Zwift version 1.76 begins its phased rollout today.
(This release may seem a bit light – just a route badge and some bug fixes – but it’s worth mentioning that there are additional in-game changes and important updates from trainer companies rolling out in the near term (some this week!) that we can’t discuss yet since they are under embargo. Watch this space for news as it comes available…)
“Richmond Loop Around” Opens
The Richmond Loop Around route was introduced for the first race of the Zwift World Series, and this update changes it from being event-only to being open/free-ridable.
The first time you ride the route you’ll earn the achievement badge, which comes with an 850XP bonus.
Spindown Calibration Fix
The previous update seemed to introduce a bug that affected spindown calibration for certain Zwifters. Today’s update includes this note from Zwift: “Fixed an issue that caused the spindown calibration within Zwift to fail.”
More Release Notes
Zwift provided notes on additional tweaks and bug fixes in this update:
- In Makuri Islands, support columns that were holding up a building above a portion of roadway were removed so Zwifters no longer collide with them. Don’t worry, they weren’t load bearing!
- Fixed an issue that could potentially cause the “FTP Change Detected” notification to appear when the new FTP matched the previous FTP.
Discuss this update in Zwift’s forum >
Questions or Comments?
If you spotted any other changes or bugs in the update, please comment below!
Nooo, this means I will probably lose my KOM on that route
Fingers crossed that “embargoed” information that is forthcoming includes a fix to the over-reporting of power when using Virtual Shifting with certain Wahoo trainers
Yes, there have been numerous reports on the forums of “free watts” or Wahoo trainers consistently over reporting/not calibrating correctly when using virtual shifting. Zwift hasn’t responded at all in the forum posts, but seems like these updates involved changes to virtual shifting and calibration so maybe it is being corrected. It is a significant issue.
I read it as a manual calibration fix. As no auto calibration ever has a calibration error displayed.
Fairly sure it’s going to be the new routes
Not sure I like the new default starting virtual gear. 12 for me is probably about right, and if it comes out of ERG mode during workouts to free ride sections (like in this year’s Zwift Academy) starting in 8, you have to wait a few seconds for the resistance to ramp back up when selecting an appropriate gear. I wonder if they could allow a setting for user preference what virtual gear they would like to start out in instead.
I suggested that in the forums a while ago. They need to let you be able to change gear during a workout, just like you would with mechanical gears, so you’re ready to sprint.
I can see that being over geared after finishing a work out would be a bit annoying. It’s not hard to change gear though. Also I don’t know why anyone would want to change gear during an erg work out.
Some people (like me) prefer to do sprint intervals in non-erg and not at a set wattage, so if your about to do a 10-15 sec interval you don’t want to be spending half that time clicking the shifter button. I don’t think it even remembers from the last interval you do either, so will just reset to 9 every time (12 was bad enough).
Has anybody else noticed it now shifts down two gears instead of one? (it stopped doing this after a restart)
Well, real shifting on a cassette is probably most accurate. This is precise and never resets, so I think it’s better than zwift virtual shifting at the moment, certainly when it is set up correctly.
Good, now I can finally get the route badge on Richmond.
First time didnt count since they put the badge into Zwift a few days later than race 1 of the ZA.
Not looking forward to doing it again though.
Any news on the workout API interaction. Any more companies coming onboard? Would be great to know who is coming onboard and the potential timeline.
Sounds like XERT will be announcing something very soon. Haven’t heard anything firm from others, although I know others are in the works.
Xert made the announcement yesterday (18 October)
https://baronbiosys.com/xert-zwift/
Kickr 2018 WILL get virtual shifting after all? 😏😏
Probably not. Wahoo says that KICKR v4 and v5 firmware will NOT support VS. My guess is that DirCon took that away (I’m not a Wahoo employee and don’t pretend to be one.)
not a wahoo staffer, either: i read somewhere this summer that wahoo’s big issue was finding space/capacity/whatever in the V5’s board to handle virtual shifting and that they’d basically have to take some existing feature away to make this new feature happen. I think GPLama has an actual email from wahoo buried in the comments of one of his videos now that explains the real reason, but i can’t find it now.
my own dream is that eric comes out and said “virtual shifting for the V4 and V5 can happen after all!” once his embargo lifts, but i can’t see how wahoo would want to embargo that.
No. It actually is fairly easy to implement virtual shifting into any controllable smart trainer. When the grade of a hill changes, the resistance will change. If the gear changes, the resistance will change.
You should only need one resistance value that is sent to the trainer, not two seperate ones. Zwift would calculate the total resistance based on gearing and the hill you are riding amd send that to your trainer. That would work technically, and no coding and or firmware updates needed for your trainer, just an update in zwift (which pc’s amd phones are more than powerful enough)
If the trainer is controllable, you can probably make it compatible. Just change the resistance depending which gear you are in and done!
I still hope to see virtual shifting for Kickr v5. Did not reactivate my Zwift subscription so far because of still feeling cheated into buying more Wahoo equipment after their announcement to update v5 at some point. I am sure that in the long run Wahoo will loose more so-far loyal customers like me *forever* for *any* type of Wahoo equipment than they can make v5/v4 owners upgrade to a newer Wahoo unit. The irony is that it‘s not that I absolutely need to have virtual shifting for zwifting but I still am awfully disappointed because of Wahoo announcing it for v5 and even v4 and then changing their mind with a quite dubious explanation. It‘s not easy to win back trust back that has been lost in such way.
If zwift just rolled out an update for virtual shifting it would happen within zwift entirely and make it available for any controllable trainer. Just that the value ssend to the trainer is different depending on which gear you are in and which hill you ride. Now you can even leave the cassette on the trainer🤷🏼♂️
Thank you, Zwift for the gear change. It felt like my trainer was locking up and it took 3W/kg to get it spinning.
Lots of updates to the ‘mystery’ building as well. Looks like it will be done in time for Stage 5 of the ToW.
So, nothing about descending physics are still broken and Wahoo trainers still randomly over read ?
They should definitely let people choose their own “standard” gear for virtual shifting.
Maybe I’m doing something wrong but when I want to start a ride with a B pacer I’ll try to shift from 12 up to 16 within the 10 seconds of assistance. Am I supposed to manually shift all the way from 8 to 16 now or is there any easier way?
Yeah, the easier way would be to join the world, start riding, get into whatever gear / speed you want and then teleport to the robopacer
Got the update yesterday and 8th gear as standard works for me. It is no big deal to shift immediatly from 8th to 13th or so if you wand to join a higher pace robot partner for example. I like the change.
16 or 17 are my go to gears so it’s quite a lot of shifts from 8 now…
“Richmond Loop Around” is rough. I did that for ZA race 2. Now I have to do it again to get the badge.. nasty..
What is the embargo on trainer companies? More companies going to embrace Zwift virtual shifting? I sold my Neo 2T because of lack of communication from Garmin.
Perhaps useful to mention that the new badge is not the Richmond route – which already had a badge – but rather the new Scotland route with the odd name?
Ah, good point. Added above!
Actually, as you noted in your 1.75 article, that already had a route badge. There was no change to the number of badges with 1.76.
Oops, you’re right Tim!
I am not new to Zwift but how do I plan ahead with events?
I dont have loads of time to ride, so would be useful to see a calendar for weeks in advance and choose the events I want to enter..like Tour of Watopia for example.
Scrolling through each day takes ages and not always practical.
Is there such a feature?
Zwifthacks.com is the droid you’re looking for. Makes it so much easier to find The Event you wanna do.
+1 for ZwiftHacks (https://www.zwifthacks.com/app/events)
There are multiple ways to search for events farther into the future so you can sign up and plan ahead. ToW, for example, has this page: https://www.zwift.com/tour-of-watopia/ride where you can pick a date then sign up for the ride.
Many series or community teams have event tags, too, and you can see all the upcoming events by going to, for example, https://www.zwift.com/events/tag/tinyraces
Zwift hasta get them deck chairs arranged “Just So” before rolling out the real updates they’ve been promising for years. It’s gonna happen Zoon, Real Zoon.
Please forgive my skepticism but Zwift has swung on and missed so many times in the last 4 years that it boggles the mind. I’m hoping this time it’s gonna different but you all know the most basic definition of insanity…
What are the big promises that never happened, outside of rowing and the smart trainer development?
Not that i’m super happy with the improvements to the platform over the last couple of years but generally speaking, Zwift at least doesn’t promise huge things that they can’t deliver on.
Alex, you hit the first couple there with Rowing and Smart trainer dev. If you go on the Zwift Forum you can see how ZH has promised and not delivered.
Here’s a few that come to mind:
CE took years to come to fruition and those of us in lower cats had to deal with sandbaggers fouling up races. Literally years.
ZRS race result based cats which is huge improvement to CE. See above.
The chat function in group rides and races. On and off.
Lack of update testing. In the past, an update would be called a Bugdate because of all the bugs. Looks like it’s gotten better in the past year.
Zwift has gotten more responsive in the last year to these issues and I recognize this but they promised some big changes soon and it still looks like it’s gonna happen Zooner or Later.
Make no mistake, I love Zwifting and evangelize hard about it to fellow IRL riders but the way some of this stuff is managed is disconcerting at times.
when is zwift enabling alarms that we can change, say for remembering to hydrate or eat
Why still no Mallorca?
Any info on this update breaking Sterzo steering?
Mine isn’t working despite it showing up in the pairing menu.
It seems like others are having the same problem with posts on the Zwift Forum.
Always having issue with Sterno upgrado steering since the update. Any suggestions?
Zwift support had me delete Documents/Zwift/KnownDevices.xml and Prefs.xml
That seemed to do the trick. Steering is back for me.
I spoke to soon. That fix only worked for one ride, and now it is back to being a problem.
when does the embargo lift?