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Xert, FasCat, Join.CC: Zwift Integration Has Arrived (& TrainerRoad teased)

Today Zwift announced a new expansion that includes a throwback to the days of the original Jarvis Island, the very first ~5km route where Zwift began. Though, this new road expansion adds that original pavement plus 6 new routes, including a grand unveiling that occurs the first time you ride the route, akin to an Indiana Jones stage show at Disneyland. All of which is cool (I gave it a ride, Zwift Jarvis that is), and I’m sure there will be a ton of coverage of that from GPLAMA, DesFit, and many others you can go watch.

See, neat, huh?

Here are a few other screenshots from my ride.

But again, hit up the various folks above for a deeper look at the new pavement.

New Workout API Integration:

Now, as the astute among you observed, the new Zwift roads are not the title of this post. Instead, the past few weeks have been busy for Zwift’s new structured workout API that lets 3rd party platforms push structured workouts to Zwift in mostly the same way that TrainingPeaks has been doing for 7 years. I say ‘mostly’, because behind the scenes, the code is different, but from a consumer standpoint, the end result is pretty darn similar. The core difference for consumers is that it’s very fast to update, letting platforms with fancier algorithms (or, what they market as AI), push workouts more dynamically.

Zwift announced this effort back in the spring, and obviously it got off to a much slower start than they anticipated – with basically just TriDot on it, till the last few weeks. That was no fault of everyone else, who were put into a holding pattern by Zwift while they worked through technology issues. But the last three weeks we’ve seen:

Xert launch: October 20th
FasCat launch: November 11th
Join launch: November 12th (today)

All three of these are notable in that they are all pushing far more dynamic workouts than TrainingPeaks has historically done. Specifically, all three push dynamically generated or customized workouts on the fly, based on your previous rides. Thus if you go out for a crazy hard unplanned ride the night before, all three platforms in some capacity might change the next day’s workout to account for that. And now, with the new API, you can execute those last-second changed workouts on the fly.

To demonstrate how a bit of this works, we’ll take a look at Xert, since I’ve long had an account there. In this case, you’ll go into the ‘Sync’ menu to add Zwift as a partner:

Xert Zwift1.

Zwift will confirm your relationship status with Xert:

Xert Zwift2.

And then you’ll see the new settings panel in Xert:

Now, in this case, if I select to AutoGen a workout for today, based on my ride history/profile and my ‘Continuous’ option in the settings (meaning, just keep making me faster without a specific race goal in mind), here’s what it spits out:

Xert Zwift4.

Within 3 seconds, that shows up in Zwift (despite already having Zwift open). Literally faster than I can switch back into Zwift. Also note that it’s included the FTP value from Xert (285w), versus my current Zwift FTP being set as 294w. That’s a very minor sounding update, but is something that is a big deal for all of these platforms that are constantly updating your FTP (and thus the power zones), for your structured workouts. If it had just used my Zwift FTP, then there would be a disconnect (and likely a much larger disconnect for most people who never update).

Had there been a set Xert scheduled workout, it too would have been automatically available in Zwift when I opened Zwift, without ever opening Xert.

Xert Zwift5.

Note that Zwift won’t update your existing FTP value to the Xert one, which might matter if you’re doing other workouts in Zwift that aren’t Xert-based.

Now, once you’re ready to go, you just tappity tap the route you want, and your Xert workout will appear just as any other Zwift workout:

Xert Zwift6.

The one thing that isn’t in Zwift, is the dynamically changing smart workouts that Xert has, whereby it’ll adjust the workout as you go through it. For those, you’ll still need to use the Xert platform directly. But otherwise, everything is pretty straightforward.

At the completion of your workout, it’ll sync from Zwift back to Xert your completed workout file, in the exact same way it syncs other platforms today.

All of this is essentially the exact same process/methodology for each of the other platforms that have signed onto Zwift’s training API. After all, that’s kinda the point: Having a structured way that partners can connect to Zwift and push workouts to it in a known and repeatable manner.

TrainerRoad Upcoming:

TrainerRoad Strava.

Of course, as cool as all these platforms above are, the simple reality is that the singular thing people keep screaming is: Cool, but what about TrainerRoad?

Like the other platforms, they too have been waiting on Zwift. But that train has finally started to board passengers and is getting ready to leave the station. CEO Nate Pearson published one of his Zwift rides, specifically noting the TrainerRoad workouts being automatically selected and pushed to his Zwift account (“Baxter -2” is the name of a relatively famous TrainerRoad workout):

TrainerRoad Strava2.

While there aren’t any exact dates yet, in his comments, Nate says “ASAP”. Admittedly, that doesn’t give us a ton of context. After all, Zwift’s CEO said “SOON” as well, back in April. And we were all collectively told “SOON!!!!” to everyone having flying cars when we were growing up. Regrettably, none of this has happened.

That said, it sounds like Zwift has opened the doors a bit to allow these companies to now move as fast as they want, versus Zwift previously having a bit of a speed limiter onboarding partners to ensure the kinks were worked out (starting with smaller ones before going to bigger ones). That said, if TrainerRoad is just at the beginning of those Zwift opening those gates to them, it could be some time before we see it go live.

Thus hopefully, with those brakes removed, we’re now talking more of a ‘eggs gonna expire’ soon, rather than flying cars soon. With that – thanks for reading!

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33 Comments

  1. JimL

    What? Nate riding Baxter? (Admittedly one of my favorite daily groups of workouts, too)

  2. Marc

    Exciting update. The Zwift integration was enough to make me sign up for FasCat again; game changer for me during off season.

  3. Alex

    I don’t get the appeal of this integration. If I can do the workout on TrainerRoad, Xert, etc. why would I pay another subscription and double the costs?

    Do people really care that much about the gamification/social part of Zwift?

    • Indeed, a *LOT* of people care about that (which, setting Peloton aside, is why they’re the biggest platform out there by far).

    • Alex

      Yes, they are the biggest platform but in my case, when I’m doing a structured workout (which is 99% of my indoor rides) I really don’t care if i’m looking at some blue bars in TR… All I want is the training to be effective.

      But if people are willing to pay another subscription on top of the one they are already paying, well… good for Zwift :)

    • Ar

      Mentally workouts are easier when you see the finish coming closer than when you are waiting for the timer to count down

    • Pavel Vishniakov

      Yes. I don’t have enough space or enough outlets to have a second screen with some entertainment media and looking at the workout structure graph all the time gets boring too soon. Looking at the Zwift scenery, people passing by and the random banter helps to make indoor cycling more enjoyable and less boring for me. I’ve tried less “social” indoor cycling apps and they didn’t stick – despite the solid training they always felt like work and there’s only so many times I can convince myself that “this is for the greater good”.

    • Andy

      I believe so. It’s the only reason I use a training peaks plan vs trainer road. I enjoy the platform and it makes training for me a lot more fun. I’m looking forward to using trainer road’s adaptive training once there is integration.

    • Andy

      Ha ha. I’m not the only one then, that loves riding under the ring to finish an interval!

    • Matthias

      Yes. I am sick of having to bring my ipad for TR, phone for music and gaming PC for Zwift…. 😜

    • Fabrice

      YES, 100% !!! The fact to ride your custom workout in Zwift (with others around you) makes it so much more enjoyable and for me personally, much more motivating.

  4. Gabriel

    Nice, but all that matter is to have Intervals.Icu on this train, too.

  5. I notice that Xert’s “connect with Zwift” screen has an activity type dropdown with cycling selected. Does it also send running workouts to Zwift? (If so, I hope TrainerRoad does that as well.)

  6. Russell

    Any idea if Zwift is going to update its workout players UI? It’s pretty dated at this point and a lot of TR’s workouts have a lot of steps and that box on the left (as shown in Baxter) is going to get pretty crowded.

  7. Alberto

    Any thoughts of the “Strava competition” of Outside online?

    • Hmm, not familiar with it?

    • Alberto

      Outside just launched an online hub to “Keep the vibe high by sharing adventure with your buddies in the activity feed, part of our new social platform across the Outside Network. Leave doomscrolling behind and easily sync activities to the feed with hundreds of compatible devices and apps including MapMyRun, Garmin, Suunto, and Wahoo.”

    • Paul S.

      It’s been going for a little while now. When I visit Velo, in my article feed I also see whatever rides I have done recently. It says the source is Trailforks (didn’t Outside buy them like they did VeloNews?), one of the places Garmin Connect (or maybe Strava) forwards my rides. I don’t remember opting in, but I may have.

  8. Pavel Vishniakov

    Given that there’s an existing integration between Zwift and Garmin (to push Zwift rides back to Garmin), I hope this API will be added as well and I will be able to do workouts from Garmin Connect on Zwift without having to duplicate them manually.

  9. Eric

    @Ray Maker
    Speaking of “SOON” any idea when the Jet Black Victory full review is coming out…. :)

  10. James Eastwood

    I can’t speak to the other platforms, but there was mention of TrainingPeaks at the start not being able to do this…

    That’s true in terms of Training Peaks suggested workouts (which isn’t a thing, as they rely on coaches), *but* it does act as a middle man for many other services. For example, it’s been possible to get your daily suggested Join workout into both Zwift and TrainingPeaks Virtual (indieVelo) for years.

  11. Looks like TrainerRoad’s integration is coming in January: link to trainerroad.com

  12. Lars

    Have you ever done a comparison of the coaching apps available now? I remember you did a review of Xert, but shouldn’t there be a breakdown of the differences between the platforms somewhere?

    If Join.cc can keep their promise of +20% ftp, I would soon be on my way to Team Ineos…

  13. Fabrice

    Thank for sharing your thoughts about these steps forward done by Zwift to let other players in the “workout training apps business” in.
    But eventually, which one would you recommend the most as a “smart” and adaptive workout app or platform?