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Reports by Monica (unless otherwise noted)
03/04/2026
3 riders
Well, we are a crazy bunch of riders who want XP and swag. With the mystery spinners in play, we decided to pick a route that would go through one of them, and that none of us had already completed so we could get some extra XP. We landed on the Itza Climb Finish.
The ride starts out mostly flat with a few rollers to keep it interesting. Then it’s got an extra spicy finish with back to back KOMs. Marc and Suzanne started a few minutes ahead of me, so I was about a mile behind.
The 4th sprint had the mystery spinner, and awarded fun hats and sunglasses. I had picked up a feather at the first sprint point and decided to hold onto it for the first KOM, which turned out to be an excellent strategy for me.
It wasn’t quite a PR, but close. There’s not much chance to relax after the first KOM as the second one comes right away after a false flat. Again, Zwift loves a route to end at the top of a hill. We all collected our route badge and bonus XP and then enjoyed a downhill cool down. Marc bade us farewell and Suzanne and I stayed on to cool down.
We realized the cool down would run us through the mystery spinner again, so we took another shot at it. I’m insanely jealous as Suzanne scored a super fancy bucket hat. She u-turned after the sprint and rode back to turn around and do it again.
My ride was 24 miles and 1,000 feet of climb. Not bad for a Wednesday!
03/01/2026
3 riders
We have been joining the Bikealicious group for the Sunday 10am rides. They offer several rides every week, but their Sunday ride is their “Climbalicious” ride, which has been great for us. For most of January and February, they rides the long route of the Zwift Ultimate Challenge, so it was really nice to have a group to suffer with.
Their Sunday ride is rubberbanded, so no one falls behind as long as they keep pedaling. The rubberband gives some very interesting dynamics to group rides. You get all the draft benefit of a nice big peloton.
Our route on Sunday was Muir and the Mountain. It started with riding through the beautiful Titans Grove area, complete with dinosaurs and tar pits. We didn’t have much of a warm up before hitting the first KOM, but we tackled it pretty easily. On the route map, it barely looked like a blip compared to the size of our next hill, the Epic KOM.
At the top, Zwift had put a mystery spinner that awarded all riders some fancy wheels or a new bike frame. I was lucky enough to score a new bike, something I had been wanting for a while! Look at this beauty… isn’t it amazing??
The top of the Epic still wasn’t the pinnacle of our route… we had to head straight up the radio tower right after. Some people chose to take their 3-minute coffee breaks, but it’s not long enough to miss out on all the misery. On the plus side, there was another mystery spinner at the top, this one doling out fun helmets, headphones, and shoes. We all got some fun new swag.
Now comes my favorite part of a rubberbanded ride, affectionately called the “neck snapper”. While going up a good sized hill, the rubberband will get really streeeeetchy and long. And if you are at the back of the rubberband, then as the front riders crest the top and start picking up speed on the downhill, the rubberband will SNAP riders forward. It’s like hitting hyper speed in Star Wars. You go from 3mph to 50mph in a blur. It’s enough to give you a bit of whiplash.
I’ve been trying to get the 100kph badge, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. I pedaled super hard, getting my wattage up high enough to activate my fire socks. That extra speed plus the neck snap gave me all the power I needed to earn the badge!
With almost all of the climbing out of the way, we enjoyed our quick downhill… 45 minutes up and 5 minutes down. Hardly seems worth it! Suzanne had to pull over and come back to the ride later in the day, but Marc and I powered on to the finish. We cruised through the flats, and then the ride ended by going up the same KOM we started with. Zwift sure loves to end a route at the top of a hill for some reason. 27 miles and 3,000 feet of climb.
01/21/2026
3 riders on Wednesday.
We decided to do the short route from Stage 3 of Tour de Zwift, which was the BRAEk-fast Crits & Grits. Suzanne and I decided to race it and Marc did the free ride. The beauty of the Zwift multiverse is that the racers and free riders are on the same course but different planes of existence so Suzanne and I never saw Marc. But, we can all connect and chat on Discord while riding!
What can I say about this route without using swear words? It’s…challenging! Yeah, let’s go with that.
First, we had to ascend the Sgurr Summit (South) as the route officially starts at the top. So, of course, we all pushed it at 100% straight off the start. Then we enjoyed the brief, steep downhill before getting in the meat of the course.
The first third of the route is a lot of rollers, with an intense short climb and then a sprint. In the race, the only powerups available were the feather (makes you lighter, increasing your w/kg, and therefore making you faster especially on an uphill) and the anvil (makes you heavier and faster on the downhill). Used strategically, they could help you gain position on a rider in front of you. The free ride had all the usual powerups. No anvils, Wile E Coyote would have been disappointed.
At the halfway point, feeling a bit tired from all the rollers, it’s time to make 4 laps of the Crit course. And, you guessed it, each lap has a little KOM. I actually got lapped here as the faster riders were completing their last lap as I was on my second lap.
After the laps, it was time to sprint to the finish! It’s actually like 2 KOMs back to back as there’s a flat segment halfway up. It would have been nice to beat my KOM time from the first ascent, but my legs were so tired. I was close though, only a few seconds slower, so I think it’s a win!
01/18/2026
4 riders on Sunday
Tour de Zwift’s Ultimate Challenge is in full swing! Each of the 6 stages has 3 routes, a long, medium, and a short option.The Ultimate Challenge is to complete all 18 routes. We’ve been doing the short routes on Wednesday as they are also offered in a race format.
On Sunday, instead of doing the sanctioned TdZ event, we chose to join the Bikealicious Climbalicious group to ride the long route of the current TdZ stage. This was a rubberbanded ride, meaning all riders stay together (as long as they keep pedaling). If you are a really fast rider, you’ll probably be slower than usual with a rubberband, and slower riders will be slightly faster. But one of the best perks (no pun intended) of this sort of ride is the ability to “coffee break”.
The coffee break is a 3-minute break to get off your bike and take care of things like refilling your water bottle, or grabbing your phone charging cord, etc. During your break, your avatar continues to move forward with the group of riders you were in when you started. Coffee breaks are available on any group or free ride, as long as you can find a rider to draft off of. And it’s available every 30 minutes; it can be invaluable during a long ride!
Our route today was 34 miles, but with the rubberband and some nice strong riders, we finished at just about 2 hours.
Fairly early in the ride, we approached our first KOM, the Aquaduct. I decided to use my feather power up and sprint, and was awarded the fastest female time! Rulon took the polka dots on the Petit KOM. As a reward for completing this ride, we also all got this awesome kit in our garage.
We had such a great time with this group, we are going to ride with them the next few Sundays as they will be continuing to do the long Tour de Zwift routes.
