Team Series Events on Zwift

British Team Cup for women series organiser Jon Miles has registered a series of four races to be held on Zwift as a bit of early season competition for his British Cup registered teams

Team Series Events on Zwift

Whilst the British Team Cup for women is hoping to resume on May 23rd, as a road race test event, the series organiser Jon Miles has registered a series of four races to be held on Zwift as a bit of early season competition for his British Cup registered teams.

A lot of riders are already using the Zwift platform for training and e-racing and entry to the races is free although you do need to pay a monthly subscription to use Zwift, which at £12.99 a month, is less than a cost of a normal race entry so Jon is hoping this is not prohibitive.

Riders do not need to have a ’Smart’ Trainer or Power Meter to take part. All you need to do is put your bike on a static turbo trainer or even rollers with a cadence monitor on your bike and wear a heart rate monitor and Zwift will work out your power stats and adjust your speed according to your weight. I am also willing to allow riders that may suffer any tech issues such as internet drop outs to ride the same course within one week and share your time (via Zwiftpower) and your time will be added retrospectively.

Jon says “at the end of the day, it is just a bit of fun and it should be noted that British Cycling ranking points will not be awarded but we will award British Cup Team points. The scoring details will all be loaded up to our British Cup website but essentially at the end of the mini series, we will rank each team according to their finishing position for the team’s best 3 races.”

As per normal, Team Cup races, Zwift Team Cup points will be awarded as per the finishing position for the first four riders on each race with each team being able to enter up to six riders. You may enter a B Team but only the points for your A Team will count (and the B Team must wear a different jersey). Your finishing position will be determined by your finishing time. The team points awarded for the Zwift series will be added to the team’s 2021 points with the first team being awarded 150, 2nd 130 points, 3rd 115 and so on.

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This means the Zwift series won’t really skew the overall Team Cup result as on a single actual Team Cup race a team could potentially score 495 points if they took the top four places so real racing is far higher scoring but the Zwift racing will give teams a taste of some early season competition.

Jon adds “I know that many teams have not been able to get their team jerseys on Zwift so I propose that each team that is not lucky enough to have their own jersey on Zwift already, chooses a team jersey from the jerseys available on the Zwift platform. This is how London Dynamo have run their Lockdown e-race series – more info on that to follow.

Below is the wording I have used to register the races with Zwift and I have currently been waiting a week for approval so hopefully I should get this very soon especially as the first race is scheduled for this Sunday which would have been the Bovingdon Race date. I am also hoping to stream the races live on YouTube although this may be a step too far for the first event although if anyone in the teams would like to help me with this please let me know.

I do hope all teams will be excited to take part and to get the spirit of team racing up and running before we kick off again with our real events at the end of May! The aim of this virtual road race series is to provide early season competition for our British Team Cup racers to replace the actual Team Cup races that cannot now take place due to Covid-19.

Each race will take place on a different course, over a distance of 40-56km. Team points will be scored according to the rider’s overall finishing position in the event according to Team Cup rules. At the end of the e-race series, the top three teams will receive bonus points that will contribute to their 2021 Team Cup point results. To qualify for the bonus points, a team must compete in at least three out of the four events. For those competing in all four races, the team scores for their best three races will be used. For more information about the British Team Cup Competition, see https://www.britishteamcup.co.uk

About this e-race series

The British Team Cup Early Season Lockdown RR Series takes place at 10.00am on the following dates;

— Sunday 21st March

— Sunday 11th April

— Sunday 25th April

— Sunday 9th May

Double draft is switched on and power-ups off for maximally realistic racing!

RULES & REGS
— Results will be taken from Zwift Power. Any rider wishing to be part of the series needs to be registered on Zwift Power.

— You must use a heart rate monitor.

— You must use exactly the same display name in each race (preferably your real name) with the 3 letter abbreviation for your team.

— Each team must wear the same Zwift jersey with 6 riders per team

— No power-ups.