We’re now four stages into Zwift’s Virtual Tour de France—a weekend-oriented virtual edition of the famous bike race that was organized due to the postponement of the original Tour de France (which is now set to start on August 29).
In the virtual Tour, women’s and men’s pro cycling teams are racing on the same courses and the same distance for each stage. Here, the major jerseys are won by teams using a points system, and not by individual cyclists. The teams are allowed to rotate between riders for each stage, so different team members are often elected to wear the yellow jersey for subsequent stages.
Another nontraditional and very Zwift-like addition to this Tour—riders can strategically use mid-ride virtual boosts called PowerUps to their advantage, like during sprints.
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Along with livestreams, full reruns, and highlight videos, Zwift is also offering a race companion app on its website, which lets viewers see where cyclists are in real-time on the course map.
In case you missed it, here’s what happened in the first four stages.
July 4: Stage 1
The virtual race kicked off in Nice—the actual Grand Départ of this year’s Tour—where Watopia received some upgrades to better resemble the French Mediterranean town. The course featured four laps on a circuit, totaling 36.4 KM and 400m of climbing, with an intermediate sprint on each lap.
Elisa Longo Borghini of Trek-Segafredo took the first and third sprints, and though she didn’t win the green jersey in the end, she was awarded the title of most combative rider for the stage. Instead Team Canyon-Sram riders that grabbed the most sprint points overall. British cyclist April Tacey, 19, took the stage win for Team Drops, with American Kristin Faulkner of Team TIBCO-Silicon Valley Bank coming in second. American Chloe Dygert of Twenty20 also tried her hand in the final sprint and finished fifth.
In the men’s race, South African Daryl Impey of Mitchelton-Scott took the first sprint, and South African Ryan Gibbons took the stage win, securing the yellow jersey for NTT Pro Cycling.
July 5: Stage 2
Stage 2 was a mountain stage and featured 29.5KM with 682m of elevation gain. The average gradient of the course was four percent, maxing out at a tough 13 percent. After battling it out on the climb, cyclists fought for green jersey points at a sprint just 2.5 KM from the finish. American Lauren Stevens took the stage win for Team TIBCO-SVB, bringing it in the lead for the yellow jersey.
For the men’s race, French cyclist Julien Bernard of Trek-Segafredo won the stage, but NTT Pro Cycling kept the yellow jersey going into the next stage.
Must-Haves for Indoor Cycling
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For listening to your favorite workout tunes and podcasts on the trainer.
July 11: Stage 3
On this stage, cyclists rode past the iconic French landmarks of Mont St. Michel and the Pont du Gard. The course featured two laps of a circuit with 48KM total and 266m of elevation gain, and each lap contained two sprints and a major climb.
Tanja Erath of Canyon Sram, who was the 2017 Zwift Academy winner, won this stage; Dygert placed second, while Tacey took third and claimed the polkadot jersey for her team. Team TIBCO-SVB still placed ahead of Canyon-Sram overall and kept the yellow jersey.
Matteo Dal-Cin won the men’s stage, putting his team Rally Cycling into second place for the general classification. Nonetheless, NTT Pro Cycling retained the yellow jersey once again.
July 12: Stage 4
Titled Casse-Pattes (which translates to “leg breaker”!), this stage was 45.8KM long with 310m of climbing. Cyclists rode two laps on a circuit, with each lap containing two major climbs and a sprint.
Tacey took another stage win here for Team Drops, but Team TIBCO-SVB still holds onto the yellow jersey going into Stage 5. For the men’s race, NTT Pro Cycling started off this stage with three jerseys: yellow, green, and white. Freddy Ovett of Israel Start-Up Nation took the stage win. NTT Pro Cycling retains its big lead in the general classification for Stage 5, with Rally Cycling in second and Trek-Segafredo in third.
Coming up this weekend, on July 18 and 19, are the two last stages of the virtual Tour. Stage 5 will have riders take on the major climb, a virtual Mont Ventoux, with a grueling 1539m of climbing over a relatively short 22.9KM course. Keeping with tradition, Stage 6 will take place on a virtual Champs-Élysées, with six laps on a 6.6KM circuit. Unlike the real Tour however, riders will race each other regardless of the yellow jersey wearer.
