Your chosen bike frame and wheelset both affect speed in Zwift, so it makes sense for racers to do a little research and choose the best tool for the job.
While Zwift’s 4-star rating system for weight and aero is simple and easy to understand, performance varies even among frames with the same star ratings, because the stars are just an approximation. On top of that, Zwift’s addition of bike upgrades means racers need to take into account how a frame will perform when fully upgraded, not only when it’s first purchased.
Therefore, we’ve created several charts ranking all the road bike frames based on their performance on flat roads and climbs, in un-upgraded and fully-upgraded states.
If you’re just looking for recommendations on what to buy, here are some helpful posts:
Table of Contents
Charts last updated May 22, 2025
Time Savings Over 1 Hour (Stage 0 Frames)
We begin with a simple chart showing how much time a particular frame will save you across 1 hour of riding at 300W (4 W/kg) compared to the stock Zwift Carbon frame. These are “stage 0” frames, meaning no performance upgrades have been applied.
The chart is sorted from the best-performing frames to the worst, and you can sort based on flat performance or climb performance.
Sort Chart By:
Takeaways
When sorted by flat performance, you can easily see that the top 10 frames are very close on flat ground, separated by less than 3 seconds across an hour. There is also a big chunk of bikes near the low end (26 of them, in fact) which are all rather slow on flats, but perform within 2 seconds of each other. Our guess is they all have the same frame CdA value in Zwift, and any time differences are due to frame weight variation.
If you sort by climb performance, the speed falloff from one bike to the next is more even across the board. The S-Works Tarmac SL8 is king of the hill, but remember, this is before any performance upgrades. Let’s move on to the next chart to see which fully-upgraded frame climbs fastest!
Time Savings Over 1 Hour (Stage 5 Frames)
This chart is just like the one above, except these are “stage 5” frames, meaning all possible performance upgrades have been applied.
Read all about Bike Upgrades here >
Use the toggle to sort based on flat performance or climb performance.
Sort Chart By:
Takeaways
We don’t see any major rankings changes in terms of flat performance, but that’s no surprise. The Bike Upgrades system is structured in a way that increases performance differences between different frame types as upgrades progress.
So climbing bikes become even stronger climbers, and aero bikes become even more aero.
Sort the results by Climb Performance and you can see obvious evidence of this. The all-arounder S-Works Tarmac SL8 is no longer king of the hill at stage 5, as the Aethos has received more weight reduction upgrades than the Tarmac.
The other two climbing road bikes (Bridgestone Anchor and Trek Emonda) move up dramatically in the rankings compared to their stage 0 counterparts, handily beating the S-Works Tarmac.
The takeaway? If you want a true, pure climbing weapon in Zwift, you’ll want to upgrade the S-Works Aethos.
Time Savings, Stacked (Stage 0 vs Stage 5 Frames)
Next, we have one of our favorite charts, ranking frames based on total time savings across our flat and climbing tests. This chart lets you easily see the best all-around performers, and whether their performance leans to the aero or climbing side.
Use the toggle to see data for stage 0 frames, or fully-upgraded stage 5 frames.
Show Chart For:
Takeaways
The non-climbing bikes don’t move around a lot between the stage 0 and stage 5 versions of this chart, and this makes sense, since they all receive the same upgrades.
What you do see, though, is the climbing bikes moving up the rankings by several slots for stage 5, since they gain so much time on the climbs thanks to their weight reduction upgrades.
Time Savings for Climbing (2 W/kg vs 4 W/kg)
Some readers have asked us to compute time gaps at lower power numbers, which is a perfectly reasonable request. Making this change has the interesting effect on climb times of making lightweight bikes move up the rankings while the more aero-focused bikes drop.
This is because, as you reduce your climbing speed, having an aero bike delivers less benefit.
Below we’ve charted climb time gaps for both 2 W/kg and 4 W/kg, and you can toggle between those two power levels to see how the rankings change. (The 2 W/kg time gap is compared to the Zwift Carbon frame at 2 W/kg, while the 4 W/kg time gap is compared to the Zwift Carbon frame at 4 W/kg). Times given are for stage 0 (un-upgraded) frames.
Show Chart For:
Takeaways
At 2 W/kg, the pure climber S-Works Aethos just barely outclimbs the slightly heavier (but more aero) S-Works Tarmac SL8. Bump it up to 4 W/kg, and the aero gains of the Tarmac bring it over the line ahead of the Aethos.
If you’re a lower-powered rider, this chart may help you decide to focus on lighter-weight frames for races or PR efforts where significant climbing is involved.
What About the Tron Bike?
The Tron bike (Zwift Concept 1) is not listed above because it’s impossible to test the Tron frame without also testing the Tron wheels, since they are inseparable.
What we do know is the Tron is not a strong climber, but it’s among the fastest setups for flat and rolling courses.
Here’s a post comparing the Tron bike against top-performing frames + wheel pairings >
Testing Methodology
The data above was generated using our standard bot testing procedure. Our bot rides alone on Zwift, set to 75kg weight, 183cm height, using the Zwift 32mm Carbon wheels. The aero (flat) test route is Tempus Fugit, the flattest course on Zwift, while the weight (climbing) test is done on Alpe du Zwift since it’s a long, steep, and fairly steady climb.
All of the data used by these charts comes from our public Google sheet of test data.
Questions or Comments?
We’d love to know what you think of these charts, including suggestions for improvements. Share your comments below.
wpDiscuz
