The latest Zwift update is now available on PC, Mac, and Android, with iOS and Apple TV releases coming quickly as usual. The update is a big one in terms of download size, because it’s stuffed full of new assets for two new worlds! Let’s dig into the details…
Not sure if your Zwift install is up-to-date? Here’s how to check >
New Maps: France and Paris!
The update notes say:
- The newly added France map includes 7 new routes between 12 and 37 miles (21-61km) in length, with elevation gains of over 3,000 feet for some routes (+1000m).
- The newly added Paris map includes a new flat 4.1 mile (6.6km) route in two directions so you can race around downtown Paris.
Virtual Tour de France?
Rumors have been swirling since early this month that Zwift would be hosting a virtual Tour de France in July. While Zwift is undoubtedly bound by embargo agreements with partners, it would seem that today’s release all but confirms the rumors.
If what CyclingNews posted earlier this week is accurate, the France map includes Mont Ventoux, and the Paris map includes Champs Elysées. Spendide!
My guess is we’ll be seeing official announcements regarding Zwift + TdF very, very soon. (The Tour generally starts in early July, after all.)
But for now, let’s just enjoy the fact that we’re getting some new roads – and in fact, a substantial amount of them!
Event Only?
The release notes say “More detail on these event worlds will be coming soon” (emphasis added). Zwift is taking some heat in the forums for releasing new maps and making them event-only, but I want to propose an alternative reading. Follow me…
- Zwift hasn’t officially announced a single thing regarding a virtual TdF… yet. (But my sources in Zwift tell me there is big news coming early next week. And the update notes say, “Today we have a new update for you and it’s a BIG ONE.” Big one. All uppercase. Italics. Bold. There’s a message there.)
- If the virtual TdF is happening (and all signs point to “yes”), then Zwift will be carefully coordinating the release of this big news with ASO and other partners. (This would be huge news, after all: Zwift’s biggest news to date!)
- The new France map is big. The download took a while! 7 new routes between 12-37 miles in length, with an elevation gain of “over 3,000 feet” for some routes (Ventoux, anyone?). Zwift’s two event-only maps (Bologna and Crit City) are 8km and 2km in length, respectively. I highly doubt that Zwift would build a new map this large, then relegate it to event-only status forever. (2020 has been a crazy year – but not that crazy.)
- Perhaps the biggest piece of evidence: badges. There are new route achievement badges that showed up in today’s update (see image below). Presumably for the new maps. Zwift has never had route achievement badges for event-only routes, only for free-ridable ones.
- If the TdF is happening on these new maps, Zwift would obviously make the new maps be event-only on a temporary basis. They’ve done this in the past when new UCI courses were launched – it adds some excitement and exclusivity to the launch. Then the worlds are opened for free-riding once the big events have passed.
- Zwift didn’t call the new maps “event-only”. That’s very specific language which they’ve always used in the past for event-only routes and maps. They called France and Paris “event worlds” – which is exactly what they would be, if they’ve been built for the virtual TdF. This, I think, is very specific, careful language.
This alternative reading would suggest that these new maps will begin as event-only, but make their way onto the guest calendar rotation in the near future. So I wouldn’t get too up in arms about today’s announcement – it’s all good news, if you look closely.
Read/discuss Wes Salmon’s full release notes >
Questions or Comments?
What do you think? Is a virtual TdF announcement just around the corner? Will we get to free-ride these new maps some day? Share your thoughts below!
I just finished collecting all the route badges (and all other badges including extra credit, etc.) last week. Now it is back to work. Is Monica game for a Round Two?!
I am in the middle of that challenge and then this comes along. Trying not to get distracted with these will be hard.
My guess is event only until after the TDF…but if they lock it in as an event world there will be some seriously unhappy customers!
I’m already updated on pc. Just as I finished all the routes, I have another 8 to keep me going and another 8 for veloviewer in thr future. Can’t wait.
One of the route badges is VEN-TOP. Yes, Mont Ventoux likely coming.
I had 4 badges left. I guess it’s more badge-hunting rides! I can’t wait to try the new routes. Should we be worried that “Casse Pattes” translates to “Breaks Legs”? 😉
😬
What’s the betting that’s a cobbled route?
In french we say ‘casse pattes’ when you have relentless uphill and downhill and little flats. More like a hilly course rather than a mountainous course
In English cycling we call that “Yorkshire”. 😉
Thanks for the explanation. 👍
In French cycling vocabulary, a “casse-pattes” circuit (or route) is one of those where you never stop pedaling, forcing, climbing, even small ramps, but which hurt legs for good.
Thanks. 👍
While I think everything you’ve said is correct – as it usually is – Zwift could have solved all their problems by being more clear. Their carefully chosen language just isn’t very good. And if the whole thing is supposed to be more secretive in order to align with a larger announcement, then why not wait and roll out the update then? Simply saying the roads wouldn’t be immediately rideable but would be in the future would have prevented most of the criticism.
I don’t disagree.
Totally agree. To the Zwift community ‘event only’ has a specific meaning – closed to free riding. Terrible PR.
Contracting with ASO to host a virtual TDF would be an enormous coup for Zwift. Releasing the worlds this way could be the result of negotiations between the two sides and I would not be surprised if Zwift wanted a different rollout and wanted to be more clear to the faithful but made this concession to make the entire deal work. It could also represent Zwift pushing to get knowledge of the worlds out there to its subscribers as quickly as possible. Maybe we will find out later this year. Personally I would love to hear Eric Min or ASO… Read more »
I believe the impact of hosting a virtual TDF on Zwift is massively overblown. While it may result in free media and whatever baubles ASO is offering up, I don’t believe many people are going to watch a live broadcast of cartoon like graphics and decide to give up $15/month. And those that do will quickly become frustrated by increasingly buggy software and poor release quality.
That’s how marketing works. Last year, I was shown lots of 10-second clips of “cartoon like graphics” as Zwift promoted itself in the Tour de France coverage, and that’s what made me look at Zwift and ultimately sign up to it.
Not every TdF fan will watch, but some will and we’ll get more and more cyclists on Zwift.
I think it’s at least partly a function of timing – they would have had to put all this stuff into the June game update in order for it to be used in July, which means people would have found out about it anyway (e.g., badges) so they had to announce something. But if their deal with ASO means they can’t make the full announcement until later in July, they would have been limited in what they can say before that point. If you have a monthly software release cycle like Zwift does, you can’t just change it whenever you… Read more »
they said on twitter the two new worlds were event only – i don’t do events, i just ride when i want to so this is no good for me at all. pretty disappointed
Don’t be. I’d bet dollars to donuts they won’t stay event-only for long.
The Champs will stay event only like Crit City. It is too short to be a guest world. The bigger French world will probably be on rotation after TDF. At least that would make the most sense.
But there is a route achievement for the Champs route … there is no such thing for the Crit City and Bologna event only routes.
You’l seem to be assuming that Paris ONLY includes the Champs-Elysees and that it will always stay that way.
You also seem to be assuming they’ll treat the world’s most famous piece of cycling road the same as they do a made-up venue.
The Champs-Elysees is a pull for less competitive cyclists to get on Zwift.
If you head back to Twitter you’ll notice they reworded their tweet…
I’m with you Chris
Your right on most of these points, but Zwift did call them ‘event-only’. Check their post on zwift riders or zwift racers Facebook groups.
Well, someone from Zwift may have called them that. But their official forum release, which I promise was gone over with a fine-toothed comb, did not!
I stand by my reading. 😜
I can understand the frustration over the event only phrasing. Zwift PR seems to be a bit of a lottery at times. In reality after the events we’re likely to have at least one more world added to the roster, along with at least Tokyo next year… yeah, forgotten about that! Really hope Zwift find some way to interconnect the worlds. I’d love to see a tunnel connection in London extension to link to both Paris & France. Would be awesome.
I would like to see a tunnel to Watopia so you could do Mont Ventoux and Alpe du Zwift in one ride.
“Portals” between worlds would be a very cool feature!
How long the tunnel will last ???😇
Well the one in London to Surrey Hills does ~50miles in a few hundred yards. Doesn’t matter really. A standard portal / tunnel feature with routing for where it leads to is all that’s needed. It’s a virtual world after all. 🙂
But for other services that Zwift syncs to, it isn’t just a virtual world … London rides generate GPS data showing you rode in London, likewise Yorkshire, NYC, Richmond, etc. I have always wondered whether connecting the worlds together raises too many problems with the connevction to services like Strava and Garmin that track that GPS data. If you look at any London route that includes both the city and Surrey sections, the Strava and Garmin maps overlay the Surrey section on sections of London streets, not their actual GPS location (Leith Hill is overlaid on Bermondsey, for example) so… Read more »
You make a good point about the GPS data overlay. I guess Zwift would have to create a new ride file everytime to go through a portal. You would end up with one Zwift activity but multiple Strava activities
This was discussed somewhere else recently. Strava create any Zwift ride as a virtual ride. It doesn’t treat/create the data as literal gps points from my understanding. It’s essentially pseudo gps data. It’s why Watopia, roughly mapped to a pacific island ends up with a lot of the route over water in Strava. So that as an issue isn’t really there. Main issue I think is that each Zwift World is a separate data package that’s loaded into memory when the app runs, so it would have to a lot more dynamic in how it manages this.
Not that Strava wouldn’t have to refactor how they deal with rides spanning multiple locations, otherwise yes, they’d have potentially stright connecting lines of 1000s of km.
“It doesn’t treat/create the data as literal gps points from my understanding. It’s essentially pseudo gps data.” Your understanding is wrong, sorry. GPS is a measuring system: there’s no such thing as a “GPS point”, just as there’s no such thing as a “clock time”. Zwift creates files that *do* contain literal latitude/longitude coordinates (or, if you prefer, “literal GPS points”). That’s the only way that Strava knows to map your London rides to London its map, your New York rides to New York, and so on. If there was a portal between two worlds (say, London and Paris), then… Read more »
The GPS problem is easy to fix – you just “move” virtual London, Bologna, Yorkshire etc. on Strava et al so they’re in the Pacific ocean, alongside Watopia, instead of in their real-life locations.
I meant literal GPS points as in actually riding over those physical places IRL. that’s why I termed it pseudo-GPS points. Yes the files that Zwift creates contain data points than map to a physical place, as does any file such as a .fit/.tcx file. It has to, which is why I also stated than Watopia often translates to riding over water. Zwift takes the data points as they are. I also mentioned that there would be interconnecting lines for multipe locations because the GPS points map to physical places, albeit that the overlay isn’t particulary accurate to the real… Read more »
I agree, that would be ideal. Apparently, the obstacles to this are more of a Strava problem than a Zwift issue. Shane Millar elaborated on this during the most recent Zwift cast podcast.
Thanks, that’s where I heard it discussed I think, either that or a discussion between him and DCRainmaker.
I’d like them to just finish the MTB route. How long have we been waiting for that? Or what about just fixing changing worlds and starting a new route without restarting the whole app? Or a family memebrship or or or….
Zwift seems to be increasingly ignoring customer feedback and chasing their latest whims and shiny objects- from hardware to a virtual TDF. This is the mistake many newer companies make- they lose focus on what made them successful in the first place. Zwift would be little more than a mediocre video game without its passionate members- and the company just doesn’t seem to get that.
Maybe this release was designed to drum up some controversy and remind all us outside-in-the-summer folks that Zwift is still around? I’m hopeful both worlds will be open for free-riding come October or whenever I fire up Zwift again.
available on ios now for its worth
I find it interesting that you would spend all of this R&D on two new worlds with lots of roads and make it event only. Nah, not gonna happen.
Exactly.
My take? People didnt read the release carefully, saw the first comment which mentions event only, and snapped.
While zwift didnt help themselves (my post is the pic in the forum of the achievements badges) parts of the community arent showing in good light either…
Okay, let’s try another one.
🏃🔥🔥🔥 “Trainer Difficulty”!
Wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve released the maps and locked them out for final testing by some secret bunch of riders to make sure that the Virtual TDF coming soon is perfect in every way. The Worlds will then be released and opened to the public for free riding as normal worlds. People just seem to be a bunch of Sheep and if someone goes off – they all follow. Wish people would be individual…… but agree that the wording from Zwift HQ is bad and could be better…… Dear Zwift PR Dept…… I know how to speak propper like… Read more »
Nah, it’s just Zwift being bad at communicating, as usual. If they wanted to beta-test the new routes, they would release them only to the beta testers. The whole point of beta testing is to find things that are broken and need to be changed *before* all your customers download the new code. It makes no sense to release the beta version to everybody, then fix the bugs, then make everyone download the fixed version, too. That just puts huge and needless load on their servers.
There’s “beta testing” and there’s “letting the pro riders test the course”. Because some of the pros are very new to Zwift, they may have had to let them do practice in the real thing.
Also, when you’ve got the biggest ever showing of Zwift, and and problems could make the ASO look bad, I think you’d want to test it to the Nth degree.
Thank god there’s ZwiftInsider to translate Zwiftspeak into English for us 😂
Well written analysis. Like many others I reacted poorly to my initial reading of Wes’s release notes – but to be fair to ZHQ (and as you highlighted) they are probably walking a very fine line with ASO here.
Time to set a schedule for those badges
Fantastic. Great news. Anxious for the new routes
Taco Cat wonders if taco trucks were included under the FTP free taco program so that we could buy tacos using drop points.
Sadly, no.
Just updated Zwift on Apple TV. The update notes on the App Store use words “Event Only” to describe the new worlds.
News about the routes inc Ventoux and the vTDF have been about for a couple of days.
https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/zwift-build-new-mont-ventoux-and-champs-elysees-worlds-for-virtual-tour-de-france/
Do you have any idea when these courses will begin to appear in events?
July 4th is my bet, the TDF was originally supposed to be run then. Its three weeks later now.
Zwift had now this in their forum: [EDIT: Quick update to everyone inquiring about the new worlds. We’re as excited as you are about the new France and Paris worlds and more information about these worlds and how Zwifters access them will be coming out next week.]
😁
Not that Zwift necessarily listens to rider feedback, but I would love it if after each stage of a virtual zTDF they routes unlocked daily for riding (not as event only). I grew up in Southern California and I cannot tell you how many times my friend Mark and I would watch Indurain and LeMond in the Tour and then ride up Palomar Mountain pretending we were in our own TdF breakaway. I hope Zwift’s rollout goes day-by-day. Also, after two months of badge hunting and getting down to four badges left, there’s no way I’m not chasing the new… Read more »
When the firt announcemnet s been pubblished the words were ” We’ve got big news! For our latest June release, we’re excited to introduce two new event worlds” and not “we’re excited to introduce two new event-only worlds”
is the word “only” dissappeared ?
I wouldn’t get all angry about the new worlds being held up at the gate now. Been on Zwift way over 5 years and it pays to let things happen when the time comes. Its great to know new shiny toys are headed our way but the delivery and communication could have been clearer and properly directed. This will avoid being misrepresented and cause anguish to subscribers. Now the forum is set abuzz with lots of unhappy subscribers because so much is flowing through grapevines, hearsay, presumptions, lack of precise information.. etc. Yes we are paying customers and so am… Read more »
Still no save without exit. REALLY!
Why would they listen to their paying customers? They have no real competition at the moment.
Yet another prime example of why the Zwift forums are hardly any better then cesspit that is the comment section on YouTube. They instantly all start screaming we don’t want new roads, WE ALL WANT ***blurs out random list of features***… they seem to forget that 50 people on a forum asking a feature is not a representative amount for the entire community. If people would’ve taken just 15 seconds to think about this they’d know this won’t be permanent… Paris probably will be event only but there is no way they created what is probably 100km+ of new routes… Read more »
Hm. Let me throw in the >1000 people who don’t want to restart Zwift to do another session. There are many more feature requests which are requested by much more than 50 people.
I really have a problem with the kind of communication Zwift HQ is doing. Nooene would be angry if they would have written “hey, theres a big event coming up in July, here’s the updae for that”. Or if they would clarify what exactly will happen to the new worlds.
You dan’t hav eto wonder that people complain if you’re not clear…
At last! With 4 route badges remaining, I was starting to get bored with Zwift and have been riding more and more on Rouvy. I can’t wait to ride in France. Parfait!
There is apparently a route on the France world that is 37 miles long. No way that is event only … it is very uncommon, outside of the Fondo events to have events that are that long. That said, I have to agree with the general consensus that Zwift’s PR is mostly garbage, with this just being the latest example. They have taken on an almost EAesque aversion to communicating clearly with their users, perfectly illustrated by the much hyped, and then unceremoniously postponed huge UI update. Speculation was that this was likely to include at least some of the… Read more »
Who else wants to ride ‘roll my hen’
This sounds amazing. We like to be in Paris for the final Sunday of le Tour each year (last year’s was odd, though – evening finish?!?) and this will be a lot of fun to ride! Ventoux on the other hand… : <
Hope there won’t be any dinosaurs, glass bridges or other weird things in the French routes
Instead of a sloth high-five, I heard they’re putting in a mime named Marcel to give everyone a high-five
Can’t wait to hunt those new route badges. Took me less than 2 months for the others. I need more 😉
One thing that has caught my eye about this whole thing that I can’t get my head around (no, not another glib remark about gulls this time);
The Paris Circuit is mooted to be 4mi/6.4km long – but every single place where I’ve been able to measure it seems to suggest the usual lap of the Champs Elysées/Arc/Tuileries Gardens/Place de la Concorde is only ~2.5mi/4km long. So I wonder what else they’re throwing in to the Paris route (or possibly I need to find more accurate online mapping soluitions!)
You measured it wrong then: https://www.strava.com/segments/22113042
Cheers, I expected as much. User error after all!
The update broke the Zwift companion app on my Android smartphone. When I went to start it up, the app told me it was out of date, provided an “Update” button to do so, which sent me to the Google Play store, where the only options were to uninstall or open, if you select open it brings you right back to out of date update screen! Come on Zwift, you can’t be putting your users into a Moebius loop!
Yes, I have the same issue!
Same here )::::::
Yeah, had the same problem (QA, anyone?), but at least they fixed it pretty quickly. You’ll probably need to (force) quit and restart the companion app for it to function again.
When trying to access the companion app it says new the version needs to be updated but it won’t let me update it. Tried deleting the app and updating. Still same issue.
Same here. Uninstalled. Re-installed. Same message. Guess I’ll go outside and run. Oh the humanity.🦠
Does the world “hack” work to access them?
Nope,which leads me to believe they meant it when they said these routes are event only. Those type of routes are also not selectable.
Any figured out how to access using <world> tag hack?
You can’t at this time.
I’m always amazed at how negative & entitled a lot of the Zwift “community” is. On the Zwift forum a user was throwing a hissy for saying “I pay a subscription so I’m entitled to demand that Zwift…” Those sentiments are echoed whenever Zwift fails to pander to whatever “ideal for them” vision it is that they’ve got in their heads.
People banging on about inconsequential bugs and passive aggressively insinuating they’ll go elsewhere if they’re not fixed immediately – just bore off!
There is a new but locked challenge in the challenge menu, it has no name displayed yet could this be a TDF challenge?
No, it has been there for quite a long time now.
I think that new roads will be opened to the masses as soon as Virtual TdF use them (so a copule of roads per week). May be?
Iphone Companion App not working with new update !
I uninstalled, reinstalled and restarted my phone, that fixed it.
Think about TV rights, with many networks paying to show this there is money to be made. If Zwift opens the worlds anyone can ride in the new worlds during the race and use fan view to watch the race or stream it on YouTube. Don’t know if that has anything to do with the event only tag, since that won’t help for the races on watopia, but it perhaps plays into it. Also from a technical side the races happen with the all other riders on the map, just hidden. New routes would be highly popular and could cause… Read more »
“Big release” and no visible change. Clearly a screw up. Everything else here is noise.
Sorry, noise and speculation.
Lets see 2 more worlds. Two more places for the sandbaggers to cheat. You still have to quit Zwift if you want to change rides. Have riddene Mont Vent Mont Ventoux
I know a lot of subscribers are complaining about this potentially being ‘Event Only’ and about Zwift’s poor communication, but let me pose this to the group: Imagine Zwift was your company and you had a chance to host TdF. Wouldn’t you put all of your time, effort and resources on managing TdF exclusively. They probably will only get one shot at this. If the screw it up in anyway, they will not get a chance like this again. It has to be perfect. Let them get through TdF first and then see what Zwift brings to us loyal subscribers… Read more »
Simple answer – I’d put my customers first. Companies who do that thrive. The opportunity to host a virtual TDF is massively overblown in my view. And the risk is exactly what we’re seeing – frustrating a loyal subscriber base.
No matter what zwift does, those that get frustrated will remain frustrated, they can never be satisfied. They also won’t go to the other platforms yet, as there is no other platform to compete with zwift.
Eric has dreamed of having the tdf on zwift, this is his ultimate goal. Why would he risk that?
It is a critical mistake to follow your own whims rather then listen to the voice of your customer. I don’t accept the premise that there will always be frustrated customers so you should ignore what they have to say. Companies should strive to satisfy all their customer not just some. You have to act like your competitor is just a click away – because some day it will be. The company I work for designs from the customer forward. We don’t always get it right and sometimes take longer then we’d like – but every decision is made as… Read more »
Putting your customers first isn’t always the same as pandering to the demands of vocal minority. Putting customers first could easily encompass developing alternative revenue streams to support longer term stability or increasing development further down the line.
The moment a company embraces the attitude you are espousing and views meeting customer needs as “pandering to the demands of a vocal minority” they begin the path towards failure. Zwift is riddled with bugs and poor UI design. It is increasingly a collection of half baked ideas and broken promises. The fact most of its passionate members have overlooked this or found work arounds doesn’t make it less true. Zwift needs to mature as a company and stop chasing whims and start listening to its subscribers. And when looking for alternative revenue streams means taking resources away from your… Read more »
I see lots of people talking about “Zwift customers” as if we all want the same thing.
Which “subscribers” does Zwift “need” to listen to first? The ones who want more maps, the ones who want more badges, the ones who want to change racing or the ones who want racing to stay the same?
And which “customers” should they try and prioritise – the existing customers or the potential new customers?
Seems to me there is a pretty clear consensus among Zwift customers wanting an improved simpler UI, fixes to long standing bugs, a real solution to ‘sandbagging’, and tools for hosting events/meetups. Zwift forums are filled with bug reports and feature requests that go ignored. That seems a good place to start.
I think Eddy raises some good points. These requests have been submitted to Zwift for a very long time and have largely been ignored. It is safe to say now that Zwift could could care less what general users want. Otherwise they would have either implemented fixes, or provided us with a roadmap for fixing. With that in mind though, Zwift is not our company – so really Eric Min can do whatever he wants to a degree (factoring in pressure from stakeholders, sponsors, shareholders). He has always dreamed of hosting the Tour and now he has his wish. Good… Read more »
THIS IS FANTASTIC!!! CAN’T WAIT!!!
(All uppercase……There’s a message here) = THANK YOU ZWIFT!!!
Agreed!
I am so keen for new badges!!