Zwift Ride applied brakes by itself in final sprint

Bugs and Support
1

Yesterday I was doing a race on the Zwift Ride and something very strange happened near the finish sprint.

In the last ~100 meters I started sprinting hard out of the saddle. Suddenly the bike started braking by itself mid-sprint. After reviewing the video footage I noticed the bike literally using brakes mid-sprint.

The Zwift Ride has the braking mechanism integrated near the top/front of the handlebars, where you normally lean or press to brake. But during this sprint I was only gripping the lower drops.

It almost feels like the braking system got triggered by either:

  • Flex in the handlebars during sprinting

  • Pressure/vibration

  • A hardware issue/sensor issue

Has anyone else experienced this?

Update:
Today 7-5-2026 I’ve send a message to support.
They told me replacement was the best choice, I reckon I have to send the old one back.
More details will follow. Fast support and replies, so really helpful thus far.

2

Contact Zwift support. You probably need some new handlebars.

3

They might be bad if you’re sure you didn’t touch them, but while that gets sorted you can go into the game settings and move Braking Sensitivity all the way to the left to disable braking