Level Up Your Wahoo KICKR CORE with this Foot Hack
The Wahoo KICKR CORE has been a very popular trainer since its debut in 2018. As Wahoo’s first direct-drive trainer priced below the magical $1000 mark, the CORE basically had the specs of a quieter KICKR v3 (2% accuracy, 12lb flywheel) with a more basic, slightly less stable base.
The CORE’s base, it turns out, can be a bit annoying in certain situations. Its two steel legs have slip-on rubber caps for feet, meaning:
You can’t adjust the left/right tilt of the trainer by adjusting the feet, as you can on higher-end trainers like the Wahoo KICKR
The rubber caps can work their way off the legs in certain scenarios, tilting your setup and possibly marring your floor
The ability to adjust the trainer’s left/right tilt is underrated, in my opinion. Not only can it compensate for uneven floors, it can also compensate for a less-than-perfectly built trainer! As it turns out, welding a trainer so your bike mounts at a perfect 90 degrees isn’t as easy as it may sound. In fact, it may surprise you to learn that one thing Zwift measures for Zwift Ready certification is how close to perfectly vertical a bike mounts on each test unit!
With tens of thousands of KICKR COREs set up in training spaces around the world, I’m sure there are a fair number of Zwifters who have had to place shims under one side of their trainer, or pop the rubber foot back into place. And with the KICKR CORE shipping with the Zwift Ride smart frame, even more of these trainers are landing in homes.
So when Zwifter Heath Brockett from New Zealand emailed me with a handy KICKR CORE hack, I knew I had to share it with the rest of you! Here are his pics:
As you can see, Heath has upgraded his KICKR CORE to effectively have the foot setup of a standard KICKR.
Parts List and Tools Required
Steel M10 rivet nuts (4): Heath says, “not aluminum and not stainless steel as the steel ones are easier to set.” Here’s an Amazon link to a 50-pack, but you’ll save money picking these up at your local hardware store.
Steel M10 half nuts (4): these are used to lock the threads in whatever position you want. Half nuts are used so the stack height is as low as possible. Probably best to pick these up at your local hardware store, too.
Round Plastic Caps (4): Heath used these 42mm caps made for 3-5mm wall thickness. That’s a New Zealand-based website, though, and I wanted to source parts on Amazon. My measurements show the legs to be 40mm across with 2mm walls, meaning a 40mm cap like these from Amazon would do the job.
Feet (4): Heath splurged and bought two sets of KICKR AXIS feet from Wahoo, as you can see from the pictures above. These are definitely the premium option, and they even add a bit of left/right sway to the setup! You could also buy a generic, heavy-duty foot like these on Amazon for a much lower price. Just make sure the foot is heavy duty enough to support the load, and the M10 bolt is short enough to fit inside the leg.
The only tool you’ll need that most folks don’t already own is a rivet nut tool. Here’s one on Amazon for $36 which also comes with the steel rivet nuts listed above.
You’ll also need a drill to bore out the hole for the rivet nut.
Wrapping It Up
With the four feet installed, you have the ability to adjust each one independently for a perfectly dialed-in setup. Of course, you’ll probably want to raise the front of your bike to compensate for the added foot height.
Hopefully this helps a Zwifter or two!
If it helped you out, or you have a question or comments, post below.
Hometown: Sebastopol, California USA (but identify as Welsh)
How did you get into cycling? I turned 50 and realized a substantial weight gain was going in the wrong direction. Got my first bike, climbed my first hills, and fell in love. Lost 18kg and never looked back. Suffered a serious crash, but recovered and rode my first centuries. Love hilly rides, despite never believing I’ll make it to the top until I’m standing there!
How many years have you been racing on Zwift? I did my first races during Zwift Academy 2019. Began working with coach Theia Friestedt of 360 Velo through her Women’s Cycling Challenge and loved the structure. More serious training since then helped me gain strength, going from CAT D to C. It has also gotten me faster and stronger outdoors.
Are you part of a Virtual team? I helped Stephen Whitcombe launch Team Velos in 2021, and race on our mixed teams in TTT and our women’s team in ZRL. It was thrilling to win our division in our first season together! Our core values at Velos are to support riders at all levels, and our group rides are designed to help riders develop strengths with loads of support. We are so proud to count among our members UCI world champions on the British Masters track (Melanie Dobbins and Lynney Biddulph), yet treat all our racers from A-D like champions for every achievement.
What do you love most about racing? I love the challenge to improve my own performances. But most of all I love the support all our teammates provide each other, training and racing: especially my women teamies on Velosipedes!
What is your favourite style of race (e.g. points, scratch, iTT, TTT, Chase, duathlon)? I enjoy all styles of racing, but there is a special magic one experiences in TTTs. Velos hosts several mixed teams in the WTRL series, and enthusiasm is off the charts.
What is your favourite Zwift women’s race series? Tour of Boudicca. It is flawlessly run, offers a great range of race styles, and is available in multiple time zones.
What is your most memorable racing experience, inside or outside or BOTH? This has to be our most recent Velos team meetup on Mallorca in April 2024. It was a magical week, with everyone supporting one another to complete spectacular long and hilly rides. Being able to put my CINCH Cycling training into practice – climbing, descending, and paceline riding – was a true dream! At 67 I am reluctant to tackle racing outdoors, but am considering trying TTs after being inspired by teammates racing outdoors.
What is your favourite food to eat post race? I always reach for a balanced shake with carbs, plant protein and banana. Chocolate always works! But my true favourite food is pre-ride: pumpkin-oatmeal pancakes!
What advice would you give to a woman entering her first Zwift race? Set your own goals. Make a plan, then train and race to the plan. Remember that all you can control is your own race, so win YOUR ride. And have FUN!
Any upcoming race you are looking forward to? I am taking part in the Team Velos Tour of Giants, our first stage race inspired by the Critérium du Dauphiné, as well as the Zwift Women’s Racing Series. Every race has been challenging, as it should be!
We typically highlight interesting community events in these posts, but this weekend we went with all Zwift-owned events since there are some interesting things going on in that space. See our picks below!
Zwift’s Hill Climb Racing Club has been holding events regularly for over a year, but this weekend’s events are special since they’re hosted on the new Oh Hill No route!
Hill Climb Club races aren’t like normal scratch races: all that matters is your time up the selected climb segment. This weekend, that climb is The Grade, so you’re doing two things in this race: competing with others, and taking an FTP test!
✅ New Roads ✅ Unique Event ✅ Kit Unlock ✅ Popular Event
The Tour de France is almost done, which means we don’t have many more chances to take on the TdF-themed climb events in the Climb Portal!
This Sunday is the last stage of the tour, and it’s a time trial. It’s also our first chance ever to ride the La Turbie + Col d’Eze climb, which is what the pros are racing in the closing TT of this year’s TdF. This climb’s no joke: it’s actually two climbs, with a bit of descent in the middle. 15.2km total length, with 616 meters of climbing.
Zwift Academy 2024 was announced this week, and Zwift is hosting lots of “welcome rides” to orient first-timers to the program. Zwift says, “In this ride, we’ll guide you through this year’s exciting program and offer insider tips and strategies to maximize your performance. Don’t miss it!”
The rides are open-paced, 30 minutes long,and hosted on Zwift’s new Mayan Mash route. (30 minutes isn’t enough to finish the route, but you can keep going once the event ends to unlock the badge!)
Looking for a longer race this weekend? Check out the Epic Races from Zwift. They alternate route every hour, and the odd hours this weekend are 6-lap races on the newish Loop de Loop route. That means 74.7 of racing, including 6x up the Hilly KOM!
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!
Colorado-based Caveworks recently announced the RIVET. Designed “specifically for indoor use with thru-axle direct-drive smart trainers, and compatible with fork-mounted accessories like the Wahoo KICKR Climb,” the RIVET is a product that arguably sits between the Zwift Ride and Elite Square in both functionality and pricing.
Pricing and Availability
The RIVET is expected to begin shipping in October 2024 and is available for pre-order in three different configurations:
The RIVET obviously invites comparisons to the Zwift Ride. What are some key differences?
Price: The RIVET is priced a bit higher than the Zwift Ride, if you remove the trainer from the Zwift Ride pricing. Theoretically, once Zwift begins selling the Zwift Ride frame as a standalone item in the fall, it will be priced below the single-speed version of the RIVET.
Fit: Zwift Ride fits riders 5’-6’6”, while the RIVET fits rides from 4’10” to 6’6″.
Compatibility: Zwift Ride only fully works with Zwift, due to virtual shifting requirements. RIVET offers a 12-speed version that would work with all platforms.
Frame-Only vs Full System: the RIVET is sold as a standalone frame, while the Zwift Ride is currently sold with a trainer.
Climb Simulator Compatibility: RIVET is compatible with the Climb or Elite Rizer, while Zwift Ride is not.
Crank Length Options: Zwift Ride ships only with 170mm cranks, while the RIVET comes in 170mm, 172.5mm, and 175mm versions.
About Caveworks
Jason Haney is the CEO and founder at RIVET. Based in Lakewood, Colorado, he’s an avid cyclist, and a level 62 Zwifter who has been on the platform since 2018. His right-hand man is Anthony Lenz, President and co-designer at Caveworks. Anthony lives in Fort Collins, Colorado, and is also an avid cyclist (plus a level 19 Zwifter). The two men have been close friends since they meet as employees of the Full Cycle bike shop in 2009.
Jason tells the story of the RIVET’s conception to its eventual launch:
The initial idea for the RIVET was born after reflecting on my first year(ish) on Zwift; so, roughly in 2019. I had been riding a beautiful custom gravel bike (made by Scissortail Cycles out of Norman, OK — great framebuilder 🙂) on my Wahoo Kickr and, despite the obvious net benefits of indoor riding, was nonetheless experiencing some frustrations:
For one, I was pouring sweat on my beautiful machine. Absolutely destroying it. It was painful watching the corrosive salts accrue on my Chris King headset and bottom bracket, around the cockpit hardwear, on the cranks, etc.
For another, I was feeling the way indoor riding was loading the bike as I rode. The way the rear triangle was fixed in place, forcing the frame to bear up to the pushing on the pedals, the pulling on the handlebars, the rocking in sprints. The frame was visibly moving so unnaturally, absorbing the forces and loads while suspended between the fixed points of the trainer and the front wheel. It’s not that I worried my steel frame would fail from these loads (though I suspected certain carbon frames might be in more danger), but rather just that it was so clear in my mind that this is not what my bike was designed to do. That alone, that simple fact, bothered me. Indoor riding is fun and useful, right? It’s a discipline now, and worthy of the respect that other disciplines in cycling receive. So why have a key component of one’s indoor setup that is (1) not designed for it and (2) substantially over-invested in?
And lastly, all the other frustrations around taking the bike on and off the trainer, the minor derailleur adjustments between the trainer and the wheel, and the inability to keep the bike tuned for outdoor opportunities, etc., all were sources of frustration as well.
This percolated for a while, mostly as a “why isn’t someone working on this?” thought, and I did a fair bit of searching for what surely must be out there — the economical path to an indoor-specific machine. Then, in 2021, convinced that no one was making progress on this, I drew the concept for what became the RIVET and started looking into how to bring it to life.
The core goals were to design something that: (1) had the parts required for indoor training and only those parts; (2) threaded the needle between capturing a minimum standard of high performance without tipping into the territory of overinvesting in lightweight, or in the highest-end metals or materials, or the various other aspects that can take an outdoor bike from the $2k-$3k range into the $10k+ range; (3) proved that (1) and (2) were achievable at a reasonable expense; and (4) that was durable, both with respect to the unique forces and loads of indoor riding and the corrosive impact of sweat.
In February 2022, I formed caveworks, Inc. I hired engineering and product design support. We dove in. Other goals were added to the list, like ensuring that the frame is adaptable across bicycle types for a large range of rider sizes. The geometry, the lynchpin of which is the headtube and its position with respect to the bottom bracket, has its own interesting development story and is the result of extensive research and analysis of outdoor bike geometries from road to endurance road to gravel to mountain bikes. It covers all of them. So, although that’s probably the strangest aesthetic aspect of the RIVET’s design, especially if one’s eye is looking for parallels to an outdoor bike, it nonetheless brings a level of function that offers its own kind of beauty (if you’ll pardon my obvious bias 🙂).
Four prototypes followed, all moving at a slower pace than I might have liked had I been in a position to do the romantic thing, quit my job, and go all in. But my job is why caveworks exists. The company is self-funded. So I continued refining the design around life’s other demands. I have 5,572 miles logged on caveworks prototypes. Anthony has hundreds of miles logged on prototypes 3 and 4 as well, as do other key providers of input across our network.
There came a moment where I thought I might be able to finish it ahead of winter ’23/’24 but, due to being pulled in so many directions, could not get it across the finish line in time. This meant making the very frustrating decision to give up on that goal and instead reload for the next year. It also made it crystal clear that I could not be the sole driver behind caveworks’ progress if this was actually going to become something.
Anthony was hired in mid-October, 2023, and Jason says, he “was the missing piece. He’s the beating heart of caveworks today.”
Take a Look
Here’s a walkthrough of the RIVET from DesFit:
Concluding Thoughts
I love watching riders solve problems they’re finding in the indoor space. Jason’s story is one of passion, innovation, and perserverance
It’s also fun to see new products launch in this space. In fact, the RIVET is the third dedicated indoor frame we’ve seen launched in the past few months. Does this indicate a trend away from heavy, expensive smart bikes toward a more modular, affordable smart frame+trainer approach? I think so.
Zwift Virtual Shifting: Which trainers support it now, and which trainers will support it soon?
Zwift’s virtual shifting is arguably the most popular innovation they’ve brought to the indoor hardware space. Ever since the Zwift Hub went on sale in October 2022, riders have been looking forward to virtual shifting capabilities being rolled out for other trainers.
Supporting Zwift’s virtual shifting is no small project. It requires adding support for Zwift Protocol, a Bluetooth protocol Zwift created to deliver a consistent virtual shifting experience for any combination of supported hardware.
I see questions every week from riders wondering when virtual shifting will be available on their trainer, so I’ve created this page to share what info I know about the current status of Zwift virtual shifting support for all the major trainer brands.
This page will be updated as new information is made available.
Fusion Media, Wahoo’s media agency, tells me, “Wahoo has analyzed the hardware and software capabilities of both KICKR v4 and KICKR v5. Unfortunately, these older models are unable to support the required protocols for Zwift Virtual Shifting and will not be receiving a future update for this functionality.”
Garmin/Tacx
Thanks to a firmware update in June of 2025, these Garmin/Tacx trainers support virtual shifting:
Elite announced their first Zwift Ready trainer, the Direto-XR with Zwift Cog and Click, in mid-September 2024. They rolled out the firmware update to current Direto XR users in early December 2024. And in May 2025, they announced a firmware update bringing virtual shifting to their entire range of interactive direct-drive trainers.
JetBlack
The following JetBlack trainers support virtual shifting currently:
JetBlack says, “WARNING: The firmware upgrade is NOT COMPATIBLE with VOLT 1.0 or JetBlack Whisper Drive. If installed on non-compatible units, it could overload the unit and cause sensor or other damage.”
Saris
On a Reddit thread in September 2024, Saris_Karen, apparently a Saris employee, said, “Saris is actively working on updating smart trainer firmware for virtual shifting and Zwift hardware compatibility. It’s going to be a couple of months before it is released.”
But in early October 2025, after over a year of no news from Saris, a commenter below said Saris had just confirmed to them that “they will not be releasing any new firmware and will not support virtual shifting.”
Zwift
The Zwift Hub trainer was the first to support Zwift’s virtual shifting. Two different versions were sold:
Zwift Hub Classic (shipped with a standard cassette and no virtual shifting device)
Zwift Hub One (shipped with the single-sprocket Zwift Cog and Zwift Click for virtual shifting)
Both versions used the same trainer body and internals. The only difference was the included cassette and virtual shifting device.
If you have a Zwift Hub Classic, you can convert it to a Zwift Hub One using the Zwift Cog + Click Upgrade Kit. You can also simply purchase the Zwift Click or Zwift Play controllers and immediately have access to virtual shifting on a standard cassette.
VAN RYSEL
A budget direct drive from Decathlon is now on the market, and it’s the lowest-priced trainer to support virtual shifting.
The Zwift World Series is Zwift’s new flagship race series that encompasses both elite and community-level events for peak Zwift season.
The series consists of both community and elite-level events. While the elite events can only be raced by pre-verified elite riders (more info on that process and schedule here), the community races will be held in the days leading up to the elite events, providing a practice venue for elite races and challenging race opportunities for community riders.
Here are the big reasons why the Zwift World Series community races are interesting:
They function as a monument race one weekend per month from September to January, offering a chance to challenge and test yourself against the Zwift racing community
Plenty of opportunities to participate, with races scheduled from Thursday to Sunday across multiple time slots
Global Leaderboards for each month’s races, plus a General Classification that combines all the monthly races to see how you rank against your peers throughout the series
Zwift World Series Community kit unlock when you complete any of the five races
Elite riders can use these races as recon events prior to the big elite races, and community riders get to race the same course as the elites to see how they compare.
Three brand-new courses and two never before featured in Zwift racing.
Kit Unlock
Complete any Zwift World Series race and unlock the Zwift World Series Community kit:
Race 1: Richmond Loop Around
Community races August 29-September 1, 2024 Elite qualifier: September 5 (Men 17:10 UTC, Women 18:30 UTC) Elite race: September 19 (Men 17:15 UTC, Women 18:40 UTC)
Powerups: Aero awarded at the Lap Arch on each passing (2x)
Primes:
23rd St KOM Reverse on the 3rd time passing
Broad St Sprint
Race 2: Peak Performance
Community races September 26-29, 2024 Elite qualifier: October 3 (Men 17:10 UTC, Women 18:40 UTC) Elite race: October 17 (Men 17:15 UTC, Women 18:50 UTC)
Powerups: Draft awarded at the Titans Grove KOM Reverse (1x)
Primes:
Woodland Sprint
The Grade
Race 3: Yorkshire Double Loops
Community races October 24-27, 2024 Elite qualifier: October 31 (Men 18:10 UTC, Women 19:10 UTC) Elite race: November 14 (Men 18:15 UTC, Women 19:20 UTC)
Powerups: Feather awarded at the Lap Arch on each passing (2x)
Primes:
Yorkshire Sprint Reverse
Yorkshire KOM
Race 4: Shisa Shakedown
Community races November 14-17, 2024 Elite qualifier: November 21 (Men 18:10 UTC, Women 19:45 UTC) Elite race: December 5 (Men 18:15 UTC, Women 19:55 UTC)
Community races January 9-12, 2025 Elite qualifier: January 16 (Men 18:10 UTC, Women 19:55 UTC) Elite race: January 30 (Men 18:15 UTC, Women 20:10 UTC)
ZwiftHacks Adds Experimental Zwift Racing Score Filtering
Teamwork makes the dream work.
Last week I messaged Jesper Rosenlund Nielsen, the genius behind behind ZwiftHacks, a website I access multiple times daily thanks to its powerful event search tools. Here’s how that conversation went:
As always, I’m wowed by Jesper’s ability to build great features quickly. I offered a few more suggestions, which he implemented, and today, less than a week after my initial idea, I’m happy to share the news of ZwiftHacks’ latest event filtering feature: a Zwift Racing Score percentile search!
How It Works
The big idea here is to make it easy to filter upcoming Zwift races that use the new Zwift Racing Score (ZRS) metric. But we’re not just looking for a list of ZRS-powered events… ZwiftHacks already has that.
From the ZwiftHacks event search homepage, click “Experiments” then slide the top bar to your current racing score (find that in the Companion app or in game). This will show all upcoming races that include a category containing your racing score.
147 events showed up for me, but I wanted a more restricted list. As I explained to Jesper, what I want (sometimes) is to find scored races where I have a good chance of getting on the podium. What if I could just show races where my score puts me in the upper 20% of my category? This tool lets me do that:
I’ve entered my current racing score (591), then set the percentile slider to 80-100%. The resulting list of 15 races all include a category where I’m ranked in the upper 20% of the group.
I could also set my filters like this:
This shows all upcoming scored races (132) where I’ll be in the bottom 30% of my category. If I want to be pushed to my limit and probably dropped before the finish line, this is the search for me!
Early Days
Of course, it’s still early days for Zwift Racing Score, so Jesper’s experimental ZwiftHacks tool will probably need to evolve along with it.
Right now, as far as I can see, events using ZRS use one of three banding schemes:
5-category mixed scheme:
725-1000
575-725
400-575
225-400
0-225
10-category mixed scheme, with separate events for “high” and “low” groups:
775-1000
700-775
650-700
600-650
550-600
450-550
375-450
300-375
200-300
0-200
Women’s 5-category scheme:
540-1000
415-540
330-415
220-330
0-220
It’s easy enough right now to figure out where your score places you in each of these schemes, and to find which events you prefer to join. Because of this, you may not see a need for a tool like Jesper’s.
But in the future, event organizers will be able to set their own custom score-based bands, which means you won’t always be at the top or bottom or middle of your category. (This is a good thing.) Having a filter like ZwiftHacks’ will let you quickly choose a race based on the sort of experience you’re looking to have.
Nice work, Jesper. Ride on!
Questions or Comments
Got questions about how the ZwiftHacks tool works? Suggestions for making it better? Share below!
Leveling Ain’t Easy: Zwift Increases XP Level Requirements
If you’re the sort of Zwifter who pays attention to your level progress and XP totals, you may have noticed a change Zwift quietly rolled out last week, increasing the XP required to level up if you are at level 28+.
Read below to learn how we got here, what’s changed, what hasn’t… and more.
A Short History of Zwift Levels
Zwift levels have been part of the game from early days, but initially they only went up to level 25. Many Zwifters reached that max level, and eventually Zwift added levels 26-50 in December 2018. This was the first time we saw accelerated leveling, where riders who had banked XP while sitting at level 25 could achieve higher levels more quickly (8x faster!) if they opted to. Riders enjoyed leveling up more quickly, but there was one problem: accelerated leveling was confusing.
In September 2022, Zwift added levels 51-60. Again, accelerated leveling was used if you had been at level 50 for a while. But this time it was only 2x faster, and you couldn’t opt out of accelerated leveling.
In December 2023, Zwift added levels 61-100. They also revamped how accelerated leveling worked, making it significantly more complex. On top of that, the overall level curve was also reduced and smoothed, so it was much easier to achieve each level and the amount of XP needed to go from level to level increased steadily.
While lower-level riders were happy about easier level progression, Zwifters without math degrees were largely flummoxed about how accelerated leveling now worked. Additionally, it quickly became apparent that it was much too easy to level up, when at least one Zwifter rode their way from level 61-100 in 25 days.
In April 2024, Zwift announced that they were planning to change XP requirements for levels 28 and above to make leveling up more difficult. (The XP required to reach level 100 would increase from 591,000 XP to 1,000,000 XP, so this was no small change.) Additionally, they decreased the weekly streak bonus so you only received it once per week.
Zwift got a lot of pushback on this proposed change (peruse the 500+ comment thread at your leisure), and the planned May rollout never happened.
Then last week, with no fanfare whatsoever, Zwift flipped the switch and enabled an updated XP/levels table. I started seeing comments almost immediately from Zwifters confused about why the XP needed to go to the next level had changed.
And that brings us to today. The new XP/levels table isn’t what was proposed in April. While it does increase level requirements from what rolled out in December 2023, it does not increase them as high as Zwift had proposed in April. More on that below…
The new level requirements are spelled out on our main XP/unlocks page, but here’s a nice chart that makes them easy to understand. (Mouse over a line for details.)
As you can see, Zwift’s new level requirements are a significant increase from what was rolled out with levels 61-100 in December 2023. But they’re still much easier than what they would have been if Zwift had kept going with the original curve from 2022!
Note: while it’s not shown above, the XP required to repeatedly fill level 100 has increased from 12,000 to 20,000 with this update.
Why the Silence?
Reading Zwift’s forum, it seems Zwifters are more irked by Zwift’s lack of communication on this change than by the change itself. Why did Zwift choose to rejigger the levels without an announcement?
Unfortunately I can’t say, because I’m under an NDA with Zwift. (Why? Because that gives me access to advance notice on upcoming features and a place at the table in certain high-level discussions on overall product direction, among other things. I consider the “cost” of the NDA to be well worth the return.)
But what I will say is that Zwift’s XP table change would have gone unnoticed by many more Zwifters if it wasn’t for two (what I can only assume to be) bugs in the release:
The graphical indicators for accelerated leveling were inexplicably removed for your current level, prompting Zwifters to think their acceleration was gone. (The acceleration is still there. Oddly enough, it seems those indicators return once you level up.)
The XP needed for your next level-up seems to have increased with the rollout, so Zwifters who were tracking how many XP they had left to the next level saw that figure jump. This isn’t how Zwift had proposed the change would work in their April 2024 post: “There will be no change to the amount of XP required to reach your immediate next level – you’ll earn your next level based on the requirements of the previous system and the revised system will take effect after that.”
Unified Frustration
Zwifters disagree on many topics, but ask any rider who pays attention to levels and unlocks, and they’ll tell you two things:
Leveling out, then playing catchup when new levels are added, is silly. Zwift should have built some sort of steadily-growing or even infinite leveling system into the game from the start.
Accelerated leveling is ridiculously complicated.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Zwift needs a simple level system that never ends, giving every Zwifter something to shoot for. It’s mystifying how Zwift has done so much complex work to make indoor cycling accessible and engaging but still hasn’t rolled out a simple level system that consistently motivates all Zwifters.
Accelerated Leveling
Every time the topic of XP and levels pops up, questions about accelerated leveling are sure to follow. This is even more true this week, with the accelerated leveling indicators disappearing and XP requirements changing for most of the levels in the game!
So I’m just going to point you to this post, which has an “accelerated leveling” section that explains exactly how it works. At this point, I’ve learned to point people there, because if you can’t figure out the math from that post’s explanation, my explaining it to you personally probably won’t work either. (You can also read Zwift’s description of accelerated leveling, if you’d like.)
The nice thing is, like the internals of whatever device you’re reading this on, accelerated leveling works just fine, even if you don’t understand it. Each time you earn XP, the system does the math to get you to higher levels a bit more quickly. You just need to Ride On.
Recent weeks have been especially exciting for much of the cycling world thanks to the Tour de France and Eurobike 2024. The cycling community saw numerous records broken in the first few stages of the Tour and some exciting new technology at Eurobike.
This week we’ve selected several videos about new indoor cycling hardware, close races, training programs, and an interview with the CEO (Eric Min) of Zwift.
JetBlack Victory Smart Trainer First Look: $399 with WiFi, Zwift Cog V2, and tons more!
JetBlack has done it again. The all-new JetBlack Victory features similar specifications to some of the top smart trainers but comes in at a much more affordable $399. Ray, DCRainmaker, covers his initial impressions of this budget-friendly smart trainer.
My updated training and Zwift’s new climb…The Grade!
Katie Kookaburra shares updates on her training regimen and tackles the recently released “The Grade” climb in Zwift.
Zwift B-Grade Sprint Finish Almost Catches Breakaway
Tilly Field, professional cyclist for Movistar, provides commentary and analysis on her recent category B race where she made some tough decisions. Should she have joined the breakaway?
Caveworks Rivet // The Zwift Ride Alternative?
Shortly after the release of the Zwift Ride, a Colorado-based company called Caveworks released their Rivet indoor cycling frame. The Rivet aims to be a budget-friendly, high-quality frame to compliment ZCog-compatible trainers.
Zwift CEO Interview: What worked, what didn’t, and what’s coming?
Get the inside scoop on everything Zwift from Ray’s (DCRainmaker) interview with Eric Min, co-founder and CEO of Zwift.
Got a Great Zwift Video?
Share the link below and we may feature it in an upcoming post!
