Nine years ago today I went for my first ride on Zwift.
The winter of 2015 was my first “indoor season” as a serious cyclist, and I was already dreading the roller sessions. At the time, none of my local riding buddies were on Zwift. None of them had even heard of it. But I saw it somewhere on Facebook, downloaded the game, ran it in “just watch” mode, and immediately knew I had to give it a try.
I found a website in Germany selling Tacx Vortex Smart trainers for ~$290 to my door, so I pulled the trigger. The night it arrived I put it together, hooked my bike in, and went for my first Zwift ride from the middle of my living room. The trainer wasn’t calibrated, and I wasn’t dressed for a real ride… so that effort didn’t last long.
But two days later I went for my first “real” Zwift ride – two laps of Watopia’s Hilly Route (the only route on Watopia at the time). Uploading it to Strava certainly confused local friends. “Are you in the Solomon Islands right now?”
That’s how it all began for me. And I jumped in with both feet! Less than a month later I launched ZwiftBlog.com, which became Zwift Insider two years later.
I wish I had been on Zwift from the beginning, but when Zwift beta launched in 2014 I was just rediscovering cycling after an 18-year hiatus. So I never got to ride Jarvis, the first Zwift map, until today (November 12, 2024) when Zwift released it as a Watopia expansion.
It has become my habit each November 12th to post a refreshed Zwiftversary article. So here I am, once again looking back at my journey and delivering my perspective as a Zwifter and the editor of the web’s biggest Zwift fansite.
Growth Trends
The all-time Peak Zwift of 49,114 came in January 2021. Remember that time? It was actually illegal to ride your bike outdoors in some European countries! Covid lockdowns sent Zwift numbers off the chart.
A year later traffic numbers were much lower than their mid-Covid peak, and really, since that time, if you remove seasonality, numbers have basically held steady as far as I can tell. We certainly aren’t seeing the massive year-over-year growth we saw each winter pre-Covid.
That said, I’m seeing a lot of brand-new riders on the platform these days. Zwift’s moves in the hardware space certainly have something to do with this.
Hardware: Simpler, More Affordable
The Zwift Ride was released in June 2024, and it immediately disrupted the smart bike market. Priced at just $1299USD, it was half the price of the cheapest competitor (Wattbike) and a third the price of the premium options (KICKR Bike, NEO Bike).
But was it a smart bike? Or just a simple frame attached to a standard trainer? What exactly is a smart bike?
Turns out, the answer to those questions isn’t all that important. Because the truth is, the Zwift Ride became the overnight default smart bike recommendation for most Zwifters. It’s just really difficult to justify spending 2-3x more.
Have some shipping/packing issues resulted in scratched or bent frames and cranks? Sure. Are you effectively locked into Zwift with the Zwift Ride? Yes. Does the idea of being stuck with 170mm cranks really irk some riders? Absolutely. And yet, so many people are buying it, and the positive reviews keep coming.
The Zwift Ride’s price point has driven down the cost of standalone direct drive trainers as well. The Wahoo KICKR CORE Zwift One now sells for $499USD, with a set of Play Controllers. JetBlack’s Victory trainer is just $399USD (when it’s in stock!) and boasts cutting-edge features like WiFi and race-mode that we’ve only seen in premium trainers prior to this year.
I don’t think prices can drop much more. But Zwift has done an amazing job of strategically lowering the bar when it comes to price, and that is opening up Zwift to a new audience.
A Virtual Shift
Speaking of hardware, we’re seeing more and more trainers coming online with support for Zwift’s virtual shifting. It seems crazy, but a year ago, only the Zwift Hub had virtual shifting support! Today, that list has expanded to the following:
Yes, Wahoo KICKR v5 owners are understandably miffed that Wahoo is not going to release virtual shifting support for the v5. And we could argue back and forth about whether Zwift should have created a more “open” standard for virtual shifting that could be used on any trainer without a firmware upgrade.
But at the end of the day, the truth is this: Zwift’s virtual shifting is an innovation they brought to the market that helps enable a quality experience on the platform, and chances are good that any Zwifter shopping for a new trainer will consider virtual shifting capabilities in their decision.
Community Re-Focus
In January of 2024, I got to hang out with Zwift CEO Eric Min at his home in Santa Monica for a few days. We enjoyed some good rides in the Malibu hills, but also spent hours talking about where Zwift is going.
During that time, it was clear to me that Eric wasn’t fully satisfied with Zwift’s focus as a company. He wanted to see more of a focus on the community. So we talked… a lot… about what that might look like.
A month later, Zwift announced a major workforce reduction, including the exit of co-CEO Kurt Beidler. Other key leaders exited as well, and new ones came on board. Zwift’s board was making strategic changes.
Then in April, Zwift hosted its first Zwift Week since before Covid. The whole company came together at their Long Beach HQ for several days of meetings, talks, hangouts, and rides to help unify everyone behind a fresh vision. I was there, too – along with Shane Miller and Nathan Guerra.
There was a palpable feeling of Zwift leadership wanting to turn the page during Zwift Week. With Zwift just on the edge of profitability, with with Zwift Ride almost released, with the UCI Worlds being awarded to a competitor… Zwift needed to focus more than ever on keeping its community strong and growing.
So Zwift helped bring back the Zwiftcast (word is, another episode is on the way). And they organized the Community Racing Festival. Then just last week, Zwift Community Live was announced for April 2025 in Mallorca. A “Zwiftcon” is something Eric Min has been pushing for (again, we talked about in back in January) and he’s got some big dreams about what it could turn into.
Training Partner Expansion
Zwift has had its own library of structured workouts since early day, and they work great for a lot of people. But some Zwifters want more or different workouts, which is why Zwift created the ability to sync scheduled workouts with TrainingPeaks several years ago.
Starting in August 2024, though, Zwift began expanding the list of partners integrating their workouts/calendars into the platform via Zwift’s new Training API. First TriDot was announced, then XERT. This week we’re seeing JOIN and FastCat added to the list, and there are more on the way. Including TrainerRoad, which is a big one many Zwifters are looking for!
It’s wild (but not inaccurate) to think how these new Training API integrations are infinitely expanding the library of workouts automatically available on Zwift while also customizing that library to your specific needs. It may sound cliche, but we really are seeing training tools today that are exponentially more powerful than what we’ve had in the past. It’s fun to watch!
Competition and Rising Prices
Last year when I wrote this post, I listed Zwift’s three competitors. That list hasn’t changed:
- IndieVelo (now TrainingPeaks Virtual): perhaps the most compelling entry on the list, due to the intriguing combination of a popular training platform (TrainingPeaks) and a fast-moving, race-focused game developer (George Gilbert, creator of IndieVelo). Really curious how this will evolve.
- MyWhoosh: just finished hosting the UCI Esports Worlds, and did a decent job by all accounts. Still, it feels like people don’t use the platform because it’s good. They use it because it’s free and awards some big prize money to top racers.
- Rouvy: a popular platform for riders who want to ride “real” roads. They’ve been doing a fair amount of expensive marketing in recent months.
Zwift raised their price in May 2024, which made some Zwifters look at the alternatives. But Zwift can’t spend much time looking at the competition. To remain the market leader they have to stay in business (hence the price increase), continue to innovate, and make the big moves that grow the overall market – not just market share.
Racing Developments
While elite racing is still happening on Zwift, mostly in the form of the new Zwift World Series, it feels like Zwift has shifted the weight of its racing focus off of the elite side and onto the community side in the past 6 months. This is especially interesting to see in light of MyWhoosh getting the nod to host UCI Worlds for three years, and IndieVelo rolling out a lot of race-focused innovation.
The big development this year in Zwift Racing is the release of Zwift Racing Score as the method of ranking and grouping riders. And while Zwift is still working on perfecting ZRS, surveys we (and others) have conducted seem to say that the clear majority of racers are seeing ZRS as an improvement over the old method of categorization.
I’m quite sure we’ll see ZRS continue to evolve, including significant changes in the coming weeks. Zwift needs to get this right, and they know it.
So Many Rides, So Little Time
There was no in-game event calendar nine years ago, and today (I just checked) there are literally 350+ events per day on Zwift’s calendar. Amazing!
Maintaining the perfect event calendar is no easy task, though. There is an uneasy tension that exists between Zwift-organized events like Tour of Watopia and community-organized events.
The big Zwift events get lots of participation, but they also reduce numbers for community-organized events. There’s often a Zwift-owned event happening each hour, as well as the always-on Robopacers. Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily, but the simple fact is that Zwift’s stronger presence on their calendar makes it harder for community members to launch new group rides or even maintain existing ones.
Working with the community to develop a properly-dense event calendar is no easy job, and I’m glad I don’t have to do it. James Bailey: I salute you!
What I am responsible for is a small number of Zwift Insider events, most notably the Tiny Race Series. Based on my experience with those events, I would love to see Zwift invest in better backend tools for event organizers. Improving these systems would reduce event configuration errors and streamline the creation and editing of events, logically leading to higher-quality event experiences for end users.
Clubs: What Now?
Things haven’t changed much with Clubs in the past few years, apart from Zwift raising limits so Clubs can get bigger and Zwifters can join more of them.
Here’s what irks me, though: even with one of the largest Clubs on Zwift (35.9k members, click here to join) I still struggle to put it to good use. The Club chat tool is very limited (no tagging members, no clickable URLs) which means most members just turn off notifications and never check the chat. And apart from chat, the club really just becomes a container for Club events.
Which is fine, I suppose. But having built and interacted with online communities for 20+ years, I can’t help but believe Zwift Clubs could be so much more. I’d love to see:
- Club kit designs
- Voice chat in game with Club members
- Team racing where Club members are automatically linked together
- More powerful Club chat/discussion tools
- Club leaderboards, to promote competition between Clubs
- and more!
The Future Is Bright
It’s not hyperbole to say my involvement with the Zwift community has been life-changing. It’s changed my fitness, it’s changed my work life – it’s even changed my vacation plans (Mallorca 2025)! And I’ve loved every minute of it.
I’ve made so many good connections with good people through Zwift, and every day I’m reminded that I am truly blessed to serve the community through my work here at Zwift Insider. It’s something I hope to do for many years to come.
Ride on!
What about You?
How long have you been on Zwift? Do you feel the platform is moving in a good direction? What features are at the top of your wishlist? Share below!
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