All bikes will have five stages of upgrades, offering enhancements such as weight reductions, improved aerodynamics, and lower rolling resistance.
Oh… no…
That’s… not at all what the public is going to want to hear about.
Who on earth requested THAT to be a feature?? I sure haven’t seen that anywhere, this is a MAJOR mistake IMO, and neutralized races are going to almost be a requirement, because that’s just silly.
We want cosmetic upgrades… not… physics altering upgrades…
i actually don’t mind that sort of. For the casual rider they will like the gamification.
Although i agree zwift are missing a massive trick with not allowing for more bike customisation.
Yeah but cosmetic changes / upgrades are equal gamification; without having to alter actual physics numbers which we won’t be able to track now.
And it also is just going to force people into spending time on a single frame…
I like to ride random frames at random times; sometimes I do my group rides with a gravel bike, sometimes with the Buffalo, etc. etc. etc.
Now people are just going to lock themselves into the Tron bike for good…
This will get them using random frames far more than they do now as they work through upgrading them all.
I genuinely don’t think so; I think once people get it to “stage 5”, most people would then ask why ride something else that’s “yucky stage 1”
Meanwhile; what about rides that have specific frames?
On all of our Giant rides, which use 3 unique bikes… are those of us who own them going to receive upgrades and throw our group rides out of whack when ours our upgraded; but those on neutral / not owned bikes going to be stuck on the Stage 1 / no upgrade / slow version?
This just seems like a horrendous idea.
we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.
I doubt the impact will be that huge to impact a social ride.
It will be intresting to see what happens if you take say the Felt AR with best aero and put all upgrades into weight… Will it become all-round beater?
I just don’t understand why it couldn’t have been something like being able to buy a faster tire…
When Zwift changed the default wheel to the Classic vs the Zwift50 earlier in the year it has since affected our group rides for people on the Concept bike and failing to switch wheels.
Literally any amount is going to impact it; because that 50 vs Classic had a dramatic effect.
Ever since that change (this is when they had the fluff up of not being able to change the wheel on the Buffalo bike); we eject more people on our rides that are on the Classic wheel than anyone else.
It was not always like that…
So literally any amount will prove to be equally problematic.
set a standard bike if you want everyone to have the same experience. Bikes already have differences this is just adding more.
Will be fun foir the first time racers on their level 1 bike getting blown away by the oldies on level 5 frames.
I am sure those new racers will enjoy their first race.
Correct; but what about those of us who own those bikes and get upgraded?
Versus the people who do not own the bike and it won’t be upgraded.
I wonder if each upgrade level will cost the same on each frame, or if stronger default frames cost more to upgrade.
And if each level upgrade is the same improvement for each frame.
we’ll have to wait and see more details from zwift i hope they allow organiser to limit upgrades per event.
You and I both know they won’t 
Oh yeah; what about iTT’s?
Eugh…
I would rather have seen people with pink bar tape than unique Crr’s
or TTT where you have 4 with level 5 frames in your team and two on level 1. Better hope you are not one of those two level 1’s
We’ve alteady had variations in all those factors though on different frames and wheels. It sounds like this is a change to let more (all) bikes have upgrades rather than having to change bikes.
I mean that’s no real different than someone being lower level.
My biggest issue is when things are attemptedly neutralized.
What I’d like to see is equipment wearing out and then having to spend drops to repair it - e.g. a worn chain won’t be as fast as a new one.
And we already have similar where different team members have different bikes available to them.
Yes but again; what about the instances where you cannot change bikes; but someone happens to own said bike and it’s upgraded.
Think about how this will affect series like FRR for example; which uses the default bikes.