The paint job is only reason I’m considering doing it. And the new Aeroad has top tier stats too so I’d actually use it regularly.
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Yes, I agree. I just wish Zwift would stop catering to pro-contenders with their Zwift Academy program and focus on a quality training program for the masses. I’ll probably do the rides anyway because I can’t pass up on a free virtual jersey and in-game Canyon Aeroad paint job.
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And besides, being strong in Zwift means nothing when you get on a real bike in a real race, micro-sprints and sticky-watts don’t count.
It’s probably even a bad thing because you don’t get to learn proper race craft when you can just ride away from the rest of the group on your own and then next race get bumped up to the top grade. That’s when they are out of their depth and the big engine doesn’t make up for lack of race craft and bike handling. And it can be dangerous when they have 1500w to unleash in a sprint without knowing when and where to do it and it ends up in a 70km/h crash with multiple riders down.
The guys who are Zwift academy top pro contenders for the most part are already top racers:
Look at these guys and their history. I know a few of them IRL and they definitely didn’t need Zwift Academy to get better, they learned their craft from lots of IRL racing from a young age.
That’s never going to happen, the Zwift Academy is a form of marketing.
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Completed workout 1 of zwift academy yesterday but it still shows 0% completion on the dashboard and i didnt receive the zwift academy kit either. Below the workout it clearly shows the date on which i completed it.
That didn’t occur for me either.
I have also done the second one and nothing.
Edit: now have it.
@Michael_Barnes1 - try doing second workout and see how you go.
3rd workout done, I like the 3min and 5min efforts. I got a PR on 3min.
Yeah once i did a second workout it now shows 25% progress and I have the kit. Hopefully it will work fine from now on
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Yes’re 100% on the money, but if Zwift doesn’t provide some value people won’t come, and they will market to no one… to me, 2024 Zwift Academy seems pretty uneventful…
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It would be one thing if Zwift would show all of us our relative ranking at the end of the Academy. I don’t think they are. It’s not just that this is pure power testing. It’s power testing for the sole purpose of identifying pro talent.
And it is a LOT of maximal efforts. If you know how to pace a maximal effort, this is going to hurt, but it also isn’t as much training stimulus as some people will need. If you don’t know how to pace a maximal effort, whatever information you get is less informative - but they aren’t really giving you any information, aside from the fact that your critical power curve is now populated with max efforts. But you probably don’t even know what a CP curve is.
Basically, us plebeians should stay away. I didn’t do ZA last year because they weren’t really good workouts and I had already had an intro to structured training. This year, I’m good, if I need my CP curve filled out I will go run a test on my own.
I feel like because Zwift have established Zwift Academy as something that offers something for newbies, it is a reasonable marketing goal to stick with that. Just go back to the existing workouts and change them up a bit, if nothing else.
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I completed my first assessment today. Hit 30s and 60s PBs, but was a little way off my 15min best. I found it extremely tough trying to go for 3 maximal efforts in one session. 60s almost wiped me out and then straight into 5 mins of Z2 rather than active recovery before a 10min threshold block. 
It would be great if Zwift could provide statistical feedback as to how you did in each assessment given the work being put in.
Also, not sure if the blocks outside of free-ride are supposed to be in ERG or not. There was no guidance on this
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Exactly what I meant, although I suspect they can’t be bothered. Prove me wrong, guys?
If you start the workout in erg, when it hits a free ride block, you aren’t in erg anymore. I believe it does not simulate your gradient, but you can manually control the resistance. If you don’t have the Zwift click thingy, you should be able to use the buttons in your app. Basically I usually add a couple clicks to the default setting and I pedal as hard as I can.
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Those free ride blocks are deliberately not in ERG mode.
You have to push the power yourself and use the gears and it’s measured what your average power is over the block.
So for 3 minutes you have to go all out, same for 5 minutes in a fatigued state.
It’s a really good test.
I hit 5.5w/kg for 3 minutes and 5.0w/kg for 5 minutes. Finally my power is coming back - it has been a long battle.
Thanks, it’s the non-free ride blocks I’m not sure about.
Eg hold 250 watts for 10 mins. Does that have to be in ERG?
My assessment started with ERG turned off and Virtual Shifting enabled. After a few minutes I switched ERG on so I didn’t have to worry about power output.
No, what you do for those is select the appropriate gear on your bike and you have to pedal hard as you can.
It is like you are riding a real bike, except you just have a flat gradient. So if you grab an easy gear, your power will be lower, etc.
You might have a 3 minute free ride block, in that you have to go flat out: Zwift won’t say ride at X amount of watts and force resistance on you, you have to go flat out. You determine the effort.
Like a mini FTP test.
It doesn’t matter - not everyone has ERG to start with. But using ERG mode for them makes it easier to sit on the power target.
The default for most people would be ERG on for the fixed power interval ie green, yellow and blue. ERG off for the free ride intervals.
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Is there any other option for those blocks? I would have expected ERG was on for those, and off for the free ride blocks with no other options to change it.
Thanks Tom. My workout started with ERG off, but I switched it on for those controlled blocks so I didn’t need to worry about what power I was doing
My apologies before, was half asleep when making that reply. End of a busy week.
No worries, Chris
By the way, my forum posts are doing strange things as I have another browser open. It looks like I deleted a post by accident.
If anyone’s following this thread, I was referring to the blue, yellow, green blocks.
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I noticed the workouts are pretty strict on the recovery blocks - if you don’t hit the watts targets very closely then you don’t get the star for that block.
2min at 190w I can do without bother, but even just briefly stopping pedaling to tighten the BOA dial on my shoe was enough to prevent getting the star, when I powered back up again I must have made too much power.
Looking at the ride report, my 2min was 198w instead of 190w.
I’m up to the 6th and final workout.
…you just need to pause the workout before you stop peddling.