The top 5 Zwift videos for this week include a comparison of TrainerRoad and Zwift FTP detection, a Zwifter racing on Zwift nearly every day, a long-term review of the Zwift Hub, being called “old” in a race, and an epic hardware failure.
TrainerRoad AI FTP vs Zwift Ramp Test
TrainerRoad is well-known for its AI adaptive training. Jonathan Crain puts the FTP calculation of Zwift and TrainerRoad to the test. Which seems most accurate?
I raced on Zwift every day…
Looking to take the win in a Zwift race, Benji Naesen of the Lanterne Rouge Cycling Podcast tries to race every day until he takes a win. However, improving fitness and getting stronger is easily a win in itself!
Zwift Hub Long-Term Review: Is it Worth the Investment?
Upon its release, the Zwift Hub caused a huge disruption to the indoor cycling industry. With a boatload of features that only high-end trainers have and an extremely easy setup, buying a Zwift Hub seems like a no-brainer. However, after 6 months, is it still worth the purchase?
Winning a Zwift Race & Being Called Old
As Ollie Moore races on Zwift, he encounters another Zwifter who calls him “old.” Watch as he ultimately ends up taking the win on ZwiftPower.
How to DNF a Zwift Race: Epic Tacx Smart Bike Fail!
Most times, things do not go as planned. Eric from Eric Barnett Cycling prepared quite a bit for an upcoming Zwift race, but it ended up being a disaster. Watch to see what happens!
Got a Great Zwift Video?
Share the link below and we may feature it in an upcoming post!
The latest Zwift update has been announced and is releasing in phases over the next couple of days. Zwift says, “We are continuing to test out a phased rollout approach for select releases in order to offer the best member experience.”
This update jumps us up from version 1.34 to 1.39, but Zwift says they’re back on their planned release schedule, with updates coming every two weeks.
Let’s dig into the details of today’s update…
Powerup Rebalancing
In an unexpected but welcome move, Zwift has made changes to 5 of the 7 existing powerups to “improve their effectiveness and usefulness”. We’ll do a complete post on this soon, but for now, here are the notes from Zwift:
Aero Helmet: no changes.
Draft Truck: increased duration from 30 to 40 seconds and the draft effect will be stronger.
Feather: increased duration from 15 to 30 seconds
Anvil: reduced duration to 15 seconds. Changed the weight addition to be a percentage of rider weight instead of a fixed 50kg in an effort to make it more useful for all riders, with an emphasis on lighter riders. The percentage of weight is not fixed, and is instead derived from a formula that will make it unique to every rider while still providing a useful benefit for riders of all weights.
Burrito: increased duration from 10 to 20 seconds. Changed the behavior to only remove drafting from riders in a cone behind the rider instead of in a radius. The rider using the Burrito will still be able to draft other riders in front of them.
Ghost: increased duration from 10 to 15 seconds. It is no longer possible to use this PowerUp when the rider is less than 400m from the finish line.
Steamroller: no changes.
XP: removed from all competitive events by default. Event Organizers can still have XP PowerUps appear in their event by request.
These all look like smart changes to us. We’re especially happy that the Burrito will finally be useful!
Important: these new powerup settings aren’t taking effect immediately, but will be taken live by Zwift once the phased rollout of today’s update is finished. Zwift estimates this will happen around midday Friday, so this weekend’s races should all be using the newly balanced powerups.
See this forum topic for more on Zwift’s rebalancing of powerups.
New Pairing Screen Layout
The pairing screen has been revamped, moving “Power Source” and “Controllable” to the top row while your “peripherals” are along the bottom row. The “speed source” box is now removed once you decide to pair a power source.
Old pairing screenNew pairing screen (initial window)New pairing screen
Overall, these changes make the screen’s layout more intuitive and clean.
Notably, “Steering” is now more prominently displayed. We’ll talk about that more below…
New Settings Layout
The main settings screen is now organized into two tabs: “Preferences” and “Sound & Display”:
This makes it easier to find the setting you need, and clears room for Zwift to add additional settings in the future.
You’ll notice Zwift has added explanatory text below each of the settings, which is a nice touch. (That said, we’re not sure Trainer Difficulty‘s explanation clarifies things: “Adjust the gear bias for your ride type”. Huh? We suggest something more like “Adjusts how in-game gradient changes affect your trainer’s resistance”… or even the old text, which said “Scale the feel of gradient changes”.)
Coffee Stop Coming Soon
Coffee Stop lets you hop off the bike for a quick break (to grab a towel, hit the loo, refill a bottle, etc) without losing the group you’re riding with.
Zwift already announced the Coffee Stop feature as coming soon, and with this update they’re putting a date on its release: May 10th!
Zwift says, “Starting with version 1.39, we will no longer support OpenGL on macOS. All new versions will only support Metal.”
What does this mean for Zwifters? It means all Apple-powered platforms now use Metal as their graphics API on Zwift. Zwift says unifying the graphics API for all Apple-powered platforms will let them improve visual quality for these devices since they don’t have to support both the older OpenGL and the newer Metal.
What’s Happening with In-Game Steering?
Zwift has supported steering for years, but it’s been disabled in most events. With this update, steering is now enabled by default for all events.
Today’s release notes also included this: “Repack Ridge is temporarily closed while we work on exciting improvements.”
Repack Ridge, if you recall, was singletrack offroad course rolled out to test in-game steering.
Steering taking a prominent position on the pairing screen, being enabled by default for all events, and Repack Ridge being temporarily closed for “exciting improvements” all point to one thing: Zwift is doing something new with steering. What is that exactly? We’ll have to wait and see.
More Fixes and Tweaks
A few more fixes were noted in this release:
Changed the location of language settings to the login screen for all devices and added the option to change language in the settings option screen
Fixed a crash that could occur when attempting to spawn a HoloReplay on a segment as the Zwifter approached.
Changed the way HoloReplay names appear on the Riders Nearby List in an effort to make it more clear which HoloReplays are present.
Fixed a bug that would cause HoloReplay settings to not display correctly for routes and segments when the setting to show HoloReplays for routes, segments, or both was changed.
Fixed an issue that would cause the drops multiplier to incorrectly change when disabling the HUD during Pacer Group rides.
Resolved issue with ‘Completed Challenge’ banner not displaying
Fixed an issue with the entitlement count number displaying behind the garage icon on pause menu
Resolved issue with Wattbike Atom gear display not displaying
Resolved an issue with ‘Rode With’ lists not displaying
Tiny Race Series – May 6 Routes and Last Week’s Results
Tiny Races host some of the world’s top-ranked riders each week, and thus provide a big opportunity for racers looking to boost their ZwiftPower ranking. Last week’s zone 1 races were epic battles, with 4 of the world’s top 5 racers battling it out for the podium!
In the end Ryota Yamazaki (NeXT pb Enshored) for 1st place (ranked 2nd in the world currently), while Josh Harris (3rd ranked in the world) got 3rd. Special kudos to Christian Kaldbar, ranked 48th in the world, for finishing 2nd!
All four races this Saturday will be held on the Urukazi portion of Zwift’s Makuri Islands. Here are shots of some of the finish lines so you know what to expect:
Bridges and Boardwalks finishApproaching Island Outskirts finishIsland Outskirts finishApproaching Island Hopper finishIsland Hopper finish
Race 1: Bridges and Boardwalks (5.051km, ends at Shisa Sprint) Ride over to the Boardwalk Sprint to pick up your feather, then wind your way up to Urukazi’s highest post – the Shisa Sprint bridge – for the big finish!
Powerup: Feather (1x)
Race 2: Mech Isle Loop (1 Lap, 4km) The shortest Makuri Island route makes for a great short race with its climb section and mixture of dirt and paved roads. What bike will you use?
Powerup: none
Race 3: Island Outskirts (6.2km, end on boardwalk after descent) Race from Mech Isle up the other side of the Shisa Sprint climb, but this time we’ll descend back down to the boardwalk for a super fast final sprint. Timing is everything – when will you use the anvil?
Powerup: Anvil (1x)
Race 4: Island Hopper (7.35km, end on bridge atop Mech Isle climb) We’ve put our longest race of the day last, just in case the D’s need a bit more time. This one ends at the bridge atop the Mech Isle Loop climb.
Zwift displays preliminary race results in game when you cross the line, but points are computed after all four races are finished, with final results on ZwiftPower. (We have to do some data processing on our side to compute results, so if your rankings don’t show up right away, be patient.)
Riders will earn points based on finish position in each of the 4 Tiny Races. The category winner of each week’s series is the rider with the most points across their timezone’s 4 races. Here are the links for each timezone’s results on ZwiftPower:
Tiny Race rules are simple, but still every week 7-10% of registered ZwiftPower racers get disqualified and removed from the final results. Don’t let that be you! Four races, four rules:
You must have a ZwiftPower account, because final results are processed by ZwiftPower (learn how to sign up)
No skipping then returning. These races are meant to be raced as a set of 4. If you need to leave early, that’s fine… but once you miss a race in your hour’s set of 4, don’t come back and race another or you’ll be disqualified from that race since you rested while others were racing! (Example: racing only races 1 and 2 is fine. Racing 1, 2, and 4 is not – you will be DQ from race 4. And if you race 2, 3, and 4, you’ll be DQ from all those races, since you skipped race 1!)
Heart rate monitors are required for podium finishers
ZPower/Virtual power is not allowed. Smart trainer/smart bike or power meter required.
Join a Chat & Chill Cooldown
Immediately following each hour’s racing, we’ve scheduled 30-minute “Chat & Chill” events where riders from all categories can spin their legs together and chat about how it all went down. Find them at zwift.com/events/tag/tinyraces.
Zwift Insider Kit Unlock
Finish any Tiny Race or a Chat & Chill ride and unlock the Zwift Insider “Ride Smarter // Ride Harder” in-game kit.
Zwift’s Scotland map has beautiful views and purpose-built racing segments including the Sgurr climb, Glasgow Crit Circuit, and of course Breakaway Brae.
But there are only 5 official Scotland routes, so we decided it was time to create some thoughtful new Rebel Routes.
Today we introduce the first in our series of Scotland Rebel Routes. (Watch this space, as we’ll be introducing a new one every Monday in May!)
“Fower Power” completes each of the four (“fower” in Scots) loops of the Scotland map in a counterclockwise direction, starting in Glasgow at the southwest side of the map and working your way northeast to the Tower area.
Bombing the Sgurr gravel descent
About Rebel Routes
“Rebel Routes” are Zwift rides not available on Zwift’s routes list, thus requiring manual navigation.
The reward for your rebel ride? Exploring a new route, knowing you’ve gone where few Zwifters have gone before. And a Strava segment rank in the tens or hundreds instead of the thousands! Rebel Routes are also included as a separate category on our Veloviewer Route Hunter leaderboard.
Route Description
We begin with a loop through Glasgow by choosing City and the Sgurr as our route. After a short lead-in (just under 1km) Fower Power begins at the Champion’s Sprint banner.
Ride the Glasgow Crit Circuit loop first, but in a counterclockwise (reverse) direction. If the road feels unfamiliar, there is a reason why: no official Zwift route takes us through Glasgow in this direction.
After Glasgow it’s a CCW loop of the Sgurr/Cliffs, the Loch/Sgurr, and finally our smallest loop which takes us up Breakaway Brae twice. When you ride through the Breakaway Brae banner a second time, you’re finished.
Profile
Not much is flat on this circuit, but there are no massive climbs either. (Unless you count the Sgurr, which you’ll climb in both directions.)
Getting Started + Lead-In
The easiest way to get started is to choose “City and the Sgurr” from your Scotland route options. This is the only route that puts you on the correct road in the correct direction. You’ll have a short (~900m) lead-in to the Champion’s Sprint banner start line.
Turn by Turn
Here are the turns you’ll need to make to successfully complete Fower Power after starting from the City and the Sgurr spawn point:
Can’t drop a Ride On bomb in Zwift? Try this quick fix.
One Zwifter recently sent me a screenshot of their Companion app, asking “Why can’t I tap my location arrow and give a ‘Ride on bomb’ to nearby riders like I used to do?”
(If you’re unaware, this is standard Companion app functionality: while active on Zwift, you can tap your location on the live map screen in Companion to give a Ride On to 5 nearby Zwifters.)
The fix for this Zwifter was simple, although perhaps not intuitive. He needed to zoom in! I’m not sure why, but in Companion if you zoom out too far, the Ride On bomb gets disabled. Zoom in and that white circle will reappear around your arrow, telling you it’s ready to be tapped to spread some Ride On love.
Here’s a quick video showing how it works:
Now go drop some Ride On bombs and share the love!
Zwift has rolled out a fresh Mission for May, and it’s all about building fitness through structured workouts.
Never tried a structured workout? They typically use Erg mode on your smart trainer to help you hold a particular wattage over specific time intervals for efficient, targeted training.
Note: signups opened April 24 in game, but the Mission doesn’t begin until May 1st.
Getting Started
To begin the Mission, select the mission card on your homescreen and click to register:
Once you’ve registered, clicking the mission card will show your progress for the Mission.
Completing the Mission
To complete the mission and earn the achievement badge, complete 4 unique workouts during the month of May. Completing the same workout 4 times won’t complete the mission – you have to complete 4 different workouts.
Group workouts on Zwift’s calendar count toward the mission, including Zwift’s popular new Spring Training Series. You can also knock out the workouts on your own as “on-demand” activities.
Galaxy Cycling Club has about to kick off its inaugural Gemini Stars Women’s Race Series! The five-week series begins on Tuesday, May 2, and with a solid number of ladies signing up promises an exhilarating experience for all participants.
Click to see all upcoming Galaxy events, including the Gemini Stars series
Route and Schedule Details
All races are at 7pm BST (London), 8pm CEST (Amsterdam), 2pm EDT, 11am PDT.
The series is points-based and includes both an individual and team competition. Riders earn points in all races based on finishing position and selected sprint and QoM segments in races 2-5.
Category Enforcement will be used to determine riders’ categories for this series.
More Info
For all the details on intermediates, points, rules and more be sure to see the race bible.
Episode 50! The Return of Eric Schlange (Nowhere Fast Podcast)
Nowhere Fast turned 50 this week, and what better way to celebrate than with a return visit from Zwift Insider’s Eric Schlange. Well, he was actually the second choice, but you’ll have to tune in for perhaps the greatest Storytime with Kevin yet to find out who the top choice was.
Eric helped cover the new Zwift pack dynamics, the story behind ZI’s Tiny Races, new advances in heat adaptation training, and some fresh ideas to help Zwift make more money. Oh, and of course, cheating.
Eric’s previous visit was our #2 episode of all time. We beg you to tune in, or at least just download the episode, to help make him number one in both our hearts and Nowhere Fast’s pod stats.
About the Podcast
Nowhere Fast is a member of the Wide Angle Podium network. To support this podcast and help pay for Kevin’s legal fees, head to wideanglepodium.com to become a member of the network and support what we do.
To keep up to date on all our real coverage of fake bike racing, subscribe via Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Welcome to my week 6 “Build Me Up” (BMU) training log.
About this Series: I’m journaling my way weekly through Zwift’s “Build Me Up” training plan and calling out tough workouts, minor bugs, and Zwift feature suggestions along the way. For your reference, my FTP is set to 321W, as detected by Zwift’s ramp test at the start of the plan. Past weeks: Week 1 // Week 2 // Week 3 // Week 4 // Week 5
Finishing this week felt good, as it meant I was halfway through the BMU plan. Read about week 6 below!
This was the only 90-minute workout of the week, so I decided to do it first. And it wasn’t bad at all!
HWBTWTDWH (Hard Works Beats Talent When Talent Doesn’t Work Hard) is basically a sweet spot workout. 4x 15-minute blocks around the sweet spot zone (90% of FTP). It featured plenty of cadence and position changes to keep it interesting, but in the end it was just a combined 60 minutes of sweet spot work.
Last week‘s long workout was 4 blocks of 12 minutes at sweet spot, so this week was a bit longer. BUT… last week also featured the 30/30s at 480W, which were just killer. This week had no such silliness, which makes this workout much easier than its last-week equivalent.
With 5 workouts this week, I needed to do 4 in a row with no off days. So I decided to alternate the workouts easy-hard-easy-hard. Having flagged “Attack!” and “C.A” as my two easy workouts, I jumped into this one Monday morning.
While some of the text instructions from coach Shayne during the workout (as well as the title itself) might lead you to believe it’s a tough workout, it really isn’t. Basically just 34 minutes of tempo work around 80% of FTP. Yes, each of the 3 long tempo blocks began with a 30s effort at 150% of FTP… but that wasn’t hard to do, given the rest block right before each effort.
My legs were still sore from a short yet ill-advised jog I’d taken two days before, so I welcomed the opportunity to not push myself to the limit today.
A solid workout, but not one that pushed me to the edge. This workout consisted of two sections:
3x sub-threshold blocks (5 minutes at 95% of FTP, with a 30-second ramp up to 150% at the end of each).
2x 5 30/30s. First set was 415w/225W, second set was 450W/195W.
The 30/30s at the end were the toughest part, but the required wattage wasn’t as high as the nightmarish 30/30s a couple of weeks ago. I just kept my cadence high and pushed through. They were tough but doable, with my heart rate going just over threshold.
For some reason, Shayne decided this was the workout to introduce “Bike Facts”. Once in each of the 5-minute sections he shared a bike fact like what you see below:
Being a bike nerd, I found this interesting and entertaining, and would welcome it in other workouts.
“C.A.” stands for Cadence Adjustment. This workout consisted of a 6-minute set of intervals, repeated 5x:
3 minutes at 90% FTP (290W) at 90RPM
2 minutes at 85% FTP (275W) at 100RPM
1 minute at 75% FTP (240W) at 110RPM+
This one actually felt like it got a bit easier as it went on. I think my legs initially didn’t want to turn over quickly, but they came around. For the very last 1-minute interval I decided to try to hold the highest cadence I could – and ended up averaging 128RPM! That is, I’m quite certain, the most pedal revs I’ve ever done in 60 seconds.
With a VO2 workout coming the next day, this workout was a bit tougher than I would have preferred. But I’ll cross my fingers and hope I can pound my way through the VO2 intervals tomorrow!
This VO2 workout was a key workout for the week, since we’re in a VO2-focused block. This week’s VO2 workout was a bit tougher than last week’s, with the intervals 30 seconds longer and a 10-minute block of sweetspot (110% of FTP, or 290W) tacked onto the end. Happily there were only 5 VO2 intervals this time, instead of last week’s 6.
The VO2 intervals were tough – pushing me pretty close to my limit and making this the hardest workout of the week. The final 10-minute block of sweetspot was tough but doable, emptying my legs quite nicely.
Whine of the Week: Ride Summary Graph
This is admittedly a minor thing to whine about, but here we go: I wish Zwift would fix the graph shown in my post-workout summary screen. Because it’s always off on both the horizontal and vertical axes. This drives me just a bit crazy!
Summing Up Week 6
While the VO2 workout was tough, the other 4 workouts this week were all quite doable. I feel like Shayne made the workouts a bit easier this week, so we could survive having 5 workouts instead of 4 and build endurance/resilience. Even with 5 workouts, we still haven’t surpassed week 3’s TSS:
Week 1: 274 TSS
Week 2: 343 TSS
Week 3: 363 TSS
Week 4: 212 TSS
Week 5: 312 TSS
Week 6: 358 TSS
One to Keep, One to Throw Away
I think each week of BMU features a key “cornerstone workout” and another which doesn’t really need to be done, so I thought it might be useful to call those out each week, in case your schedule is tight. For week 6, here are my picks:
Key Workout – #15.9: With the focus on VO2max this block, finishing each week’s VO2 workout is what’s most important.
Throw Away – Attack!: easiest workout of the week, and I’m not sure it achieves what it says it’s supposed to achieve (“The focus here is on your ability to attack the group and recover after”.) The attack interval is fine, but the long tempo intervals that followed are well below the pace you’d need to hold to stay away from the group. Not a bad workout for an easy(ish) day, though.
Coming Up Next Week
Week 7 is next, and it’s by far the toughest week to date. Total workout time is 6 hours (the most yet), resulting in 430 TSS (also the most yet, by a good margin). My goal: survival! I’ll be happy if I can finish all 5 workouts without needing to hit “pause” or lower my FTP bias.
Questions or Comments?
Any advice or encouragement as I head into week 7? Or perhaps you have other questions or comments? Share below!
To know that your effort is going toward a good cause is a great sensation. Join other Zwifters in supporting Sydney to Surfers Charity. The Sydney to Surfers Charity is aiming to help raise money for Father Chris Riley’s Youth Off The Streets a not-for-profit youth organization. Donations are not required but would be greatly appreciated by the organization. The ride is open to riders of all paces and does not have any set pace.
Riders will be tackling two laps of the Flat Route Reverse course, which will likely be pretty quick for most riders. Bonus: this ride is preset to the Specialized Venge S-Works, one of the fastest bikes on Zwift!
Every month, the team at Bike MS will be hosting the Bike MS 150. This is a two-day event that has four different distances to suit the needs of various riders. As the largest charity cycling series in the United States, Bike MS aims to raise awareness and funds for MS. Completing each of the two events will unlock a different Bike MS kit.
For this month’s events, the events on Saturday will be taking place on the Watopia’s Waistband course while the Sunday events take place on the Triple Flat Loops course.
As the longest ride offered by team Ascenders, this event offers both metric and imperial century options. Leaders will not be present, but riders are encouraged to find others around their pace in order to make the event more enjoyable.
Both events take place on the Tempus Fugit course in Watopia. This will allow for some fast times for this event.
As the most popular group ride on Saturday afternoons for those in North America, the HERD Saturday Doughnut Ride boasts some of the best leaders in Zwift. Riders are sure to be entertained throughout the ride as the HERD leaders always give their all. Leaders and sweepers will both be present in the group ride to help keep the peloton intact.
The group ride takes place on the rolling Sand and Sequoias course in Watopia and lasts for 60 minutes.
Join team JETT for a fast endurance ride around the roads of Watopia. To help the group get settled and prepped for the long haul, leaders will begin the ride ~0.5 w/kg less than the advertised pace before bringing the pace up to speed. Team JETT does have some rules that they would like riders to be aware of in order to keep the group tight and the ride fun for all.
Taking place over 100km of the Out and Back Again course in Watopia, the ride will take roughly 2 hours and 30 minutes. Category B will likely be slightly faster than this.
We choose each weekend’s Notable Events based on a variety of factors including:
Is the event unique/innovative in some way?
Are celebrities (pro riders, etc) attending/leading?
Are signup counts already high, meaning the event is extra-popular?
Does the ride include desirable unlocks or prizes?
Does the event appeal to ladies on Zwift? (We like to support this under-represented group!)
Is it for a good cause?
Is it just plain crazy (extra long races, world record attempts, etc)?
Is it a long-running, popular weekly event with a dedicated leader who deserves a shout out?
In the end, we want to call attention to events that are extra-special and therefore extra-appealing to Zwifters. If you think your event qualifies, comment below with a link/details and we may just include it in an upcoming post!
Your Thoughts
Got other events that stand out this weekend? Share below in the comments!
