ZwiftHQ likes to have a little fun on certain holidays – especially Halloween, Christmas, and April Fools’. (With Halloween just around the corner, Zwifters may remember that we earned dino costumes in 2019, rode bone bikes and swapped heads in 2018, and looked like witches and monsters in 2017.)
Last night some new Pace Partners went live as part of a little Halloween game. Carlin Cosmic, Darwin Dino, Delta Daring have arrived, and they’re handing out Halloween costumes!
Carlin Cosmic 
Darwin Dino 
Delta Daring
How It Works
Each of the three costumes comes in multiple pieces. To unlock each piece, ride near the Pace Partner in the same way you would the original Pace Partners in the Drops Multiplier game.
Click the Pace Partners box to see a list of available Pace Partners 
Choose one of the Halloween-themed Partners
We’re told unlocked costume pieces will be remembered, so when you join that Pace Partner again on a separate ride you won’t be starting from zero.
Be warned – sticking with these Halloween Pace Partners isn’t easy! Their wattage is constantly fluctuating (a first for Pace Partners, see short clip below), and you’ll need to pay close attention to stay within 12m and continue accruing costume pieces.
Questions or Comments?
Did you unlock a full costume yet? It’s no easy task! Share your thoughts below…
Do you still get the drops multiplier when riding with these?
Yes
Sort of…Regular drop multipliers kick up every 5 minutes. Riding for costume takes 15 minutes PER PIECE (4x pieces overall), and the multiplier only increases with each piece. So regular mode you hit max 2.0 in 30 minutes. Costume mode after an hour you’re only at 1.6 to 1.8. As noted, though, riding with these bots is very hard to stay steady state/close, so there’s no way you’ll go a full hour without resetting at least once.
I got the whole of Carlin Cosmic today in an hour and a couple of mins so it’s definitely possible but takes concentration.
Do these kits slow you down at all?
Doubtful.
No, not in my experience
Do we get to keep the costume
no
Nah. Once the Halloween events are over the costumes will go away… judging by what’s happened in past years.
Yeah thats not really cool. Once you leave the pace partner, its all gone. Also, it doesnt seem to remember what you already got.
less of those circus features and more about new routes and important things please!
Not sure why you’re getting downvoted, I agree 100%
I couldn’t agree more. So this is what $450 million in VC funding buys?
Always fun riding Zwift during these events. Now to get a picture of all three costumes.
The new pace partners fluctuating is horrible. You’ll be doing 250 watts to hang on the have to coast at 0 because they have magically become a slug. It’s like riding with a completely crap group of newbies.
i didn’t realize they were intentionally inconsistent when i rode with Cosmic this morning. After getting the head, it suddenly started randomly looping off into the grass, and re-appearing so far behind me that my timer started over, and then it just disappeared altogether. Maybe i just chose the wrong time to join in right before it went on break (smoke ’em if you got ’em). I still had fun trying to keep up, and it was certainly a challenge.
Unrelated question, but do you know of any junior cycling teams/clubs on zwift?
An enterprising teen has put together the BYT youth teem, but he’s in Europe, so none of the times have worked oiut for my son (in Australia).. SAS have a couple of kids rides – one on Thursdays for Australia and Sunday for the UK. Otherwise, it’s pretty sparse pickings, other than the kids organizing meetups among themselves.
Oh, I wish there were more rides and teams that had junior programs because I am a junior myself.
what time zone and what is your watts per kilo
I am in California and my normal wpk is around 2.5. Race pace is around 4-4.4.
Check out the BYT on Instagram – you might be able to make their times work for you.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CGZ_G_MAGdB/?igshid=qnf5w0amgd6n
Better link, sorry.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CGuEIprgC7H/?igshid=1owraijuqt736
None of them work due to school. I am on the team but I wish they did more racing against other people rather than themselves. Training came to a complete stop and there is no info on when it will start again.
Cualquier cosa que hagan para hacernos el entrenar más divertido, siempre es de agradecer. Ahora, igual hay otras cosas en las qu centrarse primero… Aún así, gracias!
I have the full Carlin Cosmic costume, but it is only shown while I am in range of the pace partner. Any way to use it outside of that?
I don’t think so. Which is kind of a bummer!
Total bummer. I was going to try to get one of the kits and race the TTT with it tonight! Oh well.
so you only get to wear the costume when riding with a pace partner?
Appears so. My son collected the Delta Daring one and lost it when he rode off. He was frustrated that he’d done something wrong – he’ll be annoyed (and yet relieved) that it’s intentional.
Rode for 1.5 hours with Dino did bot get any costume parts. Am I missing something?
Was fun anyway but promised my grandson a dino! UGH! LOL
You have to be in range of the Drops Multiplier for 15 minutes per piece ( you’ll see a bar filling up in the HUD on the upper center of the screen ). You can earn them piecemeal, the game remembers what you’ve earned. You can come back and earn a bit each ride.
I noticed that once I completed my spaceman set the multiplier timer dropped from taking ~15mins per stage to ~5mins per stage – and it went all the way back to 2.5x again (before doing the countdown reset to 1.0x as expected)
I managed to get the head of the costume when I reached 1.2. Do I have to get to 1.4 to get the next part of the costume or will 1.2 suffice ? This is keeping me from sleeping. 😉
Just to be sure, I meant on the next ride..
Yes you get a new piece of costume (at least on Cosmid) at each level. Cosmid X1 level took a long time to complete but next few levels were quicker than normal. Sequence was head pants sleeves then body (including jet pack)
Sorry Cosmic not cosmid
I myself saw and heard from other riders that there were many riders including the pacers throwing loopy loops. At one point Cosmic did and we all lost the parts of suits we had gained. However she came back in about 20 seconds and the suit parts returned.
Despite the home screen saying that Carlin Cosmic was doing the Mountain 8 route we actually did Watopia’s Waistband instead, and rode together with Coco Cadence while we were in the desert section.
I much preferred the Halloween ride last year where we had to ride various routes (at any pace we liked) to hunt for parts of the costume. I find the Halloween pacers event very frustrating because I didn’t feel like I was getting a decent ride in because of all the pace changes. I do appreciate Zwift’s injection of a little holiday fun into the rides!
Not a bad addition but the fun weens out after just one ride and collecting the costume. I wish we could keep the costume for other regular free rides instead of just vaporizing.
Agree, didn’t realise you could only use it while riding with the pacers, doesn’t make it worth the effort.
how long is the halloween feature going to last? Till which day?
I have been looking at the groups around the halloween pace partners – and there you can not see anyone with any of the costumeparts on. So is it only visible for the rider itself or can you also see it on others who participate in the ride?
Anyone know how long the pace partner costumes will be around? Planning a group ride Sunday AM and thought it would be fun (last one to full costume buys the donuts).
I do not. ZHQ just said “a few days”…
Too bad you can’t free-ride with the costumes this year. Almost cracked at Alpe du Zwift last year cause I barely couldn’t stop laughing while “wobbling” the dino up there 😂
I rode with Daring two days in a row and I never saw the w/kg change from 1.7. If you drop the trainer difficulty to like 20% then it flattens out the hills and it is easier to stay with the pacer. On my ride today it went to 2.5x and between 2x and 2.5x I think it was 10 minutes.
For once I was very disappointed with Zwift.
The pacer was all over the pace and it was very hard to keep up with it.
The kit was earned by getting a coefficient 1.0, 1.2, 1.4, 1.6, 1.8 and 2.0. But each time you lost contact with the pacer, you were going back to 1.0.
It took around 15 mn per coefficient. I’ve managed to get to 1.6 then got down to 1.0 and at that point I gave up as I had enough.
it is ok