And when I say ‘could’ in the title, I mean ‘will’. But…more on that in a second.
First , Zwift announced a smattering of new things today in their ‘This Season on Zwift’ update. That update happens roughly every quarter, and outlines the bulk of the new stuff coming over the next 90ish days. Historically speaking, it doesn’t tend to include hardware announcements (like the Zwift Play/Click/trainers/etc that we’ve seen in the past). Those get their own announcements.
The New Features:
Today’s announcement includes the following items, s described by Zwift:
Watopia Expansion – The Grade (June 2024): Rolling out to Zwifters in June, The Grade is designed to be a testing climb for Zwifters. Built on the West side of Zwift’s most recent expansion, Watopia’s Southern Coast, The Grade will start among the vibrant buildings of Ciudad de La Cumbre, and connect Watopia’s Southern Coast with the backside of the Epic KOM. The Grade creates a direct, very steep passage from Ciudad de La Cumbre to the top of Epic KOM. The expansion will launch with several new routes available for freeride exploration, training, and racing.
My List (Today): We’ve all been there – you’ve found an hour window, jump onto Zwift to squeeze in a good workout, only lose a precious five minutes choosing between a new route and a structured workout. My List helps Zwifters plan their next session in advance so they can maximize every minute. Using the Zwift Companion app, Zwifters will soon be able to browse the full library of Zwift workouts and routes (perfect for badge hunters) and add them to their list. These will then be shown in For You on the Zwift Home Screen the next time they log in. Never waste a minute with My List!
HUD Refresh (Summer 2024): Zwift’s in-game HUD is about to get a fresh new look and provide you with more information right where you need it. One of the standout features of the updated HUD is a new ‘Climb Mode’ dynamic elevation profile display. The new display will help Zwifters better pace their climbing efforts and prepare for the road ahead by utilising the same gradient shading found in the Climb Portal.
The HUD update will also allow Zwifters to customise the data fields shown in the power tile of the HUD via the in-game settings menu. At launch, Zwifters will be able to choose from Speed, Average Power, Power-to-Weight Ratio (W/KG), Cadence and Heart Rate.
With this update, the mini-map will also receive a refresh.
The updated mini-map will provide greater clarity on route progression, including elevation. (Below you can see the customization of the HUD).
In addition to those software changes, there’s the new ‘Training Connections’ API that I’m gonna dive into below, as well as a bunch of new (French) climbs being added this summer as part of tie-ins with the Tour de France. Further, there’s also a bunch of other events and such for the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift. All of those things are outlined on Zwift’s site here.
The Training Connections API:
The most interesting thing to me is actually the least graphically exciting one – it’s the new Zwift ‘Training Connections API’ that was listed in the press release. It’s the first of a number of upcoming API’s into Zwift, as the company aims to make itself more open than it’s been in the past.
To begin, here’s how Zwift describes this in the press release kit:
Training Connections API: There are many ways to train on Zwift – whether using a flexible training plan, joining a Group Workout, choosing from the 1000+ on-demand workouts, or building your own via the Custom Workout builder. For those with very specific plans in mind – whether from a coach, or another third-party training provider – Zwift’s new training API Connection will give Zwifters greater flexibility with how they want to train on the platform by providing better integration with other platforms and coaching services.
Functionally, this new API will behave much like existing third-party connections on Zwift. Once the API Connection is set up and approved, workouts built outside of Zwift will pull directly into the Zwift platform and show in the Custom Workouts folder. The training API will launch later this spring with a few launch partners. Other providers will be able to sign up for this open-API later in the summer.
As a quick reminder, up till now, Zwift has had an API of sorts, but it’s basically been private and hyper-select. It also hasn’t really changed much since the beginning of time. But it’s how you connect your Zwift account to Training Peaks and others. You can see it in the Zwift Connections dashboard today:
At the moment, this includes Strava, Training Peaks, MapMyRun, MapMyRide, Adidas Runtastic, Fitbit, Garmin, Technogym, and Wahoo.
But as you might imagine, that leaves a ton of other structured training partners off the list. In fact, it leaves most companies that might be considered ‘competitors’ off the list, as some other structured training platform providers have their own indoor cycling apps.
But what Zwift is slowly realizing, is that many Zwift customers actually have dual accounts, and are (relatively) happy to keep paying for both platforms. Each platform provides something different. Thus adding in connectivity to execute your structured workout from a different platform only enhances the Zwift value-prop, it doesn’t actually diminish it.
(The most recent photo I had in my phone of an indoor TrainerRoad workout…a very sweaty one.)
Let’s take for example one potential platform, TrainerRoad, which obviously from a strict definition standpoint, is a competitor to Zwift. Except in reality, there’s significant overlap in the customer base of both TrainerRoad and Zwift. I’m one of those people. I pay for and use TrainerRoad for my training plan (triathlon) and do my structured workouts there. Yet my non-structured workouts I’ll likely do on Zwift, which I also pay for. Even more – I’ll often have TrainerRoad control my trainer for a structured workout, but still let Zwift connect to the trainer passively so that I can ride ‘in Zwift’ (to gain points). This is more common than most people realize.
Thus, this new Training Connections API is aimed at making this combo dish better for their customers. It expands the existing structured workout partnerships, but in a way that’s actually scaleable to countless companies, akin to signing up for a developer integration/account at Strava. Zwift says there will be no cost to other companies to access the API.
Zwift says that starting later this spring, they’ll announce and open up the first slate of structured workout apps/platforms that are included (three companies). Then, this summer, they’ll open it up more broadly to other companies to sign-up for.
Obviously, I can’t say who these companies in the first slate are – other than to say that I think it’s going to make things super interesting.
With that – thanks for reading!
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