Zwift Academy enrollment tops 1000
Zwift Academy now has 1111 riders enrolled. Enrollment ends July 31st–learn more at zwiftacademy.com.
Here’s the recent Facebook post from Zwift HQ:
Zwift London PRL course details and possible launch dates
Zwift London PRL course details and possible launch dates
The folks at Zwift HQ have been testing the new London course and posting the rides to Strava–here are links to recent rides from Eric Min, Jon Mayfield and Mike McCarthy and Matt Antoniou.
Based on Strava’s data we can ascertain a few tasty details about the soon-to-be-released course:
- It is fairly flat except for the Box Hill climb of ~495′ (151m) which is ~2.4 miles (3.9km) long–quite close to the profile of the real life Box Hill
- Zwift HQ took liberties with the layout of the course so we don’t have to ride out to Surrey to enjoy Box Hill–it finishes at the Elephant & Castle
- The main course loop is ~9.2 miles (14.8km) long
- The course has an optional loop section ~3.4 miles (5.5km) long to the west through Green Park so we can race around Buckingham Palace–definitely something we won’t be doing in real life!
- We’ll be riding in the left lane
When will it be released?
Zwift HQ is staying tight-lipped about a release date, but since the Prudential Ride London race is July 30-31st, my guess is the course will be released sometime between late this Wednesday and early Friday.
Screen Shots of the London Course:
Tacx Neo road feel firmware update released
Tacx Neo road feel firmware update released
Last week Tacx released a major firmware update for their flagship Neo trainer which allows it to emulate the “feel” of various road surfaces such as cobblestones, plank bridges, and gravel.
This is made possible by the Neo’s innovative motor which adjusts the resistance on your rear cassette 1000 times per second. Because the adjustments can be made so rapidly, various “surface profiles” can be utilitized which give you the pedal feel of different surfaces.
Here’s what Tacx says about it:
Road surface simulation
The NEO is the only trainer with road surface simulation, allowing you to experience the feeling of riding on cobblestones, gravel, off road or other types of roads, all while you are indoors. You feel the vibrations of the road surface in your legs, exactly the way it would feel outdoors. This entirely new feature can be used with some Tacx Films when you ride in our virtual worlds and with Zwift.
This feature simply makes Zwift more immersive, and that’s a beautiful thing. Of course, you have to be pedaling to feel the surface emulation: unlike riding outdoors, you won’t feel the various surfaces when you are coasting, and you won’t feel the different vibrations through your seat or handlebars.
What do Users Think?
The reviews I’ve seen thus far have been quite positive. Some Zwifters, however, have requested the ability to turn the feature on or off because they want the smoothness of an indoor ride.
Here is an thorough review from DC Rainmaker >
Is this a Kickr Killr?
The Neo’s main competition is Wahoo’s Kickr (although Cyclops’ new Hammer will also begin competing in this space soon.) While many people love the Kickr for its rock-solid reliability, it simply isn’t capable of this level of road surface simulation since it uses a belt system for resistance.
Will Neo’s new road feel capabilities unseat the Kickr as (arguably) the most popular high-end trainer? Probably not, but anyone who doesn’t yet own a high-end trainer and is looking for an immersive experience will certainly be attracted to the Neo. Because of this, I predict Wahoo will release some major Kickr firmware updates or a new Kickr version soon.
Tacx’s video introducing this new feature:
Everyone’s favorite Lama Shane Miller discussing the new feature:
Tacx Neo Intro Video:
Zwift version 1.0.13205 released
Zwift version 1.0.13205 released
Zwift HQ pushed out an update on 7/22 which fixes a few bugs and adds some minor improvements.
See the official update announcement with a detailed list of changes here >
Zwift today, win a TdF stage tomorrow: Michael Matthews takes stage 10
Zwift today, win a TdF stage tomorrow: Michael Matthews takes stage 10
The day before stage 10 of the Tour de France, Michael “Bling” Matthews of team ORICA-BikeExchange tweeted a question about joining a group ride on Zwift, as he hopped on for a ride during his rest day.
Anyone now how to join a group ride on @GoZwift im on my rest day at true tour de France and trying to find a group
— michael matthews (@blingmatthews) July 11, 2016
(Incidentally, we’ve got a post covering how to join a group ride–it’s easy!)
The next day Matthews got into the break along with two teammates (Luke Durbridge and Daryl Impey) and a few other strong riders including Peter Sagan, Edvald Boassen Hagen and Greg Van Avermaet.
The ORICA-BikeExchange trio worked their team advantage perfectly, placing Matthews in an ideal position for the win. He executed a fast and precise sprint to take the stage.
More and more pros are using Zwift–it was even featured in the TdF newscast. As Zwift HQ’s Charlie Issendorf likes to say: “Zwift now, win later.” (Note: this philosphy also worked for Matthews’ teammate Matt Hayman who won Paris-Roubaix after a month of Zwifting earlier this year.
JZRA season 1 ends
JZRA season 1 ends
JZRA (Jones Zwift Racing Association) is the brainchild of brothers Tim and Arnold Jones (read an interview with Tim here). Besides organizing races themselves, they also put together the first-ever ranking scheme for a multiple-race season on Zwift, helping to transition Zwift racing from a single-race focus to a full-season focus, much like outdoor racing.
Beginning with the Zwifta Bianche on January 28, 2016 and ending with yesterday’s ZTR, the race season included 42 different race events such as KISS, ZTR, dZi Summit Races, and more.
View the first season’s results here. Results are available by rider, team, and nation.
Here is a summary Arnold posted at the conclusion of this first season.
Starting by saying a huge well done to our top 3 riders, Frank Garcia (Team X) is our first champion, Quentin Lafaye (PTz/Vision 2) a worthy second place and Mark McIntosh (Team X) was Mr Consistent throughout the season to take 3rd.
Congratulations to Team X who stormed away with the team win with 4 riders in the top 5, and I say a begrudging congratulations to the USA for beating the UK for the top spot in the nations rankings! (but seriously well done USA)
Brief Statistics
3710 individual points were scored, Frank Garcia actually had 9.84% of all the points on offer. The top 5 had 26.7% of all the points.
Most wins: Lafaye: 7, Garcia: 6, Schumm: 4, Louge: 3, Little: 2, Schmidheiny: 2 and Kuhn: 2
Thanks
Huge thanks to Glen Knight for bringing KISS in and Christian Wiedmann for bringing in ZTR and Frederic Jacquemin and co for the dZi Summit Races.
Special shoutout to Alex Callejo who upgraded our spreadsheet to a super-savvy version to help us keep it all under control, without it there would be alot more errors and alot more time required to input the points.
Also James Hodges for Zwift power and his and Glens hard work on the logger And thank you to anyone who showed up to race, we like organising stuff but that’s no good if there’s no one to organise it for.
Please do check out the post in the KISS Zwift Road Race group specifying details of the KISS/ZTR league that will be filling in for us over the next 6 weeks if you need your fix of points.
Next Season
So what of next season? Well it will kick off on 1st September. With hopefully more counting events and an improved ranking system with separated categories in parts, points to all finishers and a more competitive system (we hope). We’ll reveal specifics nearer the time.
Sponsorship?
We’re open to the idea of welcoming a sponsor for the next season and put their names to the rankings. We wouldn’t ask alot in return just to supply some prizes for the overall winners. If you have a product/charity/organisation/company or anything you want to advertise please drop me a private message and we can talk about it.
Race Team
Now this one I’ve mentioned before but we’re hoping there is some interest in riders forming a race team for the JZRA (although it might not be called JZRART as that’s a bit of a mouthful). We’d be open to having any category riders hoping to build a core before the influx of new Zwifters over the winter. Again if this interests you please do send me a private message and we can talk and gauge who’s interested.
Next Event?
In the summer we think we’ll be having a “Race to the Beach” in August, a fun race without points with a different finish line: The beach on ocean Boulevard of course! Very summery, it’s always sunny on Watopia (unlike the UK I must say!)
And the next TTT we will announce now, and it will be in align with an event recent announced by Tam Burns (see Zwift riders) and if you’ve seen his post you may realise now that this means it will be a World Championships Edition! Details will follow and don’t worry there will be opportunities for everyone to race it.
Extra little bit of news
This September Tim is off to university and since he does the bulk of the work with JZRA (in the background!) it’s likely it will be going with him, I’ll still be invlolved and around and most certainly watching intently as the season unfolds but he will become the main man as he should be and I will be taking a slight step back.
Well done you made it to the bottom of the post congratulations! A special well done, I would give you a point or 2 but it’s a bit late! See you at the Race to the Beach 😀 and we look forward to next season!
More reasons to ride indoors this summer
More reasons to ride indoors this summer
Yesterday’s post on fair-weather Zwifting generated a lot of feedback, with Zwifters around the world chiming in with their reasons for riding indoors during nice weather. Here are more reasons that weren’t covered in the original post:
- Riding late at night: Fitting a ride in can be a challenge regardless of the season. Rob M. said “I’m only Zwifting in the summer when it’s too dark to go out, the wife goes to bed at 22:30 and that’s my turbo time. That way I get to see my wife and son, eat dinner after work and train without it impacting my family.”
- Family time: Lots of Zwifters are stay at home parents with young kids, or simply want to spend as much time with their families as possible. Ayrton S. says “With a 3 month old baby in our house, zwift has been a lifesaver. I sometimes manage 80 – 100 zwift miles a week and a day or two on the weekends to ride outdoors for a few hours of climbs.” Derek B. says “I’m a full time dad and Zwift gives me the flexibility to do the kind of training for my epic outdoor rides (got the Race Across Germany next week – 1,100 km’s non stop as RAAM qualifier)…”
- Avoiding sunlight: I certainly understand this one, being a fair-skinned redhead who requires sunscreen prior to any summer rides. Darren B. mentioned the benefit of no sun exposure (ie skin cancer), and Warren T. added an interesting note: “Recovering from Lyme disease so it’s a great help to get me riding since I have to avoid direct sunlight with meds I’m on.”
- Avoiding bad air: Air quality can fluctuate seasonally, especially when it comes to pollen counts. Jon C. says “For me, the reason I’ve used Zwift more lately has been the poor air quality and exceptionally high volumes of pollen this year.”
- Get riding quickly: I live in a small town with just one stoplight and low traffic, so finding a quiet road is easy. But that’s not the case for everyone! Kevin F. says “I live in a city of ten million and it takes me a good hour of riding to get to a good, relatively safe place to ride a bike at speed. I can do that on weekends, but during the week I just hop on Zwift.” George B. says “I would have to drive hours to get some safe hills to ride. With Zwift I get the option to ride hills everyday.”
- No zombies: I missed this in my original post, but it’s certainly a valid fear. Randy S. says “Rain or shine, my plan is to Zwift all the time. No need to worry about getting killed by a car, dog, sunburn, bees, zombies, etc.”
Trek/Segafredo Coffee Rides announced
Trek/Segafredo Coffee Rides announced
Zwift HQ has announced a series of daily coffee rides celebrating the Tour de France. Four rides are happening daily for the duration of Le Tour (July 2-24), with each ride beginning at 6AM in a different time zone: AEST, BST, EDT, and PDT.
Each ride will take advantage of a new Zwift feature–audio playback! Participants can listen in on exclusive behind-the-scenes audio from renowned U.S. cycling commentator Dave Towlealong and the Trek-Segafredopro cycling team.
Additionally, Zwifters who complete any three of these rides will be eligible to win swag from Trek, Segafredo and CycleOps.
What’s a Coffee Ride?
While some cyclists (and Trek themselves) may argue that every ride is a coffee ride, a true “coffee ride” is meant to happen early in the morning in a fasted state, with the rider only consuming coffee prior to the ride.
Riding in a fasted state can help train your body to burn fat for energy, while the coffee’s caffeine stimulates your system and wakes you up.
(Just make sure you drink your coffee black, or with just some heavy whipping cream. You don’t want any sugar or lactose in the mix… and you definitely don’t want to work off a 500 calorie Starbucks Frappuccino.)
Learn more about fasted training from this Trainer Road post >
Fair-weather Zwifting (why everybody’s doing it)
Fair-weather Zwifting (why everybody’s doing it)
“Indoor training” was a phrase cyclists used to mutter angrily… something we only did when the weather grew so terrible that it left no other option. But this season, arguably for the first time ever, we are seeing massive numbers of cyclists riding indoors despite beautiful weather outside.
Is it mass hysteria? Some sort of cycling brain flu?
A recent post on the CycleOps blog from professional triatheletes (and Zwifters) Trevor and Heather Wurtele discussed this phenomenon. For Trevor and Heather it comes down to two simple reasons:
- Getting shorter rides done more quickly: “For me a 1500 kilojoule ride often takes around 1 hour and 50 minutes outside, but I can finish that off on the trainer in 1.5 hours, and spend all of that time in the aero position.”
- High quality interval sessions: “Putting these shorter, hard workouts, on the indoor trainer keeps them very specific. We can control every aspect of the workout with no risk of interruptions.”
These are excellent reasons, and I could add many more to the list. Here are just a few:
- Easy race access: it may be racing season, but my closest races are a 2-3 hour drive away. Thankfully I can clip in and compete whenever I’d like thanks to Zwift’s busy race schedule–and I don’t have to pay an entry fee!
- Safety: whether you’re recuperating from an injury or just concerned about the dangers of real-world riding, moving the ride indoors keeps you out of harm’s way.
- It’s cooler: when the temperature starts to hit 90+ degrees Fahrenheit, the coolness of my garage and a big fan become quite appealing.
Yes, I’m currently doing most of my riding outdoors here in northern California. But I’m still enjoying regular Zwifting sessions as well.
What about you? Are you finding yourself riding indoors in good weather this season? Why?
EDIT: many Zwifters have chimed in with their reasons for riding indoors in good weather. I’ve created a new post with those reasons here.
Zwift course schedule for July
Zwift course schedule for July
Here is July’s course schedule. Richmond has moved from Tuesdays to Thursdays, although Zwift’s Jon Mayfield notes: “this may change towards the end of the month if/when the London course is released.”
Keeping our fingers crossed!
Pleasenote: the course changeover happens at 21:00 Los Angeles time (PDT) or UTC-7hrs.