What do you all think of alpe du zwift? Rode it this morning in a 550 sized group for the first time and it was pretty awesome, had lots of company the whole way up.
Yep, been up 15 times including a couple races. My all time favourite route
About 6 times cycling, and ran a recent half marathon on it. Cycling wise my best is 1:05 I think
It’s a great route for an ftp test. A few flat spots, but mostly 7-10% steady grade where you can get in a groove. If you do the entire route, you get a decent warmup before you hit the main climb.
I like to go and just hammer it as hard as I can. It’s like a fitness test.
I like how they show the watts on each segment and (if you’ve done it recently enough), your best watts per segment. I usually lose it for a couple of segments every time.
OP here - I though alpe du zwift was one of the best training routes I’ve ever ridden, including outdoors routes. I was surprised when I typed ‘alpe du zwift’ into the ST search box to see what others may have wrote about it here, and literally nothing came up.
Sure, it’s steep, with that 7-11% grade nearly continuously the whole way up, but it’s really, really good for forcing you to push harder than you might on a flat. And, it looks freaking amazing on Zwift! I would have thought that this route would be talked up quite a bit on ST.
I agree with the poster above mentioning how helpful it was to have the ride segments broken up visually on the side of the screen so you can see your power on each segment. I know I’m late to the game of zwift, but I’ve been terribly impressed by how well thought out and useful the user interface is, without cluttering the screen unnecessarily.
After the Alpe this morning, I literally put in an order for a 55 inch 4k TV and TV stand which will be used exclusively for Zwift in my garage pain cave, as it was so good. Usually when I ride this hard, I’m hating life unless I’m on a super fun outdoor group ride - and indoors, it takes a lot out of me mentally to do these hard workouts regularly, and I find I need to stop doing them after 7-8 wks tops since it’s just too hard to motivate. With Zwift, I’m hitting my biggest power readings ever during workouts while HAVING FUN (sorry Trainerroad - you are NOT fun, not at all!) , and I’m coming back for me as soon as possible - that alone makes it worth every penny, even if I’m going for a hi-endish setup.
Been up many times, road to sky is my default course on Zwift if I’m not doing an event.
Usually just see how fast I can go, but also occasionally use it as a form of interval training… for example nail every 3rd hairpin sector, or alternate fast/slow sectors. The fun of it is that if you haven’t planned it you won’t know if your effort sectors will be the longest or shortest ones :-).
Still can’t believe some of the times I’ve seen on there. My ambition is to go sub 50 but some guys go way lower. Yikes.
Cheers, Rich.
OP here - I though alpe du zwift was one of the best training routes I’ve ever ridden, including outdoors routes. I was surprised when I typed ‘alpe du zwift’ into the ST search box to see what others may have wrote about it here, and literally nothing came up. …
The search box is not highly functional. There have been a few threads on the Alpe that I remember and a lot of mention of it in other Zwift threads here on ST. Here are 2.
Finally Made it up the Alpe
https://forum.slowtwitch.com/...du_Zwift_P6859791-2/
Alpe du Zwift KOM
https://forum.slowtwitch.com/...string=alpe#p6826169
I really enjoyed (*in a sick sort of way) doing the Norseman series, which included the Alpe: Fire and Ice 2x/month three times, not to mention, Road to the Sky over the same 12 weeks twice/monthly.
I still wear that jersey as my default avatar jersey in the game.
IMO, the Alpe has been the best part of Zwift for a while. Having the new worlds is great and racing is awesome but having a place where you can just get on the trainer and hammer in the VR of Zwift while doing a classic climb that is part of the TdF…well, that’s very cool. To be able to compare with others who have done it too is also nice. I remain saddened every time I look at Zwift Power and check segments and compare my age/weight class and see how fast some old guys are. Took me forever to go from 1:20>sub 60 but there are hundreds of guys in my AG who can go sub 45 min. Sigh…
i’m still new to zwift - how do i find this route cause i can’t seem to ?
i’m still new to zwift - how do i find this route cause i can’t seem to ?
It’s level locked, you have to level up to 10+ to get it unlocked.
Or, you could do it the way I did it - wait for a group ride/race or someone else riding the Alpe, and then you get to ride it even if its locked for you. I really like this system, I do think there’s fun and value in making folks work to unlock stuff, but still access it in other ways.
I do wish they put more superclimbs on Zwift - really enjoyed it. Maybe they could make a long climb like the Haleakala or however it’s spelled which is really long, but less steep than the Alpe. (I know you can just set trainer difficulty to cassette it down to a more manageable cadence, but I like 100% feel!)
well i guess i’m not that new to zwift, level 14
but i am old and don’t know where a search feature is or how to find it otherwise
.
You need to be at level 12 (?) to unlock the Alpe.
The Alpe is definitely a fun route, love doing over/unders or just hammer up it. Shooting for sub 55!
To OP, if you are getting the big 4K TV, you might want to look into getting Apple TV 4K for Zwift, I absolutely love it!
You need to pick the route “road to sky†and it will automatically take you to it (it’s about 20 min of riding to get there iirc).
A shortcut is to select the jungle route then at the 2nd intersection into the ride you can change your route to go up the alpe. That gets you to the alpe in about half the time. That’s what I did repeatedly when I was trying to finish the everesting challenge to get the tron bike.
so I’ve leveled up high enough… where is it?
Watopia > Road to Sky
.
I did it once on accident and it broke my spirit. I may get more out of it if I know what’s coming.
Turn up trainer difficulty to 100% realism for full spirit breaking!
thanks - thats what i needed
.
Fastest route to a Tron Bike. 50K Meters of climbing must be earned. That’s 40x up Le Alpe 
Yep, been up 15 times including a couple races. My all time favourite route
To you and everyone else…
How long before you ‘win’ the lightweight wheels? I’ve been up it 8 times and first got the lazer helmet…cool. All 7 since have been gloves and socks.
I’m using it primarily to get along to the tron bike, but hoping I score these wheels on the way!