This was a popular topic that sparked a lot of discussion, so we’ve decided to bring it over to our new forums! Any duplicate topics created will be merged with this one. Enjoy the discussion and Ride On.
I’d love to see a Zwift Velodrome feature as route option. Could make for some great training / racing also…
I think you would have to restrict each velodrome to 25-30 riders at a time, just like most track races are restricted to but being that the law of superposition doesn’t seem to matter on Zwift, a 250 or 333 m velodrome could be doable. Under threshold, you could ride around the blue line, progressing lower down the track with more effort. At or above threshold, the rider should ride on the black, measurement line.
I am guessing to avoid an amorphos blob of cycling avatars you would just create virtual tracks with limits to numbers who can “join” them … something like events process and allow the event to dictate those numbers ,like categories now…
I hope this happens and can’t see it as being a hard thing. I’m into motorsport and use Iracing also, they have hundreds of thousands of people on there. They just have races starting every 30 min, restricting cars to 20-30. If they have more than that wanting to race at that time they use the identical virtual track and split the cars, easy…
Sounds a great idea.
Love the velodrome idea and the FTP based track position suggestion. How about a virtual turbo trainer in the center of the velodrome for comic irony!
I’d also love to see track racing. Thank you Zwift!
Omnium and point race on the track would be good alternative on the races that currently exist. Only the particiants / cat (A,B, C,D) are visible. Max 30participants, getting experience over time will tell howmany races would be properly utilized.
A track would be amazing! Especially if are endurance and sprint events! I know it wouldn’t be exactly true to the track but neither are the swift races. But both are fun! It defentalty would have to be capped to 30-40 people.
Are there any future plans to simulate track riding/racing? Was just reading another forum from the local track and lots of riders struggling to get track time or align their schedules around available sessions. Couldn’t help but think Zwift could be the solution.
It has been asked for many times. It’s quite a polarising suggestion. Some people love it, others poo-poo the idea.
One issue is that of “overcrowding”. Watopia can support thousands of riders because it has so much road to ride. But a velodrome is a short loop. How many riders could realistically use it at a time? 20? 30?
There are solutions such as instancing the velodrome (e.g creating a new one each time one gets full), but even with that people will say it’s not going to be like the real thing. You can’t ride up the banking or choose when to flick down and gain a jump (since there’s no steering in Zwift).
Personally I love the idea of running events like a Devil or team pursuit on a virtual velodrome, but the tech would need to be developed to support it.
Eric Min kinda dismissed the idea a year or so ago, but never say never. They said they’d never build a high mountain too, but along came Alpe du Zwift.
Thanks for some of the history on this one Daren. Maybe some day🤞
Imooted the idea a while back regarding a velodrome that was like the Roubaix velo. you could enter and exit it as you pleased, and would be cool as a finish of some events. But i do see the point of say a thousand riders on it at once. ( a race can switch off other people, so no big deal ) but normal riding, hmm. i still would like a velo included on watopia somewhere tho.
Yeah I suggested the same thing. When you ride through the gate to the velodrome it could move you to an instanced version of it. When you ride out of the velodrome you get moved back to the main world.
The main problem I think would be the potential hiccup while the game loads the velodrome map.
I just posted this as a reply to someone else on Facebook, and thought it might as well come here too:
I understand that some people would find riding in 250m loops boring. Heck, riding a trainer indoors is inherently boring. That’s why we have Zwift in the first place. 
I also get that a virtual track isn’t like a real one as things stand.
But, if we assume the coders at Zwift can work something out, then there’s a lot of fun to be had on a virtual velodrome. The things they could work out might include adding a way to move left or right, adding collision detection (and crashes?) to the game (these could both optionally benefit Zwift racing in general). Maybe steering is done using a keyboard or the app - after all those things are already needed to use powerups, give Ride Ons etc.
Given those things, the velodrome banking comes into play, so does positioning as you can’t just ride into someone. Once we have those things, all sorts of track formats could be viable. Devil take the Hindmost, Kierins, Points Races, etc. Maybe even Team Pursuit, Sprint races etc.
Personally I see lots that could be gained to make Zwift more compelling, especially as an esport - I at least find spectating track cycling more interesting that road races. Road races are good on the climbs, but they’re too long to make for good spectator fodder I think. That’s one reason for the Hammer series isn’t it? Track formats are much more rapid fire, and lend themselves better to the whole idea I reckon.
I like the idea!
The trick would be (like every other online game does it since the 90s …):
All in all this would be overkill and boost zwift to a real online game level. Races would matter more on power less on weight if aerodynamic physics would be correctly installed also.
I can definetly see this working as an instanced map, or even as a race/event only kinda thing. Companion controls left/right can move your character to a higher or lower position on the banking.
I would love a velodrome map! Using it as a solo practice room would be awesome, and it would match a lot of other competitive games. A competitive game like DotA has its main map to play, but if you wanted to practice by yourself you could go to the smaller practice map and try things out.
A velodrome map could also be used as earlier mentioned in the thread as a private map. Maybe if another zwifter wanted to challenge me 1v1, this would be perfect! Or, if I was onboarding someone new to zwift, it could provide a personal and private setting for instruction (although tbh the main map is not that stressful, maybe if the new person was nervous about other people seeing their stats at first).
I am just gonna take initiative and suggest the Omnisport Apeldoorn as a model for the velodrome layout, it is simply beautiful! This youtube video serves as a great introduction to the infectious excitement of the particular velodrome
I’ve ridden the BKool velodrome. It kind of gets boring but at least you can try for a one hour effort. You can ride with real video or virtual velodrome. Try it, then give Zwift your feedback.