First: apologies for the clickbait. There is no 4th Zwift challenge. Not yet, anyway.
But we’re hoping that discussing its conspicuous absence may encourage Zwift to create one.
So let’s talk a bit about how the Challenges work, then offer a few ideas.
About Zwift Challenges
Zwift has had the same three Challenges since early days, accessible through the in-game main menu (click a Challenge for more details):
How Long to Complete Them All?
If you rode 100 miles (160km) per week, you’d finish Ride California in 8 weeks, and Tour Italy in 12.5 weeks.
The toughest Challenge by far is Climb Mt. Everest, since it includes the hidden Tron challenge. This one takes a while! If you climbed 300 meters (984′) per day for 167 days you’d complete the challenge.
Using the above plan riders could complete all three challenges in under 45 weeks of daily riding. Experienced riders may do it in half the time or less, and newer cyclists may take twice as long.
Zwifters Love Carrots
Here’s the thing: Zwifters love carrots. No, not the orange vegetable (although, being healthy eaters, we like those too…right?) No, we’re talking about goals. Targets. Rewards. Challenges. It’s why Route Achievement Badges were an immediate hit upon release. And it’s why Zwifters have been asking for a new Challenge for years!
A quick search of Zwift’s Feature Requests forum brings up at least 7 requests for more Challenges. (UPDATE: after the post was published, Zwift forum moderators consolidated all of the requests into one single request.)
Unlock the 4th Challenge: Place Your Votes!
Zwift wants to keep their customers happy, so if a new Challenge would be interesting to you, I’d recommend upvoting this feature request.
If enough buzz is generated, it will get Zwift’s attention. As of today, ZwiftHQ has yet to comment on the feature request. But if they see enough interest from Zwifters, I bet they’d spin up a new Challenge quickly.
Why Don’t We Have a 4th Challenge?
Zwifters have been asking for a 4th Challenge for years. So why do we still only have three?
The answer is unclear. After speaking with several top ZwiftHQ staffers on this very topic, it seems as if the noise of everything else Zwift is working on has drowned out this simple request.
And that’s why we’re posting this article – to bring attention to an easy win for Zwift. It would grab the attention of a huge number of Zwifters, increasing rider engagement. And shouldn’t take long to implement on the dev/art side.
Ideas for New Challenges
Just in case Zwift is looking for ideas for new Challenges, here are a few from myself and the community:
- LEJOG: heck, the animation artwork has already been done, and this is a popular IRL challenge for UK-based cyclists. With none of the current Challenges being UK-based, and Zwift having a huge UK userbase, this seems like a good option.
- LeTour: ride the distance of the first Tour de France (2,428 km/1,509 miles) and unlock an old-school steel single speed La Française with toe clips–the bike Maurice Garin used to win the first TdF. You could do challenges for the Vuelta and Giro as well, but Zwift’s close ties to the TdF make this a clear choice.
- RAAM: complete the Race Across America distance (approximately 3,000 miles). Unlock a touring bike complete with panniers.
- Mariana Trench: descend 10,984 meters (36,037 ft). Which means you’ll have to climb first!
- The Full Kiwi: ride the length of New Zealand – 1,600km (1,000 miles)
- Iceland Loop: 1,332km (828 miles)
- Route 66 (America): 3,940km (2,448 miles)
- Trans-Siberian Highway: 11,000km (6,800 miles)
- Road Trip Down Under: across Australia – 14,500km (9,000 miles)
- Great Wall of China: 21,196km (13,171 miles)
- Pan-American Highway: 30,000km (18,641 miles)
- Around the Moon: 10,921km (6,786 miles)
- Around the World: 40,000km (24,855 miles)
It’s worth noting Zwift could create more than just a fourth challenge. Why not create several?
I’d love to have so many challenges that there’s always something I’m working on, even if it’ll take me a year or more! And while I’d love to unlock some special kit or bike upon completion, I don’t mind if they’re “boring” distance-based Challenges with no reward except a few XP and an atta boy popup. A simple carrot is better than no carrot at all!
Your Thoughts
Do you want a 4th Challenge? Got an idea for one that’s better than we’ve listed above? Share below.
(But more importantly, share them on the Zwift Forum topics linked above!)
I like the idea of novelty bikes or kits being the reward. Ones with historical or amusement value, but you’d never actually use in a race or 95% of the time around Watopia. Give me a penny farthing or that tricycle we had at Halloween.
Love it.
A pennyfarthing would be a lot of fun. And it raises an intriguing possibility of whether Zwift could develop a fixed gear experience, which also ties into the desire for a velodrome. If they could set you into a particular gearing/resistance that would make a whole new experience of riding routes. It’s a very different experience IRL riding my fixie from my geared bikes. It ties in with the idea of awarding the original Tour de France bike too! And then you’ve got new badges or challenges riding your fixed gear.
Unicycle!
Some great suggestions there, I especially like the descending challenge.
it also seems like the number of missions has dropped off in the past couple of years (the ones that would give you a little badge on your achievements page)
Why do all those challenges must be distance based…I would like to see something different like ride 10 hours (or more) above 50kph; challenging people to sprint and do high speed intervals, or perform a training based challenge where you have to perform successfully 7 trainings in 7 days…
This is just ideas but I would personally enjoy something different than just distance challenge.
My two cents!
I like it, just needs a minimum gradient or I’ll be accumulating that time easily flying down the big mountains.
Well now that is quite an original suggestion. But I do agree with the above commenter it just means people will climb a bunch and accumulate time descending.
What about total time ridden above ftp?
Hi Eric. Yep, the 3 challenges have been the same for all time. They had modest bikes, except the Tron.
Having a new challenge or two would be great to do. They aren’t nowhere near as hard to create compared to a new map. It just adds up miles or height gain.
Simple rewards like a new Jersey would be brilliant as new bikes are now rare due to be being released en mass in updates.
As you suggest, an epic retro bike would be a good option. 🤔 👍👍👍
There are honestly so many [expletive] jerseys that you cannot tell which ones are prestige or participation awards
I’m also thinking along the lines of around the world, but more specifically “Around the Worlds in 80 days” and the challenge would be that in any rolling 80 day period you have to complete a given distance (make it a good distance, at least 100km) in each of the Zwift worlds and the reward would be a rainbow bike of some kind (as a nod to the world championship rainbow jersey). Alternatively perhaps you have to cover ALL of the roads in ALL of the worlds in that period but I suspect that might need a bit more work… Read more »
Zwift listen to it’s users… Come on Eric, you’ve been around long enough to know the louder we shout the less they listen!
Not true, although sometimes it feels that way. Especially when it’s an easy win, Zwift is getting better at pleasing the sweating masses.
I’ve never seen Eric down voted 😢
Fixed it 👍🏿
Great wall of China challenge should unlock a Chinarello!
RAAM (Race Across America) sounds like a good one! But I’d prefer the reward to be a Tron 2.0 or some other top-tier fictional superbike. Perhaps a Tron without the glow and the ability to change wheelsets.
The Tron is now behind a couple of bike/wheel combos…The Tron 2 should go back to the head of the pack.
Agree on the Tron 2 idea. The original Tron is probably the most sought after reward in the game but now so many people have it its becoming almost normal. Maybe completing all 3 challenges + a new tough 4th one could reward a new upgraded Tron
What about climb mount Fuji (new badge) its a good training befefore climb mount Everest . New challange route 66
Yes we need lots more challenges. Plus I’d like to see an option to reset the route badges once you’ve completed them all so you can do them a 2nd,3rd, 4th time etc
I for one will have more enthusiasm for riding if I’ve got a challenge that I’m working towards.
Too much emphasis on racing in my opinion not that I’m against it, I do them occasionally.
I just think lots of people want to work towards something and maybe ride new tarmac that they haven’t seen before.
You wouldn’t necessarily need to reset the badges. But I like the idea of being able to do routes multiple times. Maybe you could get some lesser amount of XP, for instance on the second try get half the XP bonus, on the third try 1/3, and so forth. Still worth some effort but without disrupting the points scheme too much.
This, along with somebody else’s idea IN Zwift forums of Bronze, Silver, Gold on the route badges for multiple completions would be a good combination and still require minimal development from Zwift.
Yeah I like the idea of multiple badges. I like to collect badges but tend to have a 50km max due to time restrictions. I’ve nearly completed all the ones I want so having multiple badges would bring more interest.
I for one do not want any incentive to do the PRL full again. Ever in my life. EVER
I sort of feel the same way, except I might make an exception if they changed the name to PRL Fool and awarded a jesters hat.
Ditto Uber Pretzel and riding around the volcano circuit 25 times but I reckon if a carrot was dangled I’m enough of a sucker to go after it!
it demendes such a small investment and will produce such a great reward. i think all the ideas you came up with are good. maybe few of them should come up and we could choose the onces we better relate to.
All of them, please. It’ll give me targets to pursue on Zwift for … well, quite a while.
Hahaha! This clickbait works!
I vote for the Equator challenge as a distance challenge, easy to produce motivating graphics for it too (like the Everest challenge). It would probably be the only distance related challenge I could get interested in. For the rest I like the idea of different aspects but I imagine this would be harder to keep track of and thus more difficult to implement. Something TT related would be nice, although that also requires some well deserved attention towards this event type.
Gerrie delPort, our redoubtable Zwift Forum Ambassador, has closed all but one of the listed threads and merged them into the one with the most votes. Still go on there and vote it up and post lotsa comments. If this goes like restart feature we’ll have it in 3-4 years.
If it goes like the saves without exit version then they’ll remove all the other challenges and add a new one.
Because people want to save without exit doesn’t mean you should be able to save and exit too.
Sorry, went off at a slight tangent there!
Great idea for new challenges! It would also seem relatively easy for ZwiftHQ to embrace “life after Level 50”. Kits only achievable at Levels 60, 70, etc. A “Century Level 100” Tron Bike that blows the doors off of any other bike rig combo in your Zwift garage. Endless possibilities to continue the fun while hammering out the miles.
Some great challenge ideas here!
I vote for the eating 100 cakes in a week challenge 🙂
This right here.🎂🍰
To the MOON…238,900 mi and make the prize worthy of the accomplishment. It sucks to win stuff that is of no use to you in the game. “thanks for doing this epic challenge here is a slow bike that you will never use”.
And whatever happened to the missions?
Absolutely!! I love the challenges that you list above. If it is up to me…do them all!! It is all fun!! 🙂
Do I remember at some point high watts on the Tron bike produced a flame trail? Would dearly love a challenge to unlock that, some kind of ‘top end’ watt bucket which only fills by producing over 7wkg (or something like that) and you need to have accumulated 24 hours worth of high end ‘flaming watts’ to get the unlock. Hard work but worth it!
2019 April Fools had the flames for all bikes. See GPLama youtube video. Unfortunately it seems the April Fools and Halloween pranks have dropped in quality too with this year’s recycling the big wheel trikes.
We need a dirty Tron bike, maybe gravel specific k’s but needs to be big. Gravel k’s are harder and people avoid them, we could do Gravel vert too. Lets make it hard!!!
I’ve completed the 3 challenges, not arsed either way if they add a 4th. I wish they’d improve the graphics engine, looks a bit Minecraft nowadays 🤖👍🏿
Hi Eric, yeah I would love to have another challenge to complete. Did all 3 in well under a year..
I would like to see a power/ strength challenge. Where U would hold a power output for a certain amount of time. Based on your weight..
But otherwise being an Aussie, definitely the down under would be great..
Can we rather have levels past level 50.
This seems like an easy win too. But it seems less likely than a 4th challenge since there is such a small % of Zwifters at level 50.
But I’d gladly take both!
Hi Eric, do you actually know what is the number or share of riders at level 50?
Maybe Cape to Cairo (Africa) as a 4th Challenge on Zwift.
I wish new Route Badges in Bronce, Silver and Gold. First you have to do all the normal Badges, then reset all and start again for the next Badge, but now you have to do every Route twice for Bronce. Then reset again …. and then do all Routes 3 times for Silver Badge and after this 5 Times for Gold Badge. This will force you to ride not only your standart Routes and takes a lot of Time for the most People.
Don’t care what challenge they introduce, as long as they introduce whatever challenge. These 3 challenges were a huge motivational stimulus for me. So bring em on!!
Eric, the clickbait worked, because probably we all like the idea of new challenges! I think most would also like the option of removing the old challenges window form the user interface. It’s a bit annoying… Also, another easy win before introducing novelty bikes: the option of either deleting stuff that we do not use (bikes, wheels, kits, etc.) or saving our favorites, so that we do not have to scroll down a long list to select the two or three items we use the most?
Each of these is distance or climbing, like the existing three. Better would be time or energy.
for example, for time, how about a week of riding (positive cadence)? That’s 168 hours. This would be fairly challenging, comparable to unlocking the Z1. Or maybe go for a 40-hour “work-week” challenge.
For energy, they already count pizza slices. So how about a 10-pizza challenge? That’s 80 slices.
Anyway Zwiftinsider can stop the annoying pop up advertising Zwift every time you load the page??? Please….
Yeah, more carrots PLEASE!! I´ve done alle challanges and got ALL route badges… my last “carrot” is increasing my Levels… acually I entered Level 43 yesterday… so… I really don´t understand, that Zwift doesn´t defines more levels, badges and challanges… the efforts compared to build new worlds are so minimal!!! They can ask a trainee to do these jobs… so please dear Zwift HQ´s bring these to life 😉 Laura
I think more long-term challenges would be great, AND it would be great if they helped direct more people towards these challenges.
I wonder how many people haven’t got a live challenge selected on Zwift and I think we should all be encouraged / strongly nudged towards having one active all the time, as it’s a good bit of long-term motivation.
As for rewards, I’d love to see more kit rewards – especially helmets and shoes – because we always seem to get bikes or jerseys.
@Eric Schlange : I just tried to vote for all of them but only the first and last on the list are open for voting. The rest are closed. FYI.
I’ll update the links above… thanks Danny!
Why has no one suggested a challenge for the runners instead?
FYI I’m not a Zwift runner, but I like the idea of catering for more users
Trenching is a good one. They could also do route based challenges like finishing a list of the toughest routes. Or Drops accumulated. A prize I’d like to see a Concept Z2 with flaming wheels. It only has to be marginally better than the Z1 but give it better rolling resistance on rougher terrain. There could be some cosmetic rewards that could give some type of benefit, what if a new set of climbing wheels only allowed you to get the feather power up or an aero helm that only gave you the arrow boost. Or what if the ceramic… Read more »
I like the around the world idea. After 10k you get a bike. And after that, every 5k a (additional) frame bag is added. So you can show everyone that you are the toughest zwifter out there 😉 and if you ride the bike it becomes faster every 50k
what about Ride across Canada for a challenge?
Rather than “The Full Kiwi”, how about emulating the “Tour Aotearoa Brevet”, which takes an indirect route, incorporating multiple off-road trails and totals 3000km. Only distance ridden on a gravel bike or MTB counts!
Damn! I really thought some amazingly incredible awesome hidden easter egg would be unveiled in this post…
I don’t see why there can’t be a multitude of interesting challenges. Surely it’s a relatively small investment for Zwift to set up a challenge. It would be an easy win.
Ooh, how about “Across the Pond”, a challenge representing the distance from the US northeast coast to the southwest coast of the UK (2,600 miles or whatever it is). But the catch is that only miles ridden under or over water count! You’ll have people riding back and forth through the tunnels and across the bridges for months haha! The prize could be one of those setups where you can mount your bike on a paddle boat and ride around the entire Watopia island on top of the water! This would be so awesome. I’m envisioning regatta type races on… Read more »
The Full Kiwi could unlock an Avanti? or a Chapter2
I really like the Mariana Trench challenge idea, it’s quite unique. I also the like idea of a gravel challenge with a unique gravel bike (Dirt Tron?) reward.
I think we need a completely new (in addition or instead) type of challenge. We have two distance challenges and one climbing challenge. How about a wattage challenge? This one would be easier for the bigger riders (e.g. me) and would consist of hitting various watt-hour (amount of stored energy or equivalent) levels. The neat thing is that this could be both educational and interesting (and a marketing opportunity…). So, something like: produce enough watts to: (assume roughly 150 watts) Match an ebike’s battery (750 watt-hours / 150 watts) = 5 hours Run an LED light bulb for a month… Read more »
Minor correction (that’s what I get for trying to do metric conversions in my head..) — gasoline has 9,7 kwh/liter, not 8. Of course, you could multiply that by 20-40% for the typical gasoline engine efficiency for a lower # of hours.
4th challenge would be amazing!