You can redo all the past Zwift academy’s. A nice challenge will be 2017.
Yes it is the question is where do you want them to focus development? Racing? Pacer bots? New worlds? Text in rides because no one cares to read? Fix power drops.
Not every thing can be done at the same time.
And this year they did a awesome job with information.
Not every one has the ZC open while riding but most use it to sign up for events.
I have heard from Zwift that most people use the companion app that’s why we don’t get more keyboard shortcuts. Do a group ride with coco and see how many give RideOn bombs.
Ooo… how 'bout Boost Racing? Yep, ZHQ has that product development in laser focus. There are so many areas they’ve made a left turn when we needed a right turn.
And I really don’t see how generating a good experience in the Academy is a bunch of development. They already have the tools in place. Like I said, set the rides up as workouts and you’ve got the ride leader bot telling everybody what’s going on. Make the effort to teach Zwifters how to do these things and you’re going to really grow the app. The way things have gone here, people are getting pissed and spending their workout money elsewhere. EVERY single monthly update is rife with bugs; some of them cause people to not be able to do anything until it gets fixed.
Speaking of fixed: It took them TWO WEEKS to fix the starts of the test segments in the Baseline ride. They didn’t even respond to the widespread complaints (from the 1% of Zwifters on the forum) about it for over a week. This kind of BS is why people are going to look elsewhere when there is a viable alternative and that makes me sad because I like the community here. I’ve got “friends” all over the world. I’ve ridden with some of them that are local to me and I would imagine when we’re done with COVID I’ll get to ride with others on different continents.
You just contradicted yourself. I see how many RideOn bombs get dropped and I see how many riders have the ZC indicator on the leaderboard. 50% of the riders use it, if that. I hardly ever sign up for ride on it and none of my friends do except for certain TT’s. And from that 50% how many read the ride description? Apparently not as many as you would think judging by the responses I had in my foray as ride leader.
(Not aimed at you, Mark) I have talked to so many local riders that have tried Zwift, and TrainerRoad, and they complain that BOTH have a ‘high learning curve’, and that the programs require too much knowledge. I have to agree to a point.
And ‘use the companion app’? Sure… I use ZwiftInsider more than the Companion app for ride planning. Often the descriptions on the companion are so vague, they are less than useless.
My life has turned upside down and when I get time to ride, I want to choose a ride, or ‘event’, and have the information on the ride, especially an Academy ride, so I know what I’m doing. I can’t spend even 15 minutes sifting and reading information to see what I should be doing. If it’s a ‘workout’, I look for the box in the upper left, and follow the time. I’m a lab rat. On that first ride for the Academy, having, at that point ‘secret zones’ that you had to ride it like you stole it, and the rest was meaningless, it would have been so much more ‘Fast is fun’ to have the system say ‘This is a targeted ride. Only certain zones count for your final score for this first ride. This sets a benchmark that your whole Academy experience will be based on. At the end, you will do the same ride, and we will compare how you did on those zones between now and then.’ Instead? I have to watch a GCN video that said that the majority of the ride is meaningless, but lets save dead equine/porcine/ungulate beings.
Zwift CAN do better. They should do better. Can they do better.
I ride Zwift. I put up with the issues because I still ride the workout rides I’ve setup. I ride mostly workouts because that’s what does it for me. That was why the Academy has gotten me to ride them. This year, someone ‘moved the cheese’. I’m a lab rat. If you move the cheese, you have to tell me that you moved it, and where you moved it to, because in the ‘ride zone’, I am disinterested in reading an app, no matter how through and polished it is. Like I said upstream on either this thread or another one, things that require certain knowledge or experience from people need to be ‘self-contained’ so that the user doesn’t have to assume, or infer something.
BUT we aren’t going to fix anything here. The ‘Finish’ ride had better have solid indications where those zones are so that I don’t try to kill myself on the whole thing again. There is so much that I ignore about Zwift. The flying people, the wheels going into pavement, the people riding with trainers on their ‘bikes’. It’s funny. All I ask is, when it counts, that it ‘work’. That when Zwift redesigns the process, moves the cheese, they tell us where the cheese is!
Zwift has a lot going for it, and also has a lot of people that have either dropped it, or have had bad experiences with it. There is room for improvement.
I just read about the Companion app, yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever used the Companion app to sign up for a ride. Maybe 2, or 3. Question: How many people page through the days to find a ride to sign up for? And the ‘chat’ part stopped being for everyone in the current ride, so it’s useless. I use the CA just to see who is around me, and react to people that I have followed and their balloon pops up on the screen. For me, the Companion app, if it’s supposed to be ‘all that’, I use probably a scant fraction of its features. So for me, if I’m supposed to use the CA for ride prep, it’s not working.
SOME rides should have notifications during so that people know what’s going on. People can be prepared to ride it like they stole it, and know when to relax. Like maybe the first and last (Finish) rides should have been workouts? Seems to be the best of both worlds…
Anyway, Ride On!!!
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But what about this year?
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I thought you would like a challenge while waiting for the finish ride.
I’ll be redoing the rides for this year. It might mess up my progress, but if I have to wait, I’ll just redo them.
The past Academy that I’ve done didn’t have such a hard planned schedule as I remember. Like I said, I should have probably started the rides later so I wouldn’t have to wait so long for the ‘second block’ to start, even though I can already ride the ‘second block’. Just waiting for the recovery ride, and ‘Finish’ ride…
I’ll find something to do, until my leg falls off…
Why do half the threads on this forum descend into debates about what strategic direction Zwift should take?! 
Anyway, I see the Zwift Academy as a potential future “upselling tool” for Zwift. If Zwift offered a more advanced version of workouts (giving more data or guidance around your strengths and weaknesses and how these get better or worse over time), it could be something some people would pay more for, and Zwift Academy could effectively be a free trial for it.
That’s where I see there being real financial incentive for Zwift to make ZA fantastic in future, but we may have to wait for Zwift 2.0 for something like that.
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Exactly so on all points.
Had a shocking few weeks at work so not been able to start ZA yet. Things now calmer so can do more riding. Now I can’t find any Baseline Rides?
What do I do?
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I think the window for the Baseline ride has closed.
You can still do all the workouts and get the fitness benefit of the program.
As the finish line route is the same as the baseline, why zwift not considering one event to serve both purposes? It is not a race and only purpose to measure you sole fitness anyway… there are always some new zwifters joining even after 27th Sept.
I assume there is a difference use the name to know the difference so that they can update the charts in the companion app.
Baseline Rides will return during Makeup Week, and so will the first-half Recovery Rides (on Sand & Sequoias). You will have the chance to complete any events you missed so you can graduate the Academy.
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Good news!!
Right on, or Ride On as the case may be.
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When will the second recovery rides start? Can’t find any on the schedule currently…
According to the discussions in the following thread, the Recovery 2 rides are supposed to be available as of 3 October : Poor Instruction Around Academy Recovery Ride
I missed the Baseline ride event!
Now there are only the finish line available! But in the academy page it says “Baseline rides will only be available as an event and will only be available until October 1 at 9:59 am UTC.”
Can I still do somehow this event?
Scroll up
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