Tour de Zwift 2021

launched today…to what sounds like a bit of a schittshow. Number of people I know had a horrible experience (glitchy screens, etc) and a couple got booted from their rides.

I’m signed up for the A event tomorrow at 6am (Central) and there are already ~1k people signed up…fingers crossed they get the kinks worked out by then!

Anyone try it today? If so, how did it go?

I’ve got Pettit on deck today so I’ll do stage 1 at the same time just to cross it off the list.

I did the Fondo yesterday and had 1,100 people in my group and my Apple TV setup handled it great. Hopefully that’ll be the case today.

3 Likes

Did the longer stage 1 route today with no problems. I think there were over 8000 riders on that ride.

Did the longer route, definitely saw 11K+ riders total. Great to see but hard to read some of the comments as it scrolled so fast. No issues for me personally. Lots of troubles happened from middle of ride with people saying their screen or rider froze. Also riders looked they were pulling off to the side or stopping, so definitely a lot of glitches for them. I noticed I was about 4000th place or something and when the problems started I jumped almost 2000 places!

Many suggested if they haven’t been on in awhile to jump on ahead of the event to update Zwift since there were a few new routes, kits, etc. Other than that, same flat London route if you haven’t done it awhile. But good to see so many riders for the New year! Only time will tell how many keep it up! :slight_smile:

same thing happened last year. it’ll work out.

1 Like

I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the people with issues stemmed from not running the latest version of Zwift. However, I do know some who are running the latest version, who never have problems, and had a total :poop: show.

I really don’t get how this happens. Not the first rodeo for Zwift. Not record number of riders.

I was on the A event with 11k+ riders as well. Absolutely no problems. It ran perfectly fine.
I’d also suggest running the latest version of Zwift before entering the ride.

I was on the event today. I think the total riders showing included all of the groups as there were only 3k or so signed up to the ‘B’ group when logging on.
No issues from start to finish for me.

1 Like

Yep, was there myself for the first one…over 11k riders, had first screen freeze after 200 meters and then jerky movements and constant screen freezing until 1.5 k where I just gave up. Had to alt.ctrl.delete to get zwift off the screen but then decided to crank it back up again…it brought me back in to the front of the event with 33K to go and worked perfectly from there on! I did drop back through about 4000 people tho!

yeah… i think alot of the on–screen issues folks have with Zwift have to deal with the specs on their PC or tablet. Who’d have thought you’d need a DuraAce level Laptop to run Zwift?

I’m surprised at how few time slots they still offer for the events. Seems to be every 2 hours and only on the hour. The only day/time I could find that matches my need is Friday at 4pm

What’s the big draw/incentive to doing the TdZ? Is it just a way for Zwift to sell some kits?

yes.

1 Like

For me, I love the big events for the following reasons:

  • Typically, there is a new free kit available for doing a stage of the event or completing the whole event, like getting a race singlet for doing a half marathon or something.
  • I find it more exciting to ride in the big groups after typically riding solo.
  • While not officially a race, it’s a race at the front. Racing w/the massive groups is also more fun than with a dozen riders. Even if you can’t hang at the very front, you’re still likely to find a group that suits you for the day.
  • Even if not in the same race, competing against your buddies results for the same stages.
6 Likes

Not at all, it’s free to enter if you so wish.

I had no problem with Zwift on my Apple TV, unfortunately I had problems with every other bit of hardware and software so I couldn’t complete the ride.

It’s nearly always device related rather than “zwift”. I haven’t had any issues with AppleTV - you can notice the refresh rates out of the pen, but I’ve always made progress/ stayed getting dropped as normal. I got AppleTV after my phone didn’t cope with Haute Route way back at the start of lockdown 1 in March or April last year.

Incidentally, after that, for the big events they did multiple pens for the same distances/ categories. Given they’ve already broken their all time record in the last week or so, and more stringent lockdowns being implemented in Europe, I’d expect similar solutions.

2 Likes

I did the fondo a few days ago 1700+ riders and it all went smoothly.

1 Like

People reporting problems with “zwift” often don’t understand the importance of the platform they are on or understand that dropouts happen in their home, not on the servers.

Rolling out of the start at the Fondo with 1200 others, I dropped to 30-40 fps, but otherwise it was smooth.

Monday’s TdZ triggered a peak Zwift of 37,500 riders.

3 Likes

Did the 6:00am (US central) “A” ride…2300 riders. No serious issues, but got a little glitchy at one point. Just basic slow frame rate / stutter screen stuff and it settle down after about a minute.

One weird thing was that about a minute into it, ~300 riders just dropped into the ride. I had made my way up to about 60th and could see the front…then all these riders dropped in and I was back into the 300’s. This wasn’t the normal riders materializing in front of you at the very start as things get going either…almost like people late joined and Awift just dropped them at the front. Maybe that is the secret to a fast start! :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

Most likely late join which will put them to the front of the group. I wonder where it would drop them if there was a breakaway group, with the breakaway or main group :thinking: