Today Zwift announced a new ride series kicking off March 11 and running for four weeks. Called the “Zwift Big Spin,” it’s a series of group rides focused on fun, fitness, and… goodies! Read on for details…
Prize Spinner
The prize spinner we’ve only seen atop Alpe du Zwift has been refreshed and put to work on the Zwift Big Spin events:
Each time you complete a route in a Zwift Big Spin event, the spinner will pop up to give you a prize. If it lands on a prize you’ve already won, you’ll get a sweet Drops bonus!
The prize spinner has 8 slots, with different probabilities assigned to each. Six of the slots will feature the same prize throughout the series:
The other two slots’ prizes will change for each stage, giving us a total of 14 possible prizes throughout the series. And Zwift tells us these prizes won’t be available in the Drop Shop any time soon (possibly never), so this is your only known chance to unlock them.
Prize List:
- Tri Spoke and disc wheel
- Classic Crew socks
- The Zwift Big Spin Shoes
- Atomic Cruiser
- Sky Blue Helmet
- Orange Headphones
- A kit for each stage (see below)
- A world-themed item for each stage
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Schedule and Route Details
Each stage is hosted in a different Zwift world, with long and standard-length route options. (Keep in mind that you’ll see the prize spinner each time you complete a lap, which means stage 4’s events will give you two spins!)
Stage 1 – Makuri Islands – March 11-17
- Long: Country to Coastal, 1 lap – 33.5km & 280m elevation
- Standard: Suki’s Playground, 1 lap – 18.7km & 150m elevation
Stage 2 – London – March 18-24
- Long: Keith Hill After Party, 1 lap – 36.7km & 435m elevation
- Standard: Greater London Flat, 1 lap – 17.4km & 98m elevation
Stage 3 – New York – March 25-31
- Long: NYC KOM After Party, 1 lap – 37.4km & 476m elevation
- Standard: Mighty Metropolitan, 1 lap – 20.4km & 321m elevation
Stage 4 – France – April 1-7
- Long: Casse-Pattes, 2 laps – 46.9km & 310m elevation
- Standard: Lutece Express, 2 laps – 16.7km & 105m elevation
Make-up Events
Missed a stage, or just want to get in more prize spins? Jump into some make-up events!
- Make-up Week 1: April 8-14, events hourly
- Make-up Week 2: April 15-21, events every 3 hours
See upcoming events at zwift.com/the-zwift-big-spin >
Are these races?
Officially, no. Zwift Big Spin events are group rides without a stated pace. That means some riders will treat them as races, and the front of these rides will certainly be “spicy.”
Others will just spin their legs for a prize-laden recovery effort. You do you… just have fun!
Kit Unlocks
Complete at least one event in each stage to unlock the Zwift Big Spin kit.
There are also four World Kits, which can only be unlocked as prizes on the spinner!
Questions or Comments?
Share below!
Can’t wait for the speed tests on that Atomic Cruiser. How can something that looks so good be anything other than a ripper on the roads?!! LOL
It goes downhill really fast
Highly concerned about how many rides will be necessary to get the specific prizes I want. I don’t typically have very good luck with these sort of things.
at least i wont get gloves again for the 15th time in a row. yeah looking at you ADZ.
I remember I had to ride the Col 17(!) times to get the Lightweight wheels.
I’m a total gear-whore, regardless of if I’ll actually wear any of it ever again. I see me having to do sooooo many of these to collect it all!
my god. my gaming is weakness is collecting unlockables and cosmetics. i’m gonna be beside myself if dont complete the whole collection
Are we the same person? Hahahaha
🤔🤔🤔
Will the Tri Spoke and disc wheel give the DT Swiss a run for its money as the fastest in the game? The color of the tri spoke says yes.
Hopefully not faster. Or if it is, it’ll hopefully be added to the drop shop.
It has 3 stars for aero in the garage… knowing Zwift and their equipment shenanigans, I’d say no. Hopefully official speed test says otherwise…
Wheels 2nd slowest in game same as frame, pointless, just for cruising and looking good 🙂
is that…a sex pistols inspired zwift kit? need.
The designers probably don’t even realize, have just seen the style somewhere before. 😀
Hoping one of the prizes is a working coffee break button on group rides!
Getting fixed in tomorrow’s Zwift update.
you know if they are fixing the auto use powerup when you go through any arch that gives them? I am 99% a group rider so not sure if it effects races or not.
No idea what you’re talking about, Alien King!
when you I go through any arch and get a power up. It automatically uses it (without me activating it) . It was a problem a year or 2 ago but they fixed it. I guess it is not a bothering many ppl. Cheers and thank you for all you do.
What’s the actual point of a coffee break? Coming to ride, and then not riding, seems a little odd.
The point is to allow riders to take a quite break (often for bathroom breaks or… coffee) without getting dropped from the group they’re in. Especially useful in group rides…
Oh man, the atomic cruiser would be fun for equipment-neutralized races. Seems curious to go through the effort of revamping the prize wheel just for one event series, though, I wonder what their long term plan is.
I was thinking the same thing, need to get that before Zwift Games ends, so I don’t do each stage there on the Buffalo bike
I bet the cruiser climbs like an asthmatic ant with some heavy shopping
people will try so hard to get it and realize how dog it is 🙃
Love a Blackadder quote
When I saw the title “Big Spin”, my first thought was that this would be a series of big rides, or fondos, which intrigued me as I’ve been looking for new motivation to put in some longer rides. I’ll probably still participate because I like the bigger group events but find zero motivation in any of the “prizes.”
If you start the route in the event and do the lap you get a spin. If you continue on that route and do anothe lap does it spin again or do you need to enter a new event for that ?
I expect you’re only supposed to get the spinner for the event laps. I also expect there will be a bug and the spinner will remain available, most likely in the stage 4 events with multiple laps.
Perhaps the UTurn trick works again like in the tour de zwift where youi could get unlimited times the 250 xp
Damn. I missed that.
This looks like it is going to be mega frustrating. I had to do 16 rides up the Alpe to finally get the wheels. I see how they are trying to keep the gamification idea fresh but in a time limited event it will just create FOMO I’m afraid.
I got the wheels on the 17th ascent! And then frequently thereafter
Once you have them, you win them again on almost every subsequent ascent
Same here! 17 it was.
Got the wheels on my first try.
Nice new idea, I think it’s good that Zwift always comes up with something new. I was lucky with the Adz, I got all three prizes on the first three trips, maybe it will work that way here too. If not, I’m hoping for a few routes that I wanted to ride anyway. I just received the email and signed up straight away.
Go away and never come back. Wheels on the 13th ascent. Then again on the 15, 16 and many more I couldn’t count…
I hope you have better luck this time, despite your meanness. Things have gone well for me so far, 5 rides and 5 different items. Both Makuri items, the 3 spoke wheels, headphones and the blue helmet 😎
and since we had to work hard for the meilensteins (however it’s spelled), they should always retain the property of being the fastest climbing wheels ever!
I see it that way too. Zwift could make the tires better than everyone else again, since they are their own.
Finally some kit unlocks that aren’t all pastel colors. I’ll actually wear those World kits!
Drops bonus for repeat prizes is going to get old very fast. After the first 10 million, drops are just an annoying counter on the display that just keeps going up.
Can the drop counter accommodate a 9th digit?
Yeah, that costs 99,999,999 drops to allow the counter to have 9 digits 😂
Love this concept! Surely will motivate me to ride more.
I did some analysis about how many stages you would need to ride to collect all 14 items (6 general + 8 stage specific).
In the best case scenario, meaning zwift has set the probabilities such that the number of stages is minimized (which I’m afraid is not the case), odds for both stage specific unlocks should be around 25% , and around 8% for all 6 general items.
Then on average you will need to finish 30 stages to unlock all 14 items.
10% luckiest people will need 20 or less.
10% unluckiest more than 45.
Better clear you schedules and don’t ride outside yet if you are planning to collect them all! Although I don’t like the odds, I surely will give it a go.
YES ERIC 🤗, after way over one year, you will get something to test in your lab 😎 … I can’t wait to check your upcoming post about the performance of the Tri Spoke Disc Wheels 😊
If they are faster, don’t tell anyone until the Big Spin is over.
I got them on my second try. Cool.
Hahaha Zee … this is a great idea 😉 … and yes, they look cool … I have to do some more Big Spins than only two 🙈🤣 … socks & neon glasses 😎 until now 🤷🏻♂️
How come every time I visit the page I have to decide to join up and set cookies. If the cookies worked I wouldn’t need to keep saying “Don’t ask again!”
You can thank EU and state of CA privacy legislation for this joy.
As long as your browser is set up to allow cookies, you should only need to set that setting once. Possibly you’re on a browser that doesn’t do cookies?
I’ve been seeing that multiple times and I always allow cookies haven’t changed any setting.
But can you pair the tri-spoke wheelset with the atomic cruiser?
Yes i got both & you can.
I see what you’re doing Zwift, laying on all these March events to prevent the annual Spring cancellation and migration back to the great outdoors.
I think this is the replacement for the Tour of Watopia, which fulfilled that role until it was moved to October to get people back onto Zwift after the summer break.
Useless junk that’s already sitting in my garage forever. I preferred other prizes. An additional day of subscription or 10 days :).
I know that the France kit is supposed to be sunflowers, but when you look at it quickly it sure looks like blood splotched camouflage, especially with the beret
I want to paint the atomic cruiser with tron fluor style and the trispoke wheels
This may be a silly question but what’s the incentive to do the Long route? Won’t folks prefer to do multiple short routes… or do the probabilities differ?
I suppose it’s just for variety, a lot of folk will want to redo the rides to try and get as many prizes as possible but repeatedly doing the same route will no doubt get old fast.
Sorry for asking this in another thread – noob question – do you do these rides with ERG mode on or off?
Cheers
ERG mode is for structured workouts. All other types of rides (races, group rides, free riding) do not use ERG.
Unless you use another app to control your trainer and don’t connect controllable on Zwift
That bike looks amazing. I mainly do structured workouts (and hardly any races), so I don’t mind a slow bike. I get the same workout regardless. I’d love to see that bike around, even if I don’t win it. Tri-spoke wheel looks fun too.
Just got it, twice on my first 2 rides…Slow beast but looks great
What is the extra prize for Makuri though ? UK, France and NYC have a hat, but cant see that one at the Makuri picture. Arent we missing a price ? We have 6 prices through all four weeks on the wheel (Wheel, Shoes, Socks, Helm, Headphones and Cruiser) and then the country specials (4 kits and 3 hats).
I believe it is glasses.
I got “Makuri neon glasses” today … looks like dark pink or so
Does it matter if u choose the long or short one when it comes to chances of getting the more «exclusive» prizes?
I don’t think so!
Loving this idea and these regular huge events…..
On Sukis playground on monday, if i attend a race and keep cycling the same round after i finish the raceround will i get a new spin or do i need to attend a new event 1 hour after the one i first attended?
Far as I know, the spinner is only active while you’re in the event. But I haven’t tested it myself!
Can you late join a Big Spin event?
According to https://zwifthacks.com/app/events/ … yes.
Thank you
Didn’t know i needed heart monitor for this
I didn’t wear mine. Got the Spin Wheel.
So I’ve just done stage 1 short ride (won the wheels) if I do the stage 1 short ride tomorrow do I get another go on the spinner?
Yes, I did it twice today. How are the wheels? I got the Atomic Cruiser, just 2 stars each for aero and weight but looks fun!
I got the wheels — 3 stars for aero and 1 for weight. and then I did it again too, and saw what looked like a Zwift Insider bot on the start line so looks like Eric & co are on the case, testing everything out 🙂
Yes! Still trying to unlock the wheels… already unlocked the bike today and tested it (post coming soon).
Are you by any chance also keeping track of all spins to estimate the probabilities? 🙂
Nah… too much work. 🙂
socks, socks, glasses, helmet, socks. All short rides. Boo!!
I got all of them for this week in 11 spins. Got the shoes 3 times and the socks 2 times. All others were unique.
You were incredibly lucky, Peter! Marty’s outcome is unfortunately more typical.
Damn. I have had the blue helmet 6 times, sunglasses three times, makiuri kit once, tri-spoke wheel once, shoes once. Also have had 5 wrong turns after joining late with no completion or wheel spins… I just want the dumb bike. Getting sick of the stage 1 route and the kit.
Maybe I missed this comment and answer. How late can you join an event?
Up to 30 minutes late.
So if you get a bit of a sweat on, you could do the short event for the spin, then late join the long one. If you get dropped in at a decent point you can probably get the NEXT short one too, getting three spins in c 90 mins…
You can even join the short one again if you do it under 30 minuts.
What are the times for these rides? Are they every hour at the :15’s?
How can we get the headphone? I see 2 helmets, but no headphone on the spinner.
The headphones are categorized as helmet.
Thanks. That is why there two helmets on the spinner.
So this happened today.
I signed up the long ride and the short ride immediately after. I was .2 miles from the finish and chance to spin with 3 minutes before the next event start. To my surprise, I was shot to the starting pens without finishing the first event and no spin prize. Companion App gave me no options for staying or leaving. NOT HAPPY.
So yesterday I did the standard Big Spin route in Makuri and won the tri spoke wheel and rear disc. Today I tried the new wheels out with Maria and couldn’t keep up – I normally ride off the front with her. So I went back to the Big Spin standard route in Makuri and averaged 18mph. I put the DT Swiss Disc wheels back on, repeated the route and averaged 20mph on legs that were much more tired. Not a very exact experiment but I know what I’m sticking to!
Yeah… the new Tri Spoke is ridiculously slow. Speed test post coming out tomorrow about it.
Box-tickers….late join is your friend…
completed the first standard ride and no prize wheels at the end!!
not happy. I registered as well!
I completed the Stage 1 Ride but the standard B ride and performed well. However my Zwift Power results are showing that I completed the A ride (when I clearly didn’t) and power results are being skewed for the B ride. Is anyone having this issue?
It would be cool if Zwift increased your odds at winning a lower probability prize based on increasing level of effort. I guess that would only work in conjunction with ZwiftPower though….
Today, I saw someone post in messages they received 15,000xl, on game The Big Spin. Is that correct?
If you win a prize that you have already won you receive 15,000 drops. The article from ZI doesn’t specifically mention the amount of drops you get but.
“If it lands on a prize you’ve already won, you’ll get a sweet Drops bonus!”
And 40k drops for getting the bike again. I got the jersey twice, too, and that was 20 or 25k drops. Can’t remember which.
What are the chances for winning each prize?
9 tries now. 3 set of glasses, 2 set of kits, 2 set of shoes, 1 blue helmet and 1 set of wheels. Still waiting for the bike and the headphones 🙂
Got the bike on first ride 😀
After taking months to get the wheels on the Alpe I thought this would be the same, so it really is just a case of keeping on plugging away and hopefully you get lucky next ride.
Feels a little harsh there will be people who won’t get it though regardless when people like me get it first go.
I’ve tried to estimate the probabilities. This is based on 200+ spins, which is still insufficient to be completely accurate, but it gives a pretty good idea.
9% – Atomic Cruiser
10% – Tri Spoke and disc wheel
10% – Classic Crew socks
12% – The Zwift Big Spin Shoes
12% – Orange Headphones
13% – Sky Blue Helmet
14% – A kit for each stage
20% – A world-themed item for each stage
If you repeat stages 1-3 until you’ve got both stage specific unlocks, and then continue to only do stage 4 (because it has 2 spins per stage), on average you will need to complete 33 stages to get all 14 items.
I reckon you’d get more accurate probabilities if you do 100/8.
I got sunglasses, is that the “world themed item” for Makuri?
Yes
Finished 2 stages but haven’t got the nice big spin jersey yet 🙁
You have to finish all four stages at least once (short one suffices) to unlock the big spin jersey.
Guess I had a good bug in my game or something. Got the cruiser the first time and then evrything else inclusive the Makuri Kit. Two times the gloves only.
So you got 8 different items in 9 spins? That is indeed quite lucky. Just under 1% chance according to my calculations. So it is improbable, but I dont think it is a bug.
I rode the London B route 10 times and got the UK bucket hat 8 of those. 1 other times: London punk kit. Other spin was socks … which I already had. I did the Makuri isle ride 20-some times and never landed on the kit. After 15 rides of the London route, I finally got the wheels. Which timed out OK since it coincided with the v1.61 update that made the tri-spoke wheel/disc actually usable. So maybe not entirely unlucky 😉
It is a LOT of effort and Time for something absolutely useless.
i am also addictive to get all those ugly and non performant items.
However… 🤔.. I didn’t opened or changed stuff in the garage. Just the bike. Could that be it??
For clueless people like me who don’t know how to spin, “it is right in the middle of the screen towards the top, just under the HUD that displays how much distance is left in the ride.” Hopefully I’ll get the hang of it next stage.