UPDATE: I got a new message from customer support and a wonderful senior customer service agent swooped in and saved the day. They offered a reasonable resolution and are looking at fixing the image. Wow! Such a quick response to feedback. You folks are great!
Hi! I’m a new Zwifter and I’ve been riding for about 2 months. I’m fully engaged! I’ve been riding 4-5 times a week and have really enjoyed the experience so far. Today, the other shoe dropped.
After riding for the first few weeks and enjoying some unlocks, customizing my little dude, exploring Watopia, and buying my first set of wheels (how fun!) I started looking at frames. “Wow,” I thought, “that’s a lot of drops! I guess I’ll pick one that looks cool and save up! It’ll be a good motivator.” I looked through all the frames and settled on the Focus Izalco. I’d be level 9 soon (a requirement to unlock it) and it has a sweet paint job!
Look at that guy. So fun and pastel. Cool!
For the next month and a half I slowly leveled up and saved up 426,000 drops and then bought it today. I rushed to the garage and equipped the frame to my character and … it’s gray? Flat gray. I can change the color just like on the stock Zwift frame but that’s it. No cool pastel patch work, just a solid, boring color.
“Huh? What am I missing?”, I thought.
I emailed support to ask what I was doing wrong. Was there a button I was missing? What gives?
There was not. Support informed me that the picture is not what you get when you buy the frame. The picture in the shop is the frame with an old, event-only paint job applied, that is impossible to get now.
I thought, “Well that’s pretty weird. Why would they use an image of a paint job you don’t get to represent the item in the shop? I suppose I’ve seen stranger things in online games. I work in software, I know how tedious it can be to address every little concern. No problem, I’m a little disappointed but I’ll just have support refund my drops and take back the frame and I’ll pick another one to aspire to own.”
But it was a problem. Support kindly and sympathetically told me that was not possible. They would not be giving my drops back. In fact, apologetically, they explained there was nothing they could do at all, aside from offer kind words of encouragement.
So … I’m left with a crummy feeling. It’s just a game, sure, it’s really not a big deal but it feels bad, man. It feels bad.
I really like Zwift and I want it to be good. So here is my feedback. I hope it helps another player avoid this mistake. I hope it gets read by someone in marketing or product or anyone at Zwift and they open a 1 story-point ticket to update that asset. I hope Zwift gets better.
I’ve worked in online gaming and I know that “churn” is a killer. I also know that churn is directly linked to new player experience. This was a bad new player experience. I closed one of the first major gameplay loops and my reward was all my currency removed for an item I did not want. 
