How do we decide which races to include in our ranking system?
Look, we get it – following top level “professional” virtual cycling and creating a ranking system for teams and riders isn’t a straightforward endeavor. That’s because there really isn’t a common understanding about what differentiates top level professional cycling on virtual platforms from top level community races (or low level pro races, for that matter), and as such which races should qualify for inclusion in our ranking system.
This post attempts to explain why we’ve included the races that we have. It is limited to explaining why specific race events were (or were not) chosen – it does not explain the PEC Points system we use to rank the teams and riders competing in those races, which you can see a summary of here and read about more in depth here. The list of races included in our database that results from applying the criteria described below can be found here.
Before we get into the criteria for selecting professional races, a couple of notes:
- We are just fans of the sport who thought it would be cool to create a site dedicated to following it. We don’t pretend to be experts: indeed, we probably came to the sport long after you did. So if we got anything wrong, there is a race we missed, you hate our methodology, or you have any other feedback, please let us know by shooting us a note at [email protected]. We also have a list of previous feedback, along with our responses, here.
- That being said, the list of races we have included thus far is intentionally minimal. We want to keep the criteria for professional races high, which means it necessarily excludes some really awesome races. That is not a knock on those races: we just view professional cycling in the virtual space as a burgeoning sport that will continue to grow over the coming years. We hope (and expect) we will have more races to add in the coming seasons.
Criteria
So without further ado, below (and in no particular order) are the criteria we have used to determine which races we count as top level professional events. Importantly, this is not a rote checklist, where each race must hit each of the ten criterion to qualify. Rather, it is a set of factors we look at holistically to determine if a race should be included.
- Exclusivity: First, professional races are generally not open for anyone to join. In the same way we couldn’t role up to the Tour de France and decide to participate, professional races in the virtual world should have closed-end participation.
- Single Time Slot: Professional races should also take place in a single time slot. Some high end community races use multiple time slots to accommodate riders in different time zones across the world. That’s great for community racing, but it often results in the best riders not competing directly against one another. Because of that, we generally do not include races with multiple time slots in our rankings.
- Continuity of Competition: For races with multiple stages, there generally has to be some continuity and cohesiveness between the stages. In other words, riders should not be able to haphazardly join one stage but sit out others. However, this does not prohibit (and we actually look favorably on) team-focused events where teams will be selective as to which riders they deploy in different stages to optimize results, provided that the event as a whole is a single, continuous competition.
- Competition Level: We also look at the start list of races to see if they include those riders generally perceived as the best in the sport. If a race isn’t attracting the best talent, we won’t consider it to be a top level professional event.
- This is, admittedly, one of the most subjective factors. As the sport matures, we imagine (and hope!) that there will end up being “tiers” of professional events – think the UCI WorldTour vs. the UCI Continental Circuits in road cycling. We are only interested in tracking and ranking the top level events.
- This is, admittedly, one of the most subjective factors. As the sport matures, we imagine (and hope!) that there will end up being “tiers” of professional events – think the UCI WorldTour vs. the UCI Continental Circuits in road cycling. We are only interested in tracking and ranking the top level events.
- Pro Team Participation: As the sport has grown, we have seen professional teams dedicated to virtual racing start to sprout up. We’ve used the races those teams target as one barometer for which races should be included in our ranking system.
- Payment: The obvious factor (and some would argue, the only one). If riders, or at least winners, are paid for participating in a race, we view that as a significant factor in our analysis. That being said, because there is not a lot of money in the sport at the moment, we don’t view this as dispositive.
- Gender Equality: We do not have a ton of patience for race events that exclude or subordinate women’s cycling. So if an event only has a men’s race, it probably won’t be in our ranking system.
- Doping Control: This is a tricky one. We do not view it as within our purview to police doping, either the traditional kind or the digital kind. We leave that to the platforms and race organizers, and defer to them on any disqualification decisions they make. That being said, we generally like to see anti-doping and verification measures in place for races included in our rankings, though we make no attempt to evaluate the effectiveness of those measures.
- Fan Engagement: What level of viewership is the event getting? Remember, we are a fan-driven site, so if an event is garnering high levels of engagement, it’s more likely to be included in our database.
- Prestige: Lastly, we have the most subjective test of all: how prestigious is the race? This is where you are likely to disagree with us most, but as you will see below as we explain how we apply these factors to certain races, there really is not a neat way to choose and classify top level professional races without some level of discretion.
Applying the criteria
Okay, so coming up with those ten factors was the easy part (actually, it wasn’t, we spent a lot of time thinking about it!). But applying each factor to races is tough. Below, we walk through a few races to explain why they were included in or excluded from our rankings. This list is not meant to be comprehensive; rather, it is illustrative, picking out a few examples that we think do a good job showing how our criteria work in practice.
- Zwift Racing League (“ZRL”): We love ZRL. It’s the biggest community event out there, and the competition is top tier. But we don’t include it in our rankings because the races are divided between different divisions based on time zones, meaning the best riders are often not competing head-to-head.
- MyWhoosh Championships: MyWhoosh burst onto the virtual cycling scene during the 2022-2023 season when it announced a $1,000,000 prize purse for its inaugural platform Championships. That money attracted some top-tier talent to the event, and as such we have included it in our ranking system.
- MyWhoosh Sunday Race Club: In contrast, we have not included the weekly qualifying rounds for the Sunday Race Club on MyWhoosh, though we have included the monthly finals. To be sure, the qualifying rounds share many of the same features as the platform’s Championships – and, for that matter, the monthly SRC finals. Races are held each week in a single time slot; there is prize money (albeit less); and the top ten in each race tend to be top-level riders. However, we have made this distinction between the weekly qualifying rounds and the monthly finals for a few reasons:
- First, and perhaps most importantly, consistent with our approach with other events we distinguish between qualifying events and finals competitions.
- Second, the qualifying races are open to all, while the monthly finals have at least a nominal barrier to entry, since to qualify a rider must complete two of the qualifying races that month. From what we have seen, this dynamic tends to water down the qualifying races a bit, though this dynamic has lessened significantly in recent times as the Race Club as a whole has professionalized.
- Third, because there are qualifying races every weekend, there is no continuity of competition and it is difficult to view the Sunday Race Club as a single, cohesive event rather than a series of unrelated individual races. There are repeat players, but riders are free to skip races and missing one race has no effect on subsequent races (other than perhaps not being able to qualify for the monthly final).
- Finally, the viewership for Sunday Race Club as a whole is… weak. The series struggles to get 1,000 viewers per qualifying event, with the monthly finals occasionally topping 2,000. And so while the monetary prizes and high level of talent militate towards including the monthly finals in our database, simply put the fan engagement here isn’t high enough for us to consider the qualifying events at the level necessary to be included.
- First, and perhaps most importantly, consistent with our approach with other events we distinguish between qualifying events and finals competitions.
- Echelon Racing League: The Echelon Racing League has existed in three formats. The first was Wahoo’s attempt to get into the professional virtual cycling game on its now-defunct RGT platform in the 2022-2023 season. Those races met all of our objective criteria, but the talent they attracted just was not at the level we look for, and so the race series that season was excluded. Echelon renewed itself on Zwift for the 2023-2024 season, and was one of most entertaining race leagues of the year. But the riders it attracted were heavily U.S.-based, which perhaps made sense since participation in the league was required to qualify for the U.S. national championships. But given how U.S.-centric the league was, we did not include it.
For the 2024-2025 season, the series moved over to MyWhoosh and, critically, added a $10,000 prize purse. In part due to the monetary incentive – and because it was reported that recently-crowned UCI World Champions Kate McCarthy and Jason Osborne would be joining the league – we initially included it in our database. But unfortunately the better, deeper field didn’t actually materialize. McCarthy did not race, and Osborne did just one stage in the regular season. As such we’ve excluded the 2024-2025 edition from our database as well. - Zwift Games: We love – absolutely love – how the Zwift Games Elite Championships are structured. There are some automatic qualifiers for elite riders that participated in the most recent Zwift Grand Prix season, but anyone can get in by performing well in a series of qualifying races. This format meets our “exclusivity” factor: we don’t count the qualifying races in our rankings, and so we consider the Elite Championships to have closed-end participation.
Other Notes
Just a few other notes about how we thought about building our ranking system…
- UCI: Our analysis does not factor in whether or not a race is UCI-sanctioned. That being said, it’s undeniable that the UCI stamp of approval provides legitimacy to a race and attracts top-tier riders. So while we do not factor this in explicitly, we would be quite surprised if there end up being UCI-sanctioned races in the future that do not meet the criteria set forth above.
- Platforms: We are agnostic to the platform on which a race occurs. Most of the races we have included to this point were on Zwift, but that reflects only the fact that Zwift has objectively been the most popular platform to date. Other platforms (MyWhoosh and TrainingPeaks Virtual, née indieVelo, specifically) are trying to change that.
- National Championships: We plan to add these, but have yet to do so as of the time the site was launched. Results are tougher to track down, but we are trying!
- Why do they make the cut? Simply put, prestige. People really care about national championships, and they are an important part of the historical fabric of cycling.
- How will PEC points be assigned for these races? Good question. We are still figuring that out. But the points will be minimal, given the low level of competition in some virtual cycling national championships thus far.
- Why do they make the cut? Simply put, prestige. People really care about national championships, and they are an important part of the historical fabric of cycling.