Ranking the Top 10 Virtual Cycling Seasons Ever
Blog #26
Welcome back all, and thanks for your patience missing a few weeks while I was on vacation with my family in Ireland! Traveling with an infant is a trip (bad pun intended), but we had a good time.
Last time around, we discussed the state of this season’s Most Valuable Avatar (“MVA”) race. Kate McCarthy and Jason Osborne have both had incredible seasons and will be taking home their first award each. But where do their seasons rank in the annals of the best cycling esports seasons of all time? Let’s take a look!1
10. Michael Vink ‘22-’23
PEC Points: 449.2 MVA Season Ranking: 1
Start with Michael Vink, whose seasons have been hampered by the fact that he only races on MyWhoosh. It turns out it’s hard to put together great overall seasons if you skip the Zwift races. But Vink’s ‘22-’23 season was helped along by the fact that it’s the year MyWhoosh put on its first platform championship. Vink cleaned up in that race, taking home six of the seven stages and the overall GC.
MyWhoosh was still in it’s early stages at the time, so the competition wasn’t quite yet the best, but he still dominated a field that included Lionel Vujasin, Michael Knudsen, and Michał Kamiński, who, along with Vink, are each ranked in the top ten all time. Tack on three Sunday Race Club (“SRC”) finals wins, and Vink’s ‘22-’23 season was worthy of an MVA award that marked the beginning of the shift in professional racing from Zwift to MyWhoosh.
9. Freddy Ovett ‘20-’21
PEC Points: 366 MVA Season Ranking: 3
Alright, let’s get controversial! Freddy Ovett’s ‘20-’21, racing for L39ION of Los Angeles and sporting what might be the sickest kit in the history of cycling. His inclusion here is controversial because he didn’t race all that much and, by our own metrics, was only the third best male rider that season.
But oh boy, the hot streak he went on when he did race was one of the best we’ve ever seen. After missing the first Zwift Premier Division (“ZPD”) season, he won four of the five individual stages in season two and tacked on another stage podium in season three on his way to winning GC in both seasons. Is it a little ironic that the Ovett season I’m picking for this list is not the ‘23-’24 season in which he won the inaugural Zwift Games and the MVA? Yeah, a bit. But the run Ovett went on in ‘20-’21 was one of the most dominant peaks we have ever seen in the sport, and worthy of inclusion on this list.
8. Heino ‘20-’21
PEC Points: N/A MVA Season Ranking: N/A
Speaking of ZPD dominance, I’m going to cheat a little here. Yes, this list is about individual seasons, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least mention the greatest team season of all time.
The pro calendar in ‘20-’21 consisted of three ZPD seasons and the UCI World Championship. Set aside the world championship, since that was an individual race: how did Heino do? Well, they won all three ZPD seasons. That’s all fine and dandy, but Canyon ESports did the same on the men’s side and I’m not including them here.
So why Heino? Well, it’s not just that they won all three seasons. It’s that in season one they won all eight stages. And in season two they won… all eight stages. They completely collapsed in season three though, winning only five of seven stages. Completely pathetic 😁
Heino went on to win one more ZPD title in ‘21-’22 before Wahoo Le Col finally knocked them off and Heino broke up. One day I want to do a full retrospective on that Heino team, but that’s an article for another time. For now, they get to be the only team included on this list.
7. Loes Adegeest ‘21-’22
PEC Points: 584.8 MVA Season Ranking: 1
Okay, this is where things start to get tough. In fact, I’d say #7 through #3 on this list are pretty interchangeable. But I’ve got Loes Adegeest’s ‘21-’22 season here. That year was the first of two consecutive seasons in which she won both the UCI World Championship and the MVA before heading over to the road full time to race for FDJ- Suez. In ‘21-’22 though, she also won a ZPD GC and three stages, making it her best season.
There are times I wish Adegeest was still racing on Zwift just to see how she would stack up against the current trio of women at the top of the virtual peloton these days - none of whom were racing when Adegeest was at the top of the sport - but alas, we will never know.
6. Cecilia Hansen ‘20-’21
PEC Points: 606.3 MVA Season Ranking: 1
Ah, Heino. When they were at the top of the sport, it was Cecilia Hansen leading the way. She never managed to win a ZPD GC, but in the year Heino was winning every stage Hansen was a big reason why. In ‘20-’21 she won two stages, podiumed two more and a GC, and finished third in the first UCI World Championship. It’s tough to pick just one Heino rider from the bunch - we have three other Heino riders (Alice Lethbridge, Louise Houbak, and Caroline Williams) ranked 2-4, respectively, in ‘20-’21 - but Hansen’s second MVA makes the list.
5. Gabriela Guerra ‘24-’25
PEC Points: 711.2 (in progress) MVA Season Ranking: 2 (in progress)
Guerra has gotten short shrift this season, and in a lot of ways it’s a complete shame. A certain other rider has been dominating the women’s peloton (more on that below), meaning that Guerra’s season has been overlooked. I’m as guilty of this as anyone, even though I have written about her a bit.
But what a season it has been. Guerra may finish the year with the second most PEC points ever by a rider in a season, male or female. The only trouble is that the most ever is by that pesky other rider who you are going to read about later on this list.
But Guerra’s ‘24-’25 deserves a ton of praise. She won three Zwift World Series stages, came in second in a fourth, and would’ve won GC had it not been for an unfortunate trainer malfunction. At the UCI World Championship, she came oh so close - just four points away - from the rainbow jersey. And in Zwift Games she won the Epic and finished second in GC. Tack on a SRC finals win and six more podiums, and Guerra is well deserving of a place on this list.
4. Ian Bibby ‘18-’19
PEC Points: 426.5 MVA Season Ranking: 1
Oh yeah, we’re going this far back. One of the difficulties in creating a ranking system for virtual cycling is that the sport is still quite immature and the race calendar remains in flux. We count ‘18-’19 and ‘19-’20 as professional seasons, but it wasn’t until ‘20’-21 with the advent of ZPD and the UCI World Championship that the race calendar began to stabilize a bit. So in terms of our PEC points system, there just weren’t that many points available in the early years since the biggest races (ZPD, worlds, Zwift Games, and SRC) didn’t exist yet.
But those early days shouldn’t be forgotten, and Ian Bibby was dominant in ‘18-’19. He ran (or pedaled) away with the KISS Super League GC, won four of the 10 stages in the process, and then turned around and won a Zwift Classics race. Bibby never really raced again professionally after this season, but he and his Madison Genesis team retain a special place in the history of the sport.
3. Jason Osborne ‘24-’25
PEC Points: 680 (in progress) MVA Season Ranking: 1 (in progress)
Back to the present. Osborne is poised to overtake Lionel Vujasin as the best male virtual cyclist of all time by the end of this season, and his career has been something special. He’s won two UCI World Championships and finished on the podium of two others; has way more SRC monthly finals wins than any other rider; and…
But this season was easily his best ever. Just to paraphrase from what I wrote about him in the ‘24-’25 MVA article (with a few updates):
Osborne became the first man ever to win multiple UCI cycling esports world championships, joining Adegeest as the second rider ever with two world championships. He also won the Zwift Games Epic Championship and, perhaps most importantly, six of the nine monthly SRC finals thus far.
It’s also been great to watch Osborne return to this level of dominance in the virtual peloton. Osborne spent the past four seasons riding for Alpecin - Deceuninck, first as a development rider and then in the World Tour. He and Vink (who rode for UAE Team Emirates) returned to cycling esports full time this year, and it’s encouraging to see their investment in the sport paying off.
2. Kathrin Fuhrer ‘23-’24
PEC Points: 727.3 MVA Season Ranking: 1
The year I spent building the Pro E Cycling site was the year Kathrin Fuhrer put up what was indisputably the best season of all time up to that point. She won the inaugural Zwift Games and two of the three stages in dominant fashion, along with half of the SRC monthly finals. Indeed, her more than $160,000 in prize money in 2024 was, as far as I am aware, the most ever earned by a virtual racer in a single year by leaps and bounds.2
A year ago at this point, I thought Fuhrer would continue her run of success for the foreseeable future. That, of course, hasn’t happened. This season, she’s been overtaken by Guerra and another rider we turn to now…
1. Kate McCarthy ‘24-’25
PEC Points: 1,043 (in progress) MVA Season Ranking: 1 (in progress)
If you’ve been consistently reading this blog or even remotely following virtual cycling this season, ranking McCarthy here is entirely predictable and an anticlimactic end to this list. So rather than drone on further about her season, I’ll just paraphrase what I wrote in the MVA article (with a few updates):
I’ve written extensively about McCarthy’s season throughout the year. But each time I circle back to it, the palmares become more ridiculous. She’s reaching Pogi levels of “okay, this is making the sport a little boring” success. For instance:
Earlier this year, I celebrated Ollie Jones becoming only the fifth ever rider, male or female, to reach 1,000 career PEC points. McCarthy has topped 1,000 points just this season.
Her 1,043 PEC points this year are by far and away the most ever in a single season - 315.7 more than Kathrin Fuhrer’s incredible 2023-2024. And she can put even more distance between herself and Fuhrer in the final few SRC finals races.
McCarthy has won 11 pro races this year. That’s the Zwift Games Overall Championship, two stages, seven SRC monthly finals, and… shoot. There was one more… Oh yeah, the freaking world championship.
Just to put this in perspective: her 11 wins this season are more wins than every other female rider has in their career besides for Fuhrer, Lou Bates, and the legend that is Cecilia Hansen. It’s also more career wins than any man in the non-Osborne and Vink division.
And it’s not like she’s lost races - those 11 wins are in the 13 pro races she’s finished this year. The only times she’s lost? Second place in the January 2025 SRC finals, and second in the Zwift Games Epic Championship, where she was protecting her GC lead.
So yeah. It’s the best season we’ve ever seen. And it’s not particularly close.
As always, this list is entirely subjective - feel free to disagree, and to let me know in the comments below!
I’m not entirely sure whether this claim is correct - Vink might’ve been around that number in 2023 when he won the MyWhoosh Championship - but I don’t have the data to verify it either way.