The Tour de Zwift has returned once more to the indoor cycling platform, with exclusive unlocks available to users as they tick off each of the individual stages within the event.
The Tour, which kicked off on Monday 6 January, runs until 23 February and is split over six stages lasting one week each. Every stage has three group rides of varying distance, with a run option included as well.
Category A rides are the longest available on each stage, with Category C being the shortest. According to Zwift, Category B lies "somewhere between" A and C in terms of ride duration. All genders are welcome to join the rides in A,B and C, but the fourth category, D, is only open to women.
As users complete various parts of the challenge they will gain access to exclusive unlocks which are only available on the Tour de Zwift. For those that complete 20% of the Tour, socks are available. A beanie will then be awarded to those that complete 60% of the event, and a full ride kit for those that tick off 100% of the challenge. Awards are only available to those that complete every distance in each individual stage.
Another part of the event, the Tour de Zwift Ultimate Challenge, provides even further incentive to entrants. Users that complete 50% of the event will receive an ultimate challenge hat and then get the full kit and unique achievement badge at 100%.
A series of FAQ’s on the Zwift website make clear that the event will not be raced this year and is very much an individual challenge.
However last October Zwift introduced a new update called Racing Score to the platform which it said at the time would “revolutionise” racing by “delivering more competitive, accessible and fairer competition.”
"We are incredibly excited about the launch of Zwift Racing Score," Zwift’s Mark Cote said. "We have spent years researching the best algorithm, looking into data collected from millions of races held on the platform, and more importantly, working with the Zwift community to collect feedback on how the system is functioning."
