Zwift Price Increase

Ahh the Zwift price increase causing discussion on this forum too. Zwift really has most of what any cyclist is looking for in the winter (and for time poor in the summer).

You can ride training plans that although are a little 'cookie cut' will get a new or intermediate rider stronger over a few months. What is the cost of a personal coach to do the same job?

You can race, race and then race some more. All within a single monthy charge which is likely not as expensive as a single real life race entry (plus no travel expenses!).

If you just want to ride then it is there, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It fits in to your schedule. Flat routes, short climbs, middle distance climbs or long hauls up AdZ are all available.

I'll admit that i did not like it in beta. I also had a dumb trainer and no power meter so interaction was limited and put me off for a couple of years. However i now have a smart trainer, a power meter (so i can cross reference road & trainer efforts) and a gaming PC. I am a convert. Since becoming a dad 8 weeks ago time is also valuable to me, so a couple of hours on zwift instead of 4-5 hours out on the road is good for me.

In short, i think the value is very good when you add up the possibilities of the platform that are already available and if you use a little imagination to mix things up yourself.

Thanks Dave.  I think Zwift have a really good solution there for the riders as well as some nifty marketing opportunities like the Ride London and Innsbruck Worlds that they have already done.  Expand Watopia and add courses like New York for the novelty.

Now for them to sort out their 'flexible' training plans...

On world swap:

https://zwift.com/news/9309-mapchoice

It's been 9 months since I was on Zwift but on my genuinely rubbish and very old laptop, the graphics were more than good enough for my tastes.  If you're worried about a lack of realism on the leaves, the snow, or the fur on the squirrel, I'd suggest you're not working hard enough.

Zwift graphics may not be great compared to latest-gen games... but you also don't need a gaming PC for ~£1,500 to run it. Don't know about you, but I certainly don't want to invest even more after the pricey smart trainer.

I agree that Zwift graphics (while pretty enough) are pretty basic compared to high end PC and console games, but I really don't care less, they're more than good enough for purpose. I use Zwift pretty much exclusively for racing, and my focus is far more on what other users are doing than admiring higher definition textures etc. My recent laptop with a crappy graphics chip is able to run it perfectly well at 1080p. Without racing, I'd get pretty bored of Zwift pretty quickly, I think, group rides and structured training are far less fun.

World selection is apparently coming soon, but ultimately I think Zwift needs to improve the gameplay/experience side of things, which has remained pretty static for years over adding yet more worlds.

For the money, I usually do 2-3 races per week at about £1.50 a time, which seems decent enough value to me. It'll be a long while before the subscription cost exceeds the cost of my Neo (not a fair comparison, but I need both to take part).

Runners are probably a much larger market than riders, maybe they'll be subsidising us soon!

If you run a PC, then you can select which routes you want.     The Alpe D Zwift route is something like 8 miles to the start, a nice distance with a few rises to warm the legs before the ascent.  I have the Wahoo Climb so my bike raises the front forks to match angle of road.

I'm in the middle of a Zwift training plan at the moment but once finished at the end of the year, I'm not sure if I will continue unless course selection is added.  After doing the FTP builder I want to do some old fashioned training if the weather is bad e.g. get better at riding up hills by riding up hills.  Having the standard start points is also irritating - to get to a specific section sometimes takes far longer than a decent warm up.

The graphics look fine to me but then again, I'm not a big gamer and I run on AppleTV and iPad.

You can choose worlds (and default course for each) anytime you want using zwiftpref

https://zwifthacks.com/zwiftpref/

..so you could, if you wish, choose to always ride the Alpe du Zwift on Watopia with a one-time setup on that app. Rumour still has it that official world selection in the pipe-line at some point, and race / event organisers can already select which world they want to use regardless of the schedule.

Quit Zwift a while ago as spring arrived and I don't think I'll go back if they're still doing that stupid schedule thing. I want to climb, that's about it. Richmond and London were totally shit apart from their small sprint climbs.

May reinstall Bkool as apparently they have improved the interface which was always VERY annoying.

The graphics on all of these things are also crap really. Play a current gen game and compare to Zwift or Bkool, they look like mobile phone games

vs Zwift

I tried the week long trial in anticipation of a lot of indoor training this winter but won't pay for it.  I found the course schedule bizarre (I wanted to try riding a long climb and couldn't) and the NY course which was the only choice for most of the seven days was pretty dull.

If you have a smart trainer to give good immersion (a dumb trainer with Zwift is rubbish) and take advantage of the group activities I can see the value.  Otherwise it needs some more polish, there are cheaper options for indoor training that do what I need.

You're not a "supporter" you are a customer. They've merely been nice and given you a discount for the last 12 months.

It's either worth it to you or it's not. Everyone has different ideas of whether something is worth the asking price (cf. ceramic bearings, carbon wheels, Rapha etc) so it's an entirely individual choice. Is 43 pence per day really so steep?

That's a shame, Zwift will miss you.

Meanwhile I absolutely love it, cheap as chips for an excellent platform