We’re coming up on 2 years since Zwift launched the popular Climb Portal feature at the end of June 2023. Since that time, the library of climbs has grown to 45, with 1-2 typically being added each month.
Riders enjoy the Climb Portal for various reasons: it’s fun to ride GPS-accurate versions of famous climbs, it’s a great way to earn extra XP, and the built-in percentile ranking gives us endless carrots to chase.
But what else could Zwift do with the Climb Portal? How could they make it more compelling? I have some ideas…
Climb Portal Choice
I’ll be the first to admit that some of the suggestions below are minor niggles – small improvements that may not move the needle on Climb Portal engagement.
But there’s one common request from Zwifters that would certainly increase engagement, and that is Climb Portal choice. Just as Zwifters have asked for years for an easy way to access “off-schedule” maps/routes, they’ve been asking for ways to access off-schedule climbs.
It’s good that Zwift features just two climbs, because you always know you’ll have company on those climbs. But climbing is a more solitary event than flattish group rides, and many riders are more interested in completing particular climbs than they are looking for a social experience. We should be able to choose any climb we’d like, from the entire growing library.
Events on Climb Portals
This is related to the suggestion above, and possibly even the easiest way for Zwift to give us Climb Portal choice. Let us create Club events or Meetups for any climb in the library!
Just as we can create Meetups and events for off-schedule maps today, I believe we should be able to create Meetups or events for any Climb Portal.
Gamified Strava Clarification
If you ride a 50% or 75% scaled version of a Portal climb, your entire activity will be tagged as “gamified” on Strava, and all Strava segment matching will be excluded. That means all Strava segments for your entire activity, not just the Climb Portal portion.
It’s good that the scaled-down efforts aren’t being added to the main Strava leaderboards for each climb, but gamifying the whole activity is rather unintuitive. While this is a Strava limitation and not something Zwift can fix, perhaps the popup text could be changed to something like “If you enter the Portal at the selected difficulty, your entire activity will be hidden from Strava Leaderboards.”
So if you want your activity to match with Strava segments, don’t mix in a scaled climb portal effort!
More Accurate Time Estimates
The details that pop up when you select a climb on the homescreen include a time estimate that says it’s the “duration for most riders”:
I see two issues with this estimate:
- It’s the same for everyone, whether you’re a 5 W/kg powerhouse or a 1 W/kg beginner. (For the record, Zwift’s calculation seems to be based on a holding around 2.5 W/kg.)
- It doesn’t change based on the scaling you choose (50%, 75%, 100%, or 125%).
With Zwift now computing personalized route time estimates, applying the same algorithms to this screen seems like a quick and easy upgrade.
Power to the Portal Fix
Zwift unveiled the Power to the Portal route in December 2024, but it seems like every event held on this route has been confusing and buggy.
The idea is a good one: an actual event route that can include whatever Climb Portal you’d like, opening up the possibility to host races on any of the Portal climbs. But in its current state you can’t see which climb is set up for the route for a given event, so you don’t really know what to expect. It’s also unclear where the finish line will be (atop the climb, or at the end of Power to the Portal, which ends in downtown Watopia?) Lastly, Zwifters report being routed to the wrong climb in some events.
Optional Pacerbots
Yes, Holoreplay works in the Climb Portal. But that only gives me a ghost of my previous efforts or the current leaderboard leader.
It would be handy if I could click a button to enable a Robopacer who rides at a steady W/kg for the duration of the climb, giving me a carrot to chase. Bonus points to Zwift if they could make the bot post motivating messages like a coach riding with me during a workout:
- “You’re holding good steady power in the sweet spot zone.”
- “Only 500 meters left. Empty the tank!”
- “Your heart rate is near your max. Are you sure you can keep this pace to the finish?”
- “You’re only 3 seconds behind your PR of 8:45. Want to push it and set a new record?”
2 Kilometer Fix
This one bit Zwift in the butt when they recently featured the Cauberg climb, which at only 800 meters long is the shortest Portal in the game. Riders were spawning in Watopia, which means you’ll reach the top of the climb in under 2km. And as any Zwift nerd knows, the minimum activity length in Zwift is 2km. If you save your ride there at less than 2km, it disappears into the ether!
I think there’s an easy fix for this: just disable the “Save” button and show a warning when you try to save an activity that is less than 2km long. Something like: “Warning: your ride is less than 2km long, and cannot be saved. Please go a bit further if you want to save your activity.”
(It’s a bit baffling, actually, that we’re 10+ years into Zwift’s existence and still able to hit “Save” on a ride that is under 2km and won’t be saved.)
More Useful Maps
The climb profile and overhead views only show nearby portions of the climb – basically about as much road as you can see on the main screen:
This really isn’t terribly useful. In fact, if you look closely, you’ll see that half of what is shown is the portion of the climb I’ve already ridden!
I’d like to see the full climb profile (much like we now have full route profiles) in the minimap, and perhaps a clickable/zoomable overhead map view so I can zoom out if I’d like.
Heroic Unlock
Climb Portal scaling is a cool feature, allowing you to ride the climbs at 50%, 75%, 100%, or 125% of the actual gradient. It’s a handy way to modify the difficulty of a climb to suit your needs or schedule.
The 125% version is locked until you complete the 100% version. There’s one niggle, though, which really only matters on shorter climbs: after completing a Portal climb at 100% difficulty, Zwift won’t let you ride the heroic 125% level unless you quit/save your activity and start a new ride.
As one Zwifter recently told me, “Not a big deal, but a bit annoying if you’re trying to knock out multiple difficulties of a shorter climb in the same ride.”
Different Background Sounds
This one is, admittedly, a bit picky. But I find the ambient background sounds in the Portal too somber, too heavy, for my taste. Listen in below:
That said, I usually ride with Zwift sounds turned off and music or a podcast in my ears, so this isn’t a big deal.
More Portal Achievements
There are three achievement badges for Portal climbs (shown above), but why not give people a badge and even a small XP bonus the first time they complete a particular climb, like we get for completing routes?
(Taking it one step further, I’d love to see smart badges that count how many times I’ve finished each climb. Wouldn’t mind this for routes, too!)
Companion Leaderboards
The Companion app shows your historic times for each leaderboard segment in Zwift. Why not add Portal climb times, so you can see your historic performance on each climb, and your percentile rank?
(Note: Zwift Insider collaborated with Veloviewer to create leaderboards for the Climb Portal.)
Enable Fan View and Teleporting
You can’t fan view or teleport to a rider who is on a Portal climb, which seems a bit silly. I can only assume this was disabled because of how the Portals were designed, but surely there’s a way to make it happen so Portals work like the rest of Zwift, letting riders find each other and ride together.
Better Preview Map/Graphics
The homescreen’s cards for the climb of the day and month are the same image with different colors. Clicking one of the cards brings up the same generic image:
It would be nice if the climbs were graphically represented individually, perhaps with a full climb profile and overhead map like you see for routes:
Got More Ideas?
These are all the good Climb Portal ideas I’ve come up with, or seen from other Zwifters. What about you? Which ideas are your favorite, and do you have other good ideas? Comment below!
Many of us are still waiting for Mount fuji, but with “real” images.
I think the whole point of the climb portal is that they can release climbs quickly without having to create the real world landscape which no doubt is the single most time consuming part (and error prone as you can see in numerous places in the world where roads don’t connect properly on intersections, there’s plants sticking through the road, one bit having and sandy edge and the next bit not, etc.)
I mean, I’d love to have real(istic) landscape everyone as it’s much more interesting, but I don’t see it happening.
R.G.V.+Portal! Similar to the “Power to the Portal” route (if it worked), I’d like to be able to program an event on R.G.V. plus my choice of portal climb. Riders simply go left at portal junction, do the chosen climb (all at 100% – no choice on group rides), come back down and head left again to complete the R.G.V. lap! As with any other loop, you should be able to program this by time, distance or number of laps. Call it R.G.P. – Route Grand Portail.
I want an achievement list just like the routes. A clear way to see what you have completed and at what grade.
I would like to see the start entry portal to climbs that have a attachment to an established country or region in Zwift (France, Germany, Italy, etc.) actually associated directly with the region. For example the the Puy de Dome or Col du Galibier would directly associate with the portal entry in France, Mt Fuji would start in Makuri Island, Poggio and Passo dello Stelvio, the Italian Village, etc. If the climb does not have a direct regional connection it can start in the Watopia portal entry.
I don’t see why the descent is always blue, even if it has uphill sections. Why not use the same color scale as on the ascent?
I want the stars to change back to numbers on the descent, so you can have an idea of how much descent is left. The Alpe does that, if I recall correctly.
Longer climbs get really boring on the descent and knowing how much more is left would be nice.
This would be my favourite improvement.
Solid idea!
Or the gradient colors to change as well instead of just being dark blue the whole way down, even if you hit a few positive grads.
Not sure the teleporting function is a good idea for climb portals, it seems like it could lead to even more opportunities for bike leveling exploits like we’ve been seeing.
In the workouts section, cadence is never given in the workout description so you never really know what to expect.
I like that the Portals have signs on Routes to identify them, but there could be more signs.
I’d also like to see the Route Mapping + signage improved, for planning & while riding.
I sometimes ad-lib after finishing a shorter route, and it would help to plan where I’m going, if I want to go another 5-miles, and my options. Minimizes mistakes of turning, and ending up on Ventoux, or other climbs with no options. I think that helps turn shorter Routes into stepping stones, and getting more use. ML
The leaderboard is different for the same climb if it starts in a different world making it tricky to compare efforts
If you look them up in Veloviewer (Climb Portal leaderboard) they’re merged.
When you do the segments in WKO5, you need to do 1 per world, since they don’t share coordinates.
I know. Regardless of whether you look in Strava or WKO5, it is “tricky” to compare easily. But in VeloViewer, the leaderboard for each segment has been merged for the two worlds. It helps for comparison to others, tracking your PR, or checking which of the portal climbs you have completed, but it may not help you if you only want to compare your own multiple efforts on one climb.
Now that I’ve experienced it in real life, I’d love to do Sa Colabra on demand via Zwift.
In fact, it would have been much more useful to have done it on Zwift before doing it In Real Life…🙄
I’ve asked for many Mallorca climbs to be added too Leo. Eric says Sa Colobra is already in Zwift, but it has some bugs. Let’s hope the Zwift folk fix em soon.
Yes, fix Calobra. It’s been broken for a long time now. Same with Stelvio.
The biggest one for me would be the ability to load-up any of the climbs whenever. I’m always scanning a calendar to catch the few I missed and then hoping their availability lines up with my training schedule.
How about a few pictures from the real-life climb along the way? Would go a long way toward making them feel a bit more like the real climb.
On demand hill climb races. Start the activity from the game’s home screen. Get dropped at the foot of the climb portal, no draft, no power ups, and your time counts towards a monthly GC. Could even have them for different scales versions. Nearly everything is already in place for this.
Minor one: Portal sections panel should stay visible right until the final gate. It’s not too bad on short climbs, but on longer ones, I’d like it there until my business with the climb is concluded.
What about changing the chance is getting 250 xp bonuses when riding the steeper option? e.g. picking 100% increases your chances more than when picking 50%
I feel seen…having had Eric point out the other day that I’d fallen foul of the gamified Strava segment on a recent ride of Norton Hill…which wouldn’t be a big deal if I could just pick it like any other route!
In my case, I did the climb at 100%, descended then went up a 2md time in the same ride at 75%, thereby triggering the gamified status on the whole activity. D’oh!
Having the ability to select the route to ride anytime would be my number 1 ask… That Veloviewer leaderboard isn’t going to complete itself! 🙂
In real life climbs like Oude Kwaremont are much harder because they are cobbled. Can have cobbles on the portal?
i like to use the portals for my work outs, so i would like the ability to have more choices depending on if i am doing lets say 20 min repeats or 5 min repeats, or a 45 min sustained effort.
Great Post as always Eric. Just one tiny concern if the climb of your choice was accessible on demand. Wouldn’t it be a risk if you could ride Cauberg all the time, thus levelling up at an accelerated pace thanks to xp bonus points? Don’t get me wrong, I’d love it, but seeing the results, I’d likely do nothing else.
Yeah, Zwift may need to figure out a way to stop that from happening. I think the win of letting people choose climbs of their choice would be worth the “cost” of figuring it out. Lots of ways the problem could be solved.
Honestly I don’t see the point in people levelling fast. There’s no bikes/wheels that unlock beyond level 40 and the level doesn’t give any other benefits, does it?
Climb choice would be the main one, and personally would prefer generic scenery to the current colours/trippy scenery. Can’t bring myself to look at that for a 15km+ climb.
Landscape!
There are some rides with epic views out there, I’d really appreciate a less surreal look!
I like more portal achievements, Maybe a missiion badge, one portal a week type of thing. I do like the idea of real imagery.
Badges! We want badges!I’d do them all in a weekend if we had badges 😜
People are asking for real life climbs, but why restrict them to World Famous climbs based on UCI races. Add in places that people travel to and ride. A great example is Mount Lemmon, located in Southern Arizona. Team ODZ did an excellent job of incorporating this ride into Road Grand Tours (RGT) and it was somewhat close to the actual ride. Maybe more non-race climbs from around the world might see more use of the Portal as well.
On Fondo weekends, FONDO PORTAL! Mauna Kea, Mount Wuling, El Crucero, etc. A jersey for completing would be a nice flex. Some amazing Everesting opportunities as well!
Is there a way to set my view to, say, first-person, instead of having to go in and change it every ride?
Need to be able to teleport back to the start after making it to the top. Sometimes I like to rep the shorter climbs when I am time limited and waiting to roll back down is a waste of time sometimes.
A bit extreme… wha
Oops sorry. I was going to ask for Everest so we can attempt the badge without going up and down 9 times on the Alpe
I’d like to be able to do a playlist, or in other words, combine climbs in one ride. For example:
Climb 1 up and then down the Peyresourde, then exit the Portal and turn back around for Climb 2 which could be the Galibier or the Aspin.
Could lead to some epic rides and weird combinations.
Oooh, that’s a fun idea. It would make for some wild Strava activity maps too! Would be really cool to, say, ride all the climbs from one country in one go…
Could be some great achievements or badges linked to climbing all the French climbs in one ride, or for climbing 3/5/10 climbs in one go…
Absolutely love that idea! One of the classics of the Tour is the sequence of Peyresourde, Aspin and Tourmalet back to back, all of which already exist on the portal. I actually think they do it this year, so a special event like that would be so relevant!
And there are more “realistic” combinations that could be done (Cipressa-Poggio, Redoute-Rosier, etc…). And that’s before we even get into crazier and exciting possible combinations.
Love the realistic combo idea!
BikeTerra.com is a web-based game built by a very small team and features terrain rendering including simple rendering of buildings, bodies of water, bridges, and tunnels. I personally find it far preferable to Strava’s surreal rainbow-themed climb portal rendering (it’s web-based, so if you have a bluetooth-connected trainer, you can try it out on any bluetooth-enabled browser, but optimally chrome-based). Surely Zwift’s huge developer team could efficiently generate semi-realistic representations of the actual climbs, instead of the present approach which looks like the result of reckless experimentation with hallucinogens.
One more thing: the profiles on some of the climb portals are highly suspect. The climb I know better than any other, Old La Honda in Woodside California, clearly has errors in the climb portal representation. So I question how Zwift generates the altitude data.
I’d like to be able to add any climbs I haven’t completed to the ‘MY LIST’ screen in the companion app and have a reminder in the app and/or on the ‘for you’ screen when one becomes available in the calendar.
What happened to the Makuri climb portal? I’m sure it was leaked at one point but hasn’t materialised? Such a shame as it really limits the world having all sub-10 minute climbs in it
Given how sparse they come (Rocacorba for example), the personal PBs in Climb Portals should last longer
Totally agree with this
The possibility for having climbs on demand.
I’ve been waiting AGES for the Pas de Peyrol/Puy Marie to come along in the rotation, but I think it never occurred… The same thing happened with Isola 2000: the only three times it was available, I was sick of working shifts.
Also, re-evaluate some climbs which have issues regarding the “GPS- accuracy”. The top of the Galibier (Lautaret) in real-life is notorious for its streep grading, but the portal ends in a quarter mile pancake….Did Zwift accidentaly use the tunnel-section of the climb, instead of continuing to the mountain top?
I want to find a way to retrieve your portal segment statistics, even if it’s only time and watts. I wish I could give you a reason other than the fact that I am a huge nerd.
I agree with some other comments that enabling teleporting would be a bad idea – there already are a bunch of people doing two hour imperial centuries while barely pedaling on a regular basis by repeatedly teleporting to the top of the climb.
Would love to see Mt.Mitchell added as a climb portal! Please let this be a thing in the near future. Maybe allow the user to upload a route and have Zwift generate it as a portal?
Personally, I keep an Excel sheet with my best times on each of the four gradient options for all of the portal climbs. I’ve done everything at least once at every difficulty, but I don’t know which ones I’ve done more than once versus which ones I’ve done 30 or 40 times (Cheddar Gorge is in the latter category, but not, by far, the only one). I know I’ve done the Alpe 192 times over the past four years, but I couldn’t tell you portal statistics with the same accuracy because the segments only line up/count for the 100% gradient version. Also, can we PLEASE get the Stelvio. The Giro has come and gone TWICE since they teased the idea, and it’s still never been put on the schedule. Surely the snow has melted by now!
A big reason why i prefer Zwift over every other app are the visuals. Portal Climbs are visually pretty much the opposite of what i want to see and everytime i “have” to enter a portal (for example in the Power to the Portal races) i just want to get out of there as fast as possible. It’s hell, but not because of the gradients.
+1 for more useful maps
+1 for useful map that you can manipulate, move, recenter, pivot to north up or rider forward. Also allow us to pick any climb portal in the library instead of being forced to use the windows date change hack to pick.
Not exclusive to Climb Portal but definitely including it – I want to see Starting XP/Drops, Earned XP/Drops, Spent Drops, Ending XP/Drops for every activity so maybe add it to the Activities tab. It would really help to know this info in general and also use it to optimize future ride planning.
More Choice Please!
Another month (August) of massive (French) HC climbs and not much else. TDF was last month!
I’m 73KG so Love a CAT 3 and occasional Cat 2.
For instance Old La Honda is a fave – but never appears any more.
Thanks!
Was revisiting this article and I think the biggest reason for non teleporting is an obvious one until now : it would allow people to teleport to riders partway up the climb and turn around for free descent kilometers for bike upgrades. So in that respect anti-cheat measures implemented recently might bring this feature closer.
Good point!
As for a third portal, Zwifts tendency to have the portals to run off into the sea gives 2 prime locations : Mech Isle in Makuri or off the south coast of Scotland
Adjustable lead in (possibly 3 options like default, double en triple). Now if you start it from the selection screen you will enter the climb before you are properly warmed-up. (i know you can extend it by doing a route a take a turn)
ETA should be based on a longer average. It changes to quickly. Stop pedalling for a few strokes and it will add minutes to your ETA
Ahh yeah 1-2 added each month, but nothing new since Tour de France. Wonder whether Zwift are rethinking things in the background and it’s quiet with new routes until they decide on a way to make routes available at more regular intervals? Thinking new portal in the NYC expansion, maybe?
Not sure if it’s been mentioned before, but it would be cool if you could actually create something like a climb portal playlist. Right now for example Cipressa and Poggio back to back or mimicking the (available) climbs of Ronde van Vlaanderen by doing Oude Kwaremont-Paterberg-Koppenberg-Oude Kwaremont-Paterberg requires you to do the climb, end the ride, select the next climb, do the lead-in again, etc.
Would be great if you can set it up as a playlist and then maybe have a little 1km loop at the bottom end of the portal to get out of range from the climb and then go back in with the next one.
Or for the people who only go up, have an exit to the next climb halfway the circle at the top :p