Tour of Watopia Pro-Am: Volcano Circuit
On Tuesday, the Indoor Specialist team took on the finale of a three stage series hosted by Zwift: the Tour of Watopia Pro-Am Invitational. The series featured 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 the Volcano Circuit race: Aaron Coles, Dan Fleeman, Holden Comeau, Matt Gardiner & Ryan Larson.
The Course
Zwift is taking the racers to the shortest circuit in Watopia: The Volcano Circuit (Counter Clockwise). At just over 4km, the short circuit takes racers into the volcano twice and over a few punchy climbs with incredibly brief descents.
Made famous by it’s use in Zwift’s winter 2017/2018 eCrit series, the Volcano CCW has earned it’s place as one of the toughest crit circuits in the game. What makes the circuit so difficult is it’s two-tiered climb finish: forcing racers to accelerate into the volcano, where the road flattens for 300m before it kicks again on the final rise to the finish banner.
For the Tour of Watopia race on the circuit, there will be two intermediate sprints on this tricky section of course before the finish, which is sure to zap the legs of the entire peloton as they hang onto the unrelenting pace of the sprinters.
The Race
The race began in typical Zwift fashion, racers launching off the iconic Watopia pier onto Ocean Boulevard to head towards the Volcano Circuit. Passing through the original start and finish banner on the island’s first loop, racers were given their first power-up of the race. Instantly, dozens of racers discarded the power-ups they knew would be useless for the race, and burrito power-up icons appeared and riders disappeared as cloak (ghost) power-ups were deployed en masse.
As racers made their way onto the circuit, the pace settled surprisingly early, with the first points opportunity nearly halfway into the 17.4km race. The racers passed over the circuits feature climb to finish the lead-in and begin their first of 3 laps. At the end of the next two laps, an intermediate sprint competition will offer crucial points in the general classification race, and on the third lap, racers will launch towards the finish of the race and the series!
The pace calmed immediately after passing through the banner to begin the first lap. With the effort on each sprint near-maximum, racers clearly were saving every ounce of energy to go for the sprint points, and many racers were happy to sit in!
Ryan securing crucial sprint points in race for the GC
On the road leading into the climb for the first intermediate sprint, our team found positioning near the front of the peloton. With the GC win so close for Ryan, we looked to get him the best positioning, and the cleanest line to the sprint banner each lap. As the pace opened up in the scramble for the first sprint, Ryan found great positioning and came across the line in 4th! The sprinters eased off the pace as the rest of the peloton fought to close gaps which had opened.
At just 5 minutes per lap, there was only a brief 4 minutes to recover and prepare for the next sprint. The pace lulled in the peloton, with no racers daring to attack off the front. Each racer maximizing the draft while holding position in the group, because at the speed the peloton moves, advancing in the group requires an incredible effort and wastes energy necessary for the explosive effort in the intermediate sprint and finish.
The peloton neared the climb towards the second intermediate sprint and avatars lurched out of their saddles in a maximal effort up the steep pitch. Racers dumped their feather and draft powerups, hoping the final pass through the sprint banner would bring an aero powerup! Ryan moved to the front of the peloton, launching into his sprint and coming across the line in 9th position, grabbing a few more crucial points in the GC race.
Dan driving the pace in the final moments of the race
As the race entered the final lap, we looked to our racer Dan Fleeman to cover moves, control the pace, and set up the team for the best result possible. Dan got to the front of the peloton and with 2.5km to go, followed an attack from Team TFC racer Andrew Baverstock, continuing the effort around Baverstock and getting a gap on the peloton. Dan set the pace perfectly, staying on the front of the peloton as our racers contesting the final sprint found the best possible position in the group.
The road tilted up towards the finish and Ryan, Holden, Matt and Aaron were positioned in the top-20, ready to launch their efforts towards the line. Team DRAFT racer Gavin Dempster kicked first with the use of his aero powerup, and Matt jumped on his wheel — flying through other riders and finding the front of the peloton with Ryan and Holden both on his wheel. In the final meters, Ryan and Holden came around perfectly finishing 2nd and 3rd, respectively, with Matt in 5th and Aaron in 17th.
The (Provisional) Results
This race was our team’s best result yet in the Tour of Watopia Pro-Am, placing 3 riders in the top-5 at the finish. With the GC race so tight, and only 2 opportunities for points before the finish, we knew going into the race that we would need to get Ryan as many points in the sprints and the win to take the GC lead. We went for it, we were so close, and Ryan finished the series on the podium for the GC in 3rd. What a spectacular team effort!
Final minute of the race from Matt Gardiner’s perspective!
Intermediate Sprint: Ryan took 4th!
Intermediate Sprint: Ryan took 9th!
Finish: Ryan took 2nd, Holden took 3rd, Matt took 5th, and Aaron took 17th!
Overall, this was such an incredible showing for our team — we’re proud to have fought hard all race for points and to come out with 3 of our racers in the top-5, and a racer on the GC podium, and three others in the top-15 GC! The level of these races keeps getting higher and higher, and we could not be more please at the opportunity to race them!
Link to the provisional results can be found here!
The Data:
All race data for our racers in the Pro-Am races is publicly available below: dig in!
Dan Fleeman
“Yesterday we went in with the sole plan of getting Ryan the GC win. We wanted to get as as many guys into a good position on the stage as possible to take points off other riders. We did this by putting 3 riders in the top 5! Unfortunately this wasn’t quite enough for Ryan to win the overall but as a team performance it was quite amazing! Everyone has worked the entire series in a completely unselfish way often without being asked to do so. In my opinion we are one of if not the best drilled squad on Zwift!”
Matt Gardiner
“That was incredible. It feels so good to have our team perform so well in the finale of the series! While we narrowly missed out on some crucial GC points for Ryan, we truly gave the race and the series everything we have, and ending with 3 racers in the top-10 is pretty hard to beat!
It’s a privilege to get to race with this team against the level of our competition. Bring on the next series: we’re ready!”
Aaron Coles
“What an amazing way to finish off the Tour with the team easily having its best result and claiming a number of top-10s! I've been happy with my own performances across the tour but just need to turn some of my top-20 results into top-10 results! Big congratulations to Ryan who has been amazing across every stage! Holden and Matt haven't missed a beat and Dan absolutely controlling everything off the front! I'm absolutely chuffed to have been given the chance to represent the team again across this tour and having set a number of personal bests, I’m happy in myself that I gave everything I could for the team each and every time!”
Ryan Larson
“I knew the Volcano CCW course suited me and would give me the best change to at least land on the GC podium! The team’s plan for for Dan to protect me by stringing out the bunch over each kicker before the finish, and the plan was executed flawlessly. Because of it, I was able to grab 2nd place at the finish, and finish 3rd in the GC! Dan, Holden, Matt, and Aaron did an outstanding job throughout the entire series and showed that Indoor Specialist is the best team on Zwift.”
Holden Comeau
“It's disappointing to come away from this series without a win. I've been really hungry for a stage win in a Pro-Am race, and so far it's eluded me. That just makes me want to come back harder next time. And I couple that with the excitement of having been a part of a really incredible team performance... It all keeps me very motivated for whatever amazing event Zwift hosts next. Thank you Charlie and the entire Zwift crew. And thanks to every Indoor Specialist! Ride on!”
