surfin safari zwift

Surfin' Safari

• 9.8km   ( + 197m )
• 43m   ( + 0m )
• Upcoming Events

No events on this route today.

No segments on this route.

What's on Zwift ?

Watopia routes, watopia segments.

11.1 Ocean Blvd

10.47 km | 48 m ascent Difficulty: 2/5

5 km | 31 m ascent 200 XP

Accelerate to Elevate

41.27 km | 1152 m ascent 825 XP | Difficulty: 3/5 Level 10+

Beach Island Loop

12.78 km | 49 m ascent 255 XP | Difficulty: 1/5

29.21 km | 103 m ascent 580 XP | Difficulty: 2/5

Big Foot Hills

67.59 km | 708 m ascent 1340 XP | Difficulty: 4/5

42.6 km | 662 m ascent 840 XP | Difficulty: 4/5 Level 5+

Big Loop Reverse

42.6 km | 662 m ascent Difficulty: 4/5 Level 5+ | Event only

Bigger Loop

53.2 km | 691 m ascent 1060 XP | Difficulty: 4/5 Level 5+

Canopies and Coastlines

22.61 km | 124 m ascent 444 XP | Difficulty: 2/5 Level 10+

Chili Pepper

7.96 km | 48 m ascent Difficulty: 2/5

Chili Pepper Reverse

7.35 km | 47 m ascent Difficulty: 2/5 Event only

Climb Portal - Volcano

7.2 km | 20 m ascent 80 XP | Difficulty: 1/5

Climber's Gambit

27.82 km | 671 m ascent 600 XP | Difficulty: 4/5

Coast Crusher

34.25 km | 172 m ascent 684 XP | Difficulty: 3/5 Level 10+

Coastal Crown Loop

15.07 km | 185 m ascent 300 XP | Difficulty: 2/5 Level 10+

Downtown Titans

24.65 km | 292 m ascent 490 XP | Difficulty: 3/5

Dust In The Wind

52.11 km | 583 m ascent 1080 XP | Difficulty: 3.5/5 Level 6+

Eastern Eight

51.68 km | 407 m ascent 1345 XP | Difficulty: 3/5

Elevation Evaluation

24.62 km | 396 m ascent 490 XP | Difficulty: 5/5 Level 10+

29.7 km | 254 m ascent 580 XP | Difficulty: 2.5/5

Figure 8 Reverse

10.27 km | 61 m ascent 200 XP | Difficulty: 1/5

Flat Route Reverse

10.27 km | 61 m ascent Difficulty: 1/5 Level 5+ | Event only

Four Horsemen

89.79 km | 2109 m ascent 1780 XP | Difficulty: 5/5 Level 6+

Glyph Heights

25.4 km | 537 m ascent 510 XP | Difficulty: 3/5 Level 10+

Going Coastal

16.39 km | 63 m ascent 308 XP | Difficulty: 1/5 Level 10+

Handful Of Gravel

6.13 km | 75 m ascent Difficulty: 1/5 Event only

Handful of Gravel Run

Hilly Route

9.19 km | 109 m ascent 180 XP | Difficulty: 1.5/5

Hilly Route Reverse

9.19 km | 109 m ascent 180 XP | Difficulty: 1.5/5 Event only

Italian Villas Circuit

1.94 km | 15 m ascent Difficulty: 1/5 Event only

Itza Climb Finish

30.09 km | 290 m ascent 600 XP | Difficulty: 3/5 Level 10+ | Event only

45.75 km | 506 m ascent 920 XP | Difficulty: 2/5 Level 10+ | Event only

Jon's Route

12.5 km | 59 m ascent 500 XP

Jungle Circuit

7.86 km | 83 m ascent 260 XP | Difficulty: 1.5/5 Level 5+

Jungle Circuit Reverse

7.86 km | 83 m ascent Difficulty: 1.5/5 Level 5+ | Event only

Jurassic Coast

19.32 km | 212 m ascent 386 XP | Difficulty: 2/5 Level 10+

Legends and Lava

24.51 km | 352 m ascent 490 XP | Difficulty: 3/5

Loop de Loop

12.42 km | 144 m ascent 246 XP | Difficulty: 2/5

412 m | 0 m ascent Difficulty: 2/5

23.07 km | 241 m ascent 460 XP | Difficulty: 2/5 Level 10+ | Event only

Mayan Bridge Loop

5.27 km | 48 m ascent 105 XP | Difficulty: 1.5/5

34.62 km | 755 m ascent 700 XP | Difficulty: 4/5 Level 10+

Mayan San Remo

21.09 km | 217 m ascent 420 XP | Difficulty: 2/5 Level 10+ | Event only

32.26 km | 691 m ascent 640 XP | Difficulty: 4/5

Mountain Mash

5.79 km | 335 m ascent 116 XP | Difficulty: 3/5

Mountain Route

29.72 km | 683 m ascent 580 XP | Difficulty: 4/5

Muir And The Mountain

34.14 km | 792 m ascent 680 XP | Difficulty: 4/5

63.86 km | 417 m ascent 1280 XP | Difficulty: 3/5 Level 10+ | Event only

Ocean Lava Cliffside Loop

19.05 km | 156 m ascent 380 XP | Difficulty: 2/5

7.89 km | 306 m ascent 160 XP | Difficulty: 5/5 Level 10+

Out And Back Again

39.9 km | 328 m ascent 840 XP | Difficulty: 3/5

Peak Performance

45.82 km | 726 m ascent 920 XP | Difficulty: 5/5 Level 10+

Power to the Tower

44.7 km | 1493 m ascent 900 XP | Difficulty: 5/5 Level 10+ | Event only

Quatch Quest

46.47 km | 1706 m ascent 920 XP | Difficulty: 5/5 Level 6+

Radio Rendezvous

20.52 km | 736 m ascent 410 XP | Difficulty: 5/5 Level 10+ | Event only

Repack Rush

2.78 km | 28 m ascent 56 XP | Difficulty: 2/5

Road to Ruins

29.65 km | 275 m ascent 580 XP | Difficulty: 2.5/5 Level 5+

Road To Ruins Reverse

29.65 km | 275 m ascent Difficulty: 2.5/5 Level 5+ | Event only

Road to Sky

17.5 km | 1046 m ascent 380 XP | Difficulty: 4.5/5 Level 6+

Run Path Reverse

5 km | 31 m ascent Difficulty: 2/5 Event only

Sand And Sequoias

20.15 km | 175 m ascent 400 XP | Difficulty: 2/5

Seaside Sprint

6.29 km | 47 m ascent Difficulty: 1/5 Event only

Serpentine 8

19.26 km | 206 m ascent 385 XP | Difficulty: 2/5

Shorelines and Summits

46.19 km | 772 m ascent 924 XP | Difficulty: 3/5 Level 10+

44.04 km | 578 m ascent 880 XP | Difficulty: 4/5 Level 10+

Spiral into the Volcano

55.63 km | 355 m ascent 1112 XP | Difficulty: 3/5

Splash and Dash

6.03 km | 26 m ascent Difficulty: 1/5 Event only

Sugar Cookie

33.55 km | 250 m ascent 660 XP | Difficulty: 2/5 Level 10+

Surfin' Safari

9.77 km | 43 m ascent 195 XP | Difficulty: 1/5

Temple Trek

6.51 km | 25 m ascent 128 XP | Difficulty: 1/5 Level 10+

Tempus Fugit

17.23 km | 26 m ascent 380 XP | Difficulty: 1/5

That's Amore

6.44 km | 55 m ascent Difficulty: 2/5

That's Amore Reverse

5.83 km | 54 m ascent Difficulty: 2/5 Event only

The Big Ring

48.87 km | 268 m ascent 977 XP | Difficulty: 3/5 Level 10+

The Magnificent 8

28.93 km | 155 m ascent Difficulty: 2/5 Event only

The Mega Pretzel

107.27 km | 1638 m ascent 2140 XP | Difficulty: 5/5 Level 5+

The Pretzel

72.54 km | 1361 m ascent 1440 XP | Difficulty: 5/5

The Uber Pretzel

128.3 km | 2380 m ascent 2560 XP | Difficulty: 5/5 Level 6+

Three Little Sisters

37.74 km | 435 m ascent 755 XP | Difficulty: 3/5

Three Sisters

48.01 km | 896 m ascent 950 XP | Difficulty: 4.5/5

Three Sisters Reverse

45.69 km | 883 m ascent Difficulty: 4.5/5 Level 5+ | Event only

16.86 km | 53 m ascent 380 XP | Difficulty: 1/5

Tides and Temples

36.47 km | 460 m ascent 730 XP | Difficulty: 3/5 Level 10+

Tour of Fire and Ice

25.36 km | 1164 m ascent 500 XP | Difficulty: 4.5/5 Level 6+

Triple Flat Loops

33.98 km | 157 m ascent 680 XP | Difficulty: 2.5/5

Two Bridges Loop

7.11 km | 81 m ascent 140 XP | Difficulty: 1/5

Volcano Circuit

4.1 km | 20 m ascent 80 XP | Difficulty: 1/5

Volcano Circuit CCW

Volcano Climb

22.86 km | 203 m ascent 460 XP | Difficulty: 2/5

Volcano Climb After Party

39.85 km | 285 m ascent Difficulty: 2.5/5 Event only

Volcano Flat

12.35 km | 50 m ascent 240 XP | Difficulty: 1/5

Volcano Flat Reverse

12.35 km | 50 m ascent Difficulty: 1/5 Level 5+ | Event only

Watopia's Waistband

25.46 km | 95 m ascent 555 XP | Difficulty: 3/5

WBR Climbing Series

43.21 km | 1116 m ascent Difficulty: 4.5/5 Event only

Whole Lotta Lava

12.29 km | 161 m ascent 240 XP | Difficulty: 2/5

Zwift Bambino Fondo

51.89 km | 580 m ascent Difficulty: 3.5/5 Level 5+ | Event only

Zwift Bambino Fondo 2022

52.96 km | 397 m ascent Event only

Zwift Games 2024 Epic

79.73 km | 822 m ascent 1590 XP | Difficulty: 4/5 Level 10+

Zwift Gran Fondo

97.51 km | 1196 m ascent Difficulty: 5/5 Level 5+ | Event only

Zwift Gran Fondo 2022

92.47 km | 1116 m ascent Event only

Zwift Medio Fondo

72.51 km | 1010 m ascent Difficulty: 4.5/5 Level 5+ | Event only

Zwift Medio Fondo 2022

79.02 km | 922 m ascent Event only

Acropolis Sprint

Sprint | Forward 450 m | 0.7%

Sprint | Reverse 450 m | -1.1%

Alpe du Zwift

Climb | Forward 12.44 km | 8.5%

Epic KOM / Epic QOM

Climb | Forward 9.49 km | 4%

Climb | Reverse 6.27 km | 6.3%

Fuego Flats

Sprint | Forward 496 m

Fuego Flats Reverse

Segment | Reverse 7.1 km

Segment | Forward 9.01 km

Segment | Reverse 9.01 km

Climb | Forward 3.75 km | 2%

Jungle Loop

Segment | Forward 7.8 km

Segment | Reverse 7.8 km

Mayan Mountainside KOM

Climb | Forward 2 km | 3.1%

Radio Tower KOM

Climb | Forward 1.2 km | 12.9%

Sasquatch Sprint

Sprint | Forward 350 m | 0.3%

Sprint | Reverse 350 m | 0.9%

Sprint | Forward 360 m

Sprint | Reverse 200 m

Stoneway Sprint

Sprint | Forward 400 m | 0.8%

Sprint | Reverse 400 m | 0.4%

Climb | Forward 3.58 km | 8.7%

Sprint | Reverse 61 m | 0.3%

Titans Grove KOM / Titans Grove QOM

Climb | Forward 2.59 km | 2.2%

Titans Grove KOM Reverse / Titans Grove QOM Reverse

Climb | Reverse 897 m | 4.3%

Segment | Forward 4.2 km

Segment | Reverse 4.2 km

Volcano KOM / Volcano QOM

Climb | Forward 3.75 km | 3.2%

Woodland Sprint

Sprint | Forward 500 m | -2.2%

Sprint | Reverse 500 m | -1.6%

Zwift KOM / Zwift QOM

Climb | Forward 913 m | 5.6%

Climb | Reverse 2.49 km | 1.8%

Frequently asked questions

Faq: what do the coloured areas overlapping the elevation profile mean.

Segments along the route are coloured along the height profile. Climbs are indicated with red, sprints with green and other segments (e.g. laps or timed segments) with blue.

FAQ: What do the climb categories , , , and mean?

Climbs are categorized based on how tough they are, which depends both on the climb's length and its average incline. The toughest climbs are rated (HC comes from Hors Catégorie, which is French for beyond categorization). Less tough climbs are rated as category , less tough climbs than those are rated as , and onwards with and . Any climb less tough than category four does not get a rating.

FAQ: How can I ride/run on an event only route?

By joining an event you can get into event only worlds and routes. Don't want to join an event or don't see an event with your desired world/route? Use the Zwift Companion app to create a meetup or (for even more choice of worlds and routes) create a club and then an event.

Game Update 1.32 [December 2022]

Hi Zwifters, Zwift game version 1.32 is ready to download for all OS platforms.

Resolved camera issues when changing camera views in Makuri Islands and when joining a RoboPacer. Additionally, some screenshot bugs have been resolved.

Sending the sound slider to 0 in game will now correctly turn off game sounds. Although, we all know the Zwift game music is a jam.

Ambient sounds in New York and Innsbruck are now at the expected sound levels.

Five event-only routes have been made public with new route badges: La Reine, Gotham Grind, Watopia’s Waistband, Richmond UCI Reverse, and Surfin’ Safari

AppleTV only:

• AppleTV 4k (3rd generation) device resolution will mirror the resolution of other AppleTV devices.
• Game no longer shows in portrait mode when allowing Health Data access.

Android only:

• The new home screen is now on most android devices.

UPDATE v 1.32.1 for all platforms December 15

We’ve addressed a few bugs with the 1.32.1 patch:

• Changes were made to reduce crashes when loading Makuri Islands on Windows devices.
• Fixed a bug where custom workouts didn’t display in some instances.
• Zwifters will now only receive a challenge banner when successfully completing a challenge and unlocking the challenge item.
• Zwifters are also now correctly awarded challenge unlocks in their garage once completing a challenge.

Any questions about this release? Ask here!

Not on my phone - Moto G 5G Plus

me either, but I never use my phone to Zwift.

Galaxy S21 Ultra 5G Android 13

PD4 with this one?

Any update for the issue where zwift wont adjust power and terrain after latest wahoo kickr firmware-v4-21?

no, see Flints competition update thread

Pack Dynamics 4 is still under development. It’s enabled only in test events for now. See this thread for details .

For the Apple TV - does this resolution update mean an UPGRADE or DOWNGRADE ?? I have my first Apple TV 4k Model A2169 - (my previous Apple TV is A1469). I’m hoping this Zwift update is an improvement, although it would be nice if Zwift was actually 4k so we could fully enjoy our 4k devices

Mine is on the new Home screen, Android 11 One plus 6T

did you download the new App from the app store?

This is an update to the resolution for the 2022 ATV4K to match that of the previous two generations at 1080p. When it was released, Zwift didn’t recognize it, so it downgraded the resolution a bit for that device. They did the same thing with the gen 2 ATV4K.

yes, 1.32.1 Shooj said it was on “most” androids, so I guess just not for me yet… not that it matters.

Fonts tweaked again.

Apparently they are working on a rewrite to take advantage of the new processing power of the 2022 version of ATV 4K, but doesn’t look like that’s ready in this release.

Confirmed: on AppleTV4k (2022), getting snap-happy with the Companion App screenshot button does not crash the game on reaching screenshot #20 . Tested to 51 (!) screenshots, no crash.

No difference. You’ve got the 2021 ATV, not the new 2022 model.

Latest IOS devices are still on the 1080p profile so I doubt you will see any graphical update on the new ATV which has the same hardware as an iPhone 13 which still uses this profile.

New home screen looks great on the Pixel 4a 5G (Android 13)

I have 4 android devices from Samsung:

• S8 Mobile Phone (quite ancient but working well)
• Note 9 Mobile Phone (My travelling device)
• Tab S3 (really ancient but still kicking)
• Tab S5e (My travelling device)

All showing the new UI menu, no display scaling available, and using touch funciton to scroll around for navigation and click on selected items as expected.

• Create Zwift Account
• How To Get Started On Zwift
• Zwift Course Maps
• How to Race on Zwift (Setup, Strategy, and More)
• Women’s Racing on Zwift
• Links Every Zwifter Must Have
• More “Get Started” Posts
• Training & Nutrition
• Zwift Hacks
• How Zwift Works
• Course Calendar
• RoboPacer Calendar
• Climb Portal Calendar
• Upcoming Events

Game Updates

• Top Wheel-On Trainers
• Top Direct-Drive
• Top Direct-Drive >$900
• Exhaustive Trainer List
• XP Basics for Riders
• XP Basics for Runners
• Kit Unlock Codes
• Master List of Badges
• Frames & Wheels
• Master List: Routes
• Master List: Climb Portal
• Master List: KOMs
• Master List: Sprints
• Master List: Rebel Routes
• Downloadable Watopia Map
• Speed Tests
• Race Calendar
• Women’s Teams
• Racer Spotlights
• More Women’s Racing posts
• Watopia Map and Other Posters
• ZI Indoor Cycling Kit

Zwift Year in Review 2022

On a global scale 2022 began tamely enough, but it turned into quite a ride. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine put the world on edge, and inflation spikes made people more budget conscious than ever before. Post-Covid logistics issues resulted in business challenges in the cycling and indoor training space, leading to job loss, price cuts, and in some cases bankruptcies and buyouts.

It wasn’t a pretty year. But amidst all of that, Zwifters continued to ride and run our favorite virtual roads, while Zwift kept rolling out updates.

Was 2022 everything we’d hoped for on Zwift? Of course not, because we always want more than Zwift delivers. That’s just part of being a Zwifter; we never get enough new roads, racing improvements, or new shiny features.

But Zwift made some major internal changes this year, implemented a pile of welcome improvements in the platform, and emerged from 2022 a leaner, more focused organization. That bodes well for 2023.

This is our look back at all things Zwift for 2022. Enjoy the ride!

New Roads and Routes

While Zwift still isn’t creating fresh roads as fast as most Zwifters would like, they’re still giving us new routes on existing roads from time to time. Toward the end of the year, they threw us a bone and released the new Urukazi section of Makuri Islands – the only “fresh pavement” released in 2022. Here’s a list of new routes added to the game, by month:

• Castle to Castle
• Twilight Harbor
• Chasing the Sun
• Electric Loop

April (Rebel Routes added for Tour of Watopia )

• Downtown Titans  
• Eastern Eight 
• Three Little Sisters
• Triple Flat Loops  
• Mayan Bridge Loop  

May (run-only routes)

• Surfin’ Safari
• Splash and Dash
• Continental Qualifiers for the 2023 UCI Cycling Esports World Championships

November (Urukazi launch)

• Bridges and Boardwalks
• Country to Coastal
• Fine and Sandy
• Island Hopper
• Island Outskirts
• Mech Isle Loop
• Turf N Surf

Also worth noting, in August Zwift finally made Innsbruck’s Leg Snapper into an official segment.

That’s a total of 20 routes added in 2022. By comparison, 26 routes were added in 2021, 19 in 2020, and 34 in 2019.

Looking for a complete list of Zwift routes? Check out our Master List of All Zwift Routes .

Major Events

In 2022 we didn’t see Zwift rolling out major new community events. Instead, they largely built on previous years’ successes, attempting to improve what was already proven to work in marquee events like the Tour of Watopia , the Zwift Classics , Zwift Fondos , Zwift Academies, and more.

The one notable exception is the Zwift Grand Prix – a new elite racing format Zwift launched to replace the ZRL-linked “Premier League”. In what must surely be a sign of things to come, this event series saw Zwift experimenting with many fresh, uniquely-esports race formats.

WTRL’s Zwift Racing League continued to grow in popularity as the biggest race league in Zwift, while Zwift’s monthly ZRacing series ( see the current series here ) launched and become a welcome fixture on the calendar with its monthly GC and smart rotation of routes.

On the community side organizers continue hosting amazing races week in and week out. This includes our own Zwift Insider Tiny Races which have proven very popular since launching in July!

We won’t list all of Zwift’s major events for 2022 here, but you can certainly browse the events archive to see what we highlighted throughout the year.

Restructuring

In May, Zwift announced a major restructuring and refocus of the organization. This included a pause on their smart trainer plans as well as a reduction of their ~700-employee workforce by ~20%.

The employee exodus was massive and included Watopians on all levels of the food chain, some of them veterans from Zwift’s early days.

While this sort of thing is never easy, it does seem from our “Inside” view that the new leaner, meaner Zwift is moving more quickly and nimbly than before.

Then in December, Zwift announced that CEO Eric Min would be sharing the CEO chair with former Amazon executive Kurt Beidler. This is an unprecedented change in Zwift leadership, and our guess is we’ll start to see the effects in the next few months.

New Homescreen

Zwift announced that a long-awaited new homescreen would begin rolling out to Windows users in January 2022. It took until December for the homescreen to be rolled out to all Android users – the last group of Zwifters to receive the update.

Reviews of the new homescreen have been mixed, especially when it comes to the hassle of selecting certain workouts. But overall we like the stronger focus on events, and see lots of potential for smart activity recommendations in the future.

Workout Changes

This year saw big changes made to Zwift’s workout library and functionality, in an attempt to make Training Plans and workouts more flexible and accessible. Key changes include:

• Bigger Bias : in February, Zwift made it so you could adjust your FTP Bias from -25% to +25%, expanded from -10% and +10%.
• Wide Open Training Plans: Training Plans become truly flexible this year, allowing you to take on whatever workouts you’d like, whenever you’d like.
• Localization: Workout localization began in April, translating popular workouts to French, German, Spanish, and Japanese.
• UI Update : this rolled out in September, updating the workout browser UI to match the new homescreen
• Short workouts : just last month Zwift added two new Training Plans for time-crunched athletes, as well as additional “under 30 minutes” workouts.

Frames and Wheels

Lots of new wheels and frames were added to the Drop Shop in 2022, but most weren’t remarkable in terms of their performance. Here’s what stood out:

• New gravel wheels were released in February, and more in March. These name-brand wheels perform much better on dirt than the stock Zwift-branded gravel wheels.
• Specialized Crux was released in February, setting the new standard as the fastest climbing gravel bike.
• Felt IA 2.0 and Scott Plasma RC Ultimate were added in May, and they’re the best TT frames to use if your course involves much climbing at all.
• CADEX Tri frame was added in September, and it’s the fastest TT frame on flat and rolling routes, by a significant margin.

New/Expanded Features

Along with everything listed above, Zwift rolled out additional new features in 2022 and improved existing features. Here’s the complete list:

• 90-Day Segment PRs : segment PRs on the in-game leaderboard have always lasted for only 30 days, but in June this changed to 90 days.
• Auto screenshot improvements : in August, Strava users smiled when Zwift started taking automatic screenshots at key points in our activities, making our Strava uploads much more interesting.
• Category Enforcement : Zwift began testing CE in February 2022, and it quickly caught on. Related UI was added in October, and as of now around 2/3 of all races use it. This is, simply put, the biggest advance in racing fairness since Zwift launched. Read more >
• Clubs : limits were increased dramatically this year, allowing more people to join more Clubs. While Club functionality hasn’t expanded much this year, lots of Clubs are using their basic tools each week to manage events. Hopefully Zwift will upgrade Clubs with new features in 2023.
• Handcycles : added in September, the virtual handcycle let IRL handcyclists finally have an avatar that matches their real bike. Read more >
• HoloReplay : released in October, this handy feature lets us ride against our past efforts. Read more >
• “ Join a Zwifter” returns : the “Join a Zwifter” tool was mystifyingly not included in the new homescreen UI. But Zwift finally brought it back in November, and it was improved significantly from the original version.
• Levels 51-60 : veteran Zwifters rejoiced when 10 more levels were added in September. Some of those Zwifters hit the new level 60 limit before the year was out.
• Pace Partners/RoboPacers : in September Pace Partners finally moved out of FutureWorks and “graduated” to become an official Zwift feature. As part of that process they were renamed RoboPacers, given an ongoing rotation in Watopia and Makuri Islands, expanded to include a wide variety of paces, given their own row on the homescreen, and the Drops multiplier game was even updated so it gives us more Drops! Read more >
• Pack Dynamics 4.x : in 2021, Zwift released Pack Dynamics 3.0, bringing major improvements to the way riders behaved in packs. They’re currently testing Pack Dynamics 4, which is supposed to slow down packs, display less forward/backward movement in packs, and allow for more breakaways in races. We assume this will be released in the first half of 2023.
• Ride on Bombs return : we haven’t been able to give Ride Ons to the 5 closest Zwifters in events for years, but in September Zwift flipped a switch so we could easily share the Ride On love in races, group rides, etc.
• Smart Anvils : while we loved seeing people deploy the anvil on climbs, Zwift apparently did not. So in September they made the anvil powerup smart, so it only works if you’re on a 1.5% or greater descent. It’s now a favorite powerup of many racers.
• TT improvements : these began rolling out in June, and eventually included TTT improvements so ZRL racers could stop manually timing their TTT starts, and could use TT frames. Zoom zoom!
• Zapping Fence : in June, Zwift announced that ride leaders could request that their event use the zapping fence, which boots riders out if they ride ahead of the fence for too long. Take that, zinners!

Zwift stayed on schedule with monthly updates throughout the year. Some updates were far more exciting than others, but we like the pace of regular releases nonetheless:

• 1.21.0 – Jan 12, 2022
• 1.22.1 – Feb 14, 2022
• 1.23.0 – Mar 9, 2022
• 1.23.1 – Mar 16, 2022
• 1.24.0 – Apr 13, 2022
• 1.25.0 – May 12, 2022
• 1.26.0 – Jun 8, 2022
• 1.27.0 – Jul 13, 2022
• 1.28.0 – Aug 10, 2022
• 1.29.0 – Sep 14, 2022
• 1.30.0 – Oct 17, 2022
• 1.31.0 – Nov 9, 2022
• 1.32.0 – Dec 7, 2022

Support for Wahoo’s Direct Connect was (finally) added to Zwift in April, and this functionality now allows the latest Wahoo KICKR to connect to Zwift via WiFi.

The biggest news in the hardware space, though, was Zwift’s release of their Zwift Hub trainer : a capable direct-drive trainer priced to sell at $499. It’s no exaggeration to say this news rocked the indoor cycling world, where direct drive trainers typically sell for $800+.

Wahoo quickly filed a lawsuit against Zwift, arguing that the Zwift Hub infringes on a number of patents utilized in Wahoo’s KICKR trainers ( read more from DC Rainmaker ). This lawsuit is in its early stages, but we’ll surely see more news in the coming months.

2020’s lockdowns validated indoor training, then 2021 saw the fruit of that validation as trainer sales stayed robust and trainer manufacturers ramped up production.

Then 2022 arrived, and the bottom dropped out.

This year, for the first time ever, we’ve been seeing massive, ongoing discounts for trainers from popular makers including Wahoo, Tacx, and Saris. Where you couldn’t find a KICKR v5 to buy in 2020, Wahoo couldn’t seem to offload enough of them this year, even at a 30% discount.

It’s a challenging time to be in the trainer business, with so few customers looking to drop big money on a new trainer and the aftermarket flooded with post-Covid used hardware. So it was no surprise to hear Saris had to sell itself at a bankruptcy auction a few months back. Chances are we’ll see others struggle in the indoor space for the next year or more.

Competitors

In April, Wahoo announced its acquisition of Zwift’s closest competitor, RGT. Rebranded as “Wahoo RGT”, the platform was integrated into a new monthly subscription dubbed “Wahoo X” which also includes Wahoo’s SYSTM (formerly known as Sufferfest).

With Wahoo X priced equally to Zwift, the acquisition was a clear move to compete head-to-head with Zwift in the training software space. Wahoo also made moves to differentiate RGT from Zwift, offering an annual plan discount and recently rolling out in-game voice comms.

Where will the Wahoo vs Zwift story go in 2023, with a trainer patent lawsuit looming and the industry’s two top software platforms battling for market share?

Community Bummers

Two things happened in the Zwift community in 2022 which need to be mentioned here, in the interest of having a complete record of the year.

First, in February, there was #FreeLuciano. We’ll leave it to you to read the full story if you wish , but to summarize: one Zwifter (Luciano) revealed a massive racing exploit, then was banned by Zwift. And the kerfuffle just got more fuffled as the days went on…

Then in June, Zwift warned community add-on developers that required upcoming encryption changes would be breaking their apps. And in July, that’s exactly what happened. Popular add-ons like Zwift Activity Monitor , ZwiftMap , and Sauce for Zwift were rendered nonfunctional when Zwift began encrypting their client-side datastream to comply with new requirements on Android.

Since that time, both ZwiftMap and Sauce for Zwift have released updated versions with workarounds. Still, we sure would love to see Zwift create a true API so approved developers could plug into game data and do amazing things.

What’s Coming in 2023?

Here’s what we know is coming very soon (within 1-2 months) to Zwift:

• Scotland Map : this will host the UCI Esports Worlds in February
• Personalized Leaderboards : a Companion app upgrade so you can track your segment and route times
• Zwift “For You” : a smart set of activity recommendations on your homescreen

There’s more to come in addition to what’s listed above. Some things we’re not allowed to mention yet, but there are definitely other things Zwift simply hasn’t told us! We’re looking forward to 2023 and all the Zwifty upgrades it will bring, and we hope you are, too.

Your Comments

What are your thoughts on Zwift’s 2022? Favorite new features, things you wish Zwift had released but didn’t? And what would you most like to see in 2023? Share below!

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