Zwift version 1.81 begins its phased rollout today. While not a major release, it includes some new route badges, including nods to upcoming new routes, plus increased speeds for three Shimano road wheelsets. Let’s dive into the details!
New Badges
Zwift’s update note says, “Badges are now available for seven previously event-only routes and are now available to free ride.” To be clear, five of the seven routes Zwift lists already had achievement badges in game – but they were event-only routes, meaning you couldn’t free ride them:
- Queen’s Highway After Party (Yorkshire)
- Petite Douleur (France)
- Outer Scotland (Scotland)
- London Flat (London)
- Shisa Shakedown (Makuri Islands)
Those five routes become free ridable in today’s update, while two other routes get badges for the first time and also become open routes:
- The Magnificent 8 (Watopia)
- NYC KOM After Party (New York)
Upcoming New Routes
Not mentioned in Zwift’s update notes are badges for five as-yet-unannounced new routes which were added to the achievement list in this update:
- ZG25 Queen (Watopia)
- Downtown Eruption (Watopia)
- London Uprising (London)
- Scotland Smash (Scotland)
- Makuri Madness (Makuri Islands)
Our guess is that these routes will be used for the upcoming Zwift Games races. We’ll publish dedicated posts for each of these routes once we have more details.
Faster Wheels
Today’s update notes say, “Improved the aerodynamic performance of the Shimano C40, C50, and C60 wheelsets.”
Shimano’s wheelsets have long shown lackluster performance in Zwift (see our wheel performance charts for details). In fact, they rank 35th, 36th, and 37th out of 40 wheelsets in our stacked percentile rankings!
Watch for a separate post detailing the updated performance metrics for Shimano’s in-game wheelsets.
Windows PC + AMD App Freeze Fix
Zwifters using Windows with AMD graphics cards have been reporting app freezes more frequently in recent weeks. Zwift released version 1.81.2 quickly following the 1.81.0 release which supposedly resolves this problem.
More Release Notes
Zwift provided notes on additional tweaks and bug fixes in this update:
Discuss this update in Zwift’s forum >
Questions or Comments?
If you spotted any other changes or bugs in the update, please comment below!
No steering fix then for goodness sake…
What needs to be fixed?
Pack dynamics and the way it has negatively affected steering.
I don’t have steering (Stages SB20 doesn’t physically accommodate Zwift Play controllers) and my 5v5 races have been challenging.
Usually those without controllers are stuck by ourselves when the rest move off the original line. Normally need teammates to move back to help out. Creates a wonky race experience.
Would be nice if those without controllers automatically followed the closest draft.
I have Play controllers fitted correctly on my SB20.
The Sprint buttons have been moved to the tops near the stem.
There is also a dude selling 3d printed mounts that allow you to fit Play without moving the buttons.
If you use your SB20 brakes then the length of travel for the brake levers needs adjusting, easy job just don’t go too far or you will have constant resistance.
You can disable the braking from the Play controllers as well.
Steering has been acting like it did maybe a year ago – where it’s hard to stay in pack (it shoves you out to the side) almost like a reversed magnet; one rider commented “I’m getting constantly guttered by non-steering avatars.” Yep
My husband and I have the same issues described below with steering and getting pushed out of the pack (he has the controllers and I have the Zwift Ride). No amount of trying makes my avatar stay in the pack and when trying to get back, I get pushed to the back. It is ruining the experience and in my case, I can’t even turn steering off.
Those changes were made independently of the game release and can be turned on or off server side whenever they please.
I agree with Bryan. I am being guttered a bunch and have to holding down the steering button in the direction of the center of the pack much of the ride. After I get there i release the button and before long I’m at the edge again.
Same here Andy & Bryan. There is a noticeable difference with the last update. Zwift Play users being pushed to the sides and falling out of the draft regularly. And the red bar blocking you from moving within a pack is also over zealous now. It functioned fine before. Now it is nearly impossible to move if there are more than 7 or 8 riders in a group.
Same for me. And even turning off steering doesn’t seem to help, it’s as if Zwift knows I have option for it and therefore the coding logic gutters me accordingly
What is the point of showing new routes in the achievements list that are not available yet? It just makes it impossible to have all the badges on the list at some point, which is a bit frustrating for badge hunters. Zwift should give us at least the chance to have all the badges shown in the list at some point.
I don’t mind seeing upcoming routes if I know they will be available in an event or shortly, but it is indeed quite frustrating to see event-only routes that have no events.
Just came back after 6 months to complete new routes, do the Baseline (never got the report btw) and do the TdW 24 stages.
Now at 252/264 badges, some will be on TdW, others are available, only Yorkshire Double Loop is not available in any way… bummer!
My todo list:
WA
Decadash
Power to the Tower
Navig8
Itza Climb Finish
Itza Party
Coast to Coast TDZ
RI
Libby Hill After Party TDZ
YO
Yorkshire Double Loop EO
MA
Shisa Shakedown TDZ
Makuri Pretzel
FR
Petite Douleur TDZ
SC
Outer Scotland TDZ
Breaking news:
https://www.zwift.com/eu-fr/events/view/4726914
Hi, I was just wondering how to hunt-badge for those event-only routes. I have most of the free-rideable routes completed but for the event only ones I have no idea how to efficiently plan on riding and completing them. Any little help is most welcomed!
You could use https://zwifthacks.com/app/events/ to find events on the desired route. Click “Search” tab and fill in the field “Search in route name”.
I don’t know if it’s a bug or purposeful in this new release, but with the 25km free trial, I had 0.5km remaining, when I got to that, it gave me the pop up, I said Not Now, and my avatar stopped moving. I tried coming to a complete stop and carrying on, but it wouldn’t.
It’s been a while, but I think this happens when you start an activity with less than 1Km of monthly free trial left.
Aha, I did wonder!
That’s ones readily fixed by buying a subscription.
Thanks for the useful comment.
This does not appear to be showing on Zwift.com…at least I am not seeing the announcement.
What announcement?
It’s a few hours later than normal being posted to the forums. Someone off today or a last minute issue forced a delay?
What @bjimmy said. You typically follow the Forums post…today you showed first.
Ah. I usually get release notes from Zwift several hours before the release (which typically happens at 8:30am PT Tuesdays). So I schedule my post for 8:30am. Sometimes Zwift has a forum post ready to go then… other times they do not, for whatever reason.
The improved performance for the Shimano wheelsets sounds interesting, because after ZwiftHQ changed level unlocks, those Shimano C50s were the best wheels for flat routes for new accounts until they reached somewhere around level 15.
New accounts have a huge disadvantage in races as regards wheel performance, especially on flat courses, compared to those at level 25 to 39.
I have brought up virtual racing equipment equality for ages, all in a pen should get the same frame and wheels, ride your purchased unlocked gear in freerides; group rides and workouts.
Everyone was given a hire Tron bike for a Neokyo Zmonthly series a good few months back, worked really well.
The Mavic wheels unlocked at 6 are significantly faster than the C50s… https://zwiftinsider.com/fastest-bikes-at-each-level/
Oh, I was going off https://zwifterbikes.web.app/route/tempus-fugit for example, the Mavics are slower than the Shimanos on the Parlee frame.
Any race organizer can choose to request assigned bikes if they want that. I don’t think it would be popular as a standard configuration but anyone who wants to set up races like that can do so.
This last week, Zwift has frozen in game…20-30 mins in, very frustrating. This was a problem when using my Microsoft Pro8 but has been stable for months, what’s changed?
Either contact support or post detailed PC specs on the Zwift forum and we can all have a go at the problem.
This was an issue that affected numerous integrated AMD graphics cards. It should now be fixed in the latest update (see below thread) 🤞
https://forums.zwift.com/t/freezing-crashing-on-amd-integrated-gpus-november-2024/639411/191
Will Zwift work with trainer brands to make virtual shifting smoother/realistic. I find the change of gears too severe. I choose SRAM setup and say I am in gear 2-6 with high cadence, I then plan to change to gear 2-7 but that feels too harsh and I have to drop back to gear 2-6.
NYC KOM After Party is the best route for racing. Fight me.
City n the Sigur….has everything on one route
Again no open Workout – Bibliothek for the Clubs. Grrrr
Yay, another minor update. What about levels about 100? What about Mt. Fuji? What about a France expansion? Just some ideas since the folks at Zwift are short of them.
Jerry those are great and unique ideas! Please email them to Zwift or Eric Min directly. They have lot’s of spare resources but just no ideas for all these developers to work on. If you send them your ideas they will probably be released tomorrow or the day after. They are great ideas!
Actually, Jerry is absolutely right. This game costs €20 a month and develops at the pace of a free-to-play title. It’s one of the most expensive games currently available, yet also one of the slowest in terms of development. I don’t assume they have spare resources; maybe they simply don’t have enough? Perhaps it’s worth hiring more developers instead of just cashing in. It’s good that competition is growing – maybe that will push them to get to work, because otherwise, they’ll disappear sooner or later.
Yes pace is slow, too slow in fact. I think everyone, even mr Schlange will agree. But that isn’t because of a lack of ideas. It’s because of a.o. poor back-end architecture and game infrastructure and wrong resource allocation. Competition still sucks but is getting better. If there would be a halfway decent competitor Zwift would be slashed.
Totally agree. For 20€ per month, I wouldn’t be riding on Zwift if I just started indoor training. Haven’t tried training peaks virtual, but that’s what I would start with. Currently free and in the future it will be less than 100€ or so, (in Black Friday sale) a year. And you get full TrainingPeaks functionality on top (or vice versa).
Right now the stuff Zwift offers is not enough for the price. It works because a lot of Zwitters are already assigned and have a decent profile. Honestly, me personally, I wouldn’t recommend Zwift to a friend right now…
Adding so many new route badges can not keep up at the moment
still have some left overs from the last updates
9 routes for Watopia and 2 for Richmond , I assume I will complete the new ones from de tour de Zwift with the tour
It’s better to have some to look forward to rather than none if you have completed them all. I only have 10 left, mostly the long stuff. It’s better
Just released an up Update for Windows only systems targeting the AMD system freezes.
I would love to make longer rides than 1 hr without sudden crashes. 30% of >1.5 hr races and workouts end before target by freeze or app crash. A 100km attempt start with a prayer towards my AMD …. 3 times tried Deca-Dash, without succes … stuck 1km before finish. I think there should be a batch for AMD persistence.
Anyone else having issues with logging in? I can log into Zwift.com fine and if I open the app, it begins loading in as if I am logged in, but then kicks out asking for a password and doesn’t accept my password that works everywhere else…….
Consolidate into two worlds:
Watopia (fantasy). Plug Makuri next to existing Watopia, add some climbs and we’re good for a few years.
Earth. Merge all small worlds/maps together on a earth map and create instant tunnels between. Ditch the idea of it having to overlap real strava locations if necessary.
Stop trying to be perfect but add more roads (not routes) faster and re-use more elements. For example add a coastal road around alpe du zwift and add 3-4 ascents and descents up the alpe and then some intersections on 25%, 50% or 75% of the top that connect them all.
Stop new bikes, bike improvements, road surfaces, pack dynamics changes, tiny uci world setc etc etc that are nice but take too much resources vs what they offer.
I’ll make my periodic call for Zwift to make equipment performance transparent.
Frames and wheels: aero, all-around, and climbing categories, each rated 1-5, then assign ratings and everything with same rating is equivalent. So your Shimano L4 climbing wheel is the same as a DT Swiss L4 climbing wheel, etc. Higher levels would require high cost, higher unlock rider level. For wheels maybe add a “gravel” category.
This would free up more time for Eric to do 100 km rides in the morning. And it’s almost farcical when riders make equipment choices then performance changes due to a simple software update.
Ha!
All these people moaning about Zwift and lack of expansion, new roads, new bikes, kit etc……
Just be happy that the boss is not Musk. 😁
Too bad it isn’t Musk. We would have a more stable and expanded product that is light years ahead of the garbage Min pushes.
Why doesn’t Zwift automatically record the last 30 seconds of a race? It’s so frustrating to win a race and not have a video to share with family and friends ☹️🫤[wpd-tenor full=’vxA3x6LvRTIAAAAM/sad.gif’ preview=’vxA3x6LvRTIAAAAe/sad.png’ width=’486′ height=’498′]
It records the last 15 seconds, if you have video screenshots enabled. Which only work on certain devices…
Might have missed it above but didn’t see any reference to the supposed fix of AMD integrated graphics card setups freezing up after various times of riding (apparent memory leak that’s been around for weeks). Hopefully resolved now when you get the rollout 🤞
See https://forums.zwift.com/t/freezing-crashing-on-amd-integrated-gpus-november-2024/639411/191 for details.
The glitch was in version 1.80, and remained in 1.81. After finishing the Route-based workout, the turn and U-turn buttons continue to be blocked. I climbed up to Itza KOM and the workout ended there. I wanted to turn right and roll down The Grade and earn some XP. But no, I was turned left onto the second half of the grade. And I couldn’t do anything about it 🙂 Android.
Great. Another five inaccessible event only route badges that will sit about for two months before somebody at HQ realises they still can’t be bothered to publish any events that actually use them and they finally open them up to free ride anyway. 👌
Exactly. More idiocy from Zwift HQ. I suppose we should all be happy that they have not tied new routes to the purchase of a Zwift bike like they tried to do with the Repack Rush route badge and a steering device. The fan boys will get all bent out of shape about me mentioning this, but that kind of carrot shtick is looked down upon in the real world.
If it sucks so bad for you, just stop paying for it and go away, and find joy someplace else. Seriously. I’m 100% a “find the stuff that is broken and yap profusely” guy myself, but maybe at least wizz up a rope on a Zwift forum and not here? I mean, best case we won’t have to read this entitled cranky pants piffle.
Entitled? Do you pay for products you can’t use? And, last I checked, this WAS a Zwift forum..albiet not on their sight (though they pay for a portion of this one).
Sorry that someone mentioning bad business practices is so triggering.
True true. I’m very happy about every badge I can hunt. But add something which I couldn’t get, is a bit frustrating. Let everyone who don’t what to get a badge in a single ride make it in an event, but let all the other take it when they want.
Don’t get me started. I have every cycling badge currently available and yet my progress bar is only at 83% because Zwift, in their wisdom, include running badges in everyone’s total – whether they run or not.
This Badge is not available. I think….
I now have 7 badges I can’t do. I missed a few Zwift World Series races and it appears those won’t be available to free ride.
I’m still waiting for the z-button on my play controller to be able to return ride-on’s when I receive one. It’s been months not working correctly at least on Apple TV.
What I’d like to see is picking up the signal from di2/Axs shifters to track shifts. It’s always cool after crits to view the crazy numbers of shifts I’ll make in a 75 minute race. On top of that, you’d see the battery life of the derailleurs.
Hey all was on zwift tonight and all my Bluetooth connection got cut 10 km ..I logged out and reloaded with no success ..am I the only one with this issue …I have lastest updates 1.81
Still no fix for the not recording of video on a Windows pc. It records a file for 0 KB.
Hi everyone,
after the update I encountered three crashes of Zwift (freeze, white screen and app needs to be shut down manually) with intel core 7 and intel arc graphics. The crashes happen at random points in workouts. Does anyone else have the same issue?
The second digit in distance for Zwift Running disappeared (I have an Android tablet) which is very frustrating and doesn’t make any sense (for example, XP is granted at 0.25km) . Please bring it back asap!!
Egor, that is a known issue with Zwift, and proof that they do not functionally test their releases prior to pushing them down, otherwise it “should” have been in the release notes. It is expected to be fixed in the next release.
I see seven new badges/routes have appeared.
16km Makuri Madness 88m
18km Scotland Smash 167m
20km Downtown Eruption 275m
21km London Uprising 357m
30km Yorkshire Double loop 547m
32km Danger Noodle 414m
45km ZG25 Queen 894m
i rode the Scotland Smash route yesterday using turn by turn. Veloviewer and Strava recognised the segment/route but I didn’t get the badge; I didn’t expect to.
So waiting for those new routes to appear then I can add them to my remaining list; total with these 17