The latest Zwift update is now available on all platforms.
Not sure if your Zwift install is up-to-date? Here’s how to check >
Like the last few updates, this release doesn’t contain much by way of new features. But it does include a new bike (always fun)! Let’s dig into the details…
New Bike Day: Focus Izalco Max 2020
The Drop Shop now includes a frame from Focus Bikes – their Izalco Max Disc road race machine! Like all aero frames nowadays, the Izalco is billed as being both super lightweight and aero. Rated 3 stars for aero and weight, it’s available to level 8+ Zwifters for 426,000 Drops. The question is… how does it perform on Zwift?
The answer is: it’s a decent frame, but nothing special in terms of performance compared to what’s already available. In our flat test it turned in the same time as the Giant Propel Advanced SL Disc and Pinarello Dogma F12, meaning it’s about 3 seconds too slow over our ~50-minute test to make it onto our list of fastest frames. But it does make #2 on our list of fastest beginner frames, being just a bit lighter and more aero than the Specialized Allez Sprint!
Its climbing performance is less impressive, finding it in the middle of the field with frames like the Pinarello Dogma F12 or Cervelo S5.
This frame was released into the game to make way for the upcoming Focus: Colours of Pari 3-day tour (Nov 26-28). We’ll publish a post about this fun event series tomorrow, but for the time being, just know that completing any stage of the tour unlocks an eye-popping Izalco Max Pari skin for the bike. (You’ll still need to purchase it from the Drop Shop). And two winners (one woman, one man) will receive a complete Izalco Max Pari bike (you have to complete all three stages to be entered into the drawing!)
Workout Improvements
Lots of text improvements have been made to various workouts and workout plans, including the Zwift Racing training plan, the 10-12wk FTP Builder, and the Cyclist to 10k training plan.
Steering Changes
Two small improvements have been added to enhance our in-game steering experience. First, Zwift added in-game steering calibration for the Elite Sterzo Smart. This is for users who find that their Sterzo isn’t quite steering straight in the game when at the center position. The new calibration feature can be reached from the pairing screen buy clicking the wrench just above the Sterzo box.
Here’s something we haven’t seen in a long time – a change to the settings menu! “Offroad Steering Sensitivity” (which seems to only apply to Repack Ridge) is now available in the settings menu:
This is a minor but welcome change – many Zwifters found that turning the steering sensitivity up on Repack Ridge made it much easier to navigate the sharp singletrack corners.
Wrapping It Up
Once again, this month’s update is pretty light in terms of new features. Perhaps this is warranted: our sources inside Zwift tell us there’s a lot going on in the background (paying off that “tech debt” Eric Min has talked about in the past) and of course ZHQ is also working hard to support big events like Zwift Racing League and the upcoming UCI Esports Worlds.
Still… we’d love to see some new tarmac. Especially more Watopian singletrack or gravel!
See/discuss release notes on Zwift’s forum >
If you spotted any other changes in today’s update, please comment below!
What I would like to see, even though Zwift doesn’t give a damn about it, is more accuracy to the Trainer Difficulty setting. Instead of having to eye-ball it, why not some number % readings as you toggle the lever back and forth?
Cue up all the Neo-Pros slamming anyone that has it under 100 anyway…..3…..2…..1…..
The latest version (1.0.5) of the e-racing rules actually mandates a trainer difficulty of 50%, nothing less but now also nothing more.
Being a ‘bit light in new features’ is not really the issue for many of us. Zwift HQ: “Please, please, please fix the in-game bugs that have been around seemingly forever, and quit the Chinese water torture approach of offering up a few inconsequential fixes once a month.” Here’s a novel suggestion. Make Esports a separate self-funded platform and give us subscription paying amateur riders our game back.
I’m pretty sure at this point that the big change missing is the ability to exit out to the main menu after a ride and pick a new route without shutting all the way down. Maybe Santa CEO read about it in literally everyone’s Zwiftmas letter and is just waiting until the 25th (it is on a Friday this year) to roll that one out?
There is a workaround you can do. You can use the meetup feature to change routes/worlds. Finish your route create a meetup (you have to invite someone but they don’t need to attend – I use a free dummy account) when your meetup starts you’ll change routes/worlds.
I agree this is the most annoying an other thing is that you have to start a ride just to get into the menu to review or change your settings.
i would say, who cares about the UCI world championships, i mean what is the importance to the common rider, that they throw in some mostly second hand pros that for the rest of the time you hardly see or hear in zwift. Zwift should be for the zwifters….
Ah, the monthly slap-in-the-face for paying Zwifters.
A small change paving the way for a bigger one in early December? (Roads pls)
Educated guess is that a lot of Agile development has taken place and that only takes you so far, then you have to unpick all the Quick Wins in to a more coherent system and go again. Feels like Zwift have hit the Agile quicksand and are pulling themselves out or paying off the tech debt after running out of Agile Credit or Agile Dev works really well, until it doesn’t 🙂
I would very much doubt anything significant will change until after the UCI worlds. No-one would implement a SNAFU before then….
Have to say I agree with those expressing disappointment about this. I have loved Zwift and still (mostly) do, but the moment there is viable competition, I’m out. I am reconciling myself to the fact that Zwift is cheap, and you very much get what you pay for. Such a shame, because it could (and should) be so much more.
Disappointed that there is no mention of a fix for the draft bug. With Zwift pushing e-sports and the Zwift Racing League being so huge, I would have expected them to fix this as a matter of some urgency. But I guess text improvements in workouts is far more pressing?
Text improvements in workouts is a hell of a lot easier to fix 😕
Another feature that I’d love to see added is the ability to create and work on a custom workout without having to go log in and start up the game as if preparing for a ride. And, personally, I’d really like to see them do away with those asinine power ups!
and the Sterzo is back able to pair again, and also without loosing any found connection?
regret that i found zwiftinsider, it told me everything, and then feel disappointed to new frame… 😅
I’ve suspended my Zwift subscription and moved on, as there are other competitors in this space who are more deserving of my money. So far there’s been little to change my mind.
The “tech debt” is obviously severe. A lot of people seem to think that the fact that you have to exit the game to switch routes is something that should be easily fixable. Unfortunately that’s a sign pointing towards them being unable to cleanly reset global state without restarting the app. That’s basically the very foundation of the game. They basically have to re-develop a live product which is significantly more difficult than just building a new one. That’s OK, stuff happens and you can’t blame them for a lot of those things because they couldn’t know Covid would happen… Read more »
Yeah, as a software engineer, I look at the issues that haven’t been fixed and go “oh, dear, there’s something messy behind that”. That is not to say that I agree with all of their priority choices or how they’re using their lockdown windfall in users, but also that it does actually make sense as an explanation. I wish they’d do a better job of explaining it, but then again non-technical users don’t care, they just want the improvements. (Like the fact that non-ASCII letters don’t come through in chat — that’s really deeply an obnoxious bug for their non-English-speaking… Read more »
It might be messy but a year ago they said that it was ready but too close to Peak Zwift. It would be rolled out in the spring. Well, then we had Covid and more Peak Zwift. The elected not to release it during what summer lull there was and here we are, a year later and still no UI update/
This is the most interesting comment I’ve seen on the subject. Why is it so difficult to refactor code comparing to starting from scratch? One guy hacks away 16 hours a day for a few months and comes up with a cool game which looks very similar to how it looks when the company has dozens of employees and hundreds of millions in funding. Shouldn’t they be able to pound out a new foundation in a month or so? They’re not shooting for perfect compatibility. Or are the inefficiencies of scale that strong — one person hacking doesn’t need to… Read more »
Which do you think is harder? Making a modern eco friendly and self sustainable house from scratch or taking an old house and reconstructing it (without bringing it down completely)? This is an analogy for writing a new application versus refactoring an old one.
So build a new house then demolish the old one. As I noted, it doesn’t need to be perfectly compatible. The routes and worlds should be the same, basic ideas should be the same like levels and drops, but we’re not talking a computer operating system here. It’s a game.
My pet theory is they only have binary access to large parts of the engine and that development is just a total black box to them.
I just don’t know, is it naive to think a billion $ company with access to code, a debugger and an easily reproducible bug report should be able to fix bugs?
„Unfortunately that’s a sign pointing towards them being unable to cleanly reset global state without restarting the app. That’s basically the very foundation of the game.“
Come on, really? Don’t think so. It’s all there at least for a basic implementation that should have been put in place months or years ago. Just save the activity as is done now when jumping into a race and then jump to new world / point as is possible now via meetup hack with second account.
Have lost all my hope on the zwift devs and leadership.
Good points in general, but you ARE able to change worlds without quitting the app, if there is an event/meetup starting. So the reason isn’t that it’s literally impossible to do from a game engine standpoint.
I am attempting a measured post to this as I write this following the 2nd week in a row that my event was ruined by poor connection/server issues. I am no IT expert and it may be my ISP but bear with me. For the last two weeks I have been taking part in the ZRL. For the last two weeks my data hasn’t loaded to Strava, I have had poor experience in Zwift where I was racing on my own. Prior to my abandoned effort tonight I researched the field. Other riders in ZP with blank data for ZRL… Read more »
Zwift’s newest feature which came with this update (at least on my PC) seems to be crashing during closing of the application…
Not sure if it was related to the update but last night we had a weird issue with a Meet-up. We were all doing a keep-together workout when everyone’s frame rate dropped to about 2 fps. Lasted about a minute, then recovered. For a moment we all thought our PCs/Macs were dying!
During a race results meetup yesterday, the default to not see other riders was intermittent. Has anyone else noted this odd behavior since the update?
When there’s a new bike in the drop shop 🙂
But then you find out it’s disappointingly average 🙁
I feel with the increase in indoor riding again, that Zwift HQ should put more into the game being able to handle larger numbers. My game was lagging hugely, i was 13 seconds difference between in game and my headunit..I can live with a bit of lag but this is crazy…maybe next update???😬
I’ve got two cents to throw in here about the trainer resistance setting….no, I’m going down thaaaat road! Wouldn’t it be nice if you had somewhere to enter your current setup (i.e. 53/39 with 11/27). Then, couldn’t the resistance setting be used to adjust the gearing ratio in a clear numeric way? As you slide the bar, it could show you what the simulated resulting gear ratio in your easiest gear would be. Frankly, if I went to ride Ventoux IRL, there’s no way I’d be using my current set up. So, it’d be great to adjust the resistance setting… Read more »
That is a great idea and would give more objective detail than just randomly adjusting the slider.
Fingers crossed there are some new locations coming in the not too distant future, in particular I’d love to see them finally add some more of Italy, just seems wrong that all we have of such a home to cycling is the Bologna TT currently
…plus I still want Rowing added!!
Zwift is the future.
Happening rather often: image starts losing colour until it is completely grey and blurry. It goes back to normal when there is a move to the next step of a workout. Running on a MacBook 12 inch, with Big Sur. Any idea why?
That’s the Workout Pain effect which has been there for a long time. Switch off in settings.
I would like to see the percent I am using in Trainer Difficulty. Right now it is only a line without numbers or any marks. Even to hit back on 50% is difficult to do precisely, right now.
gravel???? skip the jungle and put som tarmac from the back of the epic kom to the alpe
Can’t get any feed back my wahoo sensor is not working it only goes up to 64 rpm’s
works on the wahoo fitness app but not on zwift please help
zwift support pathetic .