If you logged into Zwift for a ride this morning you were met with a lot of new functionality. Let’s get into what you saw, along with other new content and features upgrades you might not know about.

There’s a new font and that’s what’s immediately obvious. Much more importantly there’s a new UX (User Experience) that greets you after you boot the Game and pair your devices. This includes a new set of tabs, menus and filters that make it a lot easier to hunt for workouts, rides and routes.

Since Zwift’s birth (on this site’s Reader Forum, arguably) users enjoyed a huge community with lots of event options but couldn’t easily, quickly scroll through and find just the right events. As of today log into Zwift and pair your devices. Hit the tabs at the top of the screen to see the options available. Much easier now which is good because, as of today, there are about 3000 events each week in Zwift, which include 1000 live races each week.

Clubs

The other frustration with Zwift in years past has been the (in)ability to form and manage affinity groups. Yes, it’s nice to ride with 10,000 or 20,000 Zwifters – among the hundreds of thousands of Zwift users – but how do I ride with my friends? Zwift has addressed this as well with this new update.

Between last season and this Zwift paid a lot of attention to community and community-generated social riding opportunities. Clubs have been a smash hit. Since Clubs debuted last year more than 20,000 of them have sprung up on Zwift. About 150,000 Zwift users are a member of at least 1 club. Any user who’s reached at least Level 5 can form a club.

Even so, Club membership in Zwift was throttled. We reported this past May that the Club limit had been expanded from 10 members to 10,000 members. (I already see clubs with 5,000 and 6,000 members.) It is now pretty easy for a Club to schedule its own event. Group Workouts launched in June and today 3 in every 4 social riding options are user generated.

The search & filter enhancements include the tools to easily find the Club(s) you want to join. Or, create your own event.

Newbies On Board

Zwift has the reputation as being the thing snooty, serious cyclists do, while Peloton attracts the mass audience. But the numbers tell a different story. You’ll remember a raft of questions you were asked when you first joined. Based on how new Zwifters answer those questions it's clear those trends are changing. Fifty percent of new Zwifters are beginners or recreational athletes rather than serious enthusiasts. The average time on Zwift is 47 minutes, which is down a few minutes. Twenty-minute power is down 15 percent versus 3 years ago and is now 181 watts.

That’s not because you all have gotten weaker. Some of this is due to the migration from ZPower to real power, as riders have upgraded to smart trainers. But mostly Zwift has broadened its attraction from hard core to not necessarily hard core. A lot of the changes getting written about here are with this in mind.

Pace Partners

A year ago about 6 percent of Zwifters rode with a Pace Partner at least once a week. That has grown to 30 percent. One reason Pace Partners were sometimes a tough go was the jumps between levels. There are now 11 Pace Partner paces and earlier in the summer we listed these, with their respective w/kg effort levels. Not yet ready is the ability to jump from one Pace Partner to another during a ride, but Zwift knows this is a need.

Another upgrade, slid in without much fanfare, is the change in the way Pace Partners ride. Much more like we all ride. A number of these autumn upgrades are comprised of features we've seen occur over the North American summer and we covered this one as well a few months ago.

Holographic Replays

This one is a drug. It’s sure to become one of the most used functions on Zwift, and the proximate cause of a case of legs ripped off torsos.

It's a close cousin to a Pace Partner, except it enables you to test yourself against the opponent most likely to push you to your limit: You. Holographic Replays are available to you for any segment you choose. The most obvious – yes – the Alpe. As you might know the Alpe du Zwift is a segment inside the Road to Sky route. (Users can also access the Alpe via other Routes, such as the Tour of Fire and Ice or the Four Horsemen, but Road to Sky is the most direct.) Users will toodle along the first 10 or so miles of Road to Sky and then put the gas pedal down at the beginning of the segment.

You will see a holographic representation of your effort on the Alpe, and you can choose your most recent effort or your 90-day PR and your ghostlike version of that earlier you will appear as soon as you hit the segment and continue to the end of that segment. The Alpe is the most obvious segment but you can enable Holographic Replays for any segment(s) you want.

Urukazi

This is the latest expansion of Makuri Islands, which is the second most popular World in Zwift. This is the third expansion of Makuri Islands, with 10 to 12 miles of new roads. There are 8 new routes, with a new uber route of more than 25 miles. Here’s a teaser of what you’ll ride this autumn.

This expansion includes asphalt, dirt and sand.

More Upgrades

For those who enjoy team time trials (Slowtwitchers) there is now a start pen for TTTs.

If you’ve reached level 50, you’re no longer at the highest level. There is now level 60 available to you, and you’ll upgrade through a mix or calculation of both accumulated achievements and miles along with the miles you ride going forward. You don’t get 100 percent credit for everything you’ve done since Level 50, but you’ll upgrade to higher levels faster than someone who just reached Level 50 if you've put miles in the bank since you reached Level 50.

You may now pair your workouts to a Route, and this is new.

Many of the changes above are visible in-Game but a lot of the functionality is accessible through the Companion App, which is the “control panel” of or the “remote control” for Zwift.

Running and Racing

This is a lot to unpack and doesn’t even touch on all the new Zwift Racing options.

ZRacing will feature 4 stages in September, 5 in October and 6 in November. The Zwift Running League will commence October 3rd and run through the month. The Zwift Duathlon League (my favorite) runs Nov 30 thru Dec 21.

We will, as usual, move through all of this on a weekly basis (click INDOOR on the blue nav bar at the top of every Slowtwitch page and you’ll quickly scroll through our updates). Otherwise, visit our front page around the beginning of every week you'll see our weekly coverage of Zwift upgrades and new functionality.