Zwift’s first-ever, and hopefully annual, Zwift Community Live (ZCL) began yesterday in Mallorca. This event aims to bring together the Zwift community with a paid four-day event packed full of outside riding. At first glance that might seem weird for an indoor cycling company, but as you’ll see, that’s about to change starting next week. In addition to the main ZCL event, Zwift also had a short media event, as well as a slate of other indoor-focused sports tech companies that have been floating around. That includes Wahoo, Garmin, Elite, JetBlack, CORE, and undoubtedly more I’m forgetting. Even the head of ASO and the Tour de France is here (more on his Zwift level in a second).
This post isn’t about ZCL though, and instead, is about all the new software and hardware features Zwift has announced that are coming over the next few months. All the software features that are listed below will be turned on next Tuesday the 8th for all users. Though there is one feature that I note is more of an early preview, and is coming later this summer.
So with that, let’s dive into it!
Zwift Ride Adjustable Crank Length:
We’ll start off with the easiest one of the group here, which is the new adjustable crank length option for the Zwift Ride. Up till now, the Zwift Ride was only available with 170mm crank lengths, and was arguably the single biggest component that people complained about. However, that (sorta) changes in two weeks. Starting April 16th, you’ll be able to order an upgrade kit that has a bear claw style crank arm design. This has 5 different crank arm lengths on it (160/165/170/172.5/175), just like virtually all other consumer-focused indoor cycling bikes. Thus, you simply attach your pedals to whichever crank length you want:
Now, the upgrade kit won’t be standard-issue for Zwift Ride bikes. Instead, you’ll need to order it separately for $99USD/99GBP/99EUR. Shipping is free however.
It’s important to note that you will need a few tools to get the old crank arm removed and the new one installed. Most notably a square-taper bottom bracket puller tool (for removal), and a torque wrench that can show 45nm (for installation). You’ll also need an 8mm Allen key, adjustable wrench, and a small flat-blade screwdriver helps too. It’s the square-taper puller tool that’s going to trip most people up, though, is easily found online for $10.
(Torque wrench not pictured here).
The actual removal/installation process is silly simple, just like most other crank arms, and once you have the right tool, will only take you about 5 minutes. Super easy. But also, 100% impossible without that square-taper removal tool. I’ll stick the full install flow photos I took here in a couple hours at most, but in the video up above I show the swapping procedure.
In any event, for the time being, it doesn’t sound like Zwift is going to transition to the bear-claw design being standard on the Zwift Ride. That’s neither a short or medium term thing. On one hand, that seems like a bit of a mistake, though, on the other hand with people shifting towards smaller crank arms, 170mm is where many people are landing anyway. Ultimately, it sounds like this is mostly about component cost, more than anything else (hence the accessory/upgrade option).
Zwift Outdoor Ride Tracking:
Next is the headliner feature on the software side, which is that outdoor rides now count. Specifically, they count towards maintaining streaks, towards XP (which is how you increase your levels), and towards a new dashboard that tracks your rides. As part of that dashboard, Zwift will now be tracking your training status and training load.
At launch next week, it’ll import in your rides from Garmin & Wahoo devices/platforms. Thus, to get started you’ll need to *reconnect* your Garmin account to Zwift (or, do a first time connection to Wahoo). The reason you need to reconnect Garmin is to give Zwift additional permissions to receive the completed workout files from Garmin (whereas Wahoo is brand new). If you don’t do that, your outside rides won’t come in yet. On the Zwift Companion App, simply go to More > Settings > Connections, and deactivate and then re-activate your Garmin connection (or instantiate the Wahoo connection). It takes like 30 seconds:
I’d strongly recommend you reconnect your Garmin/Wahoo accounts now (before the 8th). It’s highly likely there will be a backlog of Garmin/Wahoo processing your previous 90-day historical files, which is the data it’ll pull into your dashboard. Zwift says Hammerhead connectivity will come this summer, and likely others as well over the course of the year.
Once that’s done, and once Tuesday the 8th comes along, you’ll see this new dashboard. At the top left, it’ll show your Training Score, which is your average training load, akin to CTL. Then, in the center you’ve got your current goal (default is time, more on that in a second), as well as your current streak.
In the middle are the days of the week, and you can scroll back to previous weeks. You’ll see any XP gained on that same page as well (you tap on it, and it pops up). XP for outdoor rides is earned at a rate of 5XP per kilometer, up to a maximum of 200KM/1000XP per ride. Zwift says they may tweak that number down the road, but that they want to see how people might be ‘gaming the system’ (in a not-so-good way), before making adjustments. For reference, normally on indoor Zwift rides, you’re getting 20XP per KM (before any random bonuses). Additionally, you do NOT earn Drops (for the store) on rides, nor do you earn points towards bike upgrades.
Below, some historical weeks, and my ‘Just Me’ feed showing the activities coming in:
Note that in my screenshots, I’ve got a bunch of duplicate files coming in (since I’m recording/testing on multiple devices). Zwift says that by next week, you’ll be able delete activities that come into the dashboard. And that at some point soonish, they’ll be doing de-duplication, to mitigate issues like this.
In any event, down at the bottom of that training dashboard screenshot you’ll see your current training status, roughly akin to what Garmin has:
Ready: Ready to start or return to Training
Fresh: Active and ready for a challenge
Productive: Consistently training and recovering well
Overreaching: Training heavily but in need of more recovery. Rest weeks are essential for recovery and peak performance.
Detraining: Loss of fitness due to reduced training.
When it comes that middle section with your goal shows, you can adjust your goal to any of the following goal types:
– Time
– Distance (KM/Miles)
– Calories (kCal)
– Stress points (SP)
– Kilojoules
Note that there will be an expansion of this later this year (estimated summer), adding Fitness trends. Zwift showed a few screenshots of what this looks like, and in a nutshell allows for more reports of your ride/fitness trends.
Likewise, while runners aren’t included in the launch of outdoor tracking, Zwift says that’ll come later this year as well. I’d guess that’ll probably launch at the same time as fitness trends tracking. Further, they doubled-down that their focus will be exclusively cycling and running going forward. Said differently, those that still might have hopes for rowing, should probably sink those hopes.
New Zwift France Routes:
Zwift is adding 8 new routes to the France map. In addition there’s adding a bit of new pavement too. Err…I mean, new rocks. Not pavement, but cobbles. This new section is properly miserable looking if you have a Tacx NEO series device that’ll actually replicate that shaking feeling. All of which is meant to coincide with the upcoming Paris Roubaix Femmes avec Zwift.
I did take the cobbles section for a brief ride (Zwift had Zwift Ride bikes setup in the hotel lobby at Zwift Community Live):
And here’s some fancier photos from Zwift:
This goes live next week as well.
New Sensor & HUD Support:
Next, a quickie. Zwift will be enabling support for CORE body temp sensors. You can see this in the screenshot below. The CORE sensors will pair within Zwift, and record your body temp data & heat strain index data to the .FIT file (allowing other platforms to see the data, same as Garmin/Wahoo/etc…).
Further, that upper left corner dashboard (HUD) now has additional custom data fields, including:
– Added Left/Right balance (from left/right power meters, if paired in Zwift), also recorded to the .FIT file
– Added averages watts/KG
– Added average speed
– Added weighted power
Here are the updated fields in that drop-down box:
But, this isn’t the only area you’re seeing additional data metric fields, onto the next item!
Added Lap Support:
Next, another quickie. I’m a fan of quickies. Zwift is adding a lap/split button. This allows you to create/take laps and show metrics based on those laps. The button is on the action dashboard (and can be triggered from the Zwift Ride/Play handlebars), and looks kinda like a recycling icon:
Zwift will write the lap/split markers to the .FIT file, so any apps/platforms that see/use the .FIT file (e.g. Garmin, Training Peaks, etc…) will see those lap/split markers.
In addition, there’s another new dashboard showing your critical power display for 5-second, 60-second, 5-minute, and 20-minute, that you an see at the left (above).
Scotty Streaks:
Next, as you maintain your streak (through either inside or outside rides), you’ll gain a squirrel:
4 Weeks: Get a Scotty medallion
12 weeks: get a Scotty key chain
24 weeks: Get a waving Scotty in your back jersey pocket
Additionally, if you’ve got something against squirrels, you can turn this off in the settings. I don’t know who dislikes cartoon squirrels, but Zwift said those people made themselves quite vocal on April 1st, when they turned on pocket-Scotty for everyone as their annual April Fool’s joke.
Totally Random Zwift Tidbits:
Over the course of the media day/event, there were various random Zwift-ish tidbits. In no particular order, here we go:
– The head of ASO (and owner of the Tour de France) is a very avid Zwifter. That’s him, above, Jean-Etienne Amaury (as in, the Amaury of Amaury Sports Organization). He noted that he’s Level 75 on Zwift. I was unable to find his account, I presume he uses a secret agent name. However, based on some of his off the cuff wording around the level limits, I’m pretty sure he really is. In any event, he was there during part of a presentation on the impact on women’s cycling, of the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift.
– Here’s some stats from the last 30 days on Zwift:
– 2.2M free rides
– 632K group rides
– 483K robopacer Rides
– 282K races
– 106K climb portal rides
– Structured workouts are clearly going to be a key part of Zwift’s forward-looking strategy. They also shared these tidbits:
– There are 2,400 structured workouts offered in Zwift
– There were 2.3M solo structured workouts completed on Zwift in last 30 days
– There were 104,000 workouts completed via Zwift Link (that’s the new Zwift Training API that companies like TrainerRoad, Final Surge, Xert, etc… use, but TrainingPeaks is using old API and not included in this number, which is *massive* secondary number)
– There are currently 8 partners using Zwift Link today
I’ll probably add some more tidbits into here over time, but for now, that’s it!
With that, thanks for reading!
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