40-60 minute race in which case we can start at 7.15pm instead.

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Recent updates to Zwift mean we will have the course to ourselves so it’s easy to keep track of where everyone is and how you are doing.

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On the evening of the event, I suggest you log onto Zwift and get riding to warm up a few minutes before 7.30pm – there can be a few delays getting logged on as it’s so busy at the moment.  About 5 minutes before the start time, you’ll be invited to join the Meet Up in the game.

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Once joined, you can continue to warm up before the start but you’ll be on a virtual turbo!  

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Not many rules, but to make it fair-ish, I suggest:

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• Everyone rides a ‘TT’ bike in the game (ride whatever you like on your turbo etc in real life!) – go to the menu then garage once you are in a ride to select a bike.

• Ride as fast as you can to the finish