This Season on Zwift [April 2023]

[manda_F (Amanda)]

This Season On Zwift, we’ve got a number of exciting new and requested features teed up for release over the next few months:

Coffee Stop
Launching in May!
Take a breather, Zwifters! The convenience of riding on Zwift just got even more convenient with Coffee Stop. This feature lets you step away from the screen to grab a forgotten bottle, take a quick break, or indulge in a coffee fix. Don’t worry about falling behind—your avatar will keep pace with whatever group you’re in. Just activate Coffee Stop and take care of whatever you need. But beware of the dreaded café legs! Coffee Stop expires after 3 minutes, so act fast or catch up.

Rider Teleport
Coming this Summer!
Riding with friends is one of the best things about cycling. Rider Teleport, it’s now easier to do. When you’re mid-ride, and a Zwifter who follows you decides to hop into the same world, you can teleport directly to them without exiting your current activity. If you need a little extra push, you can do the same with a RoboPacer, helpful if you want to warm up at an easier pace and then teleport to a more challenging ride. Just make sure your friend(s) or RoboPacer is in the same world, and you’ll be riding together in no time!

Action Bar Refresh
Coming this Summer!
The new in-game Action Bar and Companion app Action Bar is organized into a series of submenus, which makes the bar easier to navigate and makes key actions easier to access. After selecting a menu from the Action Bar, you can easily choose actions like reactions. Once available, you can also perform new actions like taking a Coffee Stop or Teleport.

Climb Portal
Coming this Summer!
Two new portals – one outside the volcano and one near the castle in France – will let you access famous real-world climbs. We’ve recreated every grade, turn, and switchback so that you can have an authentic experience, and it’s all been created in a completely new and distinctive Zwift environment, not yet seen anywhere else. At launch, two of the available climbs will be Col du Tourmalet and Col d’Aspin.

Clubs Update
Coming in April!

We are excited to announce two new features for clubs:

Keep Everyone Together:
Keep Everyone Together brings Rubberbanding to club events. With Keep Everyone Together enabled, all participants in club rides will ride together, no matter their w/Kg output. Join a club ride and ride with friends!
Club Notification Controls:
Pick and choose which Club Chats and Club Events you want notifications about with Club Notification Control. You can now turn on notifications from your favorite clubs without being bombarded with them from the rest.

Pack Dynamics 4
Live now!
Get ready for a smoother ride on Zwift with the latest updates to Pack Dynamics. This update makes riding in a peloton more realistic; you won’t be overtaken as easily, and won’t get sucked up into a peloton while riding solo. Plus, the new in-game dynamics make it easier to float from the front to the back of the pack, if you want. If you aren’t trying to move up, your avatar will mostly stay in the same position relative to other Zwifters, as you would if you were riding in a pack in real life.

Player Highlight
Coming this Summer!
Player Highlight makes it easy to see yourself and spot friends or the ride leaders on Zwift. The Player Highlight puts a halo around your avatar, and those of Zwifters you follow and who follow you, and ride leaders. The halo is brightest in dense packs and fades in smaller packs or when riding solo. This dynamic enhancement makes it easier to see your avatar, especially in events when everyone is wearing the same jersey.

In addition to these amazing new features coming to Zwift this season, we are also excited to announce the upcoming campaigns and missions:

Coming in April:
Zwift Spring Training Series
To learn more about Zwift Spring Training Series, click here.
Conquer a Classic Mission
To learn more about the Conquer a Classic Mission, click here.

Coming later this Summer:
Pride 2023 - Coming in June!

To learn more about the features included in This Season on Zwift, check out the main page or refer to the FAQ.

Stay tuned as the features are released for more details!

[Rich (Rich - F365)]

with regards to the coffee stop, what’s the time when you can use it again 20min? 30min? an hour? or is it a one use only ?

[Steve_Hammatt (Steve)]

Loving the sound of the Climb Portal!

Also I can’t wait for Rubberbanding in club rides.

[David_Galbraith (David)]

One of 30 seconds in the first 5 minutes, then one of 3 minutes in each and every 30 minutes.

[Colin_Cadden (Colin)]

Whoohoo! free XP!!!

[Jon_Wakefield (Jon Wakefield (Team CLS))]

Thanks @manda_F

Looking forward to finding out more/using these features… (in particular the Rider Teleport and Climb Portal ) … A few initial questions which I’m sure many will have:

@manda_F

your avatar will keep pace with whatever group you’re in. Just activate Coffee Stop and take care of whatever you need.

Coffee Stop: I have seen some wording that makes it seem this will only be usable on RoboPacer and Free rides… I am assuming this will be disabled for races, but will this be a configurable option for event organisers?, as I can think of this being very welcome in longer endurance rides but less welcome in some workout style events for example that maybe have a ‘hot’ section to finish.

@manda_F

The Player Highlight puts a halo around your avatar, and those of Zwifters you follow and who follow you, and ride leaders

Player Highlight: Similar to the HoloReplays feature, will we have the option to select which rider highlights we want? I might want zwifters I follow highlighted but not myself or the ride leader for example. A simple ON or OFF may defeat the objective if too many Zwifters in my view end up being highlighted.

Thanks

[Nigel_Tufnel (Nigel)]

For all the grief Zwift gets on the Forum for ‘not listening to users’, it sure looks like there are a lot of user requests coming on the horizon. Fantastic!

[Mike_Rowe1 (Mike)]

@manda_F

Rider Teleport

This is going to open up the debate to why all the worlds can’t be connected again, or why all the small worlds can’t be connected… Strava maps be damned

[Colin_Cadden (Colin)]

Loading times will still be an issue for some

[Mrobonline (Mark)]

THANK YOU for Coffee Break says my overactive bladder. Been asking for this one for awhile now. AWESOME!!!

[Gordon_Rhino-Racing (Gordon)]

If you run Zwift on a potato that will always be the case.

looks like lots of good features in particular the segment portals. I wonder how often new climbs will be added and hopefully they can be used in events as well.

Coffee break is a good one although really should not count distance and xp.

Player highlight as others mentioned this needs an on/off. Great for a race or free ride but when doing a social ride with 50% of my teammates i don’t really need such info.

Club notifications. progress at last and hopefully they further improve it to allow tagging riders.

[Mike_Rowe1 (Mike)]

@Gordon_Rhino-Racing

Player highlight as others mentioned this needs an on/off. Great for a race

hope we will be able to mark riders from other teams that we want to keep track of… maybe this will work in tandem with WTRL’s SBP’s next season?

[Jon_Wakefield (Jon Wakefield (Team CLS))]

So… the FAQ’s where not updated when I looked earlier but they have been now, which partly answers my question on Coffee stops… the logic outlined in the FAQ’s seems fair.

It would still be good to know if this is going to be a selectable option (to enable/disable on an event by event basis which meets criteria) or is this is simply determined by the event setup (Race / Group ride / Workout)?

I’d still like more clarity on Rider Highlight functionality.

Thanks again!

[Ncornelisse (Niels)]

Is a portal climb visable in the Zwift world?

[Ian_Attoe (Ian)]

@manda_F I like the sound of all the new proposals and can’t wait to try them out later in the summer.

Just a quick question on the Coffee Break - is there a reason why the group must be a minimum of 5? I can think of 2 situations where this might not be ideal:

a. Free riding with just one or two friends. ( I do this occasionally)
b. Riding with a very small Robo Pacer group. (I don’t do this as they are generally too fast !)

Many thanks.

[SeattleSauve (Aaron)]

This stuff looks great! The ability to warp to a different person breaks the strava concern of linking up Paris/France, London/Richmond/Innsbruck etc. So linking smaller worlds into larger ones seems like it’s getting a bit more possible.

I’m not sure I understand the climb portal - though I am looking forward to it. Is there a reason those climbs weren’t added to the worlds? Is it meant to be a climb-only area that becomes it’s own larger world? Is there more work done to make those climbs more engaging such as the segments on the Alpe de Zwift etc.?

For the Spring Training, they do describe the workouts and give the time lengths, but it would be nice to see the actual workouts with target wattages ahead of signing up for it.

Edit: I missed that one FAQ question/answer on the climb portals. It does seem like an entirely new experience which is why they need the portal. Looking forward to more info on it:

Q: What will the environment inside the portal look like? Will the climbs look like what they look like in real life?

A: Zwit has created a completely new visual experience that gives you the chance to focus on the climb, and enjoy the company of other Zwifters. We can’t wait for you to see it!

[Daren (Daren Chandisingh)]

@manda_F

Rider Teleport
Coming this Summer!

@manda_F

Climb Portal
Coming this Summer!

These both sound great!

As I was saying in Rider teleport, I hope this is a precursor to enabling us to ride between worlds in a single activity. Any previous opposition people might have had to “teleporting” and straight lines on Strava activities has been undermined by these two features anyway. =)

[Daren (Daren Chandisingh)]

@David_Galbraith

then one of 3 minutes in each and every 30 minutes.

Is there a minimum period between uses?

e.g. if I use one at 34 minutes which then rolls on to minute 37, could I then take another one immediately and have a nice 6 minute break?

(The numbers might be off, as I’m not sure if the first 5 minutes counts as part of the first 30 minutes, but you get the point I’m sure)

[CouchTo1200K]

Lots of awesome stuff here! I’m especially looking forward to the Climb Portal and being able to teleport between robopacers. It’s not a huge deal but I think you shouldn’t get XP or drops during a coffee break (free +20-40 XP at the end of every ride), and emotes don’t deserve any attention beyond removing them completely (I always ride with sound effects off… does anyone actually use the emotes?).

[Daren (Daren Chandisingh)]

@CouchTo1200K

does anyone actually use the emotes?

Yes.