Zwift just shared “This Season On Zwift” – a roadmap of upcoming features releasing before the year ends. One item on the list that grabbed my attention shared planned Climb Portal changes… and some Portal usage stats.
Let’s dig into what’s coming this fall to the Climb Portal!
Climb Portal Stats
Zwift opened the Climb Portal in July, and since then one in five Zwifters have tackled at least one of the Portal’s gamified versions of real-world climbs. 88% of Zwifters who started a climb made it to the summit, and that’s no small thing considering the list of available climbs includes challenging summits like Col du Tourmalet (17.2km, 1213m) and Col d’Aspin (13.5km, 807m).
Scaling Your Difficulty
Starting this fall, Zwifters will be able to scale the difficulty of the Portal climbs they’re tackling. When entering the Climb Portal, Zwifters will be offered the choice to tackle a realistic replica of the climb, as they do today, or scale the climb to 75% or 50% of the original’s elevation.
This scaling is different from Zwift’s “Trainer Difficulty” setting, which changes how much resistance your trainer delivers while still requiring you to do the same amount of work to complete the climb. With Climb Portal scaling you’re actually changing the pitches of in-game roads, meaning you’ll complete the climb much faster at 50% than at 100%.
Here’s a visual example using real elevation data from Col du Platzerwasel:
The beauty of climb scaling is it gives riders more flexibility. Want to tackle a climb you haven’t ridden yet, but don’t have the time or fitness to complete it at 100%? Scale it down and Ride On!
So Many Questions
The Portal scaling idea is an interesting one for sure, but it raises some questions:
How will this work on Strava? Currently, Strava would see everyone as having finished the same segment, whether they rode it at 100%, 75%, or 50%. Everyone would be on the same leaderboard, and even your own multiple efforts wouldn’t be separated in an obvious way.
Zwift tells me they’re working with Strava to separate the leaderboards, but given my past interactions with Strava I’m not bullish that will be done. Zwift may need to implement a different solution, like “rotating” the 75% and 50% versions of the climbs so their segments are seen separately from the others. Here’s an ugly illustration of what that might look like:
Who will you see on the climbs? Zwift has preserved the social feel of the app in the Portal by having all riders visible on the climb, whether they entered from the France of Watopia portal. It’s like magic!
Zwift tells me you’ll still see all riders on the climb, whether they’re riding a scaled-down version or not. An indicator on screen will show which version each rider is on.
What about the in-game leaderboards? Will they only show riders who have completed the 100% version? Or just the version you’re on? The latter would seem to make the most sense.
Can you still unlock the Portal badges on scaled-down climbs? Zwift added achievement badges for completing 1, 10, and 25 Portal climbs. Will you be able to earn those badges when climbing scaled-down versions? I bet the answer is “yes,” but we’ll have to wait and see.
Portal Schedule Changes
After a brief launch period where we could choose to ride any of the initial 8 Portal climbs, Zwift locked the climbs into a schedule where only one climb is available on any given day, and each climb is featured for approximately 1-2 weeks (see Climb Portal schedule).
This was done largely to ensure each climb has enough riders to keep it feeling “social.” But many Zwifters have asked for access to more climbs! It’s hard to blame them. It’s frustrating knowing Zwift has a pile of epic climbs in the library, but you’re only allowed to ride one.
Zwift says starting October 2 there will now be two climbs live at the same time. Digging a bit deeper, they tell me there will be a “climb of the month” available via both France and Watopia with some sort of leaderboard where Zwifters can compete for the fastest time. The second climb will rotate on a much shorter schedule, and only be available via Watopia’s Climb Portal.
Climb Portal scheduling is far from written in stone, of course. This is just the next iteration, but I’m sure Zwift will continue to listen for feedback and tweak things as time passes.
Digging Deeper – Climb of the Month
The “climb of the month” concept is a fun one with real potential to motivate more people to do more climbing, more often.
A quality leaderboard setup will be important. The climb of the month leaderboards should be available outside of the game (in Companion and/or on the web) and will have to include lots of filtering options (climb scale factor, gender, age, date range, hide virtual power users, etc).
I’ll never top the leaderboard on a big climb, but if I could see how I stack up against other dudes in their mid-40s who are using actual smart trainers, I would do that… and maybe do it more than once if I was feeling extra competitive!
When Can We Ride It?
Zwift says the schedule changes will begin October 2. As for the scaling changes, Zwift has only promised “this fall.”
Share Your Thoughts
What do you think of Zwift’s plans to scale the Portal climbs? How about their schedule changes? Share your thoughts below!
this thing of the climb portals it’s all wrong from the bigining. Couldn’t they have some more natural grafics? Looks like we were on LSD in the previous day
I’ll take the contrarian view. As a person who loves to climb (both IRL and Z) I’d happily trade the signtseeing for more real life portal climbs. Speaking for myself, I’m usually too absorbed in the effort to think much about the flora and the fauna that sprung from someone’s imagination…IMHO…Peter J (72)
the graphics are like that because they are cheap to build. Build cost must be minimal compared to Alpe de Zwift or Ventop.
i think it’s great. But I would like a choice of climbs each day – say one short, one med and one long. That make more sense to me than scaling the same climb three ways (even scaled down the Tourmalet is super long).
I don’t mind the colors, but I’d prefer some sort of effort at a landscape. It’s remarkable how the vertical lines of tree trunks helps the brain properly reference gradients. Sometimes in the climb portal, it’s hard to tell if you’re going uphill, downhill, or on flat ground without glancing at the speed.
Can’t say I’m a fan of making hard things in life easier, makes me think of the modern school sports day where everyone gets a medal, it distracts from the effort those put In to achieve it in the first place. I’d rather see a quicker rotation of the climbs or just more options at a given time.
I agree.
I also don’t like being overtaken on Zwift, especially when climbing. If I’m struggling on 100% difficulty and I’m constantly getting overtaken by people on 50% difficulty then this won’t be very good for moral.
people could simply adjust their trainer difficulty setting if they want to make it easier.
Trainer difficulty does not make it easier, just requires less gears. Still need to put same watts down
Climbs are the most honest part of bicycling in the real world and in Zwift. If you are struggling on climbs at 100% difficulty, it is because you don’t have the legs, heart, and gear ratios to climb properly at your power to weight ratio. When someone overtakes you on a climb in Zwift the only thing you know for certain is that they are putting out higher power to weight ratio than you are. I can see how this would be demoralizing for you, but blaming it on your and their respective trainer difficulty settings is denial of reality.
Except that doesn’t look to be true with this climb scaling! Look at the elevation profiles, at 50% scale riding the same route will actually result in only 50% of the elevation. This new climb scaling is different from the previous difficulty scaling.
I was addressing trainer difficulty setting with regard to Jon’s comment. You are absolutely correct that trainer difficulty setting and elevation scaling are not at all the same thing and have nowhere near the same effect. In terms of scaling, the trainer difficulty setting has the effect of pulling out the toe of the climb, stretching the road in length and thereby reducing the gradient without reducing the total elevation gain. Whereas scaling the elevation is just that, reducing all of the elevations (and grades) along the entire route.
Must admit things are better when you have to work for them. Getting the Tron bike took me hours and hours of climbing over roughly a year to get it, and it feels a real achievement to be riding it. I’m still working on getting AdZ in 60 minutes, but it wouldn’t be much of an achievement if I could simply drop the effort by 50%.
You can drop the effort by 50% with climb scaling, but that also drops the elevation you’ll achieve by 50%. So you’re not getting any free elevation with climb scaling.
what about XP and bonuses at the arches. Think there will be a couple 250XP bonuses in 50% scaling?? If so this will be good for XP farming to do the latest climb portal and go fast.
Farming in “ClimbPortal” was eliminated from 2/3 weeks ago. The ratio of “250XP” to “10XP” and “Feather” has also decreased. Crossovers don’t work, only after a complete descent and passing the start banner and passing under “9” will charge a bonus.
Not a fan of scaling the climbs. Two climbs available is a good start to offering more than one portal climb on a given day.
Well I guess people love options. My daughter who has just recently started on Zwift will probably love the scaling feature. Even though I’m slow, I’ll probably stick to the 100% climbs.
Personally, I can’t see the point of scaling down the climbs even though I think the climb portal is a good addition to Zwift. It’s going to complicate things with Strava and no doubt other things such as leaderboards, PB’s, and in game when riding next to other Zwifters. If you want to ride a climb with less elevation, simply select a more appropriate ride. If you haven’t got time to ride a certain climb due to it’s length/elevation, then do it another time when you have. Zwift should have put more resource and coding time into other more pressing… Read more »
Agree completely! I think that instead of 3 different options of the same climb, Zwift should feature easy, moderate, and hard options with each being a different IRL climb, similar to how it was (more or less) at launch. Zwift wants to keep the climbs social but I think they’d find that would still be the case and would provide the extra climb options for those of us who like to climb but are “frustrated” with the current lack of options.
I suspect this allows Zwift to add more riding options with a minimal amount of programming.
I like 100% (all or nothing). Also, there a way to see how many climbs we’ve done? Id like to chase the 25X badge but keeping notes on paper seems archaic
No way to see it, currently. Zwift needs to add some sort of tracking for sure.
If you are registered on ZwiftPower you can use the search facility on ZP Activities tab, provided you have used a consistent naming method when you saved your Zwift game activity. Zwift automatically saves your ride as Climb Portal – name of climb so a search of Climb Portal on ZwiftPower will only bring up all your Climb Portal rides, including those where you didn’t reach the top so you would have to save those with a slight name change to be able to identify and not count towards your 25.
Thank you.
Is no-one going to pick up on that statistic – only 1 in 5 people have used a portal.
That means 4 in 5 people (80% of zwifters) haven’t been interested enough to even try one once. That should have told Zwift everything they need to know about the time to put into developing these things.
Is it 20% of total population, or 20% of those who have completed a ride in the months since Portals were rolled out?
Given that the feature rolled out in the indoor off season, it would be poignant to know how many Zwifters have done a ride in Jul-Sept of the total population.
Presumably 1 in 5 zwifters who have been online, but yeah that’s not indicated I guess. The winter months will definitely be a telling time for them. It’s no big deal, I just think it’s trying to be a positive spin on how many people use the portals when it’s more eye opening when stated as the number not using them.
Maybe part of the blame for the slow uptake is because climb portals are hidden away in the routes screen. You need to actively go looking for them. If people aren’t actively following Zwift news sites such as this then I’d imagine most people don’t even know they exist. Particularly if they are only restarting their subscription now.
I agree, that stat is insane! I’d go as far as saying the idea completely flopped! I tried the portal three times but found it hard to match them into my training schedule. I find them great for pacing without ERG but that doesn’t help if I need a 1-hour climb and a 10-minute climb is on offer. More options sound great but the scaling sounds like a joke. Just offer easier climbs if that’s what people want.
The whole climb portal idea is completely back-to-front. What us big guys (ie guys and maybe some gals simply not built for climbing) want is climb portals that let you go around the moiuntains, not over them. I can guarantee that will boost their usage! 😉
I like all the proposed changes except the option to scale down the climb, if I understand it correctly. Trainer difficulty settings allow us to “flatten” gradients all the way to zero/flat but we do at least still have to provide 100% of the watts/work to reach the top of a climb. The portal adjustment feature seems to flatten the whole mountain, so equivalent of Alpe is no longer 12km/1100m but 6km/550m. To me, that’s no longer the Alpe and dilutes the achievement considerably.
It doesn’t shorten the length of the climb – just the elevation. Like squishing it flatter. So the Alpe would be 12km/550m at 50% scaling.
I don’t see a problem with it, if it gets more people riding the climbs and it works properly with Strava and in-game leaderboards.
I’ll add to the chorus that this climb scaling feature seems like a mediocre idea at best. Just offer a mix of easy, medium, and hard climb options at the same time! It’s not like the climb portal is that engaging anyway; the few times I’ve used it, I just watch TV and am more concerned about riding for a certain amount of time than I am about completing the climb.
I’m in my 50’s, around 85 kg (honestly entered in Zwift, Btw), and generally around 2.0 w/kg riding solo on the flats. I think I’d use scaling to hit some of the steeper climbs to take time off the climb so I can finish it in the time I have available at my level of ooomph. So I’ll just have to live with the terrible burden my mere participation trophy effort. I think I can handle that. 😃 100%’ers will still pass my slow self and that won’t make me feel one way or another, just another digital person doing… Read more »
What does this mean for Strava segments Eric? Presume those are based on gps and don’t factor in elevation so will those potentially be skewed?
Yes – I discuss that above…
Maybe just have a short and long climb available?
Anyone else noticed that the screenshot shows Col de la Madone? Oooh, nice!
Good eyes. https://zwiftinsider.com/portal/col-de-la-madone/
Anyone else noticed ‘Col de la Madone’ and ‘Climb to Hollywood Sign’ on the screenshots? Nice new climbs coming soon, hopefully!
Nothing wrong with scaling in my opinion. It doesn’t take truly -personal- achievement or truly personal bragging rights away from anyone and it offer more people a less scary/introductory chance to get their own personal achievements. It’s good business for Zwift too to not scare off any new people which potentially means Zwift can charge more people less money vs becoming an increasingly uber niche product. I can certainly foresee that there will be idiots zooming up 25% with 10 W/kg or something but there are already idiots and hey, if you’re going to keep idiots from letting you enjoy… Read more »
Do you honestly think Zwift will charge people less because they get more subscribers? They’re in this to be a business first and foremost. At best they can afford to provide more content, but we won’t be seeing cheaper subscriptions.
the changing of the difficulty for the climb portal is lame. if you cannot climb the mountain/hill as nature (vitually) intended then what is the point for making these climbs available, just climb the (fake- computer programmer) Epic KOM or Hilly KOM in Watopia.
How do you ride France to be able to use that portal? Is it just when France one of that day’s worlds?
Yeah. Or you could do a workout, pick a France route, then free ride your way to the portal if it’s a day France isn’t scheduled. But that’s a bit of a workaround, isn’t it?
I comprehend the intention to get more Zwifter’s onto the climbs but to “ensure each climb has enough riders to keep it feeling social” is quite odd statement. Is it social to be surrounded by riders pushing 50 % of power? Since these are all famous climbs, they should keep their status even in VR.
They’re cowards for not including a scaling up to 150 and 200%
I’m against the scaling. Too complicated. If you want to scale your ride turn around half way up! No?
You mention that Zwift are working with Strava to separate the leaderboards. I doubt anything here will happen and even if it does the leaderboards will already be meaningless as they will have a mixture of scaling factors. Zwift should have when they first implemented this used the portals in both France and Watopia to actually teleport you to the climb rather than just ride a climb in France or Watopia. Doing this they could have more easily opened the opportunity to have more climbs available when they realise that’s what people want. They would have also been able to… Read more »
What a dumb idea! The whole point of a mountain is to reach the top. Nobody needs to climb 50% and get credit for the entire mountain. I can’t think of a worse idea than this.
Let’s do a Zwift poll, please.
Alternative solution. If Zwift is so keen to make epic climbs more “social” and accessible to those without the physical ability or available time to complete them, they might as well just introduce virtual E-bikes. Don’t bother with the development cost and likely complications (i.e. Strava) of climb scaling. Don’t dilute the experience and emasculate the climb (where is the lower limit of climb scaling btw? 50%? 25?). Instead, let customers purchase and ride an in-game E-bike, with the understanding that they will be ineligible for leader boards, achievement badges, race results, etc. Put an “E” next to their name,… Read more »
Upscale the climbs, don’t downscale!
Climbs in Zwift are generally too short as it is now. I already lie about my weight (+20kg) to get climbs longer (and descends shorter, win-win); it’s shit for racing but at least I get some >20min climbing done.
I think it’s fair to say that you, sir, are the outlier. 😜
Are there going to be any races on the climb portal climbs?
I think we’ll see events there eventually. Don’t know about a timeline.