Update (February 10, 2025): Zwift updated this challenge with an expiration date, saying it must be completed by February 28.
Today, Zwift launched the first of its new challenges: Cardio Crusher. These new Challenges could, perhaps, be labeled as “mini-Challenges” since they’re easier to finish than the “big” Challenges (Tour Italy, Ride California, and Climb Mt Everest).
You can work toward one Mini Challenge while also working toward one of the Big Challenges. So you may be working on accumulating elevation for the Climb Mt Everest challenge, while knocking out the workouts for Cardio Crusher.
Access Cardio Crusher from the homescreen banner, or under the “Challenges” row:
To finish the Cardio Crusher challenge, you’ll need to complete the challenge’s five workouts:
These workouts start short (“Make It Sting” is only 15 minutes long), but each workout is 10 minutes longer than the previous, meaning the final workout (“Kitchen Sink”) is 55 minutes long.
Finishing Cardio Crusher earns you some solid training, of course. But you’ll also get a bonus of 1000XP!
Hacking Your Way to Route Choice
Currently, clicking a workout from the Cardio Crusher list of five takes you straight into Watopia, to the spawn point near the desert start pens. This differs from how the game usually works, where clicking a workout takes you to a detailed view, then you’re able to select a route to ride when you begin the workout.
Zwift tells me this is intended behavior, as they wanted to reduce the number of clicks, especially for new users. Fair enough!
So if you want to choose which route to ride for these workouts, you’ll need to go about it a different way:
- First, you need to make sure you’re registered for the Challenge. That means you need to click the Cardio Crusher card from the homescreen, and click on one of the five workouts listed. Once you’ve done this, you’re “signed up” and will receive progression credit when completing the workouts in the Challenge.
- Next, instead of picking a workout from the Cardio Crusher homescreen, find the workout in the main Workouts collections. You can do this by clicking “Workouts” from the homescreen. The workouts are stored in different folders, so here’s the list to save you the time of tracking them down:
- Make It Sting: 30 minutes to burn
- Ignite: 30 minutes to burn
- Half Hour of Power: 30-60 minutes to burn
- Climb Time: Fitness Jumpstart
- The Kitchen Sink: 30-60 minutes to burn
[adinserter block=”4″]
Workout Details
Since Zwift takes you straight into the game when clicking a workout from the Cardio Crusher screen, you don’t get to see the workout’s details unless you choose the workout using the alternative method above.
If you’re like me, you like to see what you’re signing up for before you start riding. Here are screenshots of each workout, with the rider’s FTP set to 250W:
More About Mini Challenges
Zwift announced these new Mini Challenges in their “This Season on Zwift” press release last week. Cardio Crusher is the first of the new Challenges, while the second, “Route Chaser: The Grade” arrives on October 3.
Zwift tells me these new Challenges aren’t time-limited like the monthly Missions, although it’s possible that some of them may be removed from the game down the road. But for now, the idea is that a library of Mini Challenges will be built up over time, each inspiring Zwifters to build fitness by engaging the game in a particular way while earning an XP bonus.
Questions or Comments?
What do you think of the Mini Challenge concept? Got any ideas for more Mini Challenges? Share below!
Logged into Zwift with my iPad. Not on trainer. (Actually, laying in bed, lol.) Clicked on card and first workout to register. Took me straight to ride as though I was on my bike and smart trainer.
BTW, does the same thing if you click on the big banner, instead of the small card, and then clicking on a workout goes straight to ride–even without a trainer connected.
You don’t have to have a trainer connected to start a ride. Your avatar is just sitting on the bike on the side of the road, waiting for you to connect your trainer.
OK, never noticed that before. But it seems that the description is wrong then about registering in order to choose a location for the workout.
It’s not wrong. You need to have an account (either trial or abo) to be able to take part in this challenge, and yes you will automatically start if you click on the card but your avatar will be waiting on the side of the road until your engine is plugged and you start pedaling. The implementation here is great, because until you take a few revolutions to get the things going, the timer will not start.
😂
I like the idea of making it the same time commitment for everyone to do the challenge instead of mile-based.
The latter is always either to hard for beginners or too easy for experienced riders who can roll with the A Pacer on Tempus Fugit.
Given how short some of these are, can you do multiple workouts in the same activity and have it count?
Yes just did the 45+15min workouts back to back in the same activity.
They are quite difficult to find though, if you’re accessing them from the E key in a ride.
Here are the collections they’re in:
• Make it Sting (30 minutes to burn)
• Ignite (30 minutes to burn)
• Half Hour of Power (30-60 minutes to burn)
• Climb Time (Fitness Jumpstart)
• The Kitchen Sink (30-60 minutes to burn)
Not sure why ‘Climb Time’ isn’t in the climbing collection?
Kitchen sink, seems allot easier than the Sufferfest version 😉
I just completed the kitchen sink. It was tough, especially the two 5-min efforts with little recovery between.
Here is my advice as a coach: never do intervals that are not specifically tailored to your current fitness and goals. And steer clear of any structured training from folks who do not really understand metabolic principles.
Why? Will your legs fall off?
We’re not pro athletes. It really makes little or no difference if the riding we do is specifically tailored to us or not. Maybe you can convince a celeb they need to pay a personal trainer or coach to help them figure out how to do a bit of exercise each week.
But we no more need a cycling coach than we need a chef to make sure we’re eating properly or a lifestyle coach helping us select what to wear for maximum impact in the office.
It’s just a way of making an hour or 2 of exercise a bit more fun and less tedious.
i tend to agree with you. This challenge seems aimed at those that are new or don’t ride that much. Looking at these workouts, I don’t really see any that align with my goals right now and would be a waste of time for me. Others might find it good for them.
Manually lower your FTP 20% (or more) and do all 5 of them back to back in less than 3 hours if you just want to complete the challenge.
I totally see your point! The emphasis should really be on the quality of our workouts rather than just doing any random exercises. This is particularly true for those of us who struggle to find enough time to work out.
This is good advice for people who are *training*. For people who are *exercising*, it really doesn’t matter that much.
Here is my advice as someone who finds boring people like you insufferable: Keep your opinions to yourself and bore off!
Additional hack to getting route choice is to add the workouts to My List in the Companion App. That way you can do them all at once and not have to fiddle around in the UI finding them before each ride, which is particularly painful on Apple TV
But how to start workout from companion app?
You can’t start any Zwift activity from Companion, really. You do that in game.
So what is the benefit adding it in to My List?
That way the workouts show up on your homescreen so you can easily click ’em and go in game.
I added the first two workouts to My List. Then from the home screen, selected the first workout then chose the world/route and completed the workout. Then, back at the home screen, selected the second workout , chose the world/route and completed the second workout. Then back at the home screen, the cardio crusher challenge said that I hadn’t completed any of the workouts.
Does this mean that you have to select the workout from the cardio crusher challenge screen to get it to count?
I notice that I had already completed the climb time workout earlier this year, but the fact that I’d already done it doesn’t seem to count either.
You have to click into the Cardio Crusher challenge homepage and choose one of the workouts in order to register for the challenge… as noted in the post.
Add colors so we can change the color of our shoes lol
Supposedly the challenge earns XP after all five workouts complete. Anyone know how much XP?
1000XP, as noted above. 😁
Hi there!
Many thanks for your work.
I just did the Ignite workout and picked it just the way you described in the ‘Hacking Your Way to Route Choice‘ part, including activating the challenge before. However, for me it did not count towards the cardio crusher challenge.
Appreciate any idea on how to fix this!
Same here Max. Followed the steps for “Make it Sting” and Cardio Crusher still says 0/5. Anyone know if it takes extra time to sync?
I’m wondering if there’s something more to “activating” the challenge than described, like maybe having to select the workout then end and save the ride even if 0 time/distance, as opposed to ending and trashing? Or maybe you need to activate and complete a km or two?
I tried the route hack again and it worked – counted toward the Cardio Crusher challenge.
Same for me! 😀
Did it one more time using the route hacking method and this time it also counted towards the Cardio Crusher challenge for me.
Have fun completing the challenge!
Mine worked fine doing it the hacking route. However, what a pain that they have set it up this way so you can’t choose a route. I almost thought initially they had chosen a route automatically to mimic the workout..
How many xp for completion?
1000
Firstly, I am all pro wrt new challenges. However, the intent of “making it easier with fewer clicks” feels like removing control and functionality rather than making it easier to get going. Reading some of the other comments here seems to confirm that it is not “only me”. What about 2 buttons?
Then both categories of riders are catered for without compromising functionality. =)
So I tried something different today and scheduled a club group workout choosing Climb Time. Apparently that’s not the same as required by the challenge. Just 40min and 4 climbs instead of 45min and 5 climbs. So it did not count – bummer …
Is there a completion badge?
No.
Huge fan of cardio crusher
Completed the 4th workout in the Cardio Crusher series today, and saw that there’s now a deadline for completing all the workouts to earn the XP bonus (Feb 28). Looked at the other original mini-challenges and found that they all now have the same deadline and a label saying “Leaving soon” on their home screen banners. Was this announced somewhere?
Do you need to click back into the challenge box once completed to get the bonus XP or does it get applied when you finish the last ride /workout of the challenge automatically? Just noticed a bonus XP bug appear when I randomly clicked into a completed challenge box the other day even though I completed it months ago. If so there might be riders missing out on bonus XP with the challenges expiring soon.
@Eric Schlange -is there more expiring dates in other challengues?