Zwift just released their latest “This Season on Zwift” announcement detailing key game features, Companion app updates, and hardware offerings releasing in the next few months. We’ve posted the complete press release below, and in the coming days will be diving into some of the announcements in more detail.
There’s lots to love here, so let’s get on to the big news…
Track Your Fitness Progress Using Zwift Companion App Whether RIding Indoors or Out
Plus, many more updates are landing This Season On Zwift, including new roads in France, HUD updates and Streak Flair
Zwift, the biggest training destination for cyclists worldwide, is excited to lift the lid on a host of Zwifter benefits launching This Season On Zwift. As seasons change across the globe, Zwift is better equipped than ever before to support Zwifters on their training and fitness journey.
Zwift Companion App is set to receive a significant update, allowing Zwifters to set weekly goals and track their fitness progress within the ecosystem for the first time. From April 8th, Zwift Companion gets a new look, bringing fitness metrics to the fore. Here, Zwifters will be able to set weekly goals, using the following metrics: Time, Distance, Calories, Stress Points, or Kilojoules.
Zwifters will now be able to track their fitness progression with Zwift’s new training score. Training Score reflects your long-term cycling fitness by averaging your recent training load over time, combining both workout volume and intensity into a single, easy-to-understand daily number.
Additionally, Zwifters will also see a new Training Status indicator within the Zwift Companion app. Training Status reflects current training load by comparing long-term fitness (42 days) and short-term fatigue (7 days). Higher training loads build fitness, but it’s vital to balance this with recovery. Zwift Companion will indicate five levels of training status:
- Ready – Ready to start or return to Training
- Fresh – Active and ready for a challenge
- Productive – Consistently training and recovering well
- Overreaching – Training heavily but in need of more recovery. Rest weeks are essential for recovery and peak performance.
- Detraining – loss of fitness due to reduced training.
Outdoor now counts on Zwift! To provide the best training insights, Zwift Companion App will now ingest outdoor riding data from Garmin and Wahoo devices. Hammerhead compatibility is expected later in the summer. Zwifters will need to ensure they have enabled the correct permissions in the Zwift Connections portal. Once enabled, outdoor data will be pulled into Zwift Companion App to best inform Training Score and Training Status metrics. From launch, Zwifters will be able to scroll back through their previous history and view their weekly training record.
Rolling out later this summer, Zwift Companion will receive a second update that will enable Zwifters to track their fitness trends. Updated screens will allow Zwifters to dive deeper into individual metrics and track historical trends for their Training Score, Training Status and Weekly Streak.
To make things truly fun and Zwifty, paying Zwift members will earn additional XP for their outdoor rides, at a rate of 5XP per kilometre. Additionally, paying Zwift members can also keep their streaks alive with outdoor riding.
Streaks have proven to be a popular feature since their introduction. Currently, 53% of active Zwifters have a 4-week streak or greater, and 9% have an active six-month streak – Ride On! For those with impressive streaks, there will now be the ability to show off to the rest of Watopia, through Streak Flair. Streak Flair can be toggled on in the ‘Fun Settings’ within the game menu. At four weeks, Zwifters unlock a Scotty medallion, 12 weeks secures a Scotty Key Chain, and 24 weeks will unlock a waving animated Scotty.
Launching Spring, the Zwift HUD will receive a number of updates, including one of the most requested features – splits! Enabled from the Zwift Action Bar, Zwifters can enable splits, providing lap functionality – perfect for manual interval training. Laps will display time, distance, average power and average heart rate.
Additionally, Zwifters will also be able to toggle on a critical power display, allowing them to view peak 5sec, 60sec, 5min and 20min power.
The Configurable HUD, found in the top left, has been a favourite since launch. Zwifters now have a range of more advanced training metrics to choose from, including Power balance (L/R), Average w/kg, Average Speed, Weighted Power (WP) and Body Temp and Heat Strain Index (HSI), enabled by a new integration with CORE Body Temperature Sensors.
For Zwifters looking to explore, from April 7th they will have new roads to discover in the France map. New connecting roads now make the France map more explorable than ever before and include numerous cobbled sectors, just in time for Paris Roubaix Femmes avec Zwift! A new Route Chaser Challenge will be live in-game for Zwifters to explore the new routes and secure bonus XP for completion.
Ven-Top has also received a significant update, which is live now. Similar to Alpe du Zwift, Ven-Top now features timed segments in the HUD, helping Zwifters break the climb into manageable chunks. For those who make it to the top, the spinning reward wheel has also made the trip across from Alpe du Zwift, bringing greater reward for conquering such an epic challenge.
And there’s one more thing! Zwifters who wish to use differing crank lengths on their Zwift Ride now have the option to purchase adjustable cranks as an upgrade accessory. The Zwift Ride adjustable cranks provide five crank length options – 160/165/170/172.5/175. They will be available to purchase via Zwift.com from April 16th within the US, EU and UK for $99.99/€99.99/£99.99.
To find out more about This Season on Zwift visit zwift.com/this-season-on-zwift
Your Thoughts
What do you think of Zwift’s plans for the next few months? Share below!
Will Zwift update the number digits in streaks? Currently ar 70 weeks.
Prepare for a perma-Zwift crash the week after you hit 99! LOL 😂
It’s the Y2K bug all over again!
Well, sometimes I wonder if Zwift WAS written in COBOL :-D.
Not sure what you’re asking… Zwift will keep adding to your streak as long as you keep riding…?
Today it stays on 70 weeks max, if you are on a 80 weeks streak it just stays on 70.
Didn’t the streaks system start 70 weeks ago? December 2023.
Not true. I just extended mine to 71, which is the max it can be (streaks were released as a feature 71 weeks ago).
Streaks can only go to 99 as there is no possibility for 100. No 3 digit possibility.
Hoping the France map updates took on some of my shared ideas Eric. Should I expect royalty cheques in the mail ??? Lol
https://zwiftinsider.com/french-revolution/
I think you’ll see just a bit of what you suggested…
Yes Stu, you knew it would be great!
Wow. Thats alot. Thanks Eric
a home run from Zwift – these are all great additions! Shame they didn’t bring in outdoor rides counting for the streak a week ago – just lost quite a long one whilst on holiday (and I did ride almost every day!)
The integration of outdoor rides has a lot of potential actually & I can see why they’re doing it, ultimately to lure people away from paying for a service such as Strava or Garmin Connect as well as or instead of Zwift.
Have to say though I lost interest in XPs/levels long ago as no future unlocks interest me at all, so whilst it’s nice to be able to continue racking up XP in the outdoor season – I would MUCH prefer if it were Drops… then I might have a nice shiny new Halo bike waiting for me when I come back to Zwift properly in the winter!! Any chance of that happening do you think?!
The adjustable cranks are going to make a few people happy as well!
Maybe we get lucky and they import and count outdoor rides from this week when the feature goes live on Tuesday.
Otherwise I’m in the same boat as you and have a pretty long streak snapped because I’ve been traveling since last weekend.
You need to update the zwift ride fork to be abble to attach a grade simulator like kickr climb or elite rizer
Well, I won’t be doing that anytime soon… 😜
Yet to do Ven Top but I only have 12 badges to go for full completion so it’s on my soon-to-do list. More routes so I’ll smash those out ASAP 😁
I’m quite happy that they are going to expand the france map … and I keep my fingers crossed that the missing two (or three if you count gravel in) routes to the top of Mont Ventoux are added
Good news more roads, but… The most requested thing for the HUD I think you will find is a draft indicator as in sauce etc. this is the main thing that is needed, but a step in the right direction at last.
Most requested by who? the draft indicator is nothing more than a random number generator. I tested once and it would regularly say I was drafting well over 100% which is of course nonsense.
Remember just because you value an update doesn’t mean other do.
You didn’t understand the number. Regardless, it’s now been changed to show W savings in the draft and works very consistently.
This value is even worse when I looked at that as you could save hundreds of watts which would be more than you’d need to ride without any draft.
All you can take from it is if the number is low you aren’t drafting enough and if it’s high you are in the draft. It’s nothing to do with watts.
I asked the Juice guy via Patreon the following: “The main benefit of this product is to review/improve your drafting. How does this product compute the savings? I’ve completed a couple of rides with my brother. When sat on the wheel it states that I am saving 60 watts. If I drop less than 20 than the lead rider then I fall out of the draft. The savings it suggests are therefore appear to be pure fiction.”
he replied: “It’s definitely fiction, hahaha. That number comes directly from Zwift’s game engine and it’s solely based on their gamified “physics” algo so its usage and origination are a black box to me. I’ve read through the assembly code a bit to try and infer how it is generated but it’s beyond me without access to the original C++ source of the game. However it works though, big number are good numbers, so when I use it, i just try to make it “big” given the context of where I’m riding. I.e. if I’m in a big group on the flats it might hover around 100 to 200 and I do my best to position such that it stays as high as possible.”
Agreed. Couldn’t care less about drafting indicator.
TIL: No really exiting route updates are coming 🙁
Will outdoor rides with a power meter contribute to zFTP and zFMAP scores which determines our Cat on zwift?
I don’t THINK so. But I’ll ask.
Let’s hope so, increases my chances of becoming cat A
any hopes of swimming being included at least for the CTL training score?
if you have a Garmin device just let Garmin track all the different activity types for you like it currently does including Zwift.
You may be suprised that some of us already do. We know there is life outside of Zwift…
Doubt it, since running isn’t even included yet.
Is the outdoor experience expected to apply to running?
I think Zwift has forsaken us runners…
Not yet.
If they do, I hope it’s more than just for Garmin users.
Looks like another font change too!
Exciting times to be a Zwifter! Loads of potential in many of these updates.
Hi @Eric Schlange ,
do we know what the requirements for outdoor riding will be? I assume those will be announced latest before summer.
I will be out for 2x 2 weeks, so it would be cool not to loose my Scotty and also collect some XP, I hope there will be no big hardware investment required (since I cycle indoors for most of the year).
Thanks.
We’re really being treated by zwift lately, loads of cool stuff and the sun starting to come out in the UK, what a nice dilemma.
Lots to get excited about here! I really like how Zwift plans to make the training score metric something easy to understand. And evolving the Companion app to include outdoor rides is wonderful.
This is just a direct copy of TrainingPeaks TSS (CTL vs ATL vs TSB). It’s not new or novel in the slightest.
Right. I didn’t see people claiming this was new/novel. 😜
It’s nice that Zwift has decided to keep up with useful items/concepts introduced from other places.
I’m thinking about getting a temperature sensor now. A few places started using it, but now it seems to grown past “critical mass” so I may as well get one now.
So, STILL, no “Draft” gauge info for the HUD then? Literally the most requested and wanted item by about 99% of racers on Zwift for about a decade now, and which the one-man programming team behind “Sauce for Zwift” managed to add in along with about a million other customisable items which Zwift doesn’t offer in their so-called ‘customisable HUD’…where’s the facepalm emoji!
Where on earth did you get the 99% figure from. It’s probably a few people who want it and I doubt it’s even the vast majority. Plus when you take into account that it the minority of people who actually race this is a low level requirement so no wonder ZWift have on interest in it.
It’s also available in other places
I don’t get this. Draft is not something you could measure in real life with a bike computer, so why would it be part of the HUD? Just because it’s a value calculated within the software simulation doesn’t mean we are entitled to see it at all times.
It’s something you can feel IRL. Is there an equivalent in game? I’m genuinely not sure. If not, displaying a number for it would be pretty reasonable.
I don’t think this is necessarily a good argument.
In real life, you don’t have the power numbers and Watts/kg for the other people in a race. You also cannot go watch the race from their point of view while you are racing.
Zwift is a game, and not real life. Sure, you can guess how much you are drafting based on your power and the power of the person you are drafting to see how much you are saving (also not available in real life), but when people are trying to optimize, a gauge is better (particularly since it is available in sauce).
Much more than the draft gauge, I’d like the elevation profile thing that pops up on climbs to be always available but able to move it where I want (down on the bottom of the screen with the effort graph).
This is the thing I miss in zwift, a large full screen elevation profile would be top of my wish list, currently use Sauce for this.
I wish I knew how to configure sauce for this (also wish there were a way to get my “bike computer” display on sauce to show my virtual gear. Since getting virtual gearing, I’ve been using the Zwift HUD more than the Sauce display that I had set up. I really like the Sauce elevation profile better than Zwift’s and would love to be able to have that on the bottom of my screen without the map part, just the elevation profile blown up and showing where the other riders are on it.
+1000
The elevation profile in the little map is awful. You have a sense of where big climbs are and the current grade, but it is REALLY hard to see the upcoming grade (e.g. will the next hill be 3% or 7%, I cannot tell from the very slightly changing image by the current grade).
I found it super frustrating that they added the option to turn off the elevation profile for climbs and to change the sensitivity for it to come on, but they didn’t add the option of having it always on).
Also, it only ever comes up on the uphill. It is useful to see how steep the next downhill will be!
Pedal games is your answer.
Do we know if the miles outside will count towards bike upgrades/halo bikes?
Fantastic update overall, I’m stoked.
You won’t be riding a Zwift bike so no it won’t count unfortunately
Due to something DC Rainmaker said. No. Zwift fears the chances of cheating so the indoor upgrades are only counted with indoor acitivities.
Will be a bit hard to check if you are on the correct Frame I am afraid.
These updates sound great, especially to the Companion app. @eric, would you guess that Zwift would move the garage and achievements to the Companion app next? That would make it a more complete experience.
I haven’t heard them mention doing that, although they do seem to be moving lots of functionality to Companion.
Ah so “Ven-10” is 10km (or roughly half way up) Ven-top. Not as completely hideous as I feared! Given Ventoux is such a pig it probably makes it a bit more accessible to have the three finish options: Ven-10 is 50% at about 2500ft, Chalet Reynard about 75% and 3600ft, and the full thing at 4800ft. I saw a screenshot with 9 new routes in total, so must be a reasonably chunky amount of new road.
Number of new routes doesn’t mean much. How many did they add with the Jarvis addition? A route that only goes half way up Ventoux requires zero new roads.
True, although because Watopia is so big it’s easier to add lots of new routes for a small amount of new road by linking it to different bits of Watopia. There aren’t necessarily so many options in a currently smaller world like France – we are basically doubling the number of routes in one go here (although yes, as you point out, the first one is just existing roads + a little turnaround).
I just want to have that controllable hud when I’m doing a workout. There’s no reason it has to go away. I want to be able to see KJ.
My 2 Cents about the splits function:
I think it’s a great feature but looking at the screenshot with laps and CP i think that the display is gettin too crowded. I’d like some tweaks avaiable for positioning or font dimension in screen settings.
Will new Zwift Rides going forward be equipped with the multiple crank length feature at no charge or will they be considered an “option” and have an additional charge?
The latter. In chatting with Zwift, it sounds like they thing the best option for most riders is a more affordable Ride with 170mm cranks, while those who want length options can buy the upgrade.
What if you do a training on another virtual platform like mywhoosh or KinoMap. Can it be setup to be imported to Zwift also.. Like the outdoor? I mean using a garmin wont track the distance, but the platforms will send data to strava.
It only imports from Wahoo and Garmin. Whether non-Zwift virtual activities that pop into Wahoo or Garmin will show up in Companion… I’m not sure! But someone needs to test it. 😂
Only if you saved the. As non virtual rides.
Honest question, when are they going to combine the France and Paris worlds? Seems silly that they are separate
True
100%! At least a connector road so you could include a Paris loop in RGV.
A connection between France and Watopia would be cool too, imagine a route line the four horsemen but with an additional climb finishing up Ventoux KOM, that would be so awesome (I know Ventoux and Alpe d’Huez are quite far irl)
Could someone verify that extending one’s weekly streak via outdoor ride will still earn the associated XP bonus?
I wish they would let me move the mini map to the top left and the info display to the top right
Yes this! I’d rather have a big display of the elevation.
A creaky dark shed attached to the garage to house our outdated bikes would be nice. Make it a challenge with upgradeable features. That would be fun.
Does this mean we can hide the leaderboards ? Since the new screens on the left will conflict with that.
great to see that Zwift is realising value in its and other platform data, may be the only platform I need to pay for one day. Almost everyone on Zwift is motivated by achievement and data etc. After the car crash Garmin Connect+ news this is a breathe of fresh air and a great PR win. Hardware companies – stick to Hardware !!
Hi Eric, Do you know if Zwift will ingest our GPS data when connecting to our outdoor ride data? From a privacy perspective, this could be problematic for many users without the correct safeguards. I’m happy to display to others what routes I take in Watopia, but not in real life.
Not sure… at this point no GPS data is visible in Companion. But I’m not sure if that may change in the future. My guess is that Zwift will be very mindful of privacy concerns…
I’m stoked on outdoor rides counting. And if I understand, it will also count for XP? If so, how will Zwift prevent accidental car rides from counting? Or XP farming by doing it intentionally?
[pulls out soapbox] once again if my insurance app can tell the difference between a bike ride and a car drive, zwift, strava, etc should be able to do the reverse. [stows soapbox]
All in all, happy to see more significant improvements on Zwift. Suddenly all the haters and complainers are very quiet!
I think for the start there will be a daily cap for XP due to outside riding.
200km/1000XP
5xp per outside km, 1000xp daily limit.
Thanks (all) for the replies! I see that now. I think that’s a solid compromise and way to stop farming/cheating for XP!
BTW: Cauberg, Oude Kwaremont, Cote de la Redoute are in Belgium!!!!!, and not in France 😉
Cauberg is in The Netherlands.
Who said those are in France?
These are great set of upcoming updates imo!
hopefully these updates keep coming and I can ditch Strava.
keep up the good work Zwift
Will the routes be available for event organizers to use immediately, or will they have to wait a month?
Where is this “outdoors”? Is that going to be a whole new map or an expansion to one of the existing ones?
Does Zwift COG works in this “outdoors”
1 week old Zwift rider, don’t know if I’m excited or terrified, but hey, my legs couldn’t get any more sore could they.
Could they?
Welcome! And yes, they could.
All good, a work in progress. I’m sure that there will be tweaks. Kudos for Zwift for expanding the the interest in data.
I. Want. A. Velodrome!
Maybe they’ll put one at the end of the cobbles…
Does outside rides contribute to keeping the streaks going? It is summer after all somewhere 🙂
Yes, starting next week (April 8, I think.)
It’s not currently summer anywhere on this planet. Spring in the northern hemisphere, Fall in the southern.
Zwift is an indoor game.
Outdoor riding earns more XP.
What am I missing here!?
I think you’re missing that most Zwifters are cyclists more than they are gamers.
20 xp per km indoor, 5 outdoor?
Here is an interesting scenario of usage:
IRL ride with cell phone in the pocket running Zwift with a connection to Zwift (power pedals, cadence or what ever one has), and in the same time IRL ride recording through Garmin watch or Edge device.
Now the questions:
When the ride is done, one already got the XP, drops, and upgrades for the bike (km, time, or climbing meters), since during IRL Zwift was used. Will it double also the XP for the IRL ride after uploading the data from Garmin watch or Edge device?
Is it considered a cheat if someone drives up all the way to Alp d’Huez in his car, and rides down while Zwift is running on his phone..
What if he’ll do it for 10h non stop during his Saturday day off?… (or any other real life climb …)
..you never know how those primates will use the soft..lol…
Pffff
Recording on zwift while riding (non-stationary) outdoors…
Do many people do this?
Double counting with the new feature, downhill or otherwise, would obviously be a kind if a cheat, right?
Well, will find out this summer, since previously, before the bike upgrade, there weren’t a lot of incentives to run Zwift while IRL. With the bike upgrades…will see.
Curious, how Zwift will deal if there’ll be a higher number of paying clients during the summer, but an important percentage of them will run Zwift while IRL.
Will it be considered as a cheat?
… personally, I think Zwift should go purely with kJ amount inside Zwift game, and that amount could be used to upgrade bikes — very simple,and no headache with distance, time, elevation.
The only people those cheaters are cheating are themselves. Geez, if they want to cheat, let them. It does not affect you in the slightest.
I am yet to understand how a better in-game bike could benefit me if I do not cycle.
This becomes a problem if you care about the training metrics. I record with my Garmin on the trainer, so every ride goes to zwift, and garmin, then zwift pulls the ride back into zwift from garmin. If I don’t delete them it doubles my distance and messes with the training metrics.
Looks like it’s time to move to Roovy! So sick of the stupid add-ons. This is really the last straw. Zwift has spent so much time and money on this “bike upgrade” program and it’s nonsense. All I want is new roads to explore, REAL roads, not the bs psychedelic fake climbs. All that time and money spent and we get a small road in France. I’m out!!
You sound like someone yelling at a McDonald’s employee that they want a whopper.
There are various other platforms out there where you can ride “REAL roads”. If you don’t want the gamification there’s no real reason to use Zwift?
Bye bye driver.
Is the ability to dual record coming? That’s the only way I would connect my power pedals (to use the r/l balance display) rather than my trainer for power.
No this is a feature they need to add. Why not be able to record two power sources at the same time. So silly to have to download the file and then upload to zwift power for third party platform for verification.
That’s especially true now that your outdoor rides on your garmin will upload into your account. Dual recording using your bike computer will now create duplicate mileage that wouldn’t be necessary if they would just do native dual record. Not that I’m fast enough to need dual recording for race verification, but I can dream.
Do the cobbled roads actually nerf anything (like gravel) or are they just aesthetic?
Bikes roll slower on cobbles than tarmac in Zwift. See https://zwiftinsider.com/crr/
I’m pleased to hear that outdoors cycling activities will now count for XP. I have been a seasonal Zwifter from the very beginning of my subscription, and not planning on changing that modus operandi even though Zwift has tried a lot of different things to try and keep me engaged on the platform regardless of whether I can ride IRL or not. For someone like me who is a veteran user (since 2017) and prefers to ride outdoors, this is good because after having the goal posts for the maximum amount of levels moved three times, each change having been made after I was within 2 to 3 levels of reaching the max, it alleviates my worries that they will do that again, and all the time I’m outdoors not on Zwift leaving earned XP on the table during the nicer weather! Also being able to keep my streak alive without having to use the platform at least once a week. The question I have is will the weekly streak +500 XP bonus still be in effect if all you do is outdoor cycling?
Eric – Question what are the silver boxes in front of the of the Zwift Bikes in the Zwift set ups?
Love these new additions. Great work Zwift!
The one thing I want from Zwift still isn’t there, more than one rider on a subscription, I only have one trainer that my lad users occasionally, but not enough to warrant a second subscription.
The new routes just dropped and I’ve updated my companion app but can’t add the routes to “My List”. Anyone else having the same issue?
It’s happened a couple of times recently with new routes.Usually gets sorted in a couple of days.Check the forum to see if it has been mentioned.
It’s working now.
Love the new France additions and all the new options they add. Great visuals too. Thanks Zwift.
I have to ask. Does the pocket Scotty cause any wind drag?