Zwift has delivered on the first of their many promised expansions: real world courses. Back when I first discussed the service with them a year ago, they noted that they’d eventually see opportunities to partner with race organizers for creating virtual versions of their events.
The idea being twofold here: Events that could be ridden virtually at the exact same time as the actual race (ideal for folks such as deployed soldiers unable to attend), and then just cases where people could train and otherwise ride the event course ahead of time. This has benefits for training, but also just event PR aspects.
Up until this point the company has been focusing on fictional locales – such as Watopia in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Today though Zwift rolled out the first real world course they’ve done: Richmond, Virginia. I know, it’s not as sexy as…well…anywhere else really (yes, I’ve been). But, it’s home to the upcoming UCI 2015 Road World Championships, which will be held in Richmond from September 19th to 27th.
And with that obvious cycling tie-in, it seems like a natural fit. In this case, Zwift partnered with Richmond 2015 on the effort (who I turn is partnered with the UCI on the event). This sort of partnership is something we haven’t really seen from most of the trainer app companies to date. Most of those partnerships have been at levels such as Ironman, or local events. Going to a major UCI event is kinda an entirely different ball game.
Building the Course:
I was curious how exactly Zwift was going about re-creating the 3D world of Richmond. Obviously there are other trainer apps out there that use Google Earth to dynamically show you a 3D world as you cycle. Most of these tend to be sorta…unreal…feeling though, despite trying to feel real. Then there are of course manually built fake worlds, which tend to feel very realistic, but that’s because you aren’t comparing them to any actual real location.
In Zwift’s case, they started with a video of the course provided by the event organizers. This was then combined with GPS log file data they obtained (.FIT & .GPX) to generate the road data. In the middle of all that, they sent a team member out to Richmond as well.
Next, they layered in USGS survey data for the correct terrain height. The challenge they noted was that the data they received from all these sources wasn’t terribly awesome once combined, which is especially true in urban environments with buildings. So they had a fair bit of editing the data to make it line up correctly.
They also leveraged Google Street View quite a bit when it came time for their development artists to start building the models. When I asked about how and where they drew the virtual line on recreating a given building/monument/etc, Jon Mayfield of Zwift noted:
“We used our best judgment. We wanted the feel of the Richmond VA without our artists literally going off into the weeds modeling 3d assets that don’t really matter. While watching the course video we’d make note of certain land marks that stood out (a church steeple, a factory, overpass, etc) and we tried to make sure many of those were in.”
You see that within some of the course components. For example, there’s a monument early in the course that in real life is a Robert E. Lee on a horse (photo taken by a DCR reader, also above in Google Street View). But in Zwift it’s actually a bike:
The effort started about a month ago, and Zwift noted that only a portion of the game development team was working on it. Obviously it’s likely a goal of Zwift’s to increase these sort of marketing partnerships, since they likely drive both users to their platform, as well as money from partnerships. Jon said that “it’s feasible for us to make more courses if they prove to be a hit, especially for race type events. We’re strong on the community/social aspect of our product, so we have to be careful about separating users too much between many courses.“
Which is definitely true, and one of the biggest reasons that I think Zwift has been successful to date: They only have a single course. Many other cycling 3D worlds have numerous courses which spreads out the users and makes for lame game play.
Riding the Course:
I gave the course a ride today over lunch, mostly just out of curiosity. Unlike previous times when I’ve launched the app, I’m now presented with a new challenges option. This was also added today, and allows you to compete against various personal challenges. Since riding 797 miles on my trainer seemed like a painful goal, I went with climbing Mt. Everest instead.
With that out of the way I was off on my ride. At this point it was just about sunrise in Richmond at 7AM, though that was a bit of pure dumb luck. The day/night cycles automatically on a short schedule just like on Zwift island.
The first portion of the 10-mile long course is mostly in the downtown area. Perhaps because it was dark, or perhaps because it was a non-vibrant city, this wasn’t terribly exciting for me.
I think the realism in the city environment is lost a bit during tight turns, as the camera doesn’t ‘tilt’ like you would normally corner a turn, so it feels unrealistic. Whereas in the fictional Zwift world, there’s no places on the course that have 90° turns, so you don’t actually ever notice it.
Nonetheless, I kept on chugging along. There were some 80-90 other riders on the course at that time of day, disproportionally Australian. And the smack talk was definitely flowing.
Eventually though, sunrise rose, and with that I got out of the city a bit:
For fun, here’s what I believe to be that same spot on Google Streetview:
So the gist of things is definitely in the ballpark.
Once I got to this portion I actually rather enjoyed the course. I think that’s because it was less about city and more about parklands of sorts – an area that Zwift already excels at. Further, there weren’t really many sharp turns here, so things felt more natural.
Soon I’d find myself a bit of a cobbles section. Interestingly, you could clearly feel the change in resistance on the Tacx Neo the split second I hit this. Not saying you could feel cobbles, but rather the friction changed.
Unfortunately there isn’t Google Street View imagery here, since it’s normally a closed road – but indeed, there are cobbles going up the hill (the Zwift image above is taken quite a bit further up the hill than the photo below).
Then from there it was into some neighborhoods for a while.
Then finally as I hit about the 10.4-mile marker I cleared the finish line, and could begin my 2nd loop.
At that point though, my actual lunch was calling, so I called it a day.
And, I made stellar progress towards my Mt. Everest goal, now only 99% remaining!
In addition to the photos above, I gave my first go at using YouTube’s Live Streaming functionality with a desktop computer. I’ve previously toyed around with this on mobile devices and action cams. While I got the software all setup without too much incident, I left the defaults in the software for the recording rate, which did it at some very non-High Definition levels.
So, if you’re interested in watching my entire go of the course – you’re welcome to check out the YouTube video below. It just looks like…non-awesome sauce because of the dismally low recording rate. Don’t worry though, I’ve already changed the setting so I’m good to go for next time.
It’s worth noting that right now when you connect to Zwift you don’t have any choice in the course you’re given. There’s only one course at a time. The schedule for which course you’ll get is a bit wonky over the next month, but here ya go:
Zwift says eventually they’ll allow you to select a course, but that’s not in the immediate cards. I think they’re trying to carefully balance ensuring that they always have large quantities of riders in the courses to keep them more interesting.
They noted that “the course will be available in some way for many months to come. It may be on a limited schedule, or we may have regularly scheduled events on it every week. It’s too early to say, but it’s a nice asset for us to have and use as we see fit.”
Uploads to Strava:
Finally, it’s worth mentioning that like usual my Zwift ride automatically uploaded to Strava. However more important here is that it was tagged as a Virtual Ride.
Virtual Rides are important because it ensures that folks using Zwift (and other trainer apps) don’t incorrectly show up in regular Strava leaderboards. So at the bottom, where there would normally be segments it’s a bit slim right now:
Over time though, as more segments are set via virtual segments, they’ll start showing up here.
But even if you look at some of these already, all of them are via Zwift riders (only) today alone. Some 403 people in the first portion of the first day already. Impressive.
Pretty cool stuff, by both Zwift and Strava. I’m looking forward to seeing other partnerships. For example, I’d love to see the final stage at the Tour de France in Zwift (in Paris) – it’s just about the perfect length for it too!
With that – thanks for reading!
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I think Strava really missed the opportunity to make the virtual experience more compelling. Given all the features that don’t work with virtual rides and the fact that you can’t compare to real segments and leaderboards I suspect many people will just log their rides as regular rides instead.
In an ideal world, I would like the virtual leaderboards to include both virtual and real rides and use the same segments as the real world segments. This is what virtual riding on a real course is about, really, isn’t it? Otherwise I’d just as soon ride in a completely fictitious place.
This wouldn’t make any sense unless you could guarantee perfectly calibrated power meter equipment and environment. Even though it is roughly the same course, I’d be pretty upset if someone took my KOM on a trainer without real world weather, traffic and actual road surfaces, likely with a power meter that is off by more than a few percentage. There is no way to perfectly simulate all real world conditions accurately.
I’m not suggesting that the real leaderboards should have virtual rides in them. I completely understand why that’s not a good thing. I’m saying the virtual rides should have the real segments and real rides listed in them (but not vice-versa). I know how my equipment tracks to real life and it would be interesting for me to see where I would compare on the real-life leaderboards.
This would only affect virtual rides – the real ride leaderboards would stay clean. With the way Strava has set it up now, I suspect people are going to switch their virtual rides to real rides so they can see the real-world segments.
It is possible Strava is working on it. My guess is that trying to properly blend and handle real and virtual rides is in their current system is tricky. Probably not a scenario they initially designed the system for. The easiest initial solution is to have a separate virtual world of segments and leaderboards.
Also, Wahoo has the Segments app for KICKR that allows you to ride a real world segment and compare to your real world time.
With all the cool places to Ride in the world, and we have DOWNTOWN Richmond for the worlds, and closed roads as well? ugh!
Ah well. Good to see Swift doing something creative.
Ray, Any idea how the speed is determined? I’d imagine someone your size riding at 260 watts on flat ground (with what looked like little to no wind?) would be going faster than 17 mph.
In this case speed is transmitted direct from the trainer I had – the Neo.
One of the ‘challenges’ with Zwift is that the power is basically instant, so it’s often all over the map. I’d really think they’d do better with a 3-second smoothing on it. So it could have been in that case I was only going 213w a second before but just a slight shift in the pedal would have spiked it to 260w.
I actually tried zwift for the first time today. Seems like I chose a good day. Was just wondering, you mention above that it tags rides in strava as virtual rides. Is this only if you let zwift upload it directly. I didn’t do this, I downloaded the fit and uploaded to garmin connect so that it would feed to trainingpeaks and strava. Seems to be adding me to real life leaderboards. I wonder if this is something they will look into.
Correct, I just set it up with the automatic integration since it’s quicker/easier and just does it right at the end. I’m with you though, I really wish they’d get the TrainingPeaks connection up and running. It’s really not that hard – most other companies can do it between breakfast and lunch.
I believe you can still go in though afterwards and re-tag it as a virtual ride by changing the Activity Type.
Correct, I had the same issue, I tested Zwift before activating Strava Integration yesterday and then I uploaded manually to Strava (with the .fit file) and it showed as a real ride in Richmond. I was not aware of the “Virtual Ride” activity type thought, all fixed now. Thanks Ray! (When did Strava add the Virtual Ride activity? I feel I would have seen it before, was it for Zwift mainly?
They already have I received this email from Strava yesterday
Zwift has a new announcement
Hey Mick,
There’s a new announcement on the Zwift page:
We’re stoked to release our first real world course – the Richmond 2015 UCI Road World Championship loop the pros will ride later this month. We’re also using Strava’s new ‘virtual ride’ category so that rides in Zwift won’t effect real world leaderboards. For those of you that have linked your Strava account, this happens automagically. If you are still uploading your FIT files manually, be sure to change the Activity Type from ‘Cycling’ to ‘Virtual Ride’ when you do. Ride on!
Yeah, I didn’t know you could change the types of rides but it is far more interesting to compare segment times to people on zwift than people who have actually ridden it. So all sorted now. Its fairly safe to say that I will probably never end up in Richmond.
Hope they do get the Trainingpeaks integration up soon as that would make life easier (although its not really a hack, I’m just lazy) and like you say, its a pretty quick thing to do haha Don’t really care if its not in Garmin Connect.
I wonder if strava could automatically tag even manually uploaded rides from zwift as virtual rides, as presumably the GPS trace is the *exact* same for everyone, just with different time stamps? They should do that to keep the leaderboards “clean!”
Funny, I don’t think I’d ever clicked that button till you just said something about it.
I guess I just get e-mail notifications for comments into my inbox that I read/reply, and then for new follower notifications they go into some random e-mail folder.
Mass start events are on Zwift’s road map as well. In fact, there is a group of riders on Zwift that organize informal mass start events on Zwift. If you want to try racing on the Richmond course and can make the time slot, join us at 10:30 am PDT (17:30 UTC) tomorrow (Thursday). The logistics and racing mechanics are probably much clunkier than in TdG since Zwift has no specific race features, but the competition is fun. We had 26 riders start the race last week, should hopefully see a similar number with the excitement of the new course.
If you’re willing to put up with Facebook, check out the Zwift Riders group. There are 6 regularly scheduled training rides/races each week.
I’ve never actually seen Zwift in action, although interested and have been following your reports.
It seems like much of the realism is hampered by the fact that it was so dark at the time of your ride. OTOH, maybe Zwift actually looks more realistic when details can’t be seen.
Just got my Zwift setup with a KICKR yesterday and had a lot of fun on my first ride. I’m excited for real-world courses like this. If they plan on making these types of routes for real races part of the paid service (after beta), I’d certainly pay for it (if it’s a reasonable price of course).
The problem with Virtual Rides in Strava is that they don’t count for their “fitness and freshness” calculation, which makes it pretty pointless if you do a lot of indoor work during winter time.
This has always bugged me with other activities on Strava – I run one or two times a week and log it in Strava, but it doesn’t take it into account for Fitness/Freshness (I think Strava have been saying “coming soon” for this for over a year now).
This isn’t good for virtual rides though, as it will tempt people to log them as real world rides to get them recognised on their F&F stats which will lead to leaderboards filling up with virtual performances
If you like F&F more than segment data, you can switch activity type to Cycling and set “stationary trainer” as tag. This way, you lose all segment and KOM data, but F&F is calculated properly.
Using a Kickr+Tickr+RPM (all sensors BLE & ANT+), I run Zwift on my laptop (using ANT+ to connect to all sensors) and TrainerRoad on my phone (using BLE to connect to all sensors).
If you change in Zwift the “difficulty” setting to the lowest (called “none” I suppose), The phone with TrainerRoad will put the Kickr in ERG and control the power.
This works like a charm without any crashes since I started using this setup 4 weeks ago.
Sorry not clear on this trainerroad and zwift can work tougher I thought they where completely different apps what sense would it make to run them tougher?
With ANT+ sensors you could basically just be in broadcast mode to one or both suites, allowing you to record it in both places. If you wanted control, then I’d pair Zwift to the FE-C side (or basically to the trailer), while I’d do TR to the read only data streams.
Hi, I use ant+ on my PC running zwift, and I use Bluetooth on my iPhone running trainer road, my cadence sensor is BT and ant+ so I follow the structured workout on phone, and get the visuals from zwift, works ok. I have the iPhone strapped to bike with a ridecase.
How well does the strava information from your ride line up with the actual course? I’m going to Richmond to watch worlds and will be doing the “Conquer the Cobbles” event where you can ride on the course for 2 hours. Anything that the Richmond UCI website though doesnt allow you to really study the course.
I’ve used zwift a bunch of times early in the beta testing but got turned off because of all the shifting I had to do on my bike. I ride on my Kickr so I like how I can plug in a course through TrainerRoad and the resistance/power is controlled by the Kickr
Has it changed since I’ve used it? Is everyone still controlling resistance by down/up shifting through gears all the time? Or is there a way to change the settings so my Kickr can control and I don’t have to touch my gears?
I love the idea of zwift but it just became that I was grinding gears too much during the time with it
I have only used Zwift twice now, yesterday for the first time but can tell you that that has not changed.
What you are talking about is using ERG mode on the KICKR with Trainerroad which is perfect for specific targeted workouts where you want to keep the power output constant. I use that a lot as well but the whole point of zwift is to simulate riding a course in real life where mere mortals like ourselves would need to change gears. I enjoy this as its closer to reality than just pedalling at the same cadence in the same gear all day.
Apparently they are planning to release Workouts at some stage in the future, I presume this will make use of the ERG mode on the Kickr and will eliminate the need for shifting.
Since the early beta times a new feature is a resistance setting. It doesn’t make it easier, but it does trim out a lot of the shifting required to handle gradient changes. It is worth giving it another look.
Having tried some of the computrainer courses, I have to say I like what Zwift has done! It’s great to have some real scenery and landmarks.
Just wondering (because I haven’t used it), does the resistance change smoothly on Zwift? I found the computrainer would sometimes ramp it up like crazy at the bottom of a hill and it was l like hitting a wall. Not pleasant when my choice of terrain is crazy epic hills :)
I am also new to Zwift (and great timing to sign-up) and am using it with my computrainer. I was also hesitant for the same reason as you, the resistance when hitting the hills. With other various “courses” software, etc I also found it was sometimes quite difficult and was like “hitting a wall”.
I did a first test ride 2 days ago, and found that compared to others, the hill resistance was somewhat more realistic, and I was less left to grinding up real hard. So that sold me on it vs other options tested before.
Keep in mind however that I am a 200 lbs+ rider, and that’s reflected in the resistance also.
Combine this type of training software with a 1st person view via VR goggles like Oculus Rift and my attic will transform into Richmont / Mont Ventoux / Whatever. That will be massive and completely remove the boredom of sole cycling on the attic with my iPad in front.
DC, do you know whether there are any developments on that area?
Yeah, I’ve actually tried this before at the ANT+ Symposium using a trainer and the Bkool software (last year I believe and the year prior).
To be honest, it just makes you nearly fall off the bike. It’s one of those things that sounds good, but in execution is kinda wonky since you’re stuck in one spot (somewhat tediously).
Hi!
As I am planning to spend a lot of time on the saddle this winter but can’t afford to ride outside (bad weather, family schedule…), I am really looking to try out Zwift.
I have never owned a bike trainer before, do you have a post where you recommend bike trainers like you did for GPS watches ?
Has anyone else struggled with frame rate?
Can’t decide if my laptop can no longer keep pace or it is something inherantly wrong with Zwift but my frame rate had to be less than double figures in all settings.
hey this is great I used it already 2 times
My question is if I download it later manually into GC or tP I have no split time at all is there a way to get splits saved as you have in trainerroad?
I’m hoping you continue this trend! Love the virtual competition and would like to see this for the Tour de France!
Design a course that is 1/10th of the Tour and pick out the coolest parts or focus just on the most impressive parts. The Zwift world could have there own virtual yellow/white/green jerseys!
As I am still waiting for my new Tacx Neo to Ride Zwift and other 3rd Party Software, I did a little test today with my Cyclus2 and my Rotor Powermeter. I have downloaded the Richmond Track from Strava Segment and builded a loop from start to finish with GPS-Track-Analyse and duplicated that loop a couple of times. This file, I loaded in my Cyclus2 as a Route > starting this route on my Cyclus2 while riding over start/finish Line in Zwift in the hope to get a nice synced ride. Hope was there but it did not went that well. On the climbs and the pitch numbers I could see, that it did not aligned very well. I think this might be a matter of different waypoints in Zwift against the Strava export… :-( Only a test, suprisingly start/finsih line from loop to loop aligned pretty well…
I read on the Zwift Riders Facebook group that they are considering it. I know its not much, but better than no information I guess. Exact quote from developer (I think, at least someone from Zwift): “There are plans. Future plans. Future future plans. Nothing concrete yet.”
I’m pretty sure calling it a “non-sexy city” is far from a slam. Especially, because it’s a reality. But if you think that’s a slam, you’ve never been around these parts before…
Zwift Beta to end later this month, so we will all have to get or credit cards out….
Following received from ZWIFT this morning….”This month we’ll be ending our Beta period and moving to a monthly subscription model. How much will it cost? We’ll announce all the details soon, but what we can say is that it will run you less than a few lattes a month. And we love coffee.
To recognize all who participated in the Beta, you’ll receive an exclusive founding member virtual kit, so when you’re out riding in Watopia people will know you were there from the start.
Along with the subscription, we plan to introduce the beta version of our long awaited workout mode. We’ll also be announcing a cool partnership with the largest independent social network for athletes and a host of other exciting news.
Our #zwiftstory is just beginning and we’re excited you’re along for the journey. Together we’re changing the way people look at indoor cycling. It’s something we like to call the #zwifteffect.
Stay tuned, spread the word #GoZwift and Ride On.”
Personally I think the opposite if they have proper training features in there at the same time. I’m currently paying around £8 per month for Trainer Road, but if Zwift can also provide workout style features then I’ll cancel trainer road and stick with just using Zwift.
But I do agree that, once they start charging it becomes a different ball game than a free beta app. We start to expect something a little more than a single short loop to be done over and over.
Maybe this is a dumb question, but lets talk dumb vs smart trainers with Zwift. So, lets say I have a Kickr, Neo, or similar smart trainer with built in power meter that is automatically controlled by Zwift. Am I racing on the same online courses as people with ‘dumb’ trainers who have to change the resistance themselves to a very subjective value? How can the online races/leaderboards compare efforts from these two drastically different types of trainers? Can people with dumb trainers just put in an unrealistic offset and absolutely take over leaderboards all willy nilly? That would really ruin the overall appeal of these online racing formats. Is there any way to only race against ‘fair’ competition of other people with unadulterated smart trainers whose resistance is controlled via internal computer driven mechanisms that we can’t tamper with?
Or do I have a fundamentally completely wrong idea of how this whole thing works?
Hi, I use a dumb trainer (kinetic road machine) with a speed and cadence sensor. The power curve of the above is well understood and once calibrated with tyre pressure and resistance unit pressure I pretty much match my real world power, but if I were to reduce my tyre pressure or wind out my resistance unit, I could generate as many watts as jens+wiggo squared. So you will be relying on people being honest. Silly power outputs are flagged automatically and the riders are pulled by the zwift team, silly segment times are also removed. Obviously if I were to lap at 4.5w/kg up from my normal 3.3 then it would be hard to detect. There are some digital juicers on the island, but you have to be quite sad to cheat.
I have had problems with trainer doping also. I ride rollers, not a trainer. When I use my bike with a power meter it is not an issue. When I ride with my bike without a power meter, zwift gives me 400 watts when I am just soft pedalling. I once did a lap on watopia full gas and got all the KOMs and various jerseys. I then deleted the ride as it seemed ridiculous.
You can change the trainer type to rollers, but when I do that I can only max out at 100 virtual watts, it takes me 2 hours to do 1 lap
hi
I set up my Cycleops Mag trainer and have a Garmin combo speed & cadence sensor on my bike as well as a HR monitor. I connected the sensors with the ANT+ (mini) USB dongle to my macbook air without any issues. Zwift found all the sensors but the speed seemed to be way off (cadence and HR looked right). The speed was roughly 6 MPH regardless of the resistance—not sure what I am missing but if i pushed it it hover up to 8 MPH +/-. Please advise.
Hi, so your cadence is displaying correctly? Is your trainer on this list? link to support.zwift.com
Have you selected the correct trainer in settings? And select ‘zpower’ too?
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Amazing! I am wondering where this all is going to be in 10 years!
What is the difference with BKool System?
I think BKool is so real
Thx
I think Strava really missed the opportunity to make the virtual experience more compelling. Given all the features that don’t work with virtual rides and the fact that you can’t compare to real segments and leaderboards I suspect many people will just log their rides as regular rides instead.
In an ideal world, I would like the virtual leaderboards to include both virtual and real rides and use the same segments as the real world segments. This is what virtual riding on a real course is about, really, isn’t it? Otherwise I’d just as soon ride in a completely fictitious place.
This wouldn’t make any sense unless you could guarantee perfectly calibrated power meter equipment and environment. Even though it is roughly the same course, I’d be pretty upset if someone took my KOM on a trainer without real world weather, traffic and actual road surfaces, likely with a power meter that is off by more than a few percentage. There is no way to perfectly simulate all real world conditions accurately.
I’m not suggesting that the real leaderboards should have virtual rides in them. I completely understand why that’s not a good thing. I’m saying the virtual rides should have the real segments and real rides listed in them (but not vice-versa). I know how my equipment tracks to real life and it would be interesting for me to see where I would compare on the real-life leaderboards.
This would only affect virtual rides – the real ride leaderboards would stay clean. With the way Strava has set it up now, I suspect people are going to switch their virtual rides to real rides so they can see the real-world segments.
It is possible Strava is working on it. My guess is that trying to properly blend and handle real and virtual rides is in their current system is tricky. Probably not a scenario they initially designed the system for. The easiest initial solution is to have a separate virtual world of segments and leaderboards.
Also, Wahoo has the Segments app for KICKR that allows you to ride a real world segment and compare to your real world time.
With all the cool places to Ride in the world, and we have DOWNTOWN Richmond for the worlds, and closed roads as well? ugh!
Ah well. Good to see Swift doing something creative.
Ray, Any idea how the speed is determined? I’d imagine someone your size riding at 260 watts on flat ground (with what looked like little to no wind?) would be going faster than 17 mph.
In this case speed is transmitted direct from the trainer I had – the Neo.
One of the ‘challenges’ with Zwift is that the power is basically instant, so it’s often all over the map. I’d really think they’d do better with a 3-second smoothing on it. So it could have been in that case I was only going 213w a second before but just a slight shift in the pedal would have spiked it to 260w.
Which screenshot are you looking at? Zwift’s model is fairly accurate for me (except that it makes me a little more aerodynamic than in real life).
Note that Zwift does model momentum, so Ray could be accelerating at that point.
Hey Ray
I actually tried zwift for the first time today. Seems like I chose a good day. Was just wondering, you mention above that it tags rides in strava as virtual rides. Is this only if you let zwift upload it directly. I didn’t do this, I downloaded the fit and uploaded to garmin connect so that it would feed to trainingpeaks and strava. Seems to be adding me to real life leaderboards. I wonder if this is something they will look into.
Thanks a lot!
Luke
Correct, I just set it up with the automatic integration since it’s quicker/easier and just does it right at the end. I’m with you though, I really wish they’d get the TrainingPeaks connection up and running. It’s really not that hard – most other companies can do it between breakfast and lunch.
I believe you can still go in though afterwards and re-tag it as a virtual ride by changing the Activity Type.
Correct, I had the same issue, I tested Zwift before activating Strava Integration yesterday and then I uploaded manually to Strava (with the .fit file) and it showed as a real ride in Richmond. I was not aware of the “Virtual Ride” activity type thought, all fixed now. Thanks Ray! (When did Strava add the Virtual Ride activity? I feel I would have seen it before, was it for Zwift mainly?
Luke
They already have I received this email from Strava yesterday
Zwift has a new announcement
Hey Mick,
There’s a new announcement on the Zwift page:
We’re stoked to release our first real world course – the Richmond 2015 UCI Road World Championship loop the pros will ride later this month. We’re also using Strava’s new ‘virtual ride’ category so that rides in Zwift won’t effect real world leaderboards. For those of you that have linked your Strava account, this happens automagically. If you are still uploading your FIT files manually, be sure to change the Activity Type from ‘Cycling’ to ‘Virtual Ride’ when you do. Ride on!
Thanks Ray / Julio / Mick
Yeah, I didn’t know you could change the types of rides but it is far more interesting to compare segment times to people on zwift than people who have actually ridden it. So all sorted now. Its fairly safe to say that I will probably never end up in Richmond.
Hope they do get the Trainingpeaks integration up soon as that would make life easier (although its not really a hack, I’m just lazy) and like you say, its a pretty quick thing to do haha Don’t really care if its not in Garmin Connect.
I wonder if strava could automatically tag even manually uploaded rides from zwift as virtual rides, as presumably the GPS trace is the *exact* same for everyone, just with different time stamps? They should do that to keep the leaderboards “clean!”
300 notifications in strava? woah
Funny, I don’t think I’d ever clicked that button till you just said something about it.
I guess I just get e-mail notifications for comments into my inbox that I read/reply, and then for new follower notifications they go into some random e-mail folder.
Ohh, i’m itching to get my hands on the Neo….
I hope Tour de Giro works with it.
The graphics of Zwift are great, but I love mass start internet events…
Mass start events are on Zwift’s road map as well. In fact, there is a group of riders on Zwift that organize informal mass start events on Zwift. If you want to try racing on the Richmond course and can make the time slot, join us at 10:30 am PDT (17:30 UTC) tomorrow (Thursday). The logistics and racing mechanics are probably much clunkier than in TdG since Zwift has no specific race features, but the competition is fun. We had 26 riders start the race last week, should hopefully see a similar number with the excitement of the new course.
If you’re willing to put up with Facebook, check out the Zwift Riders group. There are 6 regularly scheduled training rides/races each week.
I’ve never actually seen Zwift in action, although interested and have been following your reports.
It seems like much of the realism is hampered by the fact that it was so dark at the time of your ride. OTOH, maybe Zwift actually looks more realistic when details can’t be seen.
Is Shane Miller (@gplama) permanently on Zwift?
Yes! We’ll as much as I can be. :)
*gammer. Argh. Trying to hide the fact I’m on DC Rainmaker while at work……. shhh…
Just got my Zwift setup with a KICKR yesterday and had a lot of fun on my first ride. I’m excited for real-world courses like this. If they plan on making these types of routes for real races part of the paid service (after beta), I’d certainly pay for it (if it’s a reasonable price of course).
The problem with Virtual Rides in Strava is that they don’t count for their “fitness and freshness” calculation, which makes it pretty pointless if you do a lot of indoor work during winter time.
This is just a bug which should get fixed by Strava as early as today.
This has always bugged me with other activities on Strava – I run one or two times a week and log it in Strava, but it doesn’t take it into account for Fitness/Freshness (I think Strava have been saying “coming soon” for this for over a year now).
This isn’t good for virtual rides though, as it will tempt people to log them as real world rides to get them recognised on their F&F stats which will lead to leaderboards filling up with virtual performances
If you like F&F more than segment data, you can switch activity type to Cycling and set “stationary trainer” as tag. This way, you lose all segment and KOM data, but F&F is calculated properly.
I can confirm that the FF fix for virtual rides is rolling out this morning. The chart will auto-correct (if that makes sense) so all should be fine.
Any tips on how to run Zwift and Trainerroad together?
Using a Kickr+Tickr+RPM (all sensors BLE & ANT+), I run Zwift on my laptop (using ANT+ to connect to all sensors) and TrainerRoad on my phone (using BLE to connect to all sensors).
If you change in Zwift the “difficulty” setting to the lowest (called “none” I suppose), The phone with TrainerRoad will put the Kickr in ERG and control the power.
This works like a charm without any crashes since I started using this setup 4 weeks ago.
Sorry not clear on this trainerroad and zwift can work tougher I thought they where completely different apps what sense would it make to run them tougher?
With ANT+ sensors you could basically just be in broadcast mode to one or both suites, allowing you to record it in both places. If you wanted control, then I’d pair Zwift to the FE-C side (or basically to the trailer), while I’d do TR to the read only data streams.
Hi, I use ant+ on my PC running zwift, and I use Bluetooth on my iPhone running trainer road, my cadence sensor is BT and ant+ so I follow the structured workout on phone, and get the visuals from zwift, works ok. I have the iPhone strapped to bike with a ridecase.
How well does the strava information from your ride line up with the actual course? I’m going to Richmond to watch worlds and will be doing the “Conquer the Cobbles” event where you can ride on the course for 2 hours. Anything that the Richmond UCI website though doesnt allow you to really study the course.
It should be precisely lined up.
I’ve used zwift a bunch of times early in the beta testing but got turned off because of all the shifting I had to do on my bike. I ride on my Kickr so I like how I can plug in a course through TrainerRoad and the resistance/power is controlled by the Kickr
Has it changed since I’ve used it? Is everyone still controlling resistance by down/up shifting through gears all the time? Or is there a way to change the settings so my Kickr can control and I don’t have to touch my gears?
I love the idea of zwift but it just became that I was grinding gears too much during the time with it
Hey JF
I have only used Zwift twice now, yesterday for the first time but can tell you that that has not changed.
What you are talking about is using ERG mode on the KICKR with Trainerroad which is perfect for specific targeted workouts where you want to keep the power output constant. I use that a lot as well but the whole point of zwift is to simulate riding a course in real life where mere mortals like ourselves would need to change gears. I enjoy this as its closer to reality than just pedalling at the same cadence in the same gear all day.
Apparently they are planning to release Workouts at some stage in the future, I presume this will make use of the ERG mode on the Kickr and will eliminate the need for shifting.
Since the early beta times a new feature is a resistance setting. It doesn’t make it easier, but it does trim out a lot of the shifting required to handle gradient changes. It is worth giving it another look.
I thought the whole point of using a smart-trainer like Kickr was that Zwift would control the resistance based on the course?
It does. If ones trainer isn’t, there’s something wrong with ones setup.
Having tried some of the computrainer courses, I have to say I like what Zwift has done! It’s great to have some real scenery and landmarks.
Just wondering (because I haven’t used it), does the resistance change smoothly on Zwift? I found the computrainer would sometimes ramp it up like crazy at the bottom of a hill and it was l like hitting a wall. Not pleasant when my choice of terrain is crazy epic hills :)
Kim,
I am also new to Zwift (and great timing to sign-up) and am using it with my computrainer. I was also hesitant for the same reason as you, the resistance when hitting the hills. With other various “courses” software, etc I also found it was sometimes quite difficult and was like “hitting a wall”.
I did a first test ride 2 days ago, and found that compared to others, the hill resistance was somewhat more realistic, and I was less left to grinding up real hard. So that sold me on it vs other options tested before.
Keep in mind however that I am a 200 lbs+ rider, and that’s reflected in the resistance also.
2 words:
Oculus
Rift
Combine this type of training software with a 1st person view via VR goggles like Oculus Rift and my attic will transform into Richmont / Mont Ventoux / Whatever. That will be massive and completely remove the boredom of sole cycling on the attic with my iPad in front.
DC, do you know whether there are any developments on that area?
Yeah, I’ve actually tried this before at the ANT+ Symposium using a trainer and the Bkool software (last year I believe and the year prior).
To be honest, it just makes you nearly fall off the bike. It’s one of those things that sounds good, but in execution is kinda wonky since you’re stuck in one spot (somewhat tediously).
VR goggles and wiping sweat?
Hi!
As I am planning to spend a lot of time on the saddle this winter but can’t afford to ride outside (bad weather, family schedule…), I am really looking to try out Zwift.
I have never owned a bike trainer before, do you have a post where you recommend bike trainers like you did for GPS watches ?
THank you
Frederic
Yup, I’ve got last years trainer post here: link to dcrainmaker.com
Expect a new one in early October as well for this year.
Hugh….how did I miss this one ????
Thanks a bunch, i will read that thoroughly and cant wait to start training with it!!
Frederic
Too bad Zwift still does not support systems with multiple GPUs. -_-
How does it compare to the Tacx RLVs Ray?
It’s different. Sorta like do you like chocolate or vanilla ice cream.
Has anyone else struggled with frame rate?
Can’t decide if my laptop can no longer keep pace or it is something inherantly wrong with Zwift but my frame rate had to be less than double figures in all settings.
I contacted ziwft support who pointed out my laptop was a bit out of date.
But I have to say they were really quick friendly and helpful. Couldn’t fault their customer service.
hey this is great I used it already 2 times
My question is if I download it later manually into GC or tP I have no split time at all is there a way to get splits saved as you have in trainerroad?
Zwift
I’m hoping you continue this trend! Love the virtual competition and would like to see this for the Tour de France!
Design a course that is 1/10th of the Tour and pick out the coolest parts or focus just on the most impressive parts. The Zwift world could have there own virtual yellow/white/green jerseys!
Fun times ahead!
oh yes, how awesome would it be to have the tour de france stages in zwift…
Has Zwift now incorporated the Tacx Neo as a smart trainer. Couldn’t see it when I last looked.
Yup, it’s covered under ANT+ FE-C trainers.
As I am still waiting for my new Tacx Neo to Ride Zwift and other 3rd Party Software, I did a little test today with my Cyclus2 and my Rotor Powermeter. I have downloaded the Richmond Track from Strava Segment and builded a loop from start to finish with GPS-Track-Analyse and duplicated that loop a couple of times. This file, I loaded in my Cyclus2 as a Route > starting this route on my Cyclus2 while riding over start/finish Line in Zwift in the hope to get a nice synced ride. Hope was there but it did not went that well. On the climbs and the pitch numbers I could see, that it did not aligned very well. I think this might be a matter of different waypoints in Zwift against the Strava export… :-( Only a test, suprisingly start/finsih line from loop to loop aligned pretty well…
Any idea if Zwift will be available on iOS so I can run it though an iPad? Tried asking Zwift directly but not had a reply.
I read on the Zwift Riders Facebook group that they are considering it. I know its not much, but better than no information I guess. Exact quote from developer (I think, at least someone from Zwift): “There are plans. Future plans. Future future plans. Nothing concrete yet.”
Is it possible to use Zwift with a classic trainer doing some workout? I mean, does it display some indications for gears, cadence, resistance….?
Sorry that you felt the need to slam Richmond in what was otherwise an interesting article.
I’m pretty sure calling it a “non-sexy city” is far from a slam. Especially, because it’s a reality. But if you think that’s a slam, you’ve never been around these parts before…
Zwift Beta to end later this month, so we will all have to get or credit cards out….
Following received from ZWIFT this morning….”This month we’ll be ending our Beta period and moving to a monthly subscription model. How much will it cost? We’ll announce all the details soon, but what we can say is that it will run you less than a few lattes a month. And we love coffee.
To recognize all who participated in the Beta, you’ll receive an exclusive founding member virtual kit, so when you’re out riding in Watopia people will know you were there from the start.
Along with the subscription, we plan to introduce the beta version of our long awaited workout mode. We’ll also be announcing a cool partnership with the largest independent social network for athletes and a host of other exciting news.
Our #zwiftstory is just beginning and we’re excited you’re along for the journey. Together we’re changing the way people look at indoor cycling. It’s something we like to call the #zwifteffect.
Stay tuned, spread the word #GoZwift and Ride On.”
Surely they have to release some new courses or something before moving to subscription. Not a lot for your money as it stands really.
Received the same email, not paying £12 a month for one course, I’ll just switch back to trainer road and watching Netflix.
Personally I think the opposite if they have proper training features in there at the same time. I’m currently paying around £8 per month for Trainer Road, but if Zwift can also provide workout style features then I’ll cancel trainer road and stick with just using Zwift.
But I do agree that, once they start charging it becomes a different ball game than a free beta app. We start to expect something a little more than a single short loop to be done over and over.
Zwift have announced on their facebook page that the monthly sub will be US$10 / GBP£8
Zwift vs. Bkool?
Maybe this is a dumb question, but lets talk dumb vs smart trainers with Zwift. So, lets say I have a Kickr, Neo, or similar smart trainer with built in power meter that is automatically controlled by Zwift. Am I racing on the same online courses as people with ‘dumb’ trainers who have to change the resistance themselves to a very subjective value? How can the online races/leaderboards compare efforts from these two drastically different types of trainers? Can people with dumb trainers just put in an unrealistic offset and absolutely take over leaderboards all willy nilly? That would really ruin the overall appeal of these online racing formats. Is there any way to only race against ‘fair’ competition of other people with unadulterated smart trainers whose resistance is controlled via internal computer driven mechanisms that we can’t tamper with?
Or do I have a fundamentally completely wrong idea of how this whole thing works?
Thanks!
Hi, I use a dumb trainer (kinetic road machine) with a speed and cadence sensor. The power curve of the above is well understood and once calibrated with tyre pressure and resistance unit pressure I pretty much match my real world power, but if I were to reduce my tyre pressure or wind out my resistance unit, I could generate as many watts as jens+wiggo squared. So you will be relying on people being honest. Silly power outputs are flagged automatically and the riders are pulled by the zwift team, silly segment times are also removed. Obviously if I were to lap at 4.5w/kg up from my normal 3.3 then it would be hard to detect. There are some digital juicers on the island, but you have to be quite sad to cheat.
I have had problems with trainer doping also. I ride rollers, not a trainer. When I use my bike with a power meter it is not an issue. When I ride with my bike without a power meter, zwift gives me 400 watts when I am just soft pedalling. I once did a lap on watopia full gas and got all the KOMs and various jerseys. I then deleted the ride as it seemed ridiculous.
You can change the trainer type to rollers, but when I do that I can only max out at 100 virtual watts, it takes me 2 hours to do 1 lap
hi
I set up my Cycleops Mag trainer and have a Garmin combo speed & cadence sensor on my bike as well as a HR monitor. I connected the sensors with the ANT+ (mini) USB dongle to my macbook air without any issues. Zwift found all the sensors but the speed seemed to be way off (cadence and HR looked right). The speed was roughly 6 MPH regardless of the resistance—not sure what I am missing but if i pushed it it hover up to 8 MPH +/-. Please advise.
Thanks.
Hi, so your cadence is displaying correctly? Is your trainer on this list? link to support.zwift.com
Have you selected the correct trainer in settings? And select ‘zpower’ too?