Race Crits with Zero Fear of Crashing in Zwift Crit City

Racing crits isn’t really my jam. Banging elbows with a bunch of overly angry dentists at 30 mph and the painful reality of broken carbon and collarbones just isn’t my thing. But those are shortcomings of racing crits IRL, the new Crit City course on Zwift does away with the risk and will welcome all virtual riders with a new playground built specifically for races and events.

At just 1.9km in length and with only 26 ft of elevation gain, Crit City is laid out like a typical criterium race course. The Crit City course is an event-only map. That means you select to ride on the map outside of a dedicated event held on it.

I’ll be interested to see how it feels, as I covered in my Intro to Zwift Racing the key to winning an IRL crit is almost entirely negotiating turns in a way that saves energy and maintains positions and knowing when and where to launch your attack. Zwift doesn’t require cornering technique, you can take any turn at full speed so no deceleration/acceleration is needed, and positioning is automated. We’ll see how that carries over.