The latest “This Season on Zwift” press release came out last week, sharing what’s in store on the platform over the next few months. Because of all the speed tests we do here at Zwift Insider, one planned change that’s especially intriguing to me is the “Upgrade Challenges” added to bikes in our garage.
Below I dig into how these Challenges may work, as well as Zwift’s announcement of upcoming “Halo Bikes.”
Garage Upgrade Challenges – Fall 2024
Zwift will be rolling out “Upgrade Challenges” that allow you to invest Drops you’ve earned into your favorite frame to make it better.
Every frame will have five stages of upgrades (for now), with each stage focusing on a single aspect of performance, such as:
- Reduction in weight
- Improvements in aerodynamics
- Improvements to rolling resistance
So you may see this in your garage:
Once you finish the Upgrade Challenge’s requirements, you’ll get an in-game banner stating that you can now purchase the upgrade. This purchase is done within the garage, and includes the details of what performance boost you’re purchasing:
Each upgrade stage will require more effort (and Drops) than the previous, which means maxing out a particular frame will require a significant investment of time and Drops!
Particular challenges will vary from bike to bike. For example, climbing bikes may have elevation challenges, TT bikes may have duration challenges, and all-arounder bikes may have distance challenges.
With all the speed tests I’ve done on Zwift frames and wheels, I’ve got a lot of questions about how this will all work! For example:
- Will the upgrades be equal across frames? Or could one frame’s stage 1 weight decrease be bigger than another frame’s? Or perhaps one frame’s stage 1 upgrade is a rolling resistance decrease, while another frame’s stage 1 is an aero improvement?
- Just how much work will it take to max out upgrades for a particular frame?
- Are these upgrades tied only to frames? What about wheels? (It seems odd to tie a rolling resistance upgrade to a particular frame, and not a wheelset.)
- How in the world am I going to test all of this?
I’m sure all these questions will be answered in due course. Except the last one.
Halo Bikes – Fall 2024
In Zwift’s early days, the Tron bike was a badge of honor. But today it’s so popular that the hip kids purposely ride something else! The Tron bike is Zwift’s only real “Halo Bike” at this time, but that concept is being expanded to give long-time Zwifters something more exclusive to work toward.
New Halo Bikes will be from particular manufacturers, such as the Pinarello Espada shown below. You’ll unlock the Halo Bike by upgrading three bikes from that manufacturer to their maximum stages. It’s about rewarding fans of particular brands, because this, according to sources in Zwift, will take “A lot of time and a ton of investment to attain.”
Zwift says these bikes “will offer high performance and huge street cred.” Sounds like fun to me!
Garage Management – Winter 2024/25
Not mentioned in Zwift’s official TSOZ press release, but shared during the TSOZ Zoom call, is one welcome upgrade coming this winter: Zwift is adding some garage management features.
Perhaps garage sorting would be the better term, though. Because it doesn’t sound like we’ll be getting the ability to delete or archive items entirely, as many Zwifters have requested. But it sounds like we’ll be able to sort items based on which ones we most recently used, or most recently unlocked.
It’s a start, right?
Your Thoughts
What do you think of Zwift’s planned garage changes? Share below!
I’m at level 66, I have nearly 19 million drops and I already have a tron bike. How do I get the new “Indurain TT frame?
It’s all a bit confusing?
Well if you re-read the section you are interested in you will see Eric was kind enough to put the answer to your question in ITALICS two sentences above the picture of the bike.
that’s a bit harsh, we don’t always get things 1st time!😉
i meant the thumbs down not your comment Rhe😀
Just read it a couple of times and if your still not suer ask , that’s the idea of this section, im level 100 been zwifting since 2014 and still have to look back on post or updates 🤩😂
#me too! level 93 and now realising that its going take me a long time to get to 100 with the new changes in xp per 1km 🙁
Read…
i am waiting on zoon to come…. let me spend drops woohooo, organize the garage and upgrade bikes. Its forking christmas early wooooohooo. I am happier than a carnivore on carb day chowing down on cheesecake
I really like this upgrade idea. I find completing challenges really motivating and like the idea of doing different things to get different upgrades. Nice one Zwift!
So this seems like weight doping for those who have heaps of drops. (I have 14mill) So the longer you have been zwifting the more you can win.
I like that zwift is a game, but purposefully making the playfield unbalanced towards those that have paid more is rubbish and is not how you attract new customers.
I’m just going to look at my own PBs now, no point in competing with others.
So you think a theoretical few seconds savings is the difference between you getting a result or not against others? One moment of weakness and all bike differences are gone. Changing your weight by 1 kilo is far more impactful on game results than any bike and wheel combo. On top of that how is this change any different than what’s already happening with obtaining existing higher level bikes?
Not unusual in life that people who invest more time and energy in something, become better in it than people who don’t, right? 😉
Nevertheless, don’t let it spoil the fun! “Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today.”
I’m sure in races there will be the ability for organisers to limit any advantage. This is often the way in other games e.g. motorsports where un-upgraded equipment can be forced.
Is this not how cycling works in real life? Spend lots of money on upgrades for marginal gains? At least here it’s tied to your effort and not your budget.
“Paid more”? Firstly, it’s not done with real money, but points you earn by riding in-game. Secondly, how is it any different to unlocking bikes via levels?
i like the idea of upgrading frames – and the way they use it by riding the frame is good.
This is all a load of crap. You ride like an idiot to earn drops and they let you ride even more to mercifully allow you to unlock something you can spent your drops on. Seriously, who came up with this?
Couldn’t agree more. More frames & bikes are a complete waste of time. Rarely use the garage anyway. All this focus spent on which frame/wheels/etc are faster is complete lunacy. Would much rather see development elsewhere like a tunnel to link the worlds, or expanding current worlds, or almost anything else.
What did you expect to be doing when you bought a bike trainer and put a bike on it? Get your wife to dress up as David Brailsford and when you’ve finished a ride she runs in jumping up and down. Now you know how Chris Froome felt at the end of a stage.
Just because you got a trainer does not mean you have to put up with any nonsense people throw your way. Nobody enjoys being double taxed, and that’s pretty much what this feels like. Honestly, it might be way more fun if your wife came over and dressed up like David Brailsford instead.
I ride like an idiot to train. I have 49mm drops.
Wow, that’s nearly two inches! 😉
There is no requirement for you to spend drops or upgrade frames. You can ride the default frame all you like.
Having more challenges and targets to meet keeps many people interested and incentivized to ride. Obviously that’s what Zwift wants as a company, but that’s also good for people like me who come to the platform exactly because this kind of gamification motivates us to keep riding. Win-win in my view. Ride on!
Make the disc wheelsets TT Bike only!!
Yes and there should be bigger differences between the bikes….at the moment in 99% of the cases you go for the same bike and wheels…..they should differ more
ooooh I like this! Two thumbs up from me! 👍👍
Yeah, but at the same time either slow the Tron down or make other bikes/wheels faster.
The Tron being one of the best bikes is good, but without disc wheels the Tron is the only best bike for anything other than pure climbing.
No it’s not. I have been looking at the next ZRL race already and am trying to decide between the AR or the Canyon 24. The Tron wasn’t even on my radar, I would have went Pina 24 before considering the Tron.
Why do people think the Tron is the fastest when it never is?
What wheels would you be using with those frames? The Tron being fastest relates specifically to a situation where disc wheels are banned for non TT bikes. And the data shows that the Tron is faster on flat and rolling courses than any other frame using a non-disc wheels
My number one ask of Zwift right now is the ability to sort my bikes so the ones I use (two or three) are accessible at the top. Happy to hear this may be coming!!!!! YES. As far as losing 100 grams off a bike? Not as ingriguing.
Archive would be a big help. My garage has an attic. Also very easy to implement.
We’re not going to be too far away from Zwift letting people buy drops for real cash
The Drops requirement to upgrade the bikes won’t be that high. In the example above its 100,000 drops to go from Level 1 to Level 2, this is just one reasonable length ride with a pace partner plus you would have earnt a load of them while meeting the unlock requirement of riding 1 hour.
I still think the vast majority of people will have plenty of Drops and maybe people will have to hold back from buying every frame available and just concentrate on getting the best one for you level. Then the drops stack up.
I suspect it won’t be more than 1,500,000 drops per bike to fully upgrade it and this is fine with me.
I also don’t think it will take more than a couple of weeks of riding per bike. In the screen shots above 1 hour to get to Level 2, 2 Hours to get to Level 3, its it progresses like this it would be just 15 hours of riding.
Hurrah for some kind of sorting of Garage items, even if it’s just as simple as your most used items being top of the list in descending order
I may be most excited if there were different paint schemes for bikes without a slider. That would be fun.
I for one would love the ability to archive kits and sell back bikes that I don’t use. I like the upgrade idea but it sounds like a very long term project to get the halo bike.
Or organise the inventory as someone else suggested. I have heaps of kits but probably only a few I would ever use so ability to favorite would be great.
I’m sure these changes won’t be to everyone’s taste but I like the idea of the challenge to get upgrades. Hopefully there will be some easy way to organise the equipment inventory and to see progress. Also I’ve accumulated a lot of drops without ever really having the motivation to spend them. That may now change.
THIS is our 4th challenge 😉 after Italy, California & Tron : UPGRADE all of your frames to unlock all of your favourite Halo Bikes to show them up in-game 😎.
Eric, I have minimum the same 4 questions like you. Question No.4 will never be answered from ZHQ but I think YOU HAVE the much needed enthusiasm to do this … for science and the raw data sheet 🤗😉.
My 5th question : if the 5 improvements are not linear between frames … do we know which upgrades will have which impact before we work on a specific frame ?
My 6th question : do we know (before) how good/fast the Halo Bike from a specific brand will be ? … and will they be faster than the normal frames ? … and how much better ?
My 7th question : do we know (before) which frame-type the Halo Bike will be (TT, Road, Gravel, MTB …) ?
But the cool thing in every case is : it’s not pay to win here … it’s RIDE to win 🤗😎 … and that’s what many people will love … to have some carrots for hunting, also new subsribers.
And the 1st step of Garage sorting also sounds good and is much appreciated from the community.
Ride on everybody 🙋🏻♂️
Couldn’t agree more. Love the idea of having an exclusive frame that is directly tied to effort I’ve put in and earned rather than paid for.
Exactly Steven … it will feel very good to ride your personally improved frame 🤗 … my only “problem” is, that I have no real No.1-frame … I have minimum 5 favourites I like to ride depending performance and/or colour (slider) scheme 😎… so with which frame I should start if we need so much effort to max out all 5 steps ? 🤷🏻♂️🙈
Am not really a fan of frame updates. Would have rather see cosmetic things we could get and not things that make your bike better than others. This only widens the gap between newer riders and oldies even more.
Guess we will see a lot of bots in Watopia when this goes live. Just let it ride Tempus Fugit while you are sleeping and when yo wake up level 5 is reached.
The garage management update sounds rather weak but yeah “it’s a start” and hopefully not a finish.
One thing I wonder about the upgrades is whether it will actually make people less likely to buy frames because they become more invested in the ones they already have. So it might actually reduce that type of engagement with the drop shop. Definitely sounds like it will make performance testing a complete mess.
So much effort put into virtual frames and upgrades. Was the zwift community calling for these or just something Eric Min thinks is neat?
sometimes you have to ignore the karens in the community because they think their idea is the best.
New levels & unlocks are requesting more new carrots just putting pressure on ZHQ to keep us satisfied. Proposed upgrades will help but IMO prestigious unlocks like the Tron should have never been given away for one-shot accomplishment. Instead, such unlocks should be time limited. So why not to lose the Tron in case effort to unlock was not repeated within a year again?
Getting the Tron bike is so easy now, when the challenge was first introduced it was hard to get the elevation because we only had the Hilly KOM now with the Alp and Climb portal if somebody wants the Tron bike they can get it relatively easily.
I don’t think it should be taken away from people but I wouldn’t care if I lost mine as I’ve not used it for years and it would be one less bike in the garage.
I like Zwift… And went through the Motions to get the TRON Bike.
It took Me over a Year… Mainly because I hate the Hills! Anyway
now that I have it… Eric is right, in that I hardly ever Ride it… I have
a Felt and a Bianchi in real life… So I mainly (almost always) ride the
2 Felts (no TT’s) I have in My Garage, and have no interest in the other
Models. I also do the same with the Wheel Sets. It will be nice when You are
able to Edit your Garage, and put what you Ride the most at the Top, so
that when You go there… Well they are right there.
That being said, I now just keep accumulating Drops, and really never Spend
them anymore. Maybe Zwifts sees this too, and is trying to do something to
get Individuals like Me to get re-involved in the Game? If I can lighten one of
My Bikes by 100 grams… I might just go for it? I did a Race yesterday with a
Climb at the Finish, and though I tried, I could not catch the person in front of Me,
and lost to them by 1.5 seconds…Maybe that 100 Gram lighter Bike might
have gotten Me that 2 seconds I needed! 😂 AND PS… There was a Comment
about only using DIsk Wheels on TT Bikes only …1000 % Yes!
i am hoarding all my drops as i heard soon you will be able to buy ftp points with them
I’m liking the upgrade and halo bike idea. At the moment, I have a load of bikes in my garage and only ride one, sometimes changing the wheel set depending on the course. If i am doing AdZ, I’ll switch to the Aethos. If I’m feeling contrary, i might use the steel bike for no reason other than it looks nice. That is literally all that i (and many others) can do with the bikes as they make so little difference. But now, there will be a reason to switch bikes – to choose one that we want to upgrade, maybe for some small improvement or probably just because it is something to aim for and to motivate us to ride even more. It’s a clever way of making us choose other bikes than simply our best all-rounder.
Neat. I was hoping we would get some more bike customization type stuff, so this is a nice start. Would be fun to have the option to add decals, add those little plastic things to the spokes that kids bikes used to have, or lights.
It will certainly increase the “sticky” data about how long a user spends on th3 platform. Should help the value to Zwift
Eric, I’m retired now, so if you want help sorting the frames etc, then give us a call. My hourly rate is quite cheap. 😁 😁.
The upgrade of bikes is like the upgrade of guns in Call of Duty.
Sounds good to me, more work to get an achievement to make me cycle a little bit better.
And to all those that say it’s unfair, cheating etc, then just notice that zwift is always a cheat compared to real life riding as there is no headwind. A fan doesn’t count. We all go faster on zwift than real life outside.
Can’t wait to see the HALO BIKES, do we get a Master Chief Outfit to ride one? That would be awesome. 😁 😁 😁
Why do folks feel the need to complain about absolutely everything? Zwift just launched a major update with new HUD and routes and took steps to improve racing fairness. Smaller changes like new upgrade challenges, more fun, a little incentive to keep riding during the dark days of winter are welcome. I wonder how many of those complaining have even finished all the routes? BTW before anyone says anything, I guess I am a “power user” and long invested in the game: level 100+, riding since Jarvis, 75,000 virtual KMs, 49mm drops and counting; a few of the newer route badges left to complete and all of the running ones 😉
Users express dissatisfaction due to the absence of features that are typically standard in other cycling applications from their initial launch. Zwift has some serious tech debt to tackle. Progress is super slow, and the new stuff that came out this summer seems a bit half-baked. With rising fees, it is no wonder people are getting fed up. Zwift Forum was never such critical/upset like it is now.
Again. What level are these folks? Have they completed all the challenges? Have they got every single badge route? What is it exactly that’s “standard” on other apps that is not standard to Zwift? We’re riding our bikes inside on virtual roads it’s not that complicated. I can tell you right off the hop those other apps will never have the community aspect of Zwift, and that’s the most important element of the game/experience. It must be offering more than all those other apps if people are still subscribed despite the price increases and despite half-baked updates.
I’m level 75 (should be 99 except for the Zwift screw-up on up-leveling) and have been on the platform since 2016. Yes, I earned my Tron too and have over 14 million drops.
Zwift is no longer my favorite virtual cycling platform and hasn’t been for almost two years. I’m down to riding one day per week on Zwift, solely to keep my XP bonus streak alive. With the exception of the social stuff—which isn’t all that important to me—Rouvy blows Zwift out of the water on every other parameter, and it’s not close. I started riding there out of sheer frustration with non-responsiveness of Zwift to glaring issues and am already at level 71—completely without drama I might add. I’m still deciding if I’ll renew my Zwift subscription when it runs out in December.
If you make a test specification with preconditions, test cases and the data output (you most likely already have that) me and most likely others can help with testing and send the results to you upon completed test case. Then you can populate you DB. We all will use different brands/frames/wheels based on personal prefs.
Love this idea of being able to upgrade your favorite bikes and have a use case for my 17.5M drops!! Can’t wait to upgrade my tron Z1.
Not spending a single drop until @Eric Schlange tells me what the best bikes are after all the upgrades.
Hahaha … let’s hope that Eric & his bots will have early access to test all the upgrades 😉 … because also ZHQ normally learn a lot from these tests (to change/modify performance numbers if they don’t make sense in some cases) 😎.
All others should unlock the upgrades and Halo Bikes with their own legs. Not sure if ZHQ can deny this “technical cheating” option … if unlocks would come a bit “too fast” after one day or so.
Anyway … the quiet time in the Garage & Drop-Shop is over now 🤗.
But then in a short amount of time, everyone will just be riding the exact same bike again. I admit, I take Eric’s advice on every drop shop purchase, but maybe it would be more interesting if everyone had to try out different things and maybe waste drops on a dud once in a while!
I’d like to sell/pawn/trade-in frames…how about a buy back program for those outdated frames no one will be caught dead riding. Trade in a 2023 for a 2024 + drops on top. Sorting the garage is a workaround to the main problem. Better than nothing I suppose.
“How in the world am I going to test all of this?” Honestly, Eric, there should be no need to. Perhaps you can test examples of the fastest climber and the fastest aero frames at any given moment, maxed out, and compare them with the baseline. Chances are, if you max out a frame that is “best” in whatever it does, it is still going to be “best” in whatever it does, just MORE of that best.
This one goes to eleven.
And we broke off the knob!
The part I’d be interested in is whether a bike you can get at a low level, with maxed out stats, outperforms the fastest bikes you can get at a high level at base stats.
You get the Felt IA at level 16. If you max out it’s stats is it faster than the Cadex? Should you keep using the Felt until you’ve levelled up the Cadex a step or two?
Purely academic for me, I’m well above the level required to unlock any bike. But that’s what could make a system like this more interesting.
Based on the margins between the bicycles, I doubt that a lower-level bike is going to best an elite level bike even with maxed-out specifications. The upgrades should make them close, but it is quite dubious that the potential of a lower-level bike will ever exceed the potential of one with a higher level. With that considered, it could be very possible that a fully upgraded lower-level bike may be similar in performance to an elite level bike. What might be more worthy of looking at, is whether – once applied, there is any correlation between the margins of increase (percentage or otherwise) of a low-level bike versus a higher-level bike. If you “max out” a bike that is good at something, does it make it “X%” better than it was for that something which it is good at. Example: Maxing out an aero bike, does it make it 1% better? And if a low-level aero bike is 1% worse than the top end, does that mean that it matches the top end model? And does maxing out the top end model also improve that one by 1%?
It might be better if Eric can align with Zwift (should they allow) to get the detailed data at the bike level with the upgrades, so that this can be calculated versus having to do a matrix to test everything – and then spot-verify some of the configurations to see whether that data is actually in alignment with what is reported by Zwift.
Relatively speaking, people talk about the bikes like they’re the “end of the world”, but if you’re doing things like group rides below threshold without being competitive, those margins of difference are less likely to be noticed.
As a note to really consider the data (per the spreadsheet), there is an improvement of 38s up Alpe at 4W/kg average for a 75kg rider on Specialized Aethos with 32mm carbon wheels versus Zwift Aero with Zipp 858 or Roval CLX 64, and the “slug”, Zwift Steel is 27.5 seconds slower than that as Zwift Steel with 32mm carbon wheels (dropping bikes like atomic cruiser, buffalo and safety bikes or disc wheel setups for this example among the Standard frames).
The “fastest” bike tested makes it up in 2,930 seconds and the “slowest” bike tested makes it up in 2,995 seconds, which is a 2% power difference.
If you’re 75kg and you are doing a 2W/kg ride, that translates to a “blistering” difference of 150W versus 153W average.
It’s funny sometimes when people do Z1/Z2 rides, don’t sprint, or push climbs outside of the group pace, and talk about how “slow” the steel bike is versus whatever the fastest thing in their garage is, when the reality is that in any given ride, they could be off by a few watts anyway and not otherwise notice.
At the end of the day, regardless of bike stats, in competition the outcome is still going to come down to:
You can entirely surf the draft and win the race if you are great at keeping it in the tank and doing a breakaway at the very end.
A maxed-out bike is always going to “beat” the non-maxed-out version of that bike, but how far those margins go will really only make a difference at critical moments in hard competition.
Will there be an upgrade to make your butt look smaller?
My guess is that the upgrades will be exactly the same at each level and that the best bikes now will simply continue to be the best bikes after upgrades… just slightly lighter, more aero etc.
The halo bikes will likely wind up being the new “Tron” bikes of the world that will be the real new best bikes that people will be working towards.
What I would like to see is the ability to sell back some of the bikes in your arsenal! Not for full drop price, they’re used! But, if I could get rid of some bikes I’ll never use (like the Zwift bikes, mountain bikes, the hand cycle, etc.) – it would help declutter my garage!
I really like this concept. The Zwift garage system has been bizarre where it requires you doing enormous amounts of work to reverse engineer performance. A far more transparent system, not tied to arbitrary ratings, has always made more sense. IRL there’s no reason a given bike frame can’t be built to different specs, choosing more weight weenie components or maybe a more aero-optimized setup. So this allows players to stick with their favorite brand and upgrade the bike to be more competitive.
What I’d proposed is a simple system where frames are categorized as “aero”, “all around”, or “climber”, then 5 levels be assigned to each category, and manufacturer bikes could be categorized within this performance matrix (for example, a “level 4 climbing bike”). This system essentially allows you to improve the performance without further cluttering the garage, which is even better. They should maybe now just get rid of the brand dependence completely.
“How in the world am I going to test all of this?”
Eric, I think it’s time for a team of Zwift Insider interns 😆
This is going to make racing very interesting as obviously there will be a need to chase down the upgrades on the fast 3 (AR, Areroad 24 and Dogma 24).
Do you know if upgrades are going to be possible on all bikes at the same time or will it be a case of slowly releasing upgradable bikes?
Yeah, I still want the “Trunk In Grandma’s Attic” to put things in that I don’t use anymore, with the option to pull something out if I find I need it. I’d pack away about two-thirds of the bikes, most of the wheels and well over half the kits, shoes, socks and sunglasses I have.
I wonder if some crap bikes will benefit from huge upgrades making them solid options, as opposed to the best bikes getting smaller upgrades.
It’s a welcome addition although I would have preferred a selection of tyres playing on dimensions, pressure, rolling resistance, aero interaction with rims…
“the hip kids purposely ride something else!”
I’m working towards a 2024 Dogma F with paint. I think that will be relatively exclusive.
I know this is wishful thinking, but it would be nice if the frame upgrades were crazy bonuses like ‘Decrease’s rider weight by 1%’, ‘Increased speed at or above a specific elevation’, ‘1% speed boost on turns’, ‘Decreased non-paved road rolling resistance’, ‘Reduced rear draft by 2%’, etc. Then you’d have to take the time to study the route and build a unique strategy.
Will they reveal what the Halo bike options are for each manufacturer? Or do you not see what it is until you get all three bikes fully upgraded?
For me I would like to see a second hand market for frames and wheels.
10 year old topic. Zwift is terrible at this. It is clear that the sponsors are winning over the wishes of the subscribers.
Any update on when this will begin? Thanks.
Early winter. I’d guess sometime in January.
I wish they would implement garage slots so that you can ‘save’ a climbing build, a time-trial and a sprint one instead of always reconfiguring frame and wheelset.
How about a yearly individual recap report? I’m sure you’ve never heard that before…[wpd-tenor full=’UdG7qshAnKkAAAAM/elmo-sigh.gif’ preview=’UdG7qshAnKkAAAAe/elmo-sigh.png’ width=’498′ height=’279′]
When are the halo bikes going to release? Seems like winter has passed by now…
Hopefully we are going to become new Allrounder bikes, which are going to be faster than the Tron bike. I like the idea to upgrade bikes, but I can understand, that not all of us like that.
Meh! still not rewarding the small but dedicated recumbent group on Zwift with a bike.
It has re-energized me as a Zwifter. It makes me want to spend more time in the trainer, indoors, to obtain the upgrades to frames and then get a Halo bike (I’ve got my sights set on the Canondale Blade bike). I think it is a wonderful, challenging, motivational tool implemented by Zwift.
Ride on!