Zwift just sent a press release announcing key new features and content (events) for the next few months. Read that full press release below, apart from a few portions we removed that discussed features or events already announced:
- New levels 61-100 and Drop Shop reorganization
- Ride streaks
- Climb Portal updates: scaling, completion tracking, and rankings
- Steering gamification events for Repack Rush and Crit City
- zFondo Series 2024
New Features
Companion App Update: Ride and Route Queuing
Coming in January
With this new update to the Zwift Companion app, it’s never been easier to plan your Zwift rides and workouts. Once live, this update will let Zwifters browse workouts and routes in the companion app and select the ones you want to do. Then, selections will be queued up on the Zwift home screen—no more searching through content options when it’s time to ride!
Avatars Get a New Look!
Coming in February!
Zwift avatars’ faces will be getting a whole new appearance in February. Our avatars haven’t been refreshed in a long time, and this change will give avatars a fresh new look.
Choose Any Avatar
Coming this Winter!
With Avatar Choice, you’ll be able to choose between all of Zwift’s available avatar types. Zwifters will no longer only see the avatars that correlate to the gender selected in your profile. Instead, cyclists can choose any avatar.
While we’re excited to let Zwifters choose any avatar they’d like, event categories will still match the gender of the rider’s profile for social events and racing, no matter which avatar is selected. Male profiles will only be able to enter male and open events. Female profiles will be able to enter female and open events, even if a woman chooses a male-presenting avatar.
Apple Watch Becomes a Heart Rate Monitor
Coming this Winter
The best heart rate monitor is the one you’re already wearing, so we’re adding Apple Watch heart rate compatibility to Zwift, making life easier for any Zwifter who already owns an Apple Watch. Pair Watch in the Zwift Companion app, as with any other heart rate monitor, and track your heart rate on-screen as you ride and run.
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Events
Zwift Games
Join the Games from February to March
Zwift is transforming cycling esports with the Zwift Games. This new event will be the largest event of its kind and is designed to give any member of the community a chance to enjoy fun and challenging racing. Elite racers can qualify to compete in championships events!
Community Racing: The Zwift Games will be Zwift’s biggest-ever community racing tour, featuring three Sprint stages, an Epic stage for endurance riders, and a Climb stage for the mountain goats. Zwifters can challenge themselves by completing all five races as a stage race, or pick and choose their preferred stages throughout the month of March.
With a number of specially designed new routes and some awesome Zwift Games unlocks available, there’s truly something for everyone.
Events will be available at multiple times every day throughout March, for all categories.
Elite Racing: During the first three weekends in March, the world’s best male and female Zwifters will take on the same courses as the community in a bid to be crowned the Zwift Games Elite Sprint, Epic, and Climb champions. The best performing female and male athlete across all three events will also earn the ultimate accolade of becoming the inaugural Zwift Games All Round Champion. The eight champions will earn a share of Zwift’s biggest ever prize purse and each unlock one of Zwift’s most recognisable icons, resplendent in gold.
All championship racers will be subject to pre- and post-race performance verification and all races will be broadcast all around the world.
Information on how any top level Zwifter can qualify for the elite championships will be shared by the 15th of December.
Rapha Festive 500
December
Join the annual Festive 500 challenge and complete 500 kilometers between Christmas and New Year’s! Both Zwift and outdoor rides count toward your total, so tick off the kilometers and earn an event badge and Festive 500 kit!
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Fitness Jumpstart with Coach Kristin
January – February
Three-time Olympic Gold Medalist Kristin Armstrong is busy. She’s a successful coach, entrepreneur, and a mom who needs to be efficient when working out. Her new training series is approachable, efficient, effective, and fun—perfect for any busy cyclist and a great way to start the new year with a commitment to your fitness.
Starting in January, the eight-week Fitness Jumpstart with Coach Kristin invites all Zwifters to start the New Year right. Program workouts are available on-demand and live to fit any schedule. Kristen will lead select sessions. Each week of the program is designed around helping riders learn about a specific aspect of training.
Plus, you can stay motivated, make friends, and ask questions in the Zwift Women’s Training Club group chat on the Zwift Companion App.
Tour de Zwift and Rebel Routes
Start the tour in January
Ride routes that are inaccessible most of the year during one of the year’s largest Zwift events, the Tour de Zwift, and earn route badges that are not otherwise available!
This year, Zwifters who complete stages or the whole tour will also unlock a new in-game kit—including Zwift’s first-ever bucket hat! Zwifters can also buy a matching real-world kit from Le Col!
l’Etape du Tour
Start Training in February
Every year, L’Etape du Tour de France hosts and organizes the biggest amateur Gran Fondo in the world on one stage of the Tour de France. As an official partner of L’Etape du Tour de France this year, Zwift is bringing all the energy, enthusiasm, and excitement of the world’s hardest amateur race into Zwift.
Starting in February, there will be monthly two-stage Fondos over weekends in February, March, April, and July. Zwift will also introduce an eight-week training program for the L’Etape du Tour and add some of the famous climbs from the route to Zwift’s Climb Portal. These climbs are a great way to prepare for this challenging one-day cycling event or just get ready for a summer of tackling the most challenging climbs in your local area.
New March Event
Join in March!
In March, Zwift will reveal an all-new event and introduce a new way to earn rewards! Look for more information in February, and get ready to take a spin to earn Zwift rewards in a whole new way.
Your Thoughts
What do you think of Zwift’s plans for the winter? Share below!
The Apple Watch heart feature confuses me, this feature is available since years allready but zwift keeps saying that is legacy, now they sell it as a new feature? does this mean it is finally reliable and working all the time not just sometimes?
This is one of the most aggravating parts of riding. My heart rate from the watch craters to 0 pretty frequently. Sometimes I restart Companion, sometimes Companion’s watch app, sometimes the watch, and if I get lucky it eventually comes back. That strange ritual doesn’t do much for my workout though…
I was almost to the point that I thought I’d use one Apple Watch to track my workout for Fitness and another with a heart monitor app (that turns the watch into “just” a Bluetooth heart monitor) so I’d stop going insane.
If they actually fix it, that’s worth mentioning, but it’s sure as heck nothing new.
Yyes, basically until now they’ve claimed that any issues anyone has are because it’s “legacy” or “not currently supported” etc., but once this gets released it sounds like they have actually been prodded into finally programming in the necessary fixes to make Zwift work properly with Apple Watch as an HRM, so “in theory” (lol!) it should finally be reliable for those who want/need to use it…I guess time will tell just how reliable the update makes Zwift at meshing with it
What I’d like to know is when they’ll recognize the Google Pixel watch as a valid HRM and set it up to connect.
Yeah, I’ve been using it all the time, and I have had zero issues. Mac OS. Start Zwift, pairing screen, then start companion app, pairs as soon as the companion app connects. So yeah, I asked the same question, what’s new about this?
For me, what seems to have happened is that I used to be able to use the Apple Watch for heart rate until this latest update and now it is broken!
There’s 2 things I’ve been hoping Zwift would do for a long time, and neither would really be too challenging or revolutionary I don’t think.
1- I wish they’d let us make our own routes like you can on Strava et, so we can plan and ride it without having to manually turn at each junction
2- Either bring in all the workouts so they’re available on Club Group rides, or allow us to set our own personal workouts to Club Group rides
Both of these would be fantasticimprovements for people trying to set Events that help improve fitness in the off season, whilst making it that little bit more interesting when you’re not entirely sure of the route thats been set.
Fingers crossed
i admit I’m not using every Zwift feature so I may be missing something. Our club does group rides and for point 2 I can already use any workout during a keeptogether ride. Are you asking for something different?
Do you do a meetup or an official ride through the Club feature? I think what OP is asking for is a Club generated event with a predefined workout, which does not exist. I’d also like that feature!
You can do Club events that are predefined workouts. It’s just that you can’t use a custom workout. There’s a shortened list of workouts you can choose from.
Ahh right. Yeah, we do Custom Workouts.
zFondo Series 2024 link goes to Steering Gamification Events Now Scheduled for Repack Rush & Crit City Gamification Events Now Scheduled for Repack Rush & Crit City
I’m waiting for some exclusive zwift championships. WTRL is a team news. The Tour de Zwift is not a competition. Zwift GAMES sounds interesting and motivating. The name is wrong because I don’t want to play games but take part in the world championships :).
The Olympics are really the Olympic Games…just saying
Commonwealth GAMES, Pan-American GAMES, Asian GAMES … etc.
Fair enough, they are all multi-sport events but, even so, definitely competitions and not “playing games”. For many sports those are the most prestigious championships players can aim for.
Fair play to Zwift. They received a lot of negative feedback for lack of innovation/development during the COVID years but recently they have been absolutely on it with platform development and new features. I’m also loving these pre release announcements pre so we can see the roadmap. Keep up the good work!
When slow-drawing maps when selecting a route will be improved. The current route preview is useless. It used to be much better. The same when selecting a view while driving. This is a nightmare – a list will appear and you have to look for a way back. The same when selecting RIDE ON voice messages. The list that appears is a nightmare.
the Route queuing sounds promising but a dedicate route planer would be the better option IMHO
“Highly confidential material. Not for distribution.” LOL
And they all say ‘2022’ on the footers. How long has Zwift been planning this? Lol
«While we’re excited to let Zwifters choose any avatar they’d like». Whats to be excited about? Freeriding next to a woman, which in fact is a 100kg powerhouse man, wondering why its impossible to keep up?
Not sure why this matters.
That 100kg power house man will still be a 100kg power house man no matter the avatar.
I can’t ever think of a time when I looked at someone’s avatar and it influenced how I ride.
I just like things being what they seem to be I guess. I have no problem whatsoever being beaten by a woman, on the contrary! When that happens, and it does happen, I think its cool! We have a woman in ZU4R who beat me good on a ITT :-).
If you do races the avatars could at least indicate who will be the stronger sprinters. I say indicate so as not to step on anybodys sore toes, and be downvoted 10 times. But thus pick your gender avatar will not apply to events. Can we pick sizes as well? I’m 100 kg and I would love to look like a cyclist. So why shouldn’t I be alloved to do that then?
Part of the skill of races is testing the legs of your competitors to see who the stronger sprinters are! In a race a couple of weeks ago I tried a few “test” attacks and looked at what numbers rivals put out in response, which gave me the indication you’re looking for. I saw they were stronger sprinters, so I tried a long attack and it worked!
As for wanting to “look like a cyclist”, anyone on a bike can be considered a cyclist if they want, whatever the body type. 🙂
most secure zwift internet user
What’s to be excited about is that some people IRL who are forced to choose a gender by Zwift don’t think of themselves that way, and don’t look the way the avatars look, and would like their avatar to represent them better. Just like avatars having different skin colors, or hair colors.
In short, this change is not about you. So it really doesn’t matter if you are excited about it.
I see. I didn’t think of this as a «multigender» issue. I was more into the racing/weight/avatar/true (physical) looks side of things. I certainly didn’t mean offend anyone.
That’s cool–I’m sorry if my reply was harsh. I see too many reactionary replies to this sort of thing, and I should have been more polite.
From where I sit/ride, there are so many people of any gender who could drop me in a second, so I never look at gender in that regard anyway 🙂 It’s a matter of representation, though, which is important. Peace 🙂
This feels like the lightest one in terms of new features/content since they’ve started doing these pre-announcement press releases.
I was hoping for another new bit of road this winter. Felt like usually we get a new bit of road before winter and then one in the middle or end of winter.
The route selection via the CA is a nice addition, but I agree that being able to design your own route would be more usefull. What I’ve wanted from the CA for a long time is the ability to change your kit, bike, wheels, etc. from it rather than having to log in to the game to do it. It seems like such an obvious thing to have that I keep wondering if I’m just missing it!
Wonder if there will be any bonus XP with the rebel route badges?
I’m sure there will be. Every route badge includes bonus XP.
New roads would have been nice.
As i read this all i was thinking was PRICE INCREASE$$$
”Male profiles will only be able to enter male and open events.”
There are “male events”?
Not sure I’ve ever seen one but there are female only events. So I guess this means your avatar gender doesn’t effect your profile gender.
👕 When will a custom in game kit design feature ever become available?
The benefits of allowing people to create their own kits are probably outweighed by the risks of people creating inappropriate/abusive ones.
It would take about 5 minutes before someone created a Penistone Cycling kit, with carefully-placed sponsorship from Larsen’s Biscuits.
Custom jersey is the only thing everyone wants actually
“Both Zwift and outdoor rides count toward your total, so tick off the kilometers and earn an event badge”
Wait, wait, wait. Is this implying Zwift is going to read our real world data??
You’ll probably have to link another account like Garmin connect for it to work so you won’t have to share that information if you don’t want too. We’ll see
Nah. It’s a Strava challenge, not a Zwift one. Zwift is just hosting events that support it.
That new male avatar is clearly rob gronkowski.
It would be better if the avatar matched the height and weight settings of the rider (like it does in RL) – at least then you’d have a chance at strategy based on who is around you.
Seems a bit underwhelming. some nice to have updates but can’t say there is anything to really get excited about other platforms are innovatinng and bringing new features zwift seems stuck in 2018
Companion app for routes is nice but but there is so much more the companion app could do, where is the ability to search for events? Proper club chat setting? club custom workouts? Ability to unlock club jerseys etc
Zwift games could be an interesting one as long as it’s not elite focused and just a rebranding of the zwith monthly races for the community. my one hope with that is maybe we will see a proper elimantion type event mode.
no mention of previous things like zwift racing score and halo.
Fingers crossed there is more going on in the background.
A rather underwhelming “What’s Next” announcement.
Rapha 500? Umm why’s that even in there, it has no Zwift involvement.
Avatar stuff? Umm, OK, but did anyone actually ask for development time spent on that?
Zwift Games? Still very light on any details for no apparent reason.
Tour de Zwift with Rebel Routes? Umm, yeah nice…IF that then means those ‘Rebel Routes’ will be made available at least for ‘Events’ use going forwards…which they don’t mention!
L’etape du Tour? Well it’d be nice IF they added the L’etape du Tour stage route into Zwift as a rideable route, but looks like it’ll just be random Fondos on existing roads.
New March Event? Ooh, way to weigh us down with the details Zwift HQ, I can hardly digest all of that…!
…maybe I’m just becoming a cranky middle aged man 😂 but Zwift’s announcements seem to be getting more and more underwhelming recently 😑
Rapha 500 has no zwift involvement? Apart from group rides, a kit, a badge, 500 miles ridden on zwift…oh and a Strava badge if connected.
I’m excited with all the new rides, fondos and features coming next year but is zwift going to develop a delete button/icon for our garage items that WE find useless in keeping and enjoy the kits,frames,wheels etc that makes us stay in a positive vibe.
I really would like a honest and logical response to this, plesse. Thanks
I’d like to see Zwift implement an indoor rowing environment.
The “Zwift Rowing” module has been fully written and ready to go, having gone through beta testing over 2-years ago. Literally the ONLY reasons it hasn’t been released yet are that Zwift did a very poorly phrased user ‘poll’ just prior to its intended release when trying to figure out the best membership/pricing situation for it and because the poll was stupidly flawed they got a completely jumbled response set and couldn’t decide how to deal with the membership/pricing for it…plus the CEO(s) are seemingly incapable of making a decision on anything! So it is completely ready to go but just sat there not available to anyone, not making any money, not providing extra functionality to paying members etc. It’s a real clusterf…!
They could literally release it next week free for all current full-paying Zwift cycling members, or for some random amount of say $5.99 for people who wanted Zwift “Rowing Only”.
There are literally thousands upon thousands of Concept2 Rower (and similar) users around the world who would love a Zwift Cycling style situation but for Rowing, yet instead it sits gathering dust while people like EXR start to close in on that market and the sponsorship etc. that comes with it (i.e. EXR are official British Rowing software for the championships), plus it would be a real “circle join” kind of addition to Zwift since they would then have Rowing, Cycling, and Running and so could have completely Zwift based eSports “eTriathlon” events of Rowing->Cycling->Running that people could do from home or which could be organised in front of live fans in pretty much any indoor sports venue…it is really just mind boggling that they don’t see the benefits in releasing Zwift Rowing, I get frustrated just thinking about it!
I agree the survey/poll wasn’t perfect, but I don’t think it was just about price – I think the survey made the Zwift team realise there was far more demand to fix bugs than there was for adding rowing (which would have created even more bugs).
And because every good business person knows it costs far more to attract a new customer than keep an existing one, they appear to have decided to focus on improving the experience for the many cycling Zwifters they gained in 2020, to keep hold of as many of them as possible. Which makes financial sense in the short-to-medium term.
In the long term, Zwift can let EXR go through the growing pains of figuring out what the rowing market wants and then become the first platform to offer rowing, cycling and running. So long as Zwift still has a strong brand when that happens, they’ll be able to catch up pretty quickly.
More routes please!
There actually is a bucket hat already in the game – it’s just limited to runners!
It’s a shame that the Zwift Games went from being the most ‘democratic cycling championship event ever held’ to ‘championships for the elite, and the community can have some group rides alongside it’ in just 2 press releases. I was hoping for it to be structured so that every category could have something to compete for.
What makes you think they’re group rides? It clearly says the community will have races, on the same courses as the elites.
Biggest difference I see is there is prize money for the elite side of things.
Whoops I meant group races rather than rides – I understand that they will be races, but didn’t get the sense that if you did them all you might be competing in e.g the C Category Sprint / Epic / Climb championship. Hopefully I’m wrong though and there is a sort of GC, or time zone/regional contest. Not that I’m in any danger of being able to actually compete!
I bet there will be something like that (a GC). But details are scarce currently, so we’ll have to wait and see.
Am I the only one who’s wanted to see xp in the companion app?
I would just like to make a point that Rider coming along now will never know what it was like to achieve levels 55 – 60 at 30,000 XP each. When you got there you felt a great feeling of achievement that you earned every bit of It. Now with the release of leavel 61 – 100 that feeling is all but gone, leaving up had become way to easy.
I agree. I was on level 48 when the changes came in, but got to 49 really quickly and will be at 50 by the end of this week, which usually would not have been possible for me in those timescales. The change has moved the goalposts, and not in a good way.
I’m the same levelling up almost once a day. already going to level 65 a probably 66 by the end of the day. It needs teaking
All I really want from them is an upcoming gradient display that I can see!!! Make it bigger please
Yes! I can’t understand how this isn’t a higher priority. The current elevation profile is beyond useless! Maybe all the most active users have just gotten so used to it (or memorized all the terrain) that they stopped complaining about it? I think it should have a separate tab in the companion app where you can clearly see and scroll through the entire elevation graph of your route (with proper axes and units). The start and end points of KOMs, sprints, etc, should also be indicated, so you can see exactly when they are coming up (because you can’t see them on the map!)
The fact that it currently shows you some arbitrary segment that may or may not be part of your preselected route and could change at any turn is so frustrating! Not to mention that you may be moving left-to-right or right-to-left along it at any time, with nothing but a microscopic arrow to indicate it!
Wonder if the avatar refresh will keep the “weight = muscularity” thing. I wish I was as jacked as Zwift thinks someone my weight is.
Mount Fuji…….. Something I really expected this winter.
My other half just wants long hair for her avatar. Will this be possible 😂😂
Any news on switching to racing score? Was mentioned in the last ‘next season’ but no sign since.
I want a VELODROME!!!! 🙂
Hoping somewhat naively that now the back of the island has been opened up we will see some new ways of getting up to the radio tower. The cones near the waffle house look promising
Still waiting for Zwift to update graphics capabilities for newest Apple TV. Large group rides are impossible because the frame rate slows to a crawl!
I completed the crit castle and the big flat 8 rebel routes but was informed by zwift that while these badges are showing in game that it was a mistake. They have stated the rebel route badges that are showing are not actually achievable. See their response attached