Really haven’t used Zwift at all in the last year so the email this morning was a nice nudge to cancel my subscription
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Not to be left out, the Kickr Core Zwift One:
Zwift.com & WahooFitness.com
– US – $ 649.99
– EU – € 649.99
– UK – £ 579.99WahooFitness.com:
– Australia – AUD 1,129.95
– Canada – CAD 1,049.99
And what may be the real “kicker”:
In addition to all this, it flew under the radar that last month Zwift stopped creating new kids accounts (under-16, or so-called U16 accounts). In fact, the entire program is “being reviewed”, but at this point, existing kids accounts can remain on the platform, though Zwift says that if that changes “any future changes impacting existing members will be communicated in advance.” – which seems like an awfully close to saying “we plan to kill off Zwift kids accounts entirely, but don’t want this much bad news in one week”.
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Not an active Zwift user, so doesn’t impact me. And if they haven’t increase prices in a long time, maybe this is appropriate.
But is it me of is it starting the feel like when Zwift and Wahoo “settled” their patent case last year, it was really a “wink wink, nudge nudge” backroom agreement where they realized that if they both agreed to cooperate, stay in their lanes and quit competing directly, they could firm up their hold on the market and increase prices…
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Hardly just you. There was speculation back in Feb about a subscription increase there and elsewhere.
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Add in plenty of discussion when Z dropped the Hub and swapped to the Core and your sentiment has been shared over time by many others.
I guess I skew away from a cynical standpoint and see a pragmatic side where each company had taken a step out of their normal “lane” and learned that maybe that wasn’t the best place for them. Sure, competition is generally beneficial in this area for a number of reasons, but companies can end up in trouble if their outside gambles don’t pay off (which seems rather likely from the tea leaves we’ve seen in the last 6 months).
With respect to Zwift, there are still other apps out there and some are even free. So the lack of Wahoo RGT in the equation is not what I see as the kingpin they needed to raise prices. As of now, Zwift lands at the essentially the same pricing TR set a while ago.
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Between the Zwift price hike and Garmin changing the Connect app, it’s been a busy month on cycling social media. 
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I forgot I was subscribed till I got the email. Thanks for the cancellation reminder I guess.
I wonder if my whoosh is happy about the news, got to push some people towards them especially people who only zwift every now and again
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Probably this is end for me on Zwift. The worst thing about the zwift is not being able to set exact power targets. It always round the target to multiplies of 5. and I just got the mail that says price will increase to 20 Euro. I don’t want to fınance their GCN advertisements anymore.
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Zwift price increase is a bummer but inline with everything else.
I suppose if they allow for TR integration with Zwift and make my life a little easier, the price increase is justified for me.
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Hmmmm. Please explain how me doing my sweetspot intervals at 220 watts or 225 watts rather than 221, 222, 223 or 224 watts makes a material difference to how effective they are.
I’m not sure why they decided to round to the nearest 5, but I’m also not sure it matters.
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Oh, it absolutely matters to some of us. Until quite recently, my FTP was 190W. 5W was fully 2.6% of FTP, so a threshold workout on Zwift could ONLY be done at 97.4%, or 100%, or 102.6%. Those are reasonable choices, but they were not always the choices I wanted to make!
To progress my endurance rides, I couldn’t do 68% this week, slightly longer time and 69% next week, and so on… my choices were 74%, 71.4%, 68.8%, or 66.2%. It’s prima facie limiting to athletes who are putting out less power than most.
I am also sure that, if everyone could only adjust their workout intensity in increments of 2.6%, people would be howling about it.
The reason this is infuriating is because it’s ENTIRELY artificial and unnecessary. Real limitations are easy to accept: my bike can only have so many gears, therefore sometimes cadence is uncomfortable or power is above/below optimum. I accept that.
But for Zwift, rounding to 5W clicks ADDS work to the software. It COSTS Zwift money (via energy) to go from
power x percent
to
round( power x percent / 5 , 0) x 5
(in Excel-speak). It produces ZERO benefit to the user. And it DOES create an annoyance and a limitation for some of us.
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Agreed…our bodies are not that precise (as @ambermalika always said). The difference between 223w and 225w is meaningless.
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Is that a change of tack? I always thought TR was against the idea of pushing TR workouts to Z (or anywhere else)
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It always drove me nuts that Zwift wouldn’t be at the correct wattage.
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Maybe. I don’t use Zwift that much but if I do I’m typically doing a group ride or following a pacer or hill repeats. In all cases, I’m benefited by a lot of users who I can chase. If the routes are emptier it’s less motivating for me.
False precision, my friend.
For a start, your FTP number probably isn’t your FTP to the nearest watt.
Secondly, your FTP on any given day is probably anywhere within a 5 watt radius of its mean value.
Thirdly, power meter error.
Fourthly, riding a couple of watts below your FTP number is better than riding right at it. Give yourself that margin.
Finally, progressing endurance rides by power? A recipe for riding yourself into a fatigue hole unless you know you’re under your LT1.
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