Level Up With These Cycling XP Tips

During Tour of Watopia events, Zwifters can earn double XP (experience points). That means you’ll make progress toward the next level twice as fast! Read this post to see why that’s a good thing.

That’s not the only way to boost your XP gains. The Zwift community has figured out some tips and tricks, and Zwifters were happy to share them with us. You can use a few of these during the Tour for an extra bonus, or try them at any time of year to get those sweet gear unlocks faster.

Sprinting on Richmond’s Fan Flats

Where to Ride 

• “The flatter rides will always help you build your XP points up faster.” – Alison Flannery
  • You earn XP while riding (and running too!) based on distance. The flatter the route, the more distance you can cover in less time.
• “Fan Flats (in Richmond) has a sprint every 5 km… So is that 110xp per 5 km on a tribike (TT bike) while in metric. R.G.V. (in France) has 3 sprints and a short easy KOM over 24.1 km. Might not be quite as profitable as Fan Flats but maybe a bit more interesting and should be fast with the rollers, and the KOM is a fast one since it’s short. Tempus Fugit is my go-to for lots of fast flat miles and two sprints.” – Pamela
  • When riding a time trial bike, you won’t get PowerUps at lap, sprint, or climb banners or arches. You’ll get an XP bonus instead. Most of the time, this will be 10 XP, but you have a small chance of a big 250-point prize. The more banners or arches you ride through on a time trial bike, the more points you’ll be awarded. Don’t try to combine this with a group event, though. TT bikes can’t draft in Zwift!
• “Ride laps of the Volcano Circuit on a TT bike. Every time you go under the banner you get XP.” – Cathy Collins
  • If you haven’t earned the “Warmed Up,” “Hothead,” and “On Fire!” achievement badges yet, checking them off your list will put even more points in your pocket. To get them, you’ll need to ride 5 laps, 10 laps, and 25 laps, respectively. You can do Volcano Circuit CCW instead, if you’d like!
• “Do the SST Medium workout up the AdZ (Alpe du Zwift) and get all the stars. Then coast down. 31 km will get you ~1300 or ~2100 XP depending on what you get on the spinner.” – Chad Parvin
  • The climb up Alpe du Zwift normally earns XP slowly (but it’s a great source of drops, which multiply on climbs). In workout mode, though, you earn points based on the workout you’re doing instead of distance. At the top of the mountain, you’ll spin a wheel for a special prize. If the spinner lands on an item you already have, you get a big bucket of points instead! Finally, hit the descent for some fast distance-based XP.

Riding with a Pace Partner

How to Ride 

• “Ride all of the route badges.” – Cathy Collins
  • Finish a route for the first time and, along with a route achievement badge, you’ll get some XP. The longer ones give you more points!
• “Ride with the Pace Partners. You’ll be in a big group drafting the whole way and going faster than you would by yourself.” – Eric Fernando
  • Joining any group ride – like the Tour of Watopia or another scheduled event – has the same effect. FutureWorks Pace Partners have the added perk that your drops multiply the longer you ride next to them! Use drops to buy the items you unlock at the Drop Shop when you level up.
• “Swapping from miles to km is a trick to build your points up quickly, because it’s 20 per km but 30 per mile. 10 miles is 16km rounding down. So you get 300XP in miles but 320 for the same distance in km.” – Alison Flannery
  • You can switch between Imperial and Metric units of measurement in your Zwift profile. Be aware that this changes your height and weight units, too. For a temporary switch, go to the Zwift in-game menu, click “Settings,” and look for “Measurements.” This will change the units displayed in your current session.

Remember to sign up for the 2021 Tour of Watopia here and check out the list of events!

A Tempus Fugit TT session