More Watopia mountain route teaser shots
Courtesy of Zwift CEO Eric Min’s recent test ride posted to Strava. According to Eric the route is “Epic and nearly ready!”
More Watopia mountain route teaser shots
How to Unlock the Tron bike in Zwift
The Tron bike (named the “Zwift Concept Z1” in game) is definitely the coolest ride in Zwift (and one of the fastest). How do you get it? Three simple (but not easy) steps:
- Select the “Climb Mt. Everest” challenge in Zwift, and start climbing. You elevation will accumulate over many rides, and you can always click to check your progress.
- At the top of Mt Everest (8,848m / 29,028′) keep going!
- Climb 41,152 additional meters (135,014′) and you will unlock the coveted “Concept Z1” (aka “the Tron bike”).
That’s right: it takes a total of 50,000 meters (164,042′) of climbing to earn the Tron bike.
Once you’ve unlocked your Tron, see if you can dial in the multicolored light scheme >
Run Zwift with minimal distractions using this simple hack
Run Zwift with minimal distractions using this simple hack
Update: this hack is no longer needed, as Zwift has added “Hide the Display” mode in April 2021. Read all about how it works >
To run Zwift with minimal on-screen “heads up display” elements, add this line to the <config> section of your Zwift preferences file located at Documents/Zwift/prefs.xml:
<MINIMAL_UI>1</MINIMAL_UI>
This turns off the rider list, leaderboards, speed/rider timer, and more. Here’s a screenshot of the result:
Here is my prefs.xml file with the line added. If you’ve never edited an XML file before, it is as easy as opening the file in a text editor (Notepad works great on a PC), editing the file and saving your changes. Saving a backup copy of the original file is always a good idea!
<ZWIFT>
<DEVICES>
<LASTCADENCEDEVICE>720996</LASTCADENCEDEVICE>
<LASTPOWERDEVICE>720996</LASTPOWERDEVICE>
<CTF>12543</CTF>
<LASTHRMDEVICE>7891038</LASTHRMDEVICE>
<LASTSPEEDDEVICE>9716</LASTSPEEDDEVICE>
<LASTTRAINERDEVICE>2837993477</LASTTRAINERDEVICE>
</DEVICES>
<CONFIG>
<MINIMAL_UI>1</MINIMAL_UI>
<RICHMOND_BRANCH_PREFERENCE>0</RICHMOND_BRANCH_PREFERENCE>
<BRANCH_PREFERENCE>3</BRANCH_PREFERENCE>
<BATTPREFS>20</BATTPREFS>
<PREFERRED_MONITOR>2147516416</PREFERRED_MONITOR>
<TRAINER_EFFECT>0.5</TRAINER_EFFECT>
<IMGPREFS>0</IMGPREFS>
<USER_RESOLUTION_PREF>1920x1080</USER_RESOLUTION_PREF>
<AMBIENT_VOL>0</AMBIENT_VOL>
<SFX_VOL>0</SFX_VOL>
</CONFIG>
<WORKOUTS>
<LAST_WORKOUT>4035902721</LAST_WORKOUT>
<EDIT_IN_WATTS>1</EDIT_IN_WATTS>
<USE_ERG>1</USE_ERG>
</WORKOUTS>
</ZWIFT>
CANYON//SRAM Racing Zwift Academy professional female team rider recruitment plan released
CANYON//SRAM Racing Zwift Academy professional female team rider recruitment plan released
Just in time for International Women’s Day, Zwift HQ has released further info about the CANYON//SRAM Racing Zwift Academy, in which the Zwift platform will be used to select 3 female finalists to attend the CANYON//SRAM team winter camp. The final winner will be chosen after (presumably based on camp results) that and announced in December.
Exciting stuff, both for competitive female riders and the Zwift community!
New Watopia mountain route – sneak peak
New Watopia mountain route – sneak peak
A member of the Zwift team recently posted this screenshot of himself aero-tucking down the backside of the soon-to-be-released Watopia Mountain Route to Facebook.
In the screenshot you can see Watopia Island (where we currently ride) in the background, quite a distance away from the top of the new peak.
You can also note a new KOM banner in the course profile at the top-right.
Looking forward to the new route!
What others think of Zwift racing
What others think of Zwift racing
Racing on Zwift: you really won’t understand how great it is until you do it. Experience the effort and adrenaline of a real race, without the entry fees, long drives, and risk of bodily injury!
Zwift Companion v1.6 released
Zwift Companion v1.6 released
Zwift HQ released an updated to their iOS and Android mobile app today, and the big new feature is the long-awaited member search.
Zwifters can now easily search the entire database of Zwift accounts by name, and follow others with a single click.
Two more minor changes in the new app are the ability to connect your Strava and TrainingPeaks accounts, and the ability to order from the Zwift shop (kit, accessories, etc).
New Watopia mountain route on Strava
New Watopia mountain route on Strava
Zwift’s Jon Mayfield has posted a test ride of the new Watopia Mountain Route to Strava. See his ride on Strava >Â
Although the rest of us can’t ride the new route yet, we can learn some of the details from Jon’s test ride.
The new mountain route climbs ~1200 feet over ~6 miles (3.8% average grade), and the descent is steeper than the climb, dropping ~1200 feet in ~3.7 miles (6.1% average grade) with some hairy switchbacks that remind me of the TdF’s Montvernier climb.
You can see the “old” Watopia KOM to the far right of the ride profile above, which helps put the size of this new ascent into perspective. (Jon made the climb in ~30 minutes, and descended in ~6 minutes.)
Since Zwift is creating their own landscape on top of a real-world location, the actual physical map from Strava (on the right) doesn’t reflect what we see on Watopia. Therefore, we can’t figure out much more about the route until we actually ride it. Still, this is exciting stuff!
Here is an animation overlaying the existing Hilly and Flat routes with what I believe will be the new Mountain Route. This new route is 16.6 miles (26.7km) long.
Word on the street is it should be available within the next week or two, but we’ll just cross our fingers and wait. Jon Mayfield says “It definitely won’t be out this weekend, but after that it gets fuzzy.”
Thanks, Zwift HQ, for your continued great work!
Ride leader indicators showing up in game
Ride leader indicators showing up in game
Zwift announced that the latest update included some ride leader tools. Today during the Friday Criterium Series race we saw a preview of some of these features as Charlie Issendorf (Vice President of Events at Zwift) led the Zwift HQ ride. You can see a shield next to his name in the rider list, as well as a large shield/arrow over his avatar.
Additionally, when the leader sends a text message, the message shows up with a very obvious yellow background.
I’m happy to see this, because it will let us easily spot the ride leader, which means the groups will do a better job of following that leader. Nice work, Zwift!
Currently these features are only available to certain leaders of official Zwift rides, but we should see them released to “the masses” soon enough.
James Hodges rolls out Critical Power reports for Zwift races
James Hodges rolls out Critical Power reports for Zwift races
James Hodges has built out a Zwift Critical Power tracker which shows power details for racers. It pulls from the same races as race tracking site ZwiftNation.com but gives more expanded rider data including weight, w/kg, normalized power, power zones and 20min/5min/1min bests. Here is the overview from the Thursday Training Race Americas A&B race from 2/25/16.
James just rolled out a very cool new feature called the “Race Report” which breaks down each rider’s power levels in 30s averages over the course of the race. Here is the race report from the Thursday Training Race Americas A&B race from 2/25/16.
These numbers are pulled from riders’ Strava data, and from the sound of it riders are loving the ability to dig into power numbers in more detail.
It looks like René Rolighed is going to be building some of these features into version 2 of ZwiftNation.com. Hopefully we can get these detailed results consolidated in one place, while members of the community continue to push the boundaries to enhance these tools! Nice work everyone.