Last week, we published Zwift Charts: Rate of New Road Construction from 2015 to Present, charting the total kilometers of road added to Zwift over time.
One commenter astutely noted that the chart didn’t include Zwift’s Climb Portal, and that was indeed correct. While the Climb Portals are rideable in Zwift, they aren’t quite the same “roads” as you find elsewhere in the game (they don’t include surrounding scenery, and what’s the road surface, anyway?) Including them in the road construction timeline didn’t feel right.
In fairness to Zwift, though, lots of rideable roads have been added via the Climb Portal since mid-2023. So here’s a follow-up post charting Climb Portal growth over time.
Zwift Climb Portal Growth: Total Length and Count
A few notes:
- Zwift’s rate of Climb Portal growth has remained relatively steady since its launch, with approximately 200km of new Climb Portal roads being released each year. This is nearly 4x the rate of new “standard” roads released in Zwift’s biggest release years.
- If the Climb Portal roads were added to our chart from the earlier post, Zwift’s rate of construction from mid-2023 to present would be dramatically increased over previous years. In fact, here’s what it would look like (a bit messy, but you get the point):
Zwift Road Construction Timeline (Including Climb Portal)
Making the Library More Attractive
Zwift created the unique look and feel of the Climb Portal so they could easily add iconic climbs to the game without investing their art team’s time in replicating real-world surrounding scenery. Based on the 4x expansion rate noted above, it’s clear that the Climb Portal’s setup does indeed allow for quicker development and release of new “roads.”
But there’s a lot Zwift could do to make these new roads more attractive to riders. They recently adjusted the powerup probabilities, removing a key incentive for some Zwifters. I’d love to see Zwift implement some of the ideas from My Big List of Climb Portal Feature Requests, including letting us choose which portal we’d like to climb, giving us achievement badges for portals, and even having leaderboards in the Companion app.
Your Thoughts
Are you impressed by Zwift’s rate of Climb Portal growth? Does it take the edge off of their slowing expansion in regards to “real” roads outside of the Climb Portal? And what would you rather have: more Climb Portals, or more features to make Climb Portals more attractive?
Share your thoughts below!
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