All About Coffee Stops in Zwift

The coffee stop is a time-honored tradition in road cycling, and in May 2023 Zwift brought it into the game. You may have noticed it: a circular coffee mug icon floating over riders’ heads in the group.

What’s it all about, and how does it work? You’ve come to the right place…

What is Coffee Stop?

Taking a “coffee stop” in Zwift doesn’t inject caffeine into your veins, but it does let your avatar keep pace with your current group while you take a short break! Here’s a quick demo:

Why take a Coffee Stop?

Have you ever been riding with a great group on Zwift, but you need to hop off the bike to grab a towel, refill a water bottle, or take a nature break?

Coffee Stop lets you stop pedaling and do what you need to do without getting dropped from the group you’re in. Camaraderie often develops in packs of Zwift riders, and the Coffee Stop is Zwift’s method of preserving that special social aspect even when nature calls.

How To Take Coffee Stop

Need a coffee break? Simply tap the Coffee Stop icon (coffee mug) from the action bar or within the Companion app:

What? No Coffee?!

If the Coffee Stop button is greyed out, it may be that you recently used a Coffee Stop. Mousing over the Coffee Stop icon should tell you why it’s not activated or how long you have to wait before it will be active again:

If no riders are nearby, you aren’t moving, or you’re near the end of a group ride event (see usage limits below), Coffee Stop will automatically be disabled:

If the Coffee Stop button isn’t visible, that means you’re in a race event, group workout, or individual workout. None of these allow Coffee Stops.

Coffee Stop Usage Limits

• You can take one 30-second Coffee Stop in the first 5 minutes of your ride
• Once you pass the 5-minute mark of a ride, you can activate a 3-minute Coffee Stop
• Once you end a 3-minute Coffee Stop, a 30-minute timer begins. Only after these 30 minutes elapse can you trigger another 3-minute Coffee Stop.
• Coffee Stop is available on all routes in Zwift, but is automatically disabled in race events, group workouts, and individual workouts. Tip: during individual workouts you can just hit the “Pause” button in Companion or the Action Bar if you need to take a break for any reason.
• Coffee Stop is available in group rides, except it cannot be triggered in the last 5km of distance-based group rides or the last 15 minutes of time-based group rides.
• Coffee Stop is disabled if you aren’t moving or are riding alone (no nearby riders moving in the same direction).

Zwift Coffee Stop Minutiae

A few more bits for the Coffee-curious:

• It Keeps Adding Up: Yes, you will continue to accrue distance (and XP) during your Coffee Stop.
• Segments Count: You can complete all or part of a timed Zwift or Strava segment while taking a Coffee Stop.
• Strava Visibility: Your power, heart rate, and cadence continue to record during a Coffee Stop. So while your Coffee Stop won’t be super-obvious when looking at your ride on Strava or Zwift, it will show as a time block where you had zero power and zero cadence.
• Cutting It Short: If you want to end your coffee break early, just click “Done” on screen or in the Companion app.
• Riders Only: Coffee Stop is only available for cyclists on Zwift. No coffee for runners!
• Ending Early by Pedaling: Once your watts hit 0 after starting your Coffee Stop, if you begin pedaling again so your watts go to 40W+ for 5+ seconds, the Coffee Stop will automatically end. So make sure you’re ready to get going once you start pedaling!

Coffee Controversy

You may see some Zwifters complain about other riders “abusing” Coffee Stops. This is especially prevalent in group rides because yes, more coffee mugs tend to pop up on climbs than on flats or descents.

While we’re not here to tell you how to think, keep in mind that Coffee Stop is disabled in races. So while Coffee Stop users get a free ride for a few minutes, it’s a free ride in a social event where there are no winners.

Questions or Comments?

What do you think of Zwift’s Coffee Stop feature? Got questions about how it works? Share below!

Changelog

• February 24, 2026: Updated to include changes from v107 and v108 game updates.
• January 4, 2024: Original post published.

All About Teleporting in Zwift

Zwift released their teleport feature in a June 2023 update, but you may have missed it if you were busy riding outside and haven’t dug into the updated action bar. This is a really handy feature, though – one that perhaps you didn’t know you needed until you tried it – so let’s dig into how it works.

What Teleporting Does

Teleport lets you seamlessly move between RoboPacers or active friends currently riding or running in the same world as you. Crucially, Zwift doesn’t start a new activity when you teleport. This allows you to bounce around between RoboPacers or friends while keeping your workout in one single file.

How To Teleport

It’s easy! Access teleporting via the in-game action bar or via the Companion app. Here’s a quick video showing how it works using the action bar:

Why Teleport?

Teleporting lets you do fun things in a single activity that weren’t previously possible, like:

• Gentler Warmups: spin your legs up with a slower RoboPacer before popping over to a faster pace group for the main part of your workout
• Tour de Amigos: feeling social on a day with no set workout plan? Bounce around the map to ride or run with friends who are currently online. Pop into each of their activities to say hello and wish them well.
• TeleSweeper: if you drop off the back of a RoboPacer group for any reason, it’s easy to teleport back in whenever you’d like.

There are also more “advanced” use cases we’ve seen from some community members:

• RoboPacer Intervals: replace a structured workout by bouncing between RoboPacers holding particular w/kg. (for example, a B rider might bounce between Jaques and Constance for an Over-Under workout.)
• RoboPacer Ladder Challenge: start with an easy RoboPacer, then move to the next hardest after 5 minutes. Keep going until you can’t keep up! (Stronger riders may need to increase the interval to 10 minutes or more.)
• Post-Race Cooldown: racing in Watopia or Makuri Islands? Once your race ends, you don’t need to end your activity and start a new one to cooldown with a group. Just teleport to a RoboPacer to spin out your legs and cool down.
• Endless Everesting: turn any climb into endless elevation by parking a friend at the bottom so you can Teleport down to them once you reach the top. (Note: we don’t see anything in the official vEveresting rules prohibiting this, but it could lead to faster vEveresting times, so we may see those rules get updated.)
• Get Bigger Than Jensie: still haven’t earned your achievement badge for getting 100 Ride Ons in a single ride? Teleport to a busy RoboPacer, ride in the pack for 15 minutes… then teleport to a different busy pacer. Keep doing this until you’ve got all 100.

Activity Maps

What do your activity maps look like after teleporting? Zwift has done a very nice job when viewing the activity on Zwift.com:

In the Companion app, teleportation just shows as a solid white line, like the rest of your activity.

Strava (shown here using the ZwiftMap for Strava Chrome extension) charts all the lines the same way (like Zwift Companion, but not as pretty as Zwift.com).

It’s important to note that the teleporting portions aren’t figured into your overall activity distance, speed, etc on Strava or in Zwift.

Rules of Teleportation

Zwift’s teleportation feature includes some necessary rules/limitations:

• You don’t get distance credit or XP for the distance covered while teleporting.
• You will get credit for any routes or segments completed during your activity, as long as you don’t teleport in or out during that route or segment.
• You cannot teleport into or out of events.
• You cannot teleport during a workout.
• You can only teleport to Zwifters you follow who also follow you back.
• The Drops multiplier game restarts whenever you teleport to a RoboPacer… even if it’s the RoboPacer you were already with.

Questions or Comments?

What do you think of Zwift’s teleport feature? Any uses you’ve found that we didn’t cover above? Any questions? Share below!