Welcome to the second episode of our new podcast. First: from Dave, Shane, and me, thanks for all the feedback on Episode 1! We’ve taken it on board, and will continue to dial things in moving forward.
Now, on to today’s show…
Shane just returned from the massive China Cycle show in Shanghai, and what he saw about the global indoor cycling market may not be what you’d expect. We have a quick chat about China and its influence on the world of indoor cycling.
From there: Zwift’s new levels are out in the wild — how is the community actually receiving them? Tim Searle already broke the code, but who are the highest-level Zwifters today, and how confident are we that the highest-mileage accounts are clean?
That question leads naturally into MyWhoosh’s in-home anti-doping program. A Zwift competitor putting real money behind eSports integrity. What does it signal, and does it put pressure on Zwift?
Then the crew goes deep on Zwift’s AI-driven Next Up feature — including a quiet but telling recent development powered by some guy named Alan at Zwift HQ. Have our AI overlords already taken over Zwift support to silence dissent? Is Zwift trying to become something more than an indoor riding platform, and is that the right move?
Moving on, we tackle a subject that’s been a burr in our saddles for years: Zwift workout innovation – or the lack thereof. Eric’s new VO2sday Micro Races are a unique, community-built format designed to deliver structured training stimulus through an engaging and competitive race. The first event drew 371 riders, which says something. So why isn’t Zwift doing this themselves? Shane jumps on his soapbox to make the case for terrain-based ERG mode and deliver a verdict on the recent workout HUD customization updates.
Finally: Zwift’s Rouvy acquisition dust is settling. The forums have had their say. We read the room.
Find us wherever you get your podcasts. Leave a review if the show is landing for you. Word of mouth is how independent podcasts grow.
Listen On:
Meet the Team
- Dave Towle: The voice of American cycling, having called some of the biggest races in the country for decades. Now bringing that same sharp eye to the indoor cycling world.
- Shane Miller (GPLama): Based in Australia, Shane is one of the most followed and trusted cycling tech reviewers in the world. If it connects to a trainer or measures a watt, Shane has tested it.
- Eric Schlange: Founder of Zwift Insider, the internet’s most comprehensive and reliable resource for Zwift routes, updates, and platform intelligence. The guy who actually reads every release note.
Share Your Thoughts!
This is just an early episode of what we hope is a long-running and useful community Zwift podcast. Share your thoughts below. We’re listening!
Transcript?
As someone who much prefers to read an article than have to listen/watch, I wholeheartedly agree
You can read the transcript on Apple Podcasts
Great cast Team!
It is hard to put into words how bad Next Up is and it makes me sad every time I think about how many resources Zwift has put into it as a feature. We are how many months into its deployment and I am still – on a day when I am signed up for a hard race in a few hours – getting a recommendation to go and do threshold intervals on Road to Sky. It is completely inane.
I was getting a similar level of recommendations – my ‘favourite’ was when Next Up was recommending that I do a threshold ride with Genie the morning after running a marathon (run outside, obviously, but included in my Training Score with a score of over 200 for the day, so the information was there for the algorithm to ignore…) It was a bit of a relief to have Next Up turned off after making a request to the Zwift Support team.
Did Alan handle it for you?
Eric – it was one of the other Zwift Community Support team (Rowdy B) who turned this off for me.
It does seem to be a significant oversight in the recommendations if these don’t take proper account of the ‘acute’ training load from recent days (or sessions already planned for later that day, as in Adam’s example above).
I had my Next Up removed. I feel free now. It was just too annoying.
FYI guys, points races are also basically the same thing. Imagine if Zwift FINALLY natively supported points and displayed it live so we have something to chase!
There are so many cool things that could be done to make races more interesting and uniquely indoor. We’ll definitely do a “making races great again” bit in a coming episode!
I look forward to listening, but don’t see it on YouTube Music. Will it be posted there are well?
It’s on YouTube now… we’re running into some issues getting episodes on the ‘Tube in a timely manner, but we’ll get it ironed out.
https://youtu.be/C5q2zkHKqb4?si=8T_S1r_PfkhN9bkZ
Once again, amazing listen. Love to hear.all of your opinions, but I especially appreciate your knowledge of the views of the greater public. It seems as if the negative opinions about nearly everything Zwift dominate all of the forums, and its great to balance that constant negativity with more balanced opinions – can’t wait for the next one!
This podcast is awesome, seriously loving it!
Thanks for a great, very informative podcast guys. Keep it up 👍
In response to GP Lama’s comment at 7:30. Rolla World advised its users it was closing it’s online cycling platform, several months ago.
In addition, in the past few weeks, Virtupro (a small, longstanding platform) has stopped supporting it’s platform. A real shame as the platform had a unique take on online racing and a very entertaining weekly iTT.
The only positive is that a new online platform has emerged. ‘Run It Out’ is very basic and currently offers nothing new to differentiate it from the existing platforms. There is very little online info, regarding the platform. Here’s a link to a review I posted Run it Out – Zwift MyWhoosh, Rouvy, Biketerra Challenger?
Excellent and an improvemnet on the first episode. Great content and music!
Anti-doping measures do not apply to remote indoor cycling; it’s not as simple as developing an anti-cheat programme, as one might do for a game like Counter-Strike. Firstly, MyWhoosh and Zwift are virtual sports platforms; secondarily are competitive racing platforms.
If you wish to ensure a degree of fairness, you should set up separate accounts with real-name verification, requiring users to provide various pieces of genuine personal information, and broadcast every race via live camera feed —but you would still not be following the standard anti-doping procedures.
Many people’s Zwift profile pictures are just anime images; their aim is to exercise, not to be swept up into becoming competitive athletes.
The only way to achieve a degree of fairness is to participate in on-site indoor cycling races, just like the ones held in Europe and America for the past few years: on-site checks of participants, trainers, tablets and bikes; races recorded on video; and anti-doping procedures carry out.
Put aside your doubts about whether someone else’s account mileage is clean, mate. Anti-doping is a concept for professional and semi-professional competitions. Besides, in Zwift races, there are performance differences between the frames and wheelsets owned by riders of different level.
If you want fairness, go and take part in a real cycling race with rigorous anti-doping measures; if you want absolute fairness, don’t take part in remote indoor cycling races.
Ok! So is it safe to “unfollow” the Zwiftcast podcast in my app now?
I don’t know of any plans to bring it back… but I assume Zwift controls the channel at this point, and could thus resurrect it if desired.
While I was riding and listening (because that’s when the best ideas happen) and heard about Shane’s idea for a sort og ERG mode / climb portal hybrid it struck me that a lot of folks may not like the climb portal specific for it’s futuristic unrealistic look. And having the in this case grade doesn’t need to be the whole width of the road. You could have just plain asphalt and just the sides of the road in those colors. Now those are fixed and workouts aren’t but yeah if they could create procedurally generated routes in a workout portal, that would be awesome.Let the wattage be the grade and climb the Col de Red Shifts.