Probably a dead-horse here, but as far as I can tell the only point in having the mtb in zwift is to be one of the bikes you upgrade on the way to a halo bike and then never touch again. Is there ever another reason to use the mtb in zwift?
This saddens me as MTB is the only real riding I do outdoors. I am sure I am the millionth person to say it, but Zwift needs more MTB content. There are a ton of MTBers who use it for bad weather training who never touch road or gravel bikes in the real world.
Come Zwift, HMU! I will lead the focus group lol I have tons of ideas that donât require different equipment!
The MTB is, supposedly, faster on dirt routes (like the jungle), so you could use it there.
As for âmore MTB content,â can you expand on what you mean by that? When I think âMTBâ I think about uneven surfaces, increased bike handling skills, decreased reaction time, etc, and I really donât see any way for indoor training to replicate these things. (FWIW, there seem to be a lot of people who want Zwift to have a velodrome, which I also view as a waste of time, because it would be difficult to mimic these velodrome experience on a trainer.)
Iâd just like XC style like forest fire roads. Like the roads in Makuri Islands but with the jungle rolling resistance.
I think the Makuri ones are âgravelâ, although honestly these days Iâve no idea whether any road type actually makes any difference with any bike - this information should be in the bike selection screen and route selection. I realise some third-party sites can help here, but thatâs not the point. The game should tell players, and I think it does a poor job.
Zwift nerfed the MtB advantage on dirt a coupla years ago so the fastest bike on the Jungle and Makuri unpaved routes are the Gravel bikes. I used to switch from the road bike to the MtB when doing routes starting with pavement and transitioning to dirt because the MtB was enough faster than the road bike to make a difference even with the time to switch. Thereâs not enough advantage to make that change anymore.
IMO routes should have been created so that the ground (tarmac, dirt, gravel) could be chosen by the organiser for races.
Having a dirt or gravel version of short routes like Crit City, Mech Isle and maybe even Grand Central could be fun.
Just need to take account of how much time a lap would take for different W/Kg ability pens, to decide how many laps a pen does in the race.
Or even decide how much of a single lap is raced for each pen so each pen races for say ~20mins, with stronger pens covering more distance, taking custom length races as used by the likes of Tiny Races a bit further.
Back in the day (late 2019) Zwift released the Repack Ridge course with steering and MTBs.
Well, steering was jank (using the Companion app and accelerometer on your phone mounted to the handlebars).
But dedicated steering devices did make it to Zwift (replacing the phone on the handlebars trick)
And Repack Ridge was shut down, remodeled and became the steering only Repack Rush.
Zwift had made the MTBs available for use outside Repack Ridge and around the same time variable rolling resistance for various road surfaces was added which made the MTBs very good on the Jungle route.
Some time later changes were made to the rolling resistance which made the MTBs less advantageous on dirt roads and here we are today.
MTBs in Zwift are what you would call orphanware. Software developed for a purpose (to test dirt tracks and steering) and then left undeveloped when that purpose no longer exists.
Sure: MTB could get things like ârougherâ (rocky, rooty surfaces) and trails that have random sudden spikes in difficulty for climbs (like in the real world when youâre climbing and have to get up and over a ledge or some roots). This would make you choose perhaps an easier gear than normal because you know youâre going to hit spikes that you need to be able to pedal through. Things like this could severely penalize the road bikes and gravel bikes.
Some single track directional trails in the game could be a fun change up. You could even make sections of them where you have Target speeds to hit for virtual jumps where going too short or too far can penalize your speed for a short time.
You wouldnât have to add steering back in, and it would just be a nice change up.
Zwift is my choice because I like the video game elements. Keeps it fun, but if there ever comes a competitor that is focused more around Mountain biking, Iâll jump ship super quick.
That reminded me of the Tour of Watopia 2022 - where the âhandful of gravelâ stage had a different surface during the event compared to the usual jungle dirt. I was hoping that would lead to some fun event-configuration options (setting up a pseudo Paris-Roubaix for instance by adding in cobbles at points on an existing route), I donât think anything really came from that though, which was a bit of a shame.
Also, I miss repack ridge; partly because of the free-riding bug that had you being able to free steer across the rest of the world after you left the stage, but mostly as it was something just a bit different.
Hard to create a MTB experience on an indoor trainer but what they could (and should) do is to create MTB specific training protocols that force riders to go from zone 3 to anaerobic for 15 - 75 secs.
I know we can just design a workout program like TR and chase the boxes but a trail in the woods or desert of Watopia would be more engaging.
Forget about the janky steering gimmick.
The useful input for Zwift is turning the pedals.
Give us better scenarios for turning the pedals. IRL, when I turn the pedals on my road bike and my MTB, it is completely different. Zwift needs to try to capture this difference and provide an entertaining graphic.
I can turn the pedals on a trainer bike in a manner similar to riding a MTB. You donât , and shouldnât, have to put a MTB on a trainer to get a MTB like cardio experience.
I think Zwift could incorporate ideas from Pedal Games. Jonathon and Jesperâs app has some great ideas, but itâs Windows only. Having something similar built right in to Zwift could really spice things up.
