TrainingPeaks Doubles Down on Virtual Racing, Partners with USA Cycling

TrainingPeaks has become an official partner of USA Cycling, signing a four-year deal with USA Cycling that takes them through the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.

As part of the agreement, TrainingPeaks Virtual will become the official virtual platform of USA Cycling.

It also sees elite-level online racing move to TrainingPeaks Virtual. Echelon Racing Productions, who puts on the Echelon Racing Series of events, will move their sixth season of racing from MyWhoosh to TrainingPeaks Virtual. That series, which begins in November and runs through February 1st, 2026, will culminate with USA Cycling’s National Championships events on January 31st and February 1st. The racing calendar alternates between what it calls “one-day classic” races and multi-stage events before the season finale National Championship races.

The Echelon Racing Series features both elite level and categorized racing across the various races. At last year’s season finale, 20 athletes earned the title National Champion across the Elite and age-group categories. The Elite races were won by Hayden Pucker and Kristen Kulchinsky — two of the best e-sports racers in the world.

The partnership kicks off in earnest today, September 18th, with a preview of the 31-mile race course of USA Cycling’s Gravel Nationals Championships, which will be held this weekend in La Crescent, Minnesota. That real-course preview is powered by GPXplore, the new feature that allows riders simulate real-world routes virtually within TP Virtual. That has already allowed riders on the platform start simulating some of the best climbs in the world. It is expected that riders will be able to upload their own routes to TP Virtual sometime in October.

According to TrainingPeaks, the Virtual platform offers realistic racing physics, with drafting and cornering in particular being strong design elements. And because Virtual is seamlessly integrated into the rest of the TrainingPeaks platform, it should make results management and governance easier to handle; data from races can be more easily compared against training datapoints to ensure that there is not any virtual manipulation taking place.

The doubling down on elite racing on TP Virtual comes as Zwift announced the cessation of elite-level racing on the platform this week. As reported by Escape Collective, Zwift’s Chris Parry informed racers by e-mail that it would be focusing on community-level events for the foreseeable future.

“We’re excited to announce that Zwift Games will return in February 2026 for its third edition. The 2026 Zwift Games will be a community racing event only, meaning there will be no Zwift-organized elite racing events in the 2025/26 season,” Parry wrote.

Zwift’s elite level racing was marred by multiple rider controversies over the past year, mostly related to hardware accuracy issues that were determined to be outside of the riders’ control. It still resulted in multiple race placement removals and confusion amongst athletes. It’s also as Zwift has modified its category system, moving from an FTP based system to one calculated off of so-called “rider score.” Athletes report a mixed bag of results on the rider score categories.

Zwift has also pressed pause on Zwift Academy, which had sought to scout potential pro-level talent. Past winners of Zwift Academy include Jay Vine, who recently took the King of the Mountains jersey at the Vuelta de España.

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