Zwift Race Types: Short or Sprint

 

Want to up your racing game? Confused about the different types of races and how to ride them? We’re breaking down the most common Zwift race types to help you out.

The Race: Short or “Sprint” Races

Don’t have much time but still want to race? Do your legs give out after racing for more than half an hour? You may enjoy “sprint” races. That doesn’t mean a race with sprints – though it can! It means a race so short that it seems like a sprint compared to others.

These are usually less than 20 kilometers (12 miles) long, taking most racers less than 35 minutes to complete. Some are slightly longer so that you race a full lap of a route. Some are half that length or even shorter, with racers finishing in less than 10 minutes! The pace is fast, because racers can work harder for a shorter time. Sprint races also can be unpredictable. If you miss a move you didn’t expect, you won’t have much time to chase it down before the finish line.

What Makes a Good Short-Distance Racer?

Even though they’re short, sprint races still happen on a variety of routes that suit different types of riders. They can be flat, rolling, or hilly, and they can end at any point on a route. Even if there isn’t much climbing, any small hills can turn into launch pads for riders trying to break away. These races tend to favor Zwifters who:

• Are strong in 1-5 minute efforts
• Like to attack and animate a race
• Can dig in over and over again without much recovery
• Would rather work harder than longer

Common Short Race Routes

Examples of short courses that might be used for “sprint” races include:

• Watopia’s Tick Tock, Hilly Route, Hilly Route Reverse, Flat Route, Flat Route Reverse, Volcano Flat, and Volcano Flat Reverse
• London’s Classique
• Richmond’s Cobbled Climbs and The Fan Flats
• Innsbruckring
• New York City’s LaGuardia Loop and The 6 Train
• Yorkshire’s Duchy Estate and Queen’s Highway
• Bologna Time Trial
• Crit City’s The Bell Lap and Downtown Dolphin
• Paris’ Champs-Élysées and Lutece Express

But remember, these races can be held on any route!

How to Ride Short Races

Here’s some advice to get the best out of short “sprint” races, straight from Zwift racers who know their stuff:

Get a good warmup: This is great advice for any race, but especially for short ones. Once the race starts, you won’t have a chance to “ride into” your legs or ease your heart rate up, so give yourself plenty of time to do it beforehand.

• Andrew Maljaars: “Short race, long warmup. Should include at least 5 minutes at 80%, and 5x 15 second sprints at 120%. That’s what my team does before time trial events.”
• Nick Wheeler: “When I ride in sprint races I treat the last 5-10 minutes of my warmup/start pen as if it was a race – riding surging threshold efforts mixed with brief recoveries. Basically, spend the 10 minutes leading up to the race trying to create a power timeline similar to what you’d expect your power timeline to look like in a 30km race.

Start fast and stay fast: A lot of Zwift races have hard starts. Unlike longer events, though, sprint races don’t really let up. Be ready to keep surging to stay with a group.

• Chris Witek: “Learn to go deep repeatedly so if/when you slip off you can get back quickly. Get a good 2-3 min power so you can hang on to the start.”

Train for short, hard efforts: Repeated sprint and VO2 max intervals will mimic the kind of efforts you’ll need in these races.

• Dustin Gaffke: “Practice sprinting. Know your sprint numbers. How long can you hold a sprint? How long does it take you to get to peak power?”
• Nick Wheeler: “Training with a focus on the 5-minute and 1-minute power numbers is the best way to improve in sprint races (also on Zwift in general to be able to defend against attacks/punches).”
• Chris Witek: “My punchy workouts outside aren’t structured necessarily, I just ride a warmup towards the bike path that’s 3.5 miles from my house and then once I’m ~15 minutes in I’ll start punching up every short roller there. Some are 5 seconds some are 20. Every one of them is done semi-paced at 600-800 watts. And I mean every roller.”

Be ready for attacks: It helps to know the race route beforehand. Look out for launch points like hills where you or someone else could break away, but know that it could happen at any time! Make sure to use the draft and grab any recovery you can.

• Harry Alexander: “You should also do a few throwaway races at this distance to gauge how the races unfold, they’re often entirely done at pace and leave little room for bigger efforts to catch, bridge or gap… You need to use bunch riding and sprint efforts to their fullest.”
• Øyvind Mong: “They usually differ to longer races in the sense that you’ll have more ‘random’ breakaway attempts, which forces you to go hard suddenly for 1-2 minutes. In order to keep up, you need awareness in the race in case the group splits, but also I would say to do VO2 max workouts to make sure you have a good ability to recover from these short hard efforts. Having a good sprint is not enough if you’re exhausted by the time you get to the sprint.”

Using PowerUps

You’ll get very few chances at PowerUps here – maybe just one. If you get a PowerUp that will help you on the course you’re racing, save it until just the right moment. That may be a Helmet Aero Boost for the finishing sprint, a Feather Lightweight PowerUp for a hill climb, or a Truck Draft PowerUp when you need recovery or help to hang on. The Ghost Invisibility PowerUp can help you sneak away, and the Breakaway Burrito PowerUp can make it hard to follow you when you ride off the front.

Learn more about all the PowerUps on Zwift

Think you have time to squeeze in a short race now? Go ahead and try one!