So cool, I love it!
Already did two short climbs and looking foreward to check the longer ones of the Tour de France like the Puy de Dome - just to know how it feels for the TdF-riders 
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Making the most of the one climb now, itâs good fun and a nice mixup from the usual ERG mode workouts 
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Ah, yes, this is what I feared. Itâs âguest worldâ all over again.
How long will each climb feature once you go into a rotating schedule? Even if itâs just three days, the means that if I want to do a specific climb, I might have to wait almost a month for it to come around; and that supposes the 3 days when it is available are days I am able to find the time to do that climb.
This will only get worse as you add more climbs.
Surely itâs much better from a user perspective to just let us choose the climb we want to do.
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Yeah agree, advertise a couple of them so they are well populated but make the others available to just select manually
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I rode a 2 of the Climb Portal climbs today.
Cote de Pike (2 km at 10%) and Cote de Trebiac (3.4 km at 5.8%)
It is not bad. Itâs challenging. The side information is pretty good. The gradient colors are good. The floating things add absolutely nothing to the experience.
All in all, Iâd give it a 7.5 out of 10.
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The center metrics section (where your XP bar is) shows remaining distance, remaining elevation gain, and ETA.
Please make all of them selectable all the time forever. And while youâre at it please end the guest world rotation.
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Yes I am aware. The progress bar at the bottom left shows progress measured in horizontal distance and given as a percentage, which is what Iâm talking about.
One climb I was doing it showed me about 60% complete with less than half the climbing done.
That actually is good info to have - the climb pitches up at the end.
So has anyone notice if you filter via route completion in the worlds screen it gives you a new route there, will the other climbs be rolled out like this? And can you teleport to them?
OK, so I did Cote de Pike today and enjoyed myself!
I am not a climber but everything up to âmedium spicyâ are climbs I (as a non-climber) would do on a whim. A few hundred meters of climbing, good little workout, not a 90 minute commitment.
Colour-coded gradients were nice and gave it sort of an interval workout feeling, even if it wasnât erg-intervals. Love the AdZ-stype mini-map and sector times - Iâve long hoped to see those get used more. EDIT - I did get credit toward the âClimb Portal: First Ascent Challengeâ on an AppleTV 4k (2022).
One thing @manda_F : I donât think chat was enabled on the climb? Iâd like to see that in the portals. (EDIT - someone down-thread reported this when using the Companion app to chat)
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Thank you Zwift for the climb portal. That was awesome 
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I did my first Climbing Portal ride and I loved it. Canât wait to do all 8 this month. Love the colors, plenty of info and challenging as it should be. Great job, Team Zwift!! Finally no need to ride 5 or more miles flat before hitting the Epic KOM.
After much anticipation, I finally managed to embark on one of the portal rides, tackling the legendary Col dâAspin. In truth, it lived up to my expectations, matching the discussions and marketing materials to a tee. For me, this was an asset, allowing me to immerse myself in the experience rather than being sidetracked by unexpected elements.
As for the graphics? Well, they may not be my favorite, but I found them far from displeasing. Despite initial concerns over potential dizziness, I found the motion of the elements and the roads neither disorientating nor disturbing. In fact, there is an underappreciated perk to the graphics. If youâre aiming for a personal record or a KQOM time, you can pinpoint exactly when and where to tweak your positioning and power to max out your speed, a benefit thatâs less discernible in fully fleshed-out worlds. From a purely training perspective, this clarity could prove to be a game-changer. Imagine conquering the Alpe with this level of visibility, fine-tuning each move to shave off precious seconds!
The arches with their alternating offerings of XP crosses, a feather, or a nothing burger added an engaging layer of unpredictability. During my ride, I reaped three feathers, a 250 XP, three 10 XP, and a single middle finger at the penultimate archđ. With a one-in-four chance of netting 250 XP per arch, itâs a tantalizing incentive for those eager to level up - statistically, it could prove more fruitful than repeated Alpe ascents.
I view these features as a refreshing shakeup for VEveresting attempts or for those still vying for the Tron bike. As a long-time Zwift user, novelty is always welcome. The portalâs potential for injecting regular variety throughout the year strikes me as a valuable addition to the platform. It wonât tick everyoneâs boxes, and thatâs perfectly fine!
A few suggestions to elevate the experience further:
- Mix up the background graphics to maintain engagement. Consider a deep space theme, an Aurora Borealis spectacle, or perhaps some whimsical Zwift creatures for a dash of fun. The current gradient-color changes didnât quite capture my attention, fading into the background almost immediately.
- Introduce virtual partners based on completion times. The dynamic model could be highly effective here. While traditional pacer bots might be less suitable (no one fancies starting on a 17% gradient), a âghostâ pacer could provide a motivational boost for those chasing a new PR.
- Look into promoting popular climbs to permanent routes, offering riders the chance to revisit these epic ascents time and again. The Tourmalet could be an excellent candidate for this.
In all, the portal rides are solid addition to Zwift, bringing an extra dimension to our virtual cycling world. Iâve really been impressed with the trajectory of the platform in 2023. Whatever has gone on behind the scenes to improve agility and focus, keep it up!
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Hopefully we can move to something like this in a future release. Having the road and background similar colours is an issue for me, particularly the red tone.
Perhaps Zwift will slowly build out each route, one at a time, and once complete place them in a world.
I mentioned this earlier based on the Zwift Insider article:
Each climb will be available for 2 weeks (same climb on both portals) which would be 3 months between each climb coming around if they keep all 8 (which is madness even for Zwift).
I speculated that we wonât have 8 climbs after July and that the TdF climbs will be removed with maybe only the two longest climbs kept until the Tour of Spain.
Youâre free to speculate on what happens with the schedule after July though.
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Loving the addition of the climb portal. A few things I noticed on Col du Platzerwasel:
- The power shown after crossing the finish banner included the warmup before the portal in the average watts. Pretty sure this should only be the actual climbing section.
- Will Strava segments be possible?
- Glasses didnât show on my avatar.
- When I could see an upcoming switchback and a blue section of road following it, the blue section looked very steep. Not sure if this is just some kind of intentional distortion, but it seemed odd.
- Zwift crashed for the second time in a week, which is very rare for me after riding with Zwift for 3 years with the same setup. Not sure if anything changed in the last couple updates with Zwift, Windows, or NVidia graphics. Windows 11, Bluetooth, Wahoo Kickr Bike.
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No eyewear on avatar also seen here.
Yes, doing Cote de Pike where it was red most of the time was not my favorite.
But other than that and the need for mesh on the sides like @Andrew_Nuse said, I loved the portal!
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I think Zwift Insider already has Strava segments. Cote de Pike (Watopia Climb Portal) | Strava Virtual Ride Segment in Temotu, Solomon Islands for Pike