The ramp test has long been a crowd favorite when it comes to selecting the least painful FTP test. However, Samsung recently unveiled its new 4-minute FTP detection algorithm. Watch as one of the top sports tech reviewers puts it to the test.
Samsung’s Magical 4-Minute Cycling Test: Does it actually work?
While not directly Zwift-related, DCRainmaker’s recent video puts Samsung’s Galaxy Ultra’s new 4-minute FTP test to the test. Can this shortened FTP test rival the accuracy of ramp tests or 20-minute tests?
Zwift Academy 2024 Is Here But There’s a HUGE Problem…
Zwift Academy 2024 has recently been announced, but there are a few key changes that Road to A highlights. Are these changes a dealbreaker for potential Zwift Academy participants?
New Wahoo TRACKR: The Heart Rate Monitor That Endures
Tariq from Smart Bike Trainers provides a quick review of the recently released Wahoo TRACKER Heart Rate Monitor covering detailed specs, how the heart rate sensor performs, and more.
How to Win a Zwift Race – Top 10 Tips
Who doesn’t want to win a Zwift race? In this video, Rob, aka Zwifty Zwifter, shares 10 tips to help you win your next Zwift race.
Bros Ride Bikes on the New Zwift Ride
Watch as Eli and Jack from Bros Ride Bikes unbox Zwift Ride and share their initial impressions.
Got a Great Zwift Video?
Share the link below and we may feature it in an upcoming post!
Zwiftcast Episode 203: The XP Row, Amazing Stats on Zwifters’ Levels and the Women’s Tour avec Zwift
This episode kicks off with a sequence looking at the community reaction to HQ’s latest changes to the XP system and, in turn, Zwifters’ levels. It’s fair to say the latest changes were not universally welcomed, and Simon, Shane and Eric pick apart the reasons. HQ acknowledged that the changes were not well signalled and HQ’s head of product Mark Cote explains what happened.
Even the most casual cycling fan must be aware that Women’s Cycling is on the up – fresh, exciting and growing fast. Simon talks to HQ’s Kate Veronneau about the absolutely pivotal part Zwift has played in this, much of it down to the company’s critically important sponsorship of the re-born Tour de Frances Femmes, avec Zwift. Kate discloses that she’s been known to message journalists and broadcasters who forget to mention the “avec Zwift” part!
When a listener asked Simon to chase down some stats on how many Zwifters sit at each Level, he thought it might make an interesting feature. In fact, the data that came back from Zwift was absolutely gob-smacking. The Level 100 Club is uber-exclusive, with only 0.06% of Zwifters getting past the velvet ropes to the inner sanctum of achievement. At the other end, the percentage of Zwifters just starting their journey, and on Levels 1-10, is, if anything, even more staggering. Listen to the Ep to find out more.
Zwift staffer James Bailey provides a shedload of interesting insight into the new Zwift Racing Score system which should, before too long, replace the crude A, B, C and D racing categories.
And Kate returns at the end of the episode to give a preview of the exciting events on the platform to mark the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift. We hope you enjoy listening.
This weekend we’ve chosen two races using the new Zwift Racing Score. We’re also highlighting the three longest events of the week, each topping out at 100 miles!
Saturday’s Tiny Races are some of the very first events to use a custom set of Zwift Racing Score-based bands to group riders. Why? Because we think it makes racing more interesting when packs get “mixed up” so you’re not always the weaker or stronger rider in the race.
The latest round of Zwift’s popular Women’s Racing Series is well underway, and using the new Zwift Racing Score metric for categorization.
This Saturday is your last chance to finish this week’s stage, which is a shorter scratch race on Watopia’s Oh Hill No (8.1km, 305m). You’ll want to warm up well for this race, as it takes you straight up the FTP-testing “The Grade” from the start pens! Why not make this event do double duty and treat it as both an FTP test and a race? Allez allez!
The first of our long group rides is from the Ascenders team. Everyone starts together and rides at the same pace (1-2.8 W/kg), but the A group goes for 100 miles while the B group goes for 100km.
Build your base/endurance with the DIRT crew! This ride is held on Watopia’s Triple Flat Loops at a pace of 2.7-3.2 W/kg, and the event description says the pace typically results in a 4 hour to 4:10 completion time. This ride also gets the prize for “most unique start time” this weekend.
A regularly-featured event here on Zwift Insider, the BMTR Fundo consistently gets lots of joiners because it’s well-led and run consistently week after week, year after year.
This week’s ride is on Greatest London Flat. You have four distance groups to choose from, all the way up to 100 miles. Doubledraft is enabled to help the pack stay together.
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!
How did you get into cycling? Cycling has always been a big part of my ski training, I loved the long endurance rides on weekends. In 2018 I got pulled into Ecycling on Zwift where I found my competitive me again and where I can fully unwind my skillset.
How many years have you been racing on Zwift? Since 2019
Are you part of a Virtual team? Yes, Aeonian Racing Team
What do you love most about racing? I love the whole race prep, getting everything on point and tuning up the excitement before the race and then execute and call off everything I have been working on.
What is your favourite style of race (e.g. points, scratch, iTT, TTT, Chase, duathlon)? I have not really a specific favorite, if I need to name some it would be TTT, Scratch and Point races.
What is your favourite Zwift women’s race series? Not particularly women only – the Tiny Race series is pretty cool.
What is your most memorable racing experience, inside or outside or BOTH? My first World Championships in 2023 – I don’t race outdoors.
What is your favourite food to eat post race? Cinnamon Bun
What advice would you give to a woman entering her first Zwift race? Don’t expect anything, just push the pedals and hang on as long as you can and see where you are and go from there.
Any upcoming race are you looking forward to? All the races 🙂 Most excited about World Championships in October and the Qualifiers for it.
Kathrin’s avatar on the gold Tron bike she earned by winning the Zwift Games overall in 2024.
All About Video Screenshots: How To Record and Use Video Snippets in Zwift
Everyone loves a good photo, but moving pictures can be much more compelling, especially in the context of video gaming action.
Zwift rolled out their Video Screenshots feature in the first half of 2023, making it easy for many Zwifters to save video snippets of their activity for sharing on Strava or other platforms. Here’s an example of a video from a recent race:
Read below to learn all about Zwift’s Video Screenshots feature.
Recording a Video Screenshot
The Video Screenshots feature records 15-second video snippets of game play. These snippets are automatically recorded in certain cases, but recording can also be manually triggered.
If you have Video Screenshots enabled, most of the highlights you’ll want to capture are automatically saved. Automatically captured highlights include:
Taking a segment jersey
Setting a new PR
Finishing a challenge or mission
Gaining a level
Unlocking an achievement
Finishing an event
Completing a workout or training plan
Completing a new route
Completing a goal
You can also manually trigger a 15-second video screenshot by clicking the button highlighted below in game or in the Companion app. This will save a recording of the previous 15 seconds of gameplay to your device.
On a PC or Mac, you can also hit F9 on your keyboard to trigger a video screenshot.
Once you click to a video screenshot, you’ll have to wait 5 seconds before clicking to record another.
Supported Devices
Due to the processing power required to record video screenshots, this feature is only supported on higher-powered Windows PC, Mac, iOS, and Apple TV devices. It is not currently supported on any Android devices.
See the “Device Compatibility for Capturing Video” section of Zwift’s support page for details on supported devices.
About the Video Files
Video Screenshots are saved as .mp4 files with H.264 encoding, and are automatically downscaled to a maximum height of 720 pixels regardless of the resolution in which you’re running the game. Audio is encoded using AAC at 48 kHz. Files are typically ~4MB in size.
Video files are saved to the following locations, where you can access or delete them whenever you’d like:
iOS: Apple Photos app
macOS: Movies/Zwift folder
Windows: Videos/Zwift folder
Due to limitations on Apple TV, your video recordings aren’t saved in a location you can manually access. They’re saved to temporary memory in your Apple TV, and will be deleted eventually by the OS.
Uploading to Strava
You can choose up to one video screenshot to upload to your Strava activity, along with up to five photos. This is done on the End Ride screen:
The first video screenshot recorded during your activity will be automatically selected for upload, but you can click to ignore a video and add a different video if you’d like.
Turning Video Screenshots On or Off
If your device supports Video Screenshots in Zwift, you’ll see an option to enable/disable the feature under Settings>Preferences:
The option is enabled by default, but you can disable it if you’d like.
A Note about CPU Usage on Windows
In tests on multiple Windows PCs, we’ve seen Zwift’s CPU usage increase by around 20% when Video Screenshots are enabled:
If you have a strong enough PC this shouldn’t impact your game experience, since the Video Screenshots feature is multi-threaded and won’t use the same CPU core that Zwift heavily uses for gameplay.
That said, riders on weak or overloaded systems may see an impact. If you notice your system performs poorly with Video Screenshots enabled, simply disable it.
Questions or Comments
Do you use Zwift’s Video Screenshots feature? Got questions or comments about how it works? Share below!
“Punchy Power” ZRacing Series Details (August 2024)
Zwift’s “ZRacing” is the platform’s most popular ongoing race series. In August, the series takes on routes with climbs that require a strong w/kg punch. Additionally, the series is continuing to test Zwift’s new Zwift Racing Score in certain events!
Read on for details about race routes, the overall monthly GC competition, and more…
Punchy Power – August’s Route Schedule
Here are the routes we’ll be racing in August (click route for details):
The ZRacing series consists of monthly sets of weekly races. Each race is scheduled for seven days (Monday through Sunday) and timeslots are consistent week to week.
Races are scheduled hourly times each day at 10 minutes past the hour, so there are plenty of available times to find a race.
Zwift Racing Score will continue to be tested this month on certain ZRacing events. Zwift has made some changes this month, adding one more scored race to the list and slightly adjusting the score bands that group riders:
July’s Bands
725-1000
575-725
400-575
225-400
0-225
August’s Bands
700-1000
550-700
425-550
250-425
0-250
Scored events will occur at 0810, 1110, 1710, 1810, and 2210 UTC each day. These time slots will use 5 categories, except the 1710 and 1810 time slots which will use 10 categories.
IMPORTANT: if you want to compete in the monthly GC (see below), you’ll want to race the “normal” events, not these scored events, because the scored categories don’t line up with the GC categories on ZwiftPower.
Monthly GC on ZwiftPower
Each monthly series includes a time-based GC (general classification) tracking riders’ best finishing times for each week’s race. The overall winners in each category for the month are the riders with the lowest overall time for that month’s set of races.
With over 150 weekly timeslots available, riders can race each week’s event multiple times and try to better their finishing time. Tip: the fastest times usually come from the largest race fields!
You must use a heart rate monitor to show up in ZwiftPower results for this series.
Each month’s ZRacing series has a unique achievement badge, which you can unlock by finishing every stage for the month. There are no makeup events, so if you miss a stage, you miss out on the badge and competing in the GC.
One and Done
Zwift has planned these events to deliver a solid 1-hour workout, so each race should only take around 1 hour to complete, including your warmup and cooldown.
Zwift has been testing their new Zwift Racing Score in recent weeks. Today’s top video details the new categorization system and includes thoughts from a frequent Zwift racer.
We’ve also included videos about a Zwifter’s vEveresting experience, gains from periodized training, and a young Zwifter’s father-son birthday race!
Goodbye Zwift Racing Categories A, B, C, D!
Zwift recently started testing Zwift Racing Score-based categorization. Watch as Ollie, Not Tadej Pogacar, tries it and shares his thoughts.
I Didn’t Expect Everesting To Be This Brutal
How hard is vEveresting on Zwift? Road to A tells viewers everything they need to know about the Everesting cycling challenge. Additionally, he shares details about his brutal experience.
FTP 323W From 12 Weeks Of Base Training // Periodized Training 2024
Leonard Goh has been trying periodized training for the last 12 weeks in an attempt to increase his fitness. In this video, he shares how he incorporated Zwift and ultimately gained 30 watts on his FTP.
Goodbye Sandbaggers! New Zwift Racing Score
Has the introduction of the Zwift Racing Score finally eliminated sandbaggers from Zwift races? Erik from Don’t Get Dropped Cycling smashes this month’s ZRacing series and provides his thoughts on the new system.
Zwift Says I’m in C Category | What Could Go Wrong?
Ethan Courson, junior cyclist out of Florida, helps his dad in his birthday Zwift race. Can Ethan help his dad snag a birthday win?
Got a Great Zwift Video?
Share the link below and we may feature it in an upcoming post!
