Drop Shop Update [Game v1.116] [June/July 2026]

The “What’s New” on the Apple app store for the latest update says:

“Two of cycling’s newest bikes and wheels are rolling into the Zwift Drop Shop from Specialized and Canyon!..”

Any idea what the new Canyon is? I can’t see one

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TT bike incoming, I believe. Not there yet so the notes are wrong.

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How about their track frame as a holo? The fastest bike on the flat but quite slow on the hills.

Cube has a great climbing bike. It would beat the Aethos if added in game.

Then, everyone will need two new bikes.

Why not have a time trial in pitch black, impossible to see the road ahead just like Disney Space Mountain. Then we wouldn’t need to see the route ahead of time.

Will Strava segments be up for the first event Monday?

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It can be aero and light but disable virtual shifting and enforce TD100

Looks like the SL9 being unquestionably the best bike in the game was officially part of the marketing plan (which we all knew already)

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Bought the SL9 and noticed that too. Bonkers that they don’t have a standardized nomenclature for the regular and s-works models in Zwift.

Bonkers? Lol. I need to go break out the urban dictionary for ‘hyperbole’…

*artistic license

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If only we had a BMC Timemachine MPC to go with the new Canyon. :wink:

And a Bugatti Factor One version with similar crazy aero.

It was much more fun when different bikes had different strengths and weaknesses, some a bit faster on the flats, some a bit lighter but since the introduction of the sl8 there’s just 1 bike to choose for every course (except for road to the sky, Ven-Top, la reine and ven 10) the sl8 and now the sl8. Zwift bikes and wheelsets should come each with their own tradeoffs weight, aerodynamics, stiffness, handling, comfort etc so on each course a different one would be better

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Did they? Remember when everyone just used the Tron and even some racers had to use bots to get it?

Now it seems similar, just with SL8 or SL9 or Project 74.

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The Tron was never the outright best, unless you’re going back to before the drop shop existed. It was the best all-rounder, but there were options that were heavier but more aero, and lighter but less aero. The trade off between each was pretty even.

Now, compared to the SL8 and 9, anything that climbs better is much less aero, and anything more aero is much slower on the climb. And that’s assuming you have the other options fully upgraded too.

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If anything, there are light weight climbing bikes these days that are also quite aerodynamic.

I ride exactly such a bike in real life since late 2018. It is still very fast.

I don’t mind if a bike is a great all round performer, provided the real thing is as well. Better for Zwift users who are affected by rampant inflation in the drops economy.

If they added some UCI illegal climbing variants, this could help but they have to get the green light from the IRL company for non production edits I’d imagine. PandaPodium just had a 4.98kg sl9 - do a climbing variants with fixed climbing wheels that can’t be changed so it loses a lot of the aero potential.

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Buying a great bike and racing one are so vastly different.

The unleveled bike is not worth racing until stage 4 or 5 is achieved. For a top line bike that means 40 hours or 1600 km’s (about 45 hours riding).

I don’t see this point with hobbling a climbing bike with crappy wheel performance. Well, yes, some people want to gamify things so people can’t have a one bike that does everything, but IRL we are getting towards one bike that does most things pretty well.

We have fairly aero wheels these days that are also really light, and we’ve had super light semi-aero bikes since a long time ago (before disc brakes became a big thing).

I have such a bike sitting beside me right now which on alloy wheels is 450g below the UCI weight limit. I actually have carbon wheels for it which would put it 5.8kg but the rear wheel hub needs replacing on the carbon wheel set. It’s not a very small frame either, it is medium, with a long stem setup (it’s an integrated bar/stem arrangement) and quite a high seat post. It is such a good bike that I still have it. It is over 7 years since I built it and it is never going.

To compare it I also have one of those extreme aero bikes, and overall it is only a small amount faster on flat roads, but it loses out in a lot of other areas. I will eventually replace it with something else.

For what it is worth, I have not purchased the SL9 in Zwift, nor any of the other new frames. They are too costly and I don’t ride with robopacer groups so I don’t earn enough drops to afford them.

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Which is besides the point at level 5 there is no point in choosing any other bike than the sl9 and previously the sl8, that’s boring

I think the SSE Lab71 Team Edition is close enough to the SL8 and 9 to consider. After I level 5 the new Canyon TT bike, I’ll go after that as a real life SSE owner.