Zwift has made a number of significant improvements in its latest platform update, including fixes for large events and added steering capability for Wahoo Kickr bike owners, as well as increased choice for customisation with black hairstyle options.
Zwift has made some important changes in the latest update (1.0.61217) to its virtual cycling platform, with improvements focused on better accommodating very large events.
To help keep frame rates high for a smooth riding experience on the platform for all users, Zwift has changed how nearby riders are rendered, and more specifically, it seems to be related to how many riders will appear on your screen as you ride in a large group.
This update is said to be most noticeable on lower end devices.
Lead Game Designer at Zwift, Wes Salmon, told users on the brand’s forum: “Some users may notice differences in the number of bikes/riders they see around them in large events. This is expected.”
Use of Futureworks steering functionality on the platform is no longer limited to Elite’s Sterzo Smart steering block, Zwift having added steering support for the Wahoo Kickr bike.
> Review: Wahoo Kickr Bike
It works by a single click of the steering button—one is found on the inside of the left hood, and the other on the right hood—to move across either left or right by just one lane. Holding down the button you can change multiple lanes in one go.
> Video: Elite Sterzo – Steering in Zwift! my first race. Does it change the game?
Steering has been adjusted to be more responsive at high speeds and also improvements to the default camera angle have been made. Salmon said on the forum this is “to minimise camera movement while making significant changes in steering angle”.
Steering cannot be used in all races; there are specific events for those with steering capability only. Also, this steering ability is currently unavailable on Zwift’s singletrack mountain bike course, Repack Ridge, but is said to be included in a future update.
Customisation options have been increased. There are new black hairstyles available for the game avatars and these can be found in the garage section of Zwift’s menu.
A bug has also been fixed that would auto-select your avatar’s gender during account creation.
More information on this latest update and other fixes to bugs can be found on Zwift’s forum here.
22 thoughts on “Latest Zwift update includes improvements to large events, and steering now extended to Wahoo Kickr bikes”
Aren’t those hairstyles just
Aren’t those hairstyles just hairstyles? Why are they specifically black? Or am I missing something? I didn’t think hairstyles were dependent on colour or anything else.
MattieKempy wrote:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afro
Thanks @Jetmans Dad. As the
Thanks @Jetmans Dad. As the Wikipedia article says, they were particularly popular with the African-American community in the 1960s and 1970s. But we’re not in the 1960s and 1970s now and we don’t have to label things as specific to a skin tone or anything else. So they’re hairstyles, not black hairstyles as they’re not specific to black-skinned people, nor are the hairstyles specifically black in colour, as I shall now demonstrate by equipping my Zwift avatar with one in time for the SZR Lunch Race I intend to join at 12:40 local time.
MattieKempy wrote:
Would I be correct in thinking that you tend to say “Why is it Black Lives Matter not All Lives Matter?” Afros are almost exclusive to the black community, not sure why you seem to have a problem with that, or why you think it would be worthwhile/amusing to “black up” for a race when you’re not black? What point are you trying to prove, exactly?
I think you’re grossly
I think you’re grossly twisting what I actually wrote!
I’m merely pointing out that the comment that the hairstyles are black hairstyles is in itself racist. Hairstyles are hairstyles. To point out the Afros are more prevalent among the black community just reinforces that! They’re hairstyles, not black hairstyles.
Yes,, all lives do matter, but the fact that white lives are currently worth several times the average black life means that the focus needs to be on overcoming the prejudice show against people who aren’t white, so yes, black lives definitely do matter!
What makes you think I blacked up? I didn’t! I raced as normal but with an Afro. My point is that hair is irrelevant in the same way that skin colour should be (but sadly isn’t) and that there’s absulotely no need for road.cc or anyone else to differentiate between people on any basis whatsoever and that their comment that the hairstyles are black hairstyles was misjudged.
MattieKempy wrote:
An Afro is a black hairstyle, you basically can’t achieve it with any other type of hair. If you have a look around you’ll find that hairstyles, their use, suppression and appropriation are a massive issue for the black community in many areas and I don’t think you can just glibly dismiss their concerns by claiming they’re “just” hairstyles – they have cultural and political significance far beyond that.
Rendel Harris wrote:
You may be correct about “afros”, but there are different types of ‘fro such as the jewfro or even the “Bob Ross Fro” (probably not technically a ‘fro as ‘fros are natural and Bob Ross’s was a perm)
hawkinspeter wrote:
Yeah, that’s just big curly hair!
You think that’s big?
You think that’s big?
Chill, they’re just trying to
Chill, they’re just trying to make the platform more inclusive and welcoming to all, it’s not a bad thing, regardless of possible clumsy wording by them or road.cc
Zwift never mentioned them
Zwift never mentioned them once in the official release for the Patch. Seems all the news sites picked it up (ZwiftInsider as source?) and all ran with it in those terms. The more options for making your avatar look like yourself is better anyway. Just a shame that if they wanted to show my hair style, they need to add a shower plughole into the game.
AlsoSomniloquism wrote:
Or more options to make your avatar look better than yourself 🙂
I think clumsy wording was
I think clumsy wording was probably the issue here! You make a good point.
+1 to this.
+1 to this.
Does the Zwift simulation
Does the Zwift simulation take account of some hairstyles being more or less aerodynamic? 🙂
Now that’s the crux of the
Now that’s the crux of the matter!
I wish Zwift would do some
I wish Zwift would do some actually useful updates. Like:
1. Give the user the ability to remove all other riders if its creating slowdown on their computer or tablet etc
2. Remove all the GPS data that puts the real world strava segments available. – so many segments in Harrogate that have leaderboards full of people who have never even been there and put impossible to beat times in the real world – If i have to subscribe to Strava and leaderboards are pretty much its main thing then fairness should be a driving factor. Virtual rides shouldn’t appear on real world leaderboards.
3. Make routes a bit more realistic in terms of corner approach speeds. If steering is the next big thing then surely a descent from Alpe d’zwift taking hairpin corners at 75kph isn’t exactly realistic.
4. If there is such a big thing about gender/colour etc then how long before the other 99 different ‘genders’ want their own avatar? Maybe create a complete neutral genderless avatar to allow anyone to create their preferences.
Smoggysteve wrote:
Already doable. Start your ride, disconnect your device from the internet, ride, reconnect before saving and exiting. The world is downloaded to your device in full so you can ride as far as you like, and as long as you are not connected to the web you will be Billy Nomates. Yes, it is a workaround, but a quick and simple one.
Interesting, my Zwift rides don’t seem to appear on the real world leaderboards, only the virtual ones. I have ridden a number of the London segments (Box Hill, Leith Hill etc.) in both Zwift and the real world and my virtual/irl times are definitely on completely separate leaderboards.
That aside, isn’t that an issue for Strava to fix rather than Zwift? Strava knows which rides are in the real world and which are virtual when they are uploaded, so their system should be able to deal with them accordingly.
1. There are options to
1. There are options to remove these already (turn off your Internet connection) but yes, flipper to turn crowds on / off could be useful.
2. All the rides uploaded to Strava need GPS data, just that the imaginary ones are somewhere in the South Pacific. Yes they could do the same for them all, however the recreations of the World champ courses are based on the actual races and as the Pros have already done them, I doubt you would be beating them anyway. Surely it is a strava problem anyway as all rides are tagged Virtual for me so they surely can filter out non virtual ones.
3. Zwift and most of the virtual riders have never marketed themselves as a real world simulator so why do that now? Next you will be asking to represent the gale force winds on top of Ventoux or the pneumonia on the snow covered mountains. I doubt any casual zwifters would ever be able come down the AlpDZwift without crashing. And tbh in most cases the descents are just sped up as no actual exercise happens in most cases so get them out of the way fast.
4. What does a neutral Genderless avatar look like when always clothed?
AlsoSomniloquism wrote:
My last Alpe ascent was 58:51 to get up 8:43 to get down. I see it as a “free extra mileage” reward for spending the time and energy to make the ascent in the first place.
Please don’t make me work for it!
I agree, a recovery. I just
I agree, a recovery. I just wish I could do under 2hours, let alone one.
Slowly pedal though to get a few drops. If the bug with no “wind resisitance” was still there and you pedalled hard and beat 100mph I might have tried hard on the way down.
1. I want a proper solution
1. I want a proper solution not a hack or workaround. Thats not doable using Apple TV
2.I can see virtual rides on my regular route around Harrogate. So they will copy across. There are a lot of segments on my usual routes. So they are using the same GPS path as the real life route.
3. If they are introducing steering them isn’t that a move in that direction?
4. Anything you like. If you’re going to offer male and female only then is that really gender equality? Thry push a lot on race but thst means its even more discriminatory if they action one demographic