Tour of Watopia Pro-Am: Jungle Circuit
On Friday, the Indoor Specialist team took on the second of a three stage series hosted by Zwift: the Tour of Watopia Pro-Am Invitational. The series features three incredibly fast courses with professional and community teams racing for the General Classification!
The Competition
The Men’s Tour of Watopia Pro-Am Invitational features both the strongest amateur community-organized teams on Zwift and UCI-level professional road teams. Bringing together amateur eSports teams and professional road teams shows exactly why eSports Cycling is so unique: Zwift racing is a skill that takes time to perfect! While strength on the bike is very important, the demands of racing on Zwift are unique and the game mechanics play a massive role in determining your success in each race!
The opportunity to line up against the other elite amateur and professional teams is incredible! We love the challenge of these Pro-Am events — the bar is raised every time we line up and we're loving how much the series of races are pushing the sport.
Indoor Specialist racers taking on Sand & Sequoias were: Aaron Coles, Dan Fleeman, Holden Comeau, Matt Gardiner & Ryan Larson.
The Course
Zwift is taking the racers to the Watopia’s Mayan Jungle, which features a circuit of dirt roads which will have racers on either mountain bikes or gravel bikes!
A first for Zwift’s Invitational Pro-Am series, the series is scored with an individual General Classification (GC). The GC pursuit includes points from race Sprint arches and KOM banners — meaning that to take the GC a racer will need to score well on each of these sections on-course!
For the Jungle Circuit route, there are two opportunities for racers to score points: at the end of the first full lap, and at the finish, just one lap later!
The race begins by descending the dirt roads from the pens down into the jungle for 5.6km to begin the circuit. Each lap is 7.9km in length and ascends 65m over 2.7km of technical dirt roads! While the gradient of the road is not steep, the decreased rolling resistance of the dirt roads make drafting competitors far more difficult! Racers will be challenged to hold onto the pace as teams take turn attacking in an attempt to soften up the legs of other teams’ sprinters.
The Race
The most unique race we have done in all of Zwift’s Pro-Am events, the Jungle Circuit begins with a long descent. As the race opened up, the pack got up to speed and acted as though the race were neutralized, aware that any attempts to go off the front would be paid for ten-fold on the circuit’s first climb.
On the jungle’s dirt roads, racers opted to race on either a mountain bike or a gravel bike — the field was mixed in their decision with a small advantage in the race’s finish going to the gravel bike, while each climb awarding the mountain bike a staggering 32W advantage!
The racers hit the bottom of the jungle to begin lap one of two, making their way onto the circuit’s feature climb which snakes its way up through the jungle.
Matt Gardiner sitting comfortably in the pack on the lead-in descent
Team TFC’s Nick Nellis struck first, launching an attack at the base of the climb to put racers on the back-foot. He dangled off the front as the pack rushed to reel him in. With the first kilometer of the climb being relatively flat, the racers formed a giant pack, waiting for the steeper grades to make moves off the front. KALAS eSport’s Morten Vaeng was the first to jump just halfway through the climb. As he rolled off the front, Matt Gardiner was positioned perfectly to hop on his wheel — sitting in to make sure the team would get into the break if successful. Vaeng kept on the throttle, stringing the pack out behind, but never opening a significant gap. The pack hit the top of the climb with minimal casualties, beginning their second descent towards the bottom of the jungle.
With the intermediate sprint coming at the base of the descent, the pack kept the pace high. Each racer looking to be in the perfect position when the push for the sprint would begin. With 600m to the line, KALAS’s Odd Erlend Hansen Berg launched with a ghost power-up, disappearing from view momentarily and reappearing with a significant gap; charging towards the intermediate sprint victory. The pack chased, activating their power-ups and sprinting for the line, catching Berg just 15m from the line was Team X’s Per-Johnny Døving for 1st, Comeau for 2nd, and Team Sz’s Samuel Brännlund for 3rd.
Intermediate Sprint Results: Holden 2nd, Ryan 7th!
A small gap from the sprinters to the peloton opened, but looking to recover, the sprint group relaxed and let the gap close; the 2nd and final climb just 400m away. As the peloton hit the early section of the climb, the pace lulled as racers waited for the steeper gradients to put the pressure on.
As the pack hit the first steep pitch, it was Vaeng again who punched, dancing on the pedals on the race broadcast pushing 450W out of the saddle! Fleeman and Gardiner sat in behind his move, which never gapped the group, but slowly brought the pace up to a roiling boil.
The pack hit the final 500m of climb and Canyon ZCC’s Philipp Diegner attacked, using his feather power-up to momentarily lower his weight and push off the front of the group. A chase ensured and every racer on their limit was put in danger. The pack caught Diegner’s move and the pace subsided yet again as the peloton entered the final descent to the finish. With just 4km to the line, racers looked to bring down their heart rates and shake out their legs, knowing the finish would be a long, drawn out maximum effort for the line.
As the racers entered the tunnel towards the finish with just 800m to go a flurry of power-ups were activated and the race for the finish line was on. Racers lurched out of their saddles and emptied every last ounce of energy they had into their pedals, and Team BZR’s Kenneth Mercken came out on top, with Canyon ZCC’s James Philips in 2nd and BZR’s Michael Apers in 3rd. Our team faired well in the sprint with Ryan Larson taking 9th to maintain his 2nd place GC position, and Matt Gardiner taking 12th!
The (Provisional) Results
After our team previewed the course Tuesday, we knew the technical nature of the course would prove difficult in the race for the GC. With just one opportunity for points before the finish, we knew contending the sprint was necessary, but also a gamble. We are so happy to have come away with the result considering the strength of this field and the course!
Intermediate Sprint: Holden took 2nd and Ryan took 7th!
Finish: Ryan - 9th, Matt - 12th, Aaron - 22nd, Dan - 23rd, and Holden - 34th!
Link to the final results can be found here! Note, after disqualifications of several racers, Ryan, Matt, Aaron, and Dan were advanced to 8th, 11th, 21st, and 22nd, respectively. Additionally, Ryan was moved to 4th in the GC due to points rearrangements as a result of the disqualifications.
The Data:
All race data for our racers in the Pro-Am races is publicly available below: dig in!
Dan Fleeman
“As always the race started fast and the pace never let up! Th prime sprints made a fast race even harder. Our main goal was to keep our main GC riders in contention. While things didn’t quite go to plan as well as round 1, we still have Ryan in 2nd overall and with a shot of winning overall with only 1 race to go. It’s still all to play for!”
Matt Gardiner
“After previewing the course in our team’s KODA Eat The Pain Race on Tuesday, I was pretty nervous about the anticipated effort. I raced on a gravel bike Tuesday and reluctantly switched to the MTB. What a great decision! My legs also showed up today — it was an awesome race, sitting in and watching for any dangerous moves. I found good position in the finish and held on! Floored to finish top-15 in a field this strong.”
Aaron Coles
“What a tough race on a great race course! As an experienced Zwifter, its amazing to race over these less-traversed courses against the best racers in the game. Having to make a call on the type of bike to use also added an extra element of something new and exciting! . With the points broken up over the intermediate sprint and the finish line it was a tough call trying to go all in on both with the drawn out climb coming shortly after the first intermediate sprint. With the pace leading into the first sprint so high it left little room to move forward late on and I got caught a bit too far back to contest the first sprint. It also meant a relatively tough start into the second climb. Dan, Ryan and Matt did an amazing job at ensuring no one was able to go off the front. Holden was also able to pick up points in the intermediate sprint which kept him high up on the GC. Ryan and Matt had a great finish in keeping with their super consistent performances! While I came home in the front bunch I had to settle for some minor points within the top 25. All in all a good day out and with Ryan in 2nd on GC the team still has a great crack at taking the win!”
Ryan Larson
“That race was hard! The intermediate sprint made the final climb even harder with all of us on the limit after contesting the sprint points. I was happy to be able to sit in a bit on the climb and trust my teammates would cover moves up front. The course really suits my power, and I found great positioning in the finish, coming across the line in 9th, and taking enough points to hold onto my GC position. Stoked to go for the win on Tuesday!”
Holden Comeau
“Today’s race was so fun, and so tough. I knew the climb would push me quite a bit — but decided to go all-in on the intermediate sprint. It was a big risk, but the potential payoff was huge. After taking 2nd in the sprint, I needed to recover quickly, but the climb began and the pace was very high. I’m so happy the sprint kept me in the top-10 GC for 7th. On Tuesday, we’re going to do everything we can to get Ryan the win!”
