Zwift’s Climb Portal went live July 2023 with a small library of new climbs plus a new look and new HUD features. Since then, Zwift has added more climbs to the library, and more features to the Portal!
Here’s a complete look at how the Climb Portal works…
Table of Contents
The Basics
Zwift’s Climb Portal provides easy access to a rotating schedule of GPS-accurate virtual versions of famous real-life climbs. Its most noticeable quality is the “gamified” appearance of the roads, which are colored to match the gradient, with no surrounding real-life environmental visuals.
Why this design choice? Simple: it allows Zwift to quickly add new climbs to the game with no custom artwork required.
The Climb Portal Experience
Both Watopia and France have Climb Portals. These can be accessed from the routes menu of the Watopia or France maps, or at the bottom of the homescreen, where you’ll see an option for the month’s featured climb (located in France) and the day’s featured climb (located in Watopia).
Selecting a climb will bring up a panel showing details and options for that particular climb:
This panel lets you choose a scaled version of the climb. Choose between 50%, 75%, 100%, and 125% (only available once you’ve finished the 100% version). Regardless of scale chosen, everyone rides on the same road.
This same panel also shows your percentile rank for any completed versions of the climb (see 70% percentile on 75% version above). If you’re looking at the current climb of the month, the percentile shown is only for efforts in the current calendar month. This way, each month’s featured climb turns into a month-long game-wide competition, which is a super fun idea. If you’re looking at a climb that isn’t the climb of the month, but just one of the featured climb of the day, the percentile you see is an all-time percentile.
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You can also access the Climb Portals by navigating to them during your free ride in Watopia or France. Watopia’s Climb Portal is reachable by turning off of the Volcano Circuit, while France’s Climb Portal is reachable via a left-hand turn toward Mont Saint-Michel when traveling the main loop clockwise:
Regardless of how you get there, you ride a short lead-in before going through the Climb Portal, which is labeled with your selected climb. Once you’re through the Portal, your climb begins!
Other riders are visible on the climb, including riders using a different scale that you chose. Icons indicate which scale option every rider is using, and leaderboards are separated by scale factor. If you have HoloReplay enabled, they will also show up if you’ve completed this climb in the past 90 days.
As you climb, the road changes color based on gradient. Floating text and geometric shapes help fill the air and give you a feeling of movement, while the 10 equidistant portal section arches give you a goal up the road to work toward.
Once you reach the top, a summary of your climb will show on screen as you ride the small ring road that loops you around to start your descent. Ride through the finishing arch and begin your descent, and the environment changes. While descending, the sky and road turn to cooler colors, encouraging you to spin those legs out as you enjoy the descent and the animated constellations above.
Ride through the Portal at the bottom of your descent and you’ll find yourself back in your starting world.
Important note: if you ride a 50% or 75% scaled version of your climb during an activity, your entire activity will be tagged as “gamified,” and all Strava segments will be excluded. So if you want your activity to match with Strava segments, don’t mix in a scaled climb portal effort!
Complete List of Portal Climbs
The Climb Portal uses a growing library of uphill challenges! See the full list of Portal climbs below (click a climb for details):
| Climb Title | Length | Elev | Gradient |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alto de Patios | 5.9km | 377m | 6.4% |
| Bealach na Bà | 9km | 632m | 6.9% |
| Cauberg | 0.8km | 57m | 7.2% |
| Cheddar Gorge | 4.7km | 171m | 3.6% |
| Cipressa | 6.4km | 228m | 3.5% |
| Col d’Aspin | 13.54km | 807m | 5.9% |
| Col de la Couillole | 18.3km | 1209m | 6.3% |
| Col de la Croix de Fer | 27.1km | 1558m | 4.7% |
| Col de la Croix Saint-Robert | 5.7km | 346m | 6% |
| Col de la Madeleine | 14.3km | 1118m | 7.8% |
| Col de la Madone | 16.3km | 902m | 5.5% |
| Col de Peyresourde (Avajan) | 8.3km | 559m | 6.7% |
| Col de Sarenne | 12.8km | 923m | 7.1% |
| Col des Aravis | 5.2km | 273m | 5.3% |
| Col du Galibier (Lautaret) | 10.3km | 539m | 5.2% |
| Col du Galibier (Valloire) | 18km | 1224m | 6.8% |
| Col du Platzerwasel | 7.82km | 592m | 7.4% |
| Col du Rosier | 5km | 222m | 4.5% |
| Col du Télégraphe | 11.9km | 844m | 7.1% |
| Col du Tourmalet | 17.2km | 1213m | 6.9% |
| Coll d'Ordino | 10.3km | 511m | 4.4% |
| Cote de Domancy | 2.97km | 240m | 8.2% |
| Côte de La Redoute | 1.5km | 153m | 9.9% |
| Cote de Pike | 2.17km | 215m | 9.5% |
| Cote de Trebiac | 4.6km | 207m | 4.5% |
| Côte des Forche | 3km | 148m | 4.9% |
| Crow Road | 7km | 251m | 3.6% |
| Gotthard Pass | 14.4km | 909m | 6.3% |
| Hardknott Pass | 2.7km | 306m | 11.5% |
| Hautacam | 12.7km | 1029m | 8% |
| Isola 2000 | 18.9km | 1145m | 5.9% |
| Koppenberg | 0.6km | 63m | 10.8% |
| La Laguna Negra | 9.1km | 510m | 5.6% |
| La Super Planche des Belles Filles | 8.6km | 602m | 7.1% |
| La Turbie + Col d'Eze | 15.2km | 616m | 3.1% |
| Lagos de Covadonga | 14.5km | 976m | 6.2% |
| Montée du Chinaillon | 8.1km | 353m | 4.4% |
| Mt Fuji | 25.6km | 1218m | 4.7% |
| Mt. Hamilton | 31.3km | 1259m | 3.5% |
| Mûr de Bretagne | 1.96km | 129m | 6.6% |
| Mur de Huy | 1.3km | 124m | 9.8% |
| Norton Summit | 8.7km | 363m | 4% |
| Old La Honda | 5.6km | 396m | 7.1% |
| Old Willunga Hill | 4km | 252m | 6.3% |
| Oude Kwaremont | 1.5km | 64m | 4.2% |
| Pas de Peyrol/Puy Mary | 10.2km | 603m | 5.9% |
| Paterberg | 0.4km | 45m | 11.9% |
| Pla d'Adet | 12.1km | 847m | 6.9% |
| Poggio | 4.3km | 136m | 3.2% |
| Puy de Dome | 12.96km | 913m | 7% |
| Rocacorba | 11.8km | 756m | 6.3% |
| Trollstigen | 12.4km | 784m | 6.3% |
Climb Portal Schedule
While the library contains many climbs, Zwifters can only access two climbs one any given day. The “climb of the month” is hosted in France, while the day’s featured climb rotates every few days and is hosted in Watopia.
You can access these two climbs easily, from the bottom of the Zwift homescreen under “Just Ride”:
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Improvement Ideas
We wouldn’t be true Zwifters if we didn’t have at least three ideas how Zwift could improve a just-released feature. So here are nine:
- More useful maps: the climb profile and overhead views only show nearby portions of the climb. We’d like to be able to click and zoom out to see the full climb.
- Different background sounds: the ambient background sounds while climbing are… odd. Too somber, too heavy, for our taste. That said, we usually ride with sounds off, so this isn’t a big deal.
- Smarter Portal Sections: the “portal sections” seem programmatically generated, just breaking the climb into 10 equidistant sections. This makes adding new climbs easy, but it sure would feel a bit fancier if the sections broke the climb into logical sections at key turns or gradient changes.
- Achievements: there are no achievement badges for portal climbs at this time, which seems like a big miss. We’d love to see smart badges that count how many times you’ve finished each portal climb.
- Companion Leaderboards: we have Leaderboards in Companion now. These should include portal Climbs! (Note: Zwift Insider has collaborated with Veloviewer to create leaderboards for the Climb Portal. Read more here >)
- Enable Fan View and Teleporting: currently you can’t fan view or teleport to a rider who is on a Portal climb. That seems a bit silly.
- Better preview map/graphic from the homescreen. When you click the featured climb from the homescreen, the preview window doesn’t show the selected climb graphically in any way (not an overhead view or an elevation profile).
Strava+VeloViewer Leaderboards
If you start a portal climb from France, your Strava data will show you as climbing it attached to Zwift’s France map (which is based on the French island of New Caledonia for Strava GPS positioning). Start the same climb from Watopia and your Strava data will show you riding in Vanikoro, in the Solomon Islands (where Watopia is located for the purpose of Strava GPS positioning).
This means we’ll have to create two Strava segments for each climb: one for starting in Watopia, the other for starting in France. That means two leaderboards for each climb.
Example: here’s a Strava segment for Côte de Pike in Watopia, and here’s the France version.
Zwift Insider has collaborated with Veloviewer to create leaderboards for the Climb Portal. These leaderboards utilize your fastest time up each climb, regardless of whether you rode it in Watopia, France or both. Read more here >
Your Thoughts
Tried Climb Portal yet? Share your thoughts below!
Another improvement idea: include the name of the climb in the default name when saving the ride. (Rather than Mont Saint Michel)
Yup, for sure!
I added your idea above, because it’s a simple and obvious win!
This is now being done, FYI.
Not only this but how about the category of the climb! how could they forget that! 🙄
Thanks for the informative post Eric. Any idea if it will be possible too see which climbs you have completed (diminutive how you can see which routes have been completed? Additionally will these new climbs be added to ZwiftHub?
Apologies… *similar too, not diminutive
No way that I can see at this time. I don’t plan on adding these to ZwiftHub… but we’ll see if that plan changes.
I agree with matt that it would be cool to add climbs to zwifthub for tracking. maybe similar to the badges where it is mainly just a list you can checkoff vs the more detailed routes
I agree, having somewhere in zwift that checks off the climbs completed would be FANTASTIC! The July challenge was fun but when it only checked off 1 route in each set, it was a bit confusing – did it not count my ride haha!
**Badges could be a great way to do this.** –> thanks for #4
Will it show our PR and Previous holoreplay thingies as well?
Yes. I should add that above somewhere!
this is sick.
Would be great if you could upload real life local rides into the portal.
I got on right when it opened. Rode the Cote de Pike and Cote de Trebiac. I really like the changing color of the roads for the difficulty. I like the color coded elevation chart (that would be great on AdZ). I didn’t think much about the graphics. I was too busy thinking about my gearing! I think this is a great way to get different types of climbs into Zwift.
One item that can be improved is the descent, the roads turn purple and it is disorienting. You don’t know if the road is flat, uphill, downhill, steep or shallow. The only feedback you get is through the pedals. On the bright side, the elevation chart helps with this. I would imagine that this is a relatively easy change.
I don’t know if it was me but the XP on these are incredible. On one map I got 3 X 250 xp. It really gives me incentive to do more of these if thats what I can expect. Hopefully they do not nerf the XP on these banners.
sshhh, i got 8
I did hill repeats today. I logged 4000 XP for the activity. I only rode 69.5 km in my ride, so . . . About 130 km of extra XP from +10 and +250XP banner payouts. I HAVE to assume this is intentional to get those of us still between level 50 and 60 to have more of an interest in riding the portal than the Alpe. Am I riding more repeats on the portal for the rest of the month? YES! If they dial back the XP bias on the banners, I’ll go back to riding the Alpe.
10x10xp (every “banner”) for the Old Willunga Hill. Missed if I got some upon completion. I find the short (<7km) ones very interesting.
Agree with prior posts. I did a portal ride this morning and really enjoyed it, but the descents are definitely disorienting.
And they definitely seem to have the odds of getting xp through each of the banners cranked up!
Even tho I’m level 60, I’d rather the XP than the 5 aero boosts in a row that I got on Cote de Pike. Completely useless.
I think this format would be ace for route based workouts.
Totally.
I rode Le Pike straight from the menu page and got an automatic signup for the Challenge or whatever is running for July. I did not really check for the climb name assuming it was Mont Saint Michel. Took going to Strava to determine which mountain it was.
Having completed the Trek ride this morning, I was free riding in France and tried the climbing portal. I took the correct turn but Zwift kept turning me around. I couldn’t enter the portal on a free ride?
I allso had that experience…maybe because it was after a group ride…and not a solo free ride…?
Something to do with apple tv – I don’t seem to be able to select any options for choosing a climb portal ride – it does not pop up with the new UI and route selection for it. I have checked for updates, as well as tried (and it has worked) on other devices such as a phone. Do you have a solution?
What version of the Zwift app do you have on ATV?
It is version 1.43.0 – I think this is the latest one.
I just tried on Apple TV.
I only have the option to do the Pre defined days climb. No way of selecting any climb from the challenge card.
Yeah, I’m seeing the same thing over here on ATV. Just reported it to Zwift via my internal channels… we’ll see what they say.
I have checked back now – the new UI is available to me on ATV and I can access all the climbs.
Which of the data (length, gradient, elevation gain) are actually correct? Whatsonzwift or Zwiftinsider?
My numbers above are from Zwift. I haven’t verified anything, and won’t until I’ve created the official Strava segments.
Some segments for ya:
Col des Aravis (France Climb Portal): https://www.strava.com/segments/34784290
Col d’Aspin (France Climb Portal): https://www.strava.com/segments/34790445
Col du Platzerwasel (France Climb Portal): https://www.strava.com/segments/34790472
Col du Tourmalet (France Climb Portal): https://www.strava.com/segments/34784341
Cote de Domancy (France Climb Portal): https://www.strava.com/segments/34784407
Cote de Pike (France Climb Portal): https://www.strava.com/segments/34777359
Cote de Pike (Watopia Climb Portal): https://www.strava.com/segments/34777242
Cote de Trebiac (France Climb Portal): https://www.strava.com/segments/34783793
Puy de Dome (France Climb Portal): https://www.strava.com/segments/34784506
I’ll be creating segments for the descents too, as well as the Watopia versions of each climb once I’m able to access them.
(Fun trivia: Strava apparently has reduced the number of segments I can create in a given time span, so I can only create something like 6 every X hours… so that’s fun… 🙂
Do you know any more already?
Hi Eric,
I’ve already ridden a few climbs (e.g. Tourmalet) in real life, and the gradient % in some segments definitely don’t correspond to reality
The possibilities seem interesting. If Zwift can quickly whip up new additions, could we be seeing, for example, the final 30km of the Tour of Flanders temporarily added when that race is on? If it was only there for a week or two then I expect plenty of people would be on it.
Feels like they’ve just taken the clim data from velo viewer and then made it in Zwift. I won’t lie it’s pretty basic, I would go so far and say dreadful. There is nothing to make you want to enjoy the climb. Yes it’s easy for Zwift to introduce, but imagine going up the longer climbs on this. There is nothing visually pleasing to make you want to carry the climb.
really disappointed in this one, was really looking forward to a quality addition. Some new
roads and climbs to ride. But alas Zwift has gone super basic and ultimately cheap.
I agree. This is pretty disappointing. I will use it like the structured workouts and enjoy it as much as possible, but it really just underscores that Zwift hasn’t added a real climb in three years.
I’m surprised at the amount of positive comments on this as I agree with you about it being dreadful, it’s a feature I’ve been looking forward to for a while to give some choice other than AdZ but after trying it a couple of times I don’t find it any good. I’d be as well having the Garmin drive the smart trainer for all the climbing portal does as it’s so featureless there’s no feeling of satisfaction or reward as you climb. In addition the fixed schedule just seems all the more irritating and would much rather they had done one or two climbs properly than this incredibly lazy addition at a time when content is very thin on the ground.
Spot on, and this wound up motivating me to check into Rouvy. I don’t want to use this forum to cross promote, am still a fan of Zwift and will continue to use it, but in terms of climbing, there’s just no comparison. The number of climbs, the graphic realism and the physics engine of Rouvy are killer. That said, it’s got such a tiny user base that solo rides/climbs are about the mode realistically available for now. So Zwift will remain my go-to for spinning with friends or in a pack, racing, etc.
I’m susprise that everyone in the coments sems to be on borad an happy with this.
I start with what I like, that you se de distance and elevtion you have ride from the begining of the KOM and the remaining.
Not a fan of the Alpe style on the right side, nor the fact that you only see a small portion of the climb on the top right. I prefer tosee it all, and have and idea of how much is left.
The visuals are awful, the fact that the color of the screen chanes with the gradient, for me is distracting, almost disturbing. I would prefer a simple surface and nothing else around. I like the night view with the starts in the descend, they shoul put it on the way up, something like climbing towards the stars.
I did a short climb, 4.6 km, and it fell much longer that it was. I cannot imagine that I would be capable of climbing Aspin or Tourmalet in this enviroment. 25 min felt like an hour, I do not think that I can motivate myself to ride 2-3 hours in this. I rather prefer expend 4 hours climbing the Ven-Top
The think that could alleviate, or distract from the enviroment, would be if races were held in this, but apparently it is not a possibility.
In sumary, for me is a let down. I rather prefer just one climb, but in Zwift stile. But it seems that I am the only one that things like that.
I would tend to agree, this is something I can’t seem to get too excited about. At first it felt a bit novel and a bit ‘mario-kart’, but couldn’t spend more than 15 mins on it I think. It might be more enjoyable if you could take part in races up the climbs, but not sure that is possible yet.
I want to make a strong suggestion to Zwift that they provide more than one mountain every two weeks from August. That’s like giving a baby candy in July and then stealing it away from them. Ludicrous decision by Zwift!
It will also mean for two weeks we are stuck with something we might not want to climb (as someone training for a week in the alps in Sep I have no interest in a 3.4km@Yuri.8% climb but I understand others will. Then the reverse will happen if it is 16.9@Douglas Boivin.8%).
There should be two different mountains (and each one fixed to one of the portals) at all times rotating every few days if they can’t run them all like they are doing in July
That’s interesting what the website did to my @ and % amount after posting it 🙂
Just did the 4 short ones! It’s a great training! I don’t need trees or a yeti! The average watt would be nice.. but meh / it’s a great feature
I’ve being riding on Zwift for one year. I like climbing, (finaly got Tron bike month ago). Climbing today on portal was worst visual experience i had on the platform.
Imho total failure.
I hope Zwift continue to develop new visual appealing roads and not this nightmare from 1980 videogames.
Are we able to schedule a meet up in watopia and ride one of the climbs?
Not yet. Would be a nice option for them to add!
I like that the only power ups are small XP, big XP or feather. Helpful!
You are lucky, I kept aero on the way up Tourmalet
Another improvement idea: stop giving aero boosts at the intermediary arches. I did Cote de Pike this morning and got the aero powerup for the last 5 arches!
I just finished the Mount-Saint Michel Cote de Pike climb. Very impressed. I like it. Keep them coming!
*Mont-Saint Michel… (autocorrect!)
Gave today’s TdF stage, Cote de Pike, and one I’ve ridden for real, the Col d’Aspin, a go and loved it. I can’t say I miss the scenery when making an effort up a climb. One plea to the people at Zwift – PLEASE let us always select a climb from a list not lock 90% off and enforce a climb of the day post the TdF 🙏
I really don’t mind that each climb is less populated as a result there’s always your own effort or even holo replay to go up against.
Agree! Cote de Pike looks and feels ideal for repeats, at least for me.
Love it. Tried the Puy de Dome and Cote de Pike and this will make training and climbing a lot easier and a lot less boring than the same Alpe every time.
The road being the color of the gradient is great
Dont miss the trees, skies and animals
The 10 segments with their heartrate and watts average is great.
ETA, elevation left, time left data is very handy
The map with the road section are very nice.
@Eric Schlange
There are two Strava segments for the Pike Climb?
There’s one from France and one from Watopia.
Yea, two segments.
Well, I rode one climb today and it was much better then expected, I am waiting now for tourmalet stage in tdf to ride this climb, I will just start hour before pros to finish more or less the same time 😀
Although there is nothing to look like, changing of the gradient and other visuals are quite engaging and it is much easier to climb knowing exactly when gradient will go over 10.
The only thing about gradient colours is that the scale could be better – I think above 9/10 change in colour is very subtle, but other then that I am quite happy with what we got.
Ps Still waiting for mount Fuji btw
Creating a meetup ride/workout on the portal….
I’ve done one climb of first ascent challenge stage 2 yesterday with a technical error of time count in the first portal, so I did one of stage one today without technical errors and still it gives me a 0% complete. What is going on?
When doing climbs from challenge I have access to 4 of them only, is that correct, or sh
The descent on the climb portals are often GREAT opportunities to gain the achievement badges for attaining a maximum speed. I managed to bag the elusive 100km/hr badge on the descent from Cote de Pike.
Given it’s a portal, wouldn’t it be possible for the GPS co-ords to match the real life location of each climb? That way there would be no need to double up on segments for Watopia and France, and the underlying maps on Strava would make some sense. I know it may be a little more complex to program but shouldn’t be that tricky!
Would mess up the segment times from the real world, really bad.
Zwift segments are a completely different sport on Strava: they are virtual ride segments. Only activities that are virtual rides can match virtual ride segments and virtual ride activities only match virtual ride segments. There are already zwift worlds whose gps coords match the real life location, Richmond and New York and parts of London for example.
I did the Col d’Aspin today and really enjoyed the climbing portal, ideal for me. I listen to music has I train and mainly watch the profile and climb percentage so didn’t miss the scenery.
Do we know how may XP are earned for each of the climbs?
No completion XP, so just your standard by distance, and any you get by going through each banner
My husband and I have been riding the Portal. Selecting our climb from the main menu and saving after completion. I have completed 3 of the climbs and he has done 5. Yet on the menu when we go to chose another climb it only indicates that our first 2 climbs as completed. Is this because you only have to do one from each Stage to com8the Mission???
Will the Strava segments be added to Veloviewer leaderboards? I guess you would have to do every climb twice. Once from Watopia and Once from France?
Another point of confusion. The Zwift climbing challenge only requires two climbs to be completed. One from group a and one from group b It will only show these two as completed. I repeated climbs as I did not understand why subsequent climbs weren’t showing as completed.
New Veloviewer leaderboard now available! https://veloviewer.com/climb-portal
Can we do workouts there?
Yes. Just choose the climb from your homescreen, get into the game, then pull up the list of workouts while in the game and choose your workout. You’ll ride that workout then, while going up the climb.
To get the highest XP. Take the shortest distance as possible. Do not use workouts. every passing equal distance rings use power ups. some of not. but there are three power ups come out. +250xp, +10xp and feather. I thinks % are 30% 40% 30% each. I did 5 turn arounds 2.2km climb. at that time I got lowest 2times of +250 and higest times of 250x during a climb. Incredible,be samary but not easy !!! Also use coffee coupon some one passes you very fast. LOL
Sorry, jet blast, I’m interested in getting the most XP possible, but I’m having a bit of trouble understanding your post. I did the Cote de Pike from Watopia a few days ago, and I noticed a +250 XP as I went through one of the arches. Did you do a u-turn within the climb, and go back through the arches a second time order to get that +250 again?
Well how to put it ?! … New content is always nice it gives the user the impression of the game is beeing developed and the the provider cares about the community. – But wait , what’s zwift ? It’s a colorful world with a creative comical approach to reality, so we ride through volcanos, bypass dinosaurs or ride on transparent roads between NY skyscrapers.
Every now then troughout the year we get events like TdZ with badges to earn on event courses, which makes them kind of exclusive, to give it more ‘value’ than every day group rides. – This is the Zwift standart.
When new content appears, like Scotland or the Makuri expansion, Zwift meets this standart or is able to improve it slightly, like in Scotland which is, in my oppinion, a very nice designed world, full of detail and creative ideas.
So now we get 8 tracks with no enviromental graphis, without any logical connection to the existing worlds, no badges, a rotation of 1 map in 14 Days (what a joke this is) – but they are accurate in gradient.
We get events like ‘Coastal Ride’ or ‘Watch the Femmes’ wich are 45 min riding on established courses, no arc of thrill in the stages (like prologue, sprint stage, hilly stage, queen stage, etc.) no event course, no extra course badge, no make up stages.
– So yeah we get new content, but Zwift is submerging their own standart by far.
And to put this into perspective: We pay 360 € per year for 2 users – we pay less than 150 € for Rouvy, which has accurate iconic climbs well established, whenever I want them to ride …. and lots of them. – So beeing a bit zynical you might say Zwift tries to find out how much half baked, uninspired rubbish they can throw at their customers and still collect a premium price, as long as their marketing department underlines it with some buzz words about an unique experience. – In my oppinoin we (the users) need to watch this very careful & don’t praise these lower standards. – that’s my 2 cent, stay healthy & have a good ride.
(sorry for my english, I’m not a native speaker)
In general I do not mind the abstract graphics. I’m not a climber so I can’t pay all that much attention to anything but the gradient, and TBH the road-color shifts are all I need for that. However, when a large geometric floaty-circle happens to intersect the road just right, it looks like a segment arch, which is confusing if you’re hanging on to a powerup for the right time to use it. I figured out that the *real* arches have vertical lights stretching up from them, but when you’re close up to them, the difference isn’t obvious, especially when you’re more focused on the effort than the screen.
I love Zwift but this portal has the feeling of an early mock up that is waiting to be built out. Stripping back climbs for the sake of speed of execution has resulted in a soulless experience. I went up Col de Pike and at times couldn’t sense I was moving, other than the numbers were changing. The inclines all felt odd and I lost interest in the climb very early on. There are plenty of good climbs on Zwift so I can’t imagine coming back to this. I not sure this can be classified as ‘gamifying’, no gamer would surely play this! But thanks for all the other great work.
I have spent 1500 happy hours Zwifting. Going through the portal for me was like entering a time portal to the pre Zwift era when indoor training meant using a a dumb trainer staring at a basement wall. To me, the graphics and overall experience of the climb portal are disorienting and almost frightening. Like having a bad acid trip in Watopia. One trip through the portal was enough for me. I was ecstatic to return to the happy “real” Zwift world, like Dorothy returning to Kansas.
Will the portal schedule be “hackable”, like the guest world schedule?
Yeah, it would be great not to have only two options a day. Old La Honda every day!!!1
Given that it is a “portal” why don’t they just make the world location match the real world, like they have for the Richmond and Innsbruck worlds, for example, so there is only one strava segment per climb?
Also, I this the graphics are for Zwift’s convenience only. I Zwift because it distracts me from being indoors. Each climb is fine as a novelty, but if I was going to ride the same one several times I’d resent the lack of scenery to look at. Please just add precedurally generated trees, etc. I don’t need realism, just something that changes as I go past it…
Because in terms of a map/Strava, you’re entering from one of 2 diff locations
Tried it today, and it was good!
Would it have been better with a fully immersive world? Probably.
Would I like the whole Zwift universe to look like that? No.
But I don’t mind a small part looking like that, and if it ends up being something like RGTs Magic Roads for example, I don’t mind at all.
it achieved what it was supposed to: provided a climb that you could still see what was coming up and visually represented changes in gradients well.
I will keep using it, more so than the Alp TBH as you don’t have to trudge through the jungle to get to the climb (hopefully the Alp gets added to the portal too)
I’m not a fan of the graphics on these climbs but 100% agree that a portal to popular zwift world climbs would be good. For AdZ I use jungle circuit route and peel off at the junction (as I think most do) so much less than Road to Sky “official” route, but still a pain to get to the climb when you simply want to get started.
I’ve found 2 issues with the portal:
Can these issues be fixed? 🤔
I guess as the same climb is accessible from 2 portals, when mapping over Strava it doesn’t teleport you to the real world coordinates, it just adds the route onto the map wherever you take it from. So far mine have only shown where I’ve ridden in ‘France@, and guess the Watopia access would show the route on that map – might explain why you have different stats? @Eric Schlange ?
Sorry, and a third issue: the power reading on the congrats screen when you reach the top is wrong. Mine said 231w and on Strava I was 260w, which was much more correct given my interim power results at each check point.
That’s a known bug – listed above in the post.
AAAARRRRGGGGHHH….!!!!!
Having suffered up the Col d’Aspin last night, it now does not show as having been completed.
My Monday trek up the Cote de Trebiac registers, but nothing for the CdA.
Has anyone had this issue?
Yes, same for me today 🤔sucks!
That’s a Zwift UI issue, with the “First Ascent” challenge thing. It’s only showing the completed badge on the first climb you finish for each stage. Basically, there’s no where in game currently accurately showing climbs you’ve completed. I’m sure Zwift will fix it, as it’s a big miss currently!
How do we know which climbs we’ve done? I KNOW I did Aspin and de Dome but I’ve done three of the others but I don’t know which ones. Hard to even tell them apart when you ride them again.
You don’t. Basically, there’s no where in game currently accurately showing climbs you’ve completed. I’m sure Zwift will fix it, as it’s a big miss!
Umm, the one that took you 3-4x as long is Aspin.
(That’s for Pike, sorry — Puy is pretty distinctive, though!)
is there any chance to get to see the section data from a climb later. Just for tracking progress on that particular climb
Strava? Create a segment?
To do it in Strava, you would have to know the exact km or miles for each segment. You could take an in game photo or one photo at the end of each segment, and save it to compare or use to make a Strava segment, but since the data is in zwift, why can’t zwift just provide it?