Cycling in a Zwift virtual world might not always be easy. With constant in-game updates, what are the best bikes and wheels to ride at your current level? How to compare yourself with athletes who are legit and not weight doping? How do you complete in-game actions, such as turns and giving ride-ons, without scaling over the handlebars to reach the laptop?
As a tech geek, I got into Zwift relatively early and love every aspect of the game. Casual coffee rides where I can discuss the latest professional cycling news with like-minded people. Gran Fondos that make me sweat in my garage for 4-6 hours, I race in dozens of competitive events and climbed Alpe Du Zwift numerous times to get my hands on that shiny Tron bike. I believe that Zwift Insider, ZwiftPower, and Zwift Companion App are three resources that are vital to crush your goals in the virtual world of Zwift.
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How to give a Ride On in Zwift
Ride On is a great way to spark that extra motivation in someone, and there are a couple of ways you can do this:
Using a computer. Just lean over your handlebars, move the mouse cursor to the rider you wish to give a ride on and click a thumbs-up icon next to their name. Just be careful not to fall over!
Via the Zwift companion app, you can make it rain with Ride Ons by tapping your avatar’s arrow on the live course map.
You can give a Ride On by tapping on a white dot in the map and selecting an athlete.
If clicking on moving small circles is not your thing, open the Zwifters tab on the companion app and select an athlete from there. Inside their profile, you will be able to give a Ride On.
There are also in-game achievements, at the time of writing this article, 5 of them are related to Ride On, so make sure to encourage people with virtual thumbs up and receive some of them back. Here is a list of Ride On related achievements:
- Give 3 Ride Ons
- Give 30 Ride Ons
- Gave 100 Ride Ons
- Receive 30 Ride Ons in 1 activity
- Receive 100 Ride Ons in 1 activity
Stay up to date with Zwift Insider
Zwift Insider is a community-driven project, that focuses on every aspect of a game- getting started, smart trainers tier lists, training tips, you name it. If you are new to Zwift, I suggest you read their guide on getting started.
With frequent updates to the game, it might be hard to keep track of everything that gets added or rebalanced. To keep track of everything happening on virtual roads, open Zwift Insider’s game updates page every so often and at least skim through it. Knowing what was updated first will give you a competitive edge over your opponents.
Once you start racing, you will quickly notice that it is much different than competing on the real roads, but Zwift Insider once again has you covered, it has a ton of racing-related blog posts and a short how-to to get you started.
If you have a question about the game- Zwift Insider most likely has an answer to it. Try using their navigation at the top of the page and soon you will know everything about the game.
Participate in fair racing with ZwiftPower
Once you start racing on Zwift, you will quickly notice riders that seem out of their league. Although the app penalizes a rider, which performs well above their selected category, weight doping is still a big issue on Zwift. Thankfully ZwiftPower is here to fight it.
ZwiftPower is a project once again created by the community, which later got purchased by Zwift as more and more races started to use it as an official results center.
If you are serious about racing on Zwift, here are three main reasons why I strongly urge you to sign up on ZwiftPower:
- Most Zwift races use ZwiftPower for their final results. If you are not on ZwiftPower, you will not appear on that race’s result board.
- You will have an overview of your current fitness. People who are not using TrainingPeaks or similar software, rely on ZwiftPower to provide them with the latest FTP, rider phenotype graphs, and additional information that they find useful for training and developing as an athlete.
- ZwiftPower makes it easy to come up with a race-winning strategy. On the platform, you will be able to easily determine crucial parts of the course and review other competing riders.
In my experience, viewing and choosing races is much more convenient on ZwiftPower than on the official Zwift website. Another option is to find a race using the Zwift Companion app, but it falls short compared to ZwiftPower.
Complete all in-game actions with Zwift Companion App
Zwift Companion App is a free remote control tool for your riding experience. Using it will allow you to easily give ride ons, navigate the virtual world, and join events that you signed up for.
During workouts, you will be able to adjust the workout’s difficulty, pause or resume it with a couple of taps on your mobile phone. It will soon prove to be extremely useful, as scaling over handlebars is not the safest option.
Zwift Companion App also allows you to chat with fellow cyclists easily. If you don't have a sufficient setup for typing on a keyboard, you will miss out on one of the biggest perks of Zwift- community.Wrapping up
These three tools are vital to getting the most out of Zwift. Depending on your riding preferences, some resources might be more useful than others, but Zwift Insider, ZwiftPower, and Companion App are must-haves whatever you do on virtual roads of Zwift.
If you are interested in becoming a stronger cyclist, we have you covered on BigBonkTour, read more training articles, or choose a related one below.
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