To upgrade a specific bike after I get an upgrade notification, I need stop riding and to go to my garage and click on “Upgrade” button. Furthermore, when I get an upgrade notification during a ride and I don’t upgrade the bike before the ride ends, the distance / time / elevation earned after the upgrade notification does not count towards the next level. It would be nice for the upgrade to happen automatically as long as I have enough drops to upgrade the bike. Another option is to show an “Upgrade” button when the notification comes up so that I can upgrade the bike while riding.
I wonder how many zwifters really would stop riding when they get the upgrade notification. I know I definitely would not pause my workout for getting a new virtual bike.
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At least … one. 
But … it was the final upgrade of my third spesh bike so I could then purchase the spesh Halo bike.
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Not everyone wants to upgrade the bikes immediately. I’m close to level 5 on two bikes and still undecided which I will upgrade first when I get enough drops.
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it did for me, i had an upgrade on the basic aero bike whilst doing a workout and i upgraded after the workout finished and it shows the additional distance i did
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Same here. No problems with lost progress as long as I don’t start another activity.
I have upgraded 4 bikes so far, and never lost progress for levels 1-4.
Obviously once level 5 was reached, there was no way to apply any progress towards the next bike I chose to upgrade.
That would be the only situation where I would want to stop a ride and select the next bike to upgrade.
As long as you purchase the upgrade before saving your current ride you will not lose any progress toward the next upgrade. And, as long as you’ve cleared out all of the previous garage notifications, the red dot on the garage icon when ending a ride serves as a good reminder to do the upgrade before saving.
So in theory, if you ride a really long time, you could earn 2 upgrades and buy them after you’re done?
I think you would have to stop, purchase the next level, save and start a new activitiy which then will immediately give you the banner that you earned the next upgrade. If you’d like to test this, feel free to do a 230 km ride on one of the entry level bikes. I bet though you would want to stop at some point during that 230 km, at which point you could purchase upgrade 1, and keep going without saving, then get upgrade 2 all in the same activity.
easier to do a TT upgrade and ride for 3 hours
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I’ve upgraded the three bike & 8.25m drops on the way to the10m required. It never even entered my head to stop when I’d enough to upgrade the bike during a ride. Horses for courses I suppose.
Yes, that is correct. I noticed that. I lost my progress towards the next upgrade when I upgraded after saving the ride. Now I need to remember to upgrade before saving the ride. It would be nice to be able to upgrade automatically or have a button to upgrade while riding.
I’m back to Zwift after using another platform last winter so catching up on the new features.
I wonder if it would be better for the upgrade notification to come at the end of the ride instead of instantly during the ride. Maybe a “Do you want to upgrade now?” pop-up. That would be a good reminder to get the upgrade in that session.
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I thought it keeps your progress as long as you upgraded before starting a new session (this is at least what Zwift Insider says). Pretty sure I’ve upgraded a few times after saving my ride and have not lost any distance yet.
That’s how it’s working for me. I never updated before saving the ride, but always before ending the session.
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Not sure how well this would go over if I was trying to save drops for purchasing something else like a new frame or wheelset. As inconvenient as the stop to upgrade or trying to remember to upgrade before your next ride might be, I think it’s still the best solution available. Only other viable solution is to not have Zwift clear out extra earnings toward the next level if you forget to purchase the upgrade, I’d think.
You DON’T need to stop riding to upgrade.
You can continue to ride after the Stage upgrade is reached, no need to stop and purchase the upgrade right away. The excess Kms will accumulate towards the next Stage, see screenshots below.
- Before starting the ride today, my Zwift Steel bike was 28km short from the Stage1 upgrade:
I rode 50km and received the message saying I had reached Stage1, but continued to ride:
Here is the garage after I finished my ride:
After I bought Stage1, you can see my progress towards Stage2 was not lost:
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Your progress won’t be lost on your current ride. Using your example above, had you ended your Zwift session without purchasing the upgrade, the additional 22 miles toward the next upgrade would be lost, and you’d start from 0 again for that upgrade.
At least that’s now it’s been described.
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Yes that’s how it has been described but I’m pretty sure your progress will not be lost. .Another test might be required to confirm this.
Note: I for one would not like to have automatic upgrades purchased, since that would jeopardize upgrading the bikes in a different order.