‘Tis the Season for All New Zwift Features, Including Rewards for Ride Streaks
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As we enter the thick of the dark, cold months, Zwift is ready to keep athletes fulfilling their goals and setting new ones. The online cycling and training platform will be rolling out new features all the way until March, but this week they announced three features available now.
New Level Structure
Zwift has completely redesigned their cycling levels so that riders can move up the ranks faster and ride all the way to level 100 instead of stopping at level 60. The number of Experience Points (XP) needed to move to each level has been reduced so that Zwifters can progress through the game faster. And now, at each level, athletes will be rewarded with a new jersey, bike, or accessory to unlock.
If you’re already at level 60, you’ll still get to enjoy progressing through the levels, earning unlocks along the way, and moving up ranks faster.
Trevor Raab, Senior Photographer for Bicycling, said “Adding more levels is long overdue and should be welcome by anyone who has been sitting stagnant at level 60. Hopefully, there are some fun new unlockable items along the way.”
Ride Streaks
Everyone loves a streaker, right? As in, not missing a day of riding of course. Zwift is now motivating riders to go for a streak of their own, with excellent rewards to boot.
Ride at least two weeks in a row and Zwifters will get an extra bump in XP for the first two rides every week to level up faster.
For each of the first two Zwift rides of the first week of a streak, Zwifters will earn 300 XP. In the second week, riders will earn an additional 100 XP per ride for a total of 400 XP per ride. In week three, an extra 200 XP is available (500 total) for the first two rides. Keep the streak going beyond week three, and you’ll continue to earn 500 XP for every ride for as long as you can keep it going.
You can keep your streak going as long as you want—keep showing up and you’ll continue to be rewarded with faster progress through Zwift’s 100 levels.
“Ride streaks might add that little bit of extra motivation to hop on the trainer through the winter months,” Raab says of this update. “It was smart to keep the streak from being a daily streak because riding Zwift seven days a week I wouldn’t recommend for anyone long term.”
Climb Portal Updates
Since launching in July, the Climb Portal has become one of Zwift’s most popular features, challenging cyclists to tackle virtual versions of real-world climbs and conferring a sense of accomplishment at each summit.
Zwifters can now choose from different versions of the climbs—a GPS-accurate 100 percent version, or easier 50 percent and 75 percent versions. Once you’ve climbed the 100 percent version, you’ll unlock the heroic 125 percent version.
Try all four versions for the ultimate climbing challenge. Each version of the climb will have its own leaderboard and will show Zwifters what percentile of climbers they’re in—providing motivation to try the climbs multiple times.
Riders can use a HoloReplay to push even harder to be rewarded with progress up the leaderboard.
Note that the 50, 75, and 125 percent versions of the climbs will not appear on Strava leaderboards. Zwift will continue to offer a Climb of the Month in the France Climb Portal and a rotating selection of climbs in the Watopia Portal. You can see a schedule of climbs here.
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