The question to be answered here is why they prefer the flat, and what incentive/s might be created to alter the status quo. There will always be people who just don’t want to climb, as well as people who are just all about the miles. But there is likely also a (large?) group of people who could be lured away if something they feel is worthwhile is on offer. I think events like The Big Spin and ToW illustrate this well. The other crucial piece, of course, would be developing incentives that can’t be gamed, or are, at least, very hard to game (a disincentive, if you will).
This. (but without the typo). People hate hills, both on Zwift and in real life. Same for runners.
I read this thread because I’m a climber (like it or not) and will gravitate to climbs regardless of incentive.
Thanks for sharing this with the team, James.
The recent L’Etape Challenge showed that climb incentives really do change rider behavior. I saw more people in the Climb Portal during those four featured climbs than I have in a long time. The exclusive L’Etape 2026 kit and the 2,000 XP reward clearly motivated riders to seek out those climbs.
The same thing happened during Big Spin 2026. The mystery spinners put more riders on Jarvis KOM, Epic KOM, Radio Tower, Volcano KOM, and Alpe du Zwift than I’ve ever seen before. Those exclusive unlocks and drop bonuses were a strong incentive to climb instead of riding the usual flat routes.
I think that’s the key takeaway. When Zwift gives riders a reason to climb, they do. It would be great to see those kinds of incentives become part of the everyday progression system instead of only appearing during limited-time events.
There’s an example with the Climb Mt. Everest Challenge. New riders are still motivated by the Émonda and the Tron bike years later, but both bikes are now far behind the much better in-game frame options. I’d love to see another exclusive climbing unlock for the 5th Zwift Challenge, similar to the Lightning Aero Socks. Maybe a pair of climbing gloves that provide an XP and/or Drops bonus, since this type of percentage-based bonus already exists in-game for upgraded entry-level bikes.
Something like Summit Gloves would be a very cool unlock for a Summit Challenge:
- 50,000m of climbing Unlock: Summit Gloves
- 150,000m of climbing Unlock: Summit Gloves +5% Drops
- 300,000m of climbing Unlock: Summit Gloves +5% XP
I have a mockup of what they could look like keeping with the current design language of the Aero socks.
Is the Factory Tour the only challenge so far that has incentivized power units instead of the other obvious options (time, distance, elevation)?
Yes. Everest is elevation, California and Italy are distance, and Factory is power units.
Yeah, though I was even wondering amongst any of the past ‘non-forever’ challenges whether power units have been used.
Zwift Academy has ranked people by power and gave them reports on their relative standings against the population. That is effectively a power-based incentive.
A bit different perhaps.. that’d just be power, not power x time ?
The reports related to power over certain intervals (in prescribed tests) so yes power over time but not power across many rides like the factory tour.
There would be nothing technical to prevent having the mountainous routes having better incentives to ride on, more drops earning, more XP so they are equally as lucrative as riding with the flat route fast robopacers.
When old Amelia Anquetil used to ride up the Epic KOM, that was a really enjoyable group. The robopacer stayed at fixed 4.2w/kg at 65kg and we would always see 10-15 people there - and they were real riders, not just a stream of people dropping in for a minute or two for a coffee break with the fastest group for the most extra free kms. I used to do 70-80km with that group.
As you mentioned, I also find the mountainous routes a lot more motivating. Endless laps of Tempus Fugit or Watopia Waistband with the pack-dynamics blocking are really boring and didn’t do a lot to improve my fitness. Riding mountain routes all the time has made a big improvement to fitness and speed outside.
My assumption is speed and distance, not XP or Drops awards.
Not ease of turning the pedals?
No I don’t think so. You can always downshift. Look at the popularity of the jungle pre and post rolling resistance.
Or the intent behind Red Rock loop
Personally I would be motivated to do more climbs if there were more XP bonuses. The alpe is not bad for XP if you include the spinner and descent (it does require you to have enough time to get to the top however), but other climbs like Ventoux etc don’t give similar XP to flat, easy routes with pacers, so there’s limited motivation to climb anything else other than climb of the week and the alpe.
Ouch… but accurate
Shame on whoever at ZHQ decided to rip the experience of scenery flying by at highway speeds to whoever spent the time to craft that world.
Shame we’re coming up on a quarter year since that day and still no word too.
I’ve definitely commented on this a few times. We’re making some tweaks to the route and speed scaling which are largely complete. I’d anticipate some sort of events on this late summer / early autumn.
Maybe having some actual data to back up this assumption would be helpful. 
That’s a bit rude Nigel. I’m just basing that on a myriad of conversations I’ve had in the past.
If you’d prefer me to not engage here I can do that.
My intention was not to be rude, so I apologize if you took it that way. I was just wanting to point out that assuming something is generally not great. I would think that Zwift would be able to put together a survey to get some actual data on why people gravitate to the flat roads, as well as some insight into what would entice them to ride hillier routes.