The MyWhoosh Championship Series beginning on April 28, 2023, boasts the biggest prize purse in cycling esports history and moves toward securing a living wage for the sport's elite.
At their core, competitive cyclists have simple needs. Provide them with a fun, safe, and stable racing environment on a level playing field with consistent competition, and, for the most part, they’re pretty satisfied. For the burgeoning subset of racers who’ve found a virtual niche to scratch their competitive itch, it’s no different.
The up-and-coming newcomer to the virtual cycling game, MyWhoosh, prioritizes promoting and legitimizing high-level esports racing. MyWhoosh claims to check all the boxes on the racer’s wish list with ground-breaking innovation and development of the industry’s most robust validation, verification, and categorization model and a realistic race experience.
The platform’s ever-evolving verification data analysis model is the two-year project of MyWhoosh’s director of data analytics, Holden Comeau. The early esports adopter who won the 2019 USA Cycling Esports National Championship admits the model continually improves.
Add one additional spicey ingredient not found in any other platform’s recipe—One million dollars!
MyWhoosh, the free-to-use virtual cycling platform, will host the 2023 MyWhoosh Championship with the largest prize pot in cycling esports’ short history on the offering. Registration for the seven-stage Championship, spread across eight days beginning on April 28, 2023, opened on March 27, 2023.
“Yeah, I plan on participating!" answered Team USA and NeXT Esports pb Enshored racer J Bruhn, formerly Zwift #1 ranked and multi-time UCI Cycling Esports World Championship contender. "The why, I’ll be honest, the money is what got my attention, but I think more importantly, this is huge for the credibility of our sport! It is raising the bar for other virtual cycling platforms, setting an example, and catching the eye of sponsors. If we want virtual cycling to become a true professional sport, we must bring in sponsors to pay the bills. So, yeah, the money caught my eye, but I plan to try to compete because I think it is great for the sport, not because I plan to win.”
Read the full report published in road.cc to learn more about…
- Why MyWhoosh announced the big money series only a few days before the UCI Cycling Esports World Championship on Zwift?
- The new features and courses MyWhoosh is rolling out for the event and complete details of the series.
- How UAE Team Emirates offered a successful racer on the platform a pro road contract.
- MyWhoosh’s response to banned rider Eddy Hoole’s participation in a qualifying race with a heavy purse.
- What top-level esports cyclists say when asked, “Does the money make a difference?”
- and…Why money doesn’t buy happiness for many elite cyclists. Plus…
Read the full report published in road.cc to learn more about…
How despite the perceived correctable shortcomings, the positive potential for esports is game-changing. A summarization of the winnings of the top earners rivals some riders in the pro peloton. The cash infusion could go a long way toward raising awareness and supporting athlete and esports development if allocated appropriately and in the best interest of the sport and its athletes.
If the MyWhoosh Championship is only the beginning, as they contend, the platform will tip the scales in favor of the racers and the viability of esports. A professional racing league that pays racers a living wage and allows them to focus on esports? There are a million reasons to say “YES!”
However, if the platform doesn’t harness the power of the almighty dollar to build a respected, trusted, nurturing, and enjoyable venue, then, in that case, it incentivizes cheating, justifies overlooking the negative aspects of the platform and rider safety, and prevents the creation of a cohesive racing community that makes other platforms successful.
Semi-retired after more than 20 years as the owner and director of a private Orthopedic Physical Therapy practice, Chris now enjoys the freedom to dedicate himself to his passions—virtual cycling and writing.
Driven to give back to the sport that has enriched his life with countless experiences and relationships, he founded a non-profit organization, TheDIRTDadFund. In the summer of 2022, he rode 3,900 miles from San Francisco to his “Gain Cave” on Long Island, New York, raising support for his charity.
His passion for cycling shines through in his writing, which has been featured in prominent publications like Cycling Weekly, Cycling News, road.cc, Zwift Insider, Endurance.biz, and Bicycling. In 2024, he was on-site in Abu Dhabi, covering the first live, in-person UCI Cycling Esports World Championship.
His contributions to cycling esports have not gone unnoticed, with his work cited in multiple research papers exploring this evolving discipline. He sits alongside esteemed esports scientists as a member of the Virtual Sports Research Network and contributes to groundbreaking research exploring the new frontier of virtual physical sport. Chris co-hosts The Virtual Velo Podcast, too.
Before offering money, MyWhoosh’s computer scientists should first make the platform compatible with as many PC computers as possible.
To date, MyWhoosh is unstable for many users, with very low FPS <15, even on recent machines. On the one hand, MyWhoosh requires a super-powerful PC computer, and on the other, it requires around 20 GB of space on the SSD… And worst of all, you have to download everything with every update. There are no partial updates at launch, as with indieVelo, Zwift & co… With each update, you have to download at least 20 GB (!). In short, outdated, obsolete, overly complex software.
The physics and animation of the cyclists are poor and unrealistic. Only the scenery is worked on – overworked and overloaded, which contributes to the software's low FPS and cumbersome nature.
MyWoosh is not yet optimized, so there's still a lot of work to be done… Perhaps they should review everything and switch to Unity?