Are they often enough to be able to just jump on and ride, or do you have to make sure you are ready at a specific time? The big advantage of the turbo for me is being able to get on when I have the time, not having to turn up at a designated hour.
there are a lot but in my peak time 9pm nothing much at all. its about 7 or 8 in the UK that’s best, or equivalent times in Aus or the US.
I’ve never had trouble finding something to enter; as Hammy says, they tend to polarise around the best times for US, CET & Far East time zones.
You can do a fee trial. Can’t remember now, but think it’s 200km riding? The first thing I did was a race - man that was a shock!
I plan very few races, generally just ride, typically when I get onto Zwift, there will be a race starting anytime from a few minutes away to possibly 30 minutes. I enter the race and just cycle until 5 mins before the race starts, then I join the race
30km now I think
Edit - per month!
I often do that but if I have time I’ll checkup schedule during the day and try to get started on the bike 10 mins before an event I like the look of.
I generally want at least 20 mins before a race to get a decent warm-up; they are foot-to-the-floor from the gun!
Yesterday, I got dropped by the front group in the first few mins, because some numptee let a gap open; and we know that once a big group has a 2 sec gap, you ain’t catching them alone. That’s one of the unrealistic algorithms on Zwift, the draft effect.
You need to ride the first 5 min like an individual pursuit, and then it settles down a bit.