Would be useful for faster frame swaps back when the Crr of gravel made changing frames on certain races important, but I guess it would let you use one bike for races and swap easily back to something else for just riding around rides, but I agree that it sounds less useful than a series of slots of bikes you can pre-set and easily switch between.
Another thing that this expansion could be is maybe that structure is like a hub area and in it splits off different roads like maybe one tunnel goes around the ADZ to the coast and one north of the main island.
Sounds great to me, it might get people away from their tron bikes.
That’s why people use level up bots so they can do first races on TRON or some other fast bike. Weren’t there also people selling high level accounts? 
maybe that will become a lucrative business.
For people that don’t race, this is a great idea… makes the game more fun.
Maybe upgrades can just be “disabled” for races?
If they can be disabled by event leaders via companion app / website; then I would be a happy camper.
I still think it’s a bit silly at the end of the day… as you change components to make them faster; why these couldn’t be drop shop components that you can unlock and buy that actually changes the tires etc… would’ve been preferred.
Regardless; yes, assuming it’s “easy” for upgrades to be disabled, this is the solution.
However, this is yet to be seen.
Maybe it’s a way to encourage people to spend more time on Zwift.
That’s what we have now, Watopia is full of Tron bikes, people get that and don’t ride anything else and then of course end up with 50,000,000 drops or more.
In my opinion, that much drops is not a problem, but plenty of people around here try to portray it as some huge evil that must be stopped at all costs, just like those evil folk with millions of XP back in the day.
Do you ride in real life, do you tell people that they can’t ride with you if they have faster tires, deeper wheels or CeramicSpeed components?
Of course not. Although they allow that person to be “faster” it doesn’t really impact the group and nor will these updates.
You also mention team time trials where you wouldn’t want to be the person on a level 1 bike if others are on level 5. This doesn’t make sense unless all riders are exactly the same fitness level as you already have the situation whereby people will have to,work harder than others.
We already have the situation where new riders can’t have the best bikes as they are level locked and require XP to purchase. This is no different.
I can’t imagine that upgrading a bike will take too long, in the screen shot it’s just 2 hours use to get to Level 2 and I can’t imagine the other levels will be too hard to achieve.
The difference between some of the best Zwift bikes and the more basic ones isn’t all that much really, especially when in a bunch and these updates aren’t going to turn bikes into e-bikes where they can go faster for a lot less effort. Yes they will be a bit quicker but not too much and you won’t notice.
I personally think it’s a good move as people like myself who have been on Zwift since the beginning lose out when it comes to levelling up as we are always fast tracked and can breeze through any new levels in a single indoor season quite easily so it’s good that we will finally get something meaningful that we can work towards.
No but we wait for them at certain spots to let them catch back up so we don’t make a muck of traffic.
However on Zwift, which we never stop… we try and limit the number of people getting dropped because of the equipment that the game puts them on… again, refer to me mentioning the Classic wheels over and over and over again, and it having a very similar impact to what these upgrades are going to do.
It’s happened once with the change in the default wheels; so I can say with confidence that this will further the issue.
That was not me bringing up the TTT’s.
However it will still impact events that have forced/neutralized frames; unless Zwift says otherwise.
Which, as of a few weeks ago we did do a group ride with draft time trial where everyone was forced onto the Cadex Tri frame.
If it were a race scenario; would it not be irksome to know that potentially some other riders have lighter / faster bikes because they own it in the drop shop and have been using it?
Because it would annoy me that the same bike is faster and lighter for no reason other than “using it.”
Not the point.
The issue at hand is people that do not OWN the frames.
In a solo TT effort, no, they aren’t. I am fully aware.
But we’re talking about wind resistance and rolling resistance; which matters A LOT on group rides, where the speeds are higher than a solo rider.
This is the key bit.
This isn’t just some tiny little change; we’re talking about resistance changes, which are exponential as speeds increase.
I’m not spitting this stuff out because “I think,” it’s because I understand and am trying to point out the major flaws with it and how it will affect the all-around aspects Zwift offers. Purely / Specifically, group rides on neutral frames, and races, on neutral frames. Where an unfair advantage can be gained on something that’s literally using the word “neutral.” (until Zwift says otherwise; which they have yet to say this will be the case, and is what I’m fighting for here)
My recollection from Zwift Games is that ZwiftHacks showed the settings defined a specific CdA/Crr for all, so that approach could be used to have truly neutral equipment whether or not the bike/wheel choice was predefined.
Than peoplewill complain they worked so hard for their level 5 Tron bike and now they cant use it.
It will never be accepted by everyone, so just skip the whole idea seems like a better plan.
I am sure there can be other things invented which doesnt give some people an advantage over others. And I still think cosmetic things are the way to go.
I would focus on paint options. A red Venge is probably an easier lift anyway. Colored hair, too.
But is this the case for the Pinarello series right now though?
I can’t imagine it’s the case for group rides either.
Regardless we know my point; my point is the lack of consistency on Zwift’s side of things; which we all know, they’re the absolute best at.
For the record I don’t know the answer on the current Pinarello series; I just doubt it’s the same as what they did for ZG
Looks like no. I don’t see that type of setting suite on the ZwiftHacks info for the event, so most likely they have just thrown everyone on the same bike and you get to choose the wheels, like ZA baseline a couple years ago. (Or you show up on a Tron bike and get the miserable default wheels.) I have never asked to have an event set up like they did Zwift Games so I don’t know if that’s an option for community events, but it is theoretically possible in the sense that it has been done before.
So we know it is possible; it just… again would be nice if it could be a feature for event owners on companion app to enable.
A lot of things would be nice for event leaders to be able to set on the rides. We really need a boost to the backend where we have better control.
I don’t see why ZHQ can’t do this; versus everyone shoving requests down the event support gullet.
Do they assume someone will find a way to break things more than they do? I don’t get it.
everyone i’ve ever spoken to on the topic over the years, either officially or tangentially related with event organisation in general, more or less agrees with the sentiment. and that’s a lot of people because i like talking a lot of ■■■■
but that’s not to say that anything like that is on the way. i don’t know
They recently interviewed many event stakeholders to solicit feedback, and better tools for controlling event settings were up at the top of the list for our club. I don’t know what they got from anyone else but I imagine there were some common themes around this.
Yeah… I tried that link but it’s kind of ad heavy.
Here’s my guess on where the road is going: maybe Zwift will open up a new island (emerging from the water) Or maybe it’ll be a cool Atlantis city road that goes all around a big underwater city and maybe in the center there will eventually be a climb that starts underwater, climbs up past sea level, and the summit is equal in elevation (above sea level) to the hilly KOM summit.
The HUD refresh pushed me over the edge - I do my first ride on Rouvy today. Rouvy might not be perfect but at least I see where I am going instead of oversized clutter.