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. This is especially true for courses that include significant amounts of dirt road, because Zwift’s gravel bikes perform much better than road bikes on dirt!

Charts last updated April 10, 2026

Gravel Frame Tarmac Performance

We begin with a simple chart showing how much time each gravel frame with the basic Zwift Gravel wheels will cost you compared to the stock Zwift Carbon frame with 32mm Carbon wheels across 1 hour of riding at 300W (4 W/kg) on tarmac.

A few helpful notes:

• These are “stage 0” frames, meaning no performance upgrades have been applied.
• Relative performance on tarmac is the same as relative performance on dirt. That is, if a gravel frame is faster than another gravel frame in these tarmac tests, it will be faster on dirt as well.
• The times below are all negative because all gravel frame+wheel combos are much slower on tarmac than even the most basic road bikes. The faster your gravel frame, the less time you’ll lose.
• Mouse over the bars for specific data. These numbers show how many seconds each particular gravel frame loses compared to the basic road setup. They also let you compare one gravel frame to another. For example, in our flat test, the Cannondale SuperX LAB71 loses 112.4 seconds, while the Lauf True Grit loses 148.7 seconds. That means the Cannondale is 36.3 seconds faster than the Lauf across an hour of flat tarmac.
• The chart is sorted from the best-performing frames to the worst, and you can sort based on flat performance or climb performance.

Takeaways

The most obvious takeaway is that gravel setups are much slower on tarmac than road setups. Even the most aero gravel bike still loses 109.1 seconds to a basic road bike, and the best climbing gravel bike loses 118.7 seconds across an hour of climbing.

Comparing gravel frames to gravel frames, you can see that the latest additions to Zwift’s Drop Shop are the clear top performers in the flat test, taking the top 4 spots. The climb test is a bit mixed, with the super light Specialized Crux in second place and the Canyon Grail essentially tied with the new Grail SLX. But apart from those two frames, the other top 4 spots go to the new gravel frames.

Gravel Frame Performance, Stacked

This chart uses the same data as above, but combines the flat and climb times, sorting by their sum, so frames are ranked based on total time cost across both tests. This chart lets you easily see the best all-around performers, and whether their performance leans to the aero or climbing side.

Takeaways

Nothing too earth-shattering here… four of the top five slots go to the newest bunch of gravel frames, with the Cannondale SuperX LAB71 delivering the best all-around performance.

Gravel Wheels Tarmac Performance

Like the frame chart above, this simple chart shows how much time a particular gravel wheelset (paired with the Zwift Gravel frame) will cost you across 1 hour of riding at 300W (4 W/kg) on tarmac compared to the stock Zwift Carbon road setup.

On Zwift, all gravel wheels are much slower on tarmac than even the most basic road wheels. So the numbers below are all negative, meaning you’re losing time to the stock road setup. The faster your wheels, the less time you’ll lose.

The chart is sorted from the best-performing wheels to the worst, and you can sort based on flat performance or climb performance.

Takeaways

On the flats, the two newest gravel wheelsets are tied at the top of the podium, while all the other wheelsets are ~13 seconds slower.

In terms of climb performance, you can see there isn’t much variation from the fastest to slowest wheels. Still, the two newest wheelsets sit atop the chart, while all the older wheelsets turn in essentially the same time, apart from the Zwift Gravel being just a touch slower.

The simple takeaway here is: use the Roval Terra Aero CLX or Zipp 303 XPLR SW wheels.

Jungle Performance – Gravel Frames + Wheels

What about performance in the dirt, where gravel bikes really shine?

Here are two simple charts showing how each gravel frame and wheelset performs in the Jungle. This clearly shows which frames and wheels perform best in the dirt.

Gravel Frames

Time savings vs Zwift Carbon Frame + 32mm Carbon Wheels across 1 hour of Jungle Circuit riding at 300W (4 W/kg). All tests used the Zwift Gravel wheels.

Gravel Wheels

Time savings vs Zwift Carbon Frame + 32mm Carbon Wheels across 1 hour of Jungle Circuit riding at 300W (4 W/kg). All tests used the Zwift Gravel frame.

Takeaways

The first thing to notice is that gravel setups are much faster than road setups on Zwift dirt. More on this below in the “Jungle Top Performer Shootout” chart, but you can broadly estimate that road bikes lose time to gravel bikes in the dirt at twice the rate that gravel bikes lose time to road bikes on tarmac. This is useful information when racing on routes that include both tarmac and dirt surfaces.

The overall ranking of the gravel frames isn’t surprising, with the four newest racing frames taking the top four slots. The same goes for the wheels – while it may look like the two new wheelsets (Roval Terra Aero CLX and Zipp ZIPP 303 XPLR SW) are much faster than the other wheelsets, it’s just a chart scaling trick. Their time gap in the dirt is about the same as on the tarmac.

The simple takeaways here are: buy one of the new gravel frames and new gravel wheelsets if you’re looking to race in the dirt.

Jungle Top Performer Shootout

Our final chart shows Jungle performance for top setups in Gravel, Road, TT, and MTB. People often want to know how one type of setup (eg, TT) performs vs another (eg, Gravel) in dirt, or on a mixed-surface route. There’s no way to quantify this precisely due to race dynamics (drafting) and power fluctuation, but at least the chart below shows how each type of bike broadly performs relative to the other in the Jungle.

Keep in mind the data displayed is seconds saved across an hour of riding, compared to the time of the Zwift Carbon frame paired with the 32mm Carbon wheels.

Use the toggle to see data for stage 0 frames or fully-upgraded stage 5 frames.

Takeaways

Gravel setups are the clear winner on dirt courses, beating the next contender (a TT setup) by over 2 minutes across an hour of riding when comparing stage 0 setups. Gravel bikes even come out well ahead when comparing an un-upgraded gravel bike to a fully-upgraded TT rig!

Cervelo Aspero 5 Note

Please note that all speed test data on this page for the Cervelo Aspero 5 reflects an updated (slightly lighter) version of the frame slated for release in Zwift version 1.112 on April 21. Read more about the Aspero 5 here >

Testing Methodology

The data above was generated using our standard bot testing procedures. Our bot rides alone on Zwift, set to 75kg weight, 183cm height. 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 in these charts (and much more!) can be found in our public Google sheet of test data, and/or our new public Jungle Circuit test data sheet.

Questions or comments?

We’d love to know what you think of these charts, including suggestions for improvements. Share your comments below.