Something new and interesting today, rather than the SST session I had in mind. I knew the new Zwift Climb Portal feature was dropping this weekend, but I wasn’t planning on doing this ride. I was all set for the Sweet Spot Session, but when I logged in and saw the Climb Portal rides were available I couldn’t resist checking them out.
The SST session has a 4 out of 5 intensity.
I took a look at the available climbs on the Climb Portal from the new menu. Unfortunately it wasn’t possible to get a screenshot – God knows, I tried – so here is the info from Zwift.com:
This is some kind of event, albeit a solo challenge. You have to complete at least one of the climbs from the four available.
Looking at what was on offer, on the Climb Portal menu, each had a rating out of 5. I picked Col des Aravis because it was on the 3 out 5 and looked to be the middle of the bunch.
On To The Climb
When picking the climb you start off in the regular Zwift virtual world.
Because all of these climbs tie in with the Tour de France 2023, the world you are dropped in too is Zwift France. I believe in the future some will begin in Watopia also, but I don’t know more on that right now.
You get a short lead in – and I do mean short. From loading the game to hitting the bottom of the climb I got a 1.6km stretch of road which took me 3 minutes to clear at a very relaxed pace.
It would seem anyone hitting any of the four climbs will be using the same portal. That makes sense because as soon as you hit the portal you are instantly teleported to the bottom of your climb of choice:
It would definitely make sense to have some kind of ‘virtual warm up’ feature, where you peddle along flat, virtual road until you click ‘ready’ or something. This feels like it could be improved, but equally, for now you can warm up elsewhere.
The one downside to that is you can’t teleport to other pace partners in France, as none are are available.
Once inside the climb, the whole world changes to a colour coded slope.
It’s actually really cool looking, I was more impressed than I thought I would be.
I believe the ghost partner you get provided is somehow designed to challenge you – but it will be specific to you. I got someone called Kazuho@youtube, who I assume is a Youtuber from Japan or similar.
You also get an improved version of the Alpe du Zwift overlay.
This is really cool:
Most of this is the same as the Alpe du Zwift HUD, but you get a gradient readout for each section, rather than the total distance for that segment.
You also get a real time Overall Progress bar that ticks up as you pedal. I found this quite motivating. It moves fast, and it feels like you’re really making progress.
As above, that progress shows distance and climb covered. Really useful and a nice improvement.
Here’s the AdZ view for reference:
On the right you get a very similar view to Alpe du Zwift:
This is slightly different from the AdZ view in that on AdZ you would have seen distance covered at the bottom there.
Also the gradient at the top is more interesting – with colour variations. This reminds me of the view on my Garmin Climb Pro, or the Tacx Software.
Here’s the AdZ view for reference:
I wonder if they have migrated this over to AdZ?
It definitely feels miles better than the climb up Ventop, which is what some of these longer Climb Portal climbs could be comparable too.
Col des Aravis (4.4 km at 6%)
I have absolutely no idea what the Col des Aravis is like in real life. None whatsoever.
So I can only compare this to other Zwift climbs.
You might think that, without the usual level details, this would be boring to ride.
I’d say not so.
The constantly changing road colour surface is more useful than you might think. And it somehow tricked my brain into focusing on that, making me think how little I usually pay attention to the road side scenery on a climb anyway.
It might not be quite so fun for spectators, but for the person doing the effort it’s functional and visually interesting enough.
The climb itself was a challenge for me.
In my head I tried to place it around the same sort of intensity as Box Hill. But it’s not. It’s harder.
I went way too hard for the first 10 minutes or so, and then by segment 3 I had blown my engine and lost 10w off my previous unsustainable pace.
Whoops.
Even when I had to ease off – dropping from mid to high 250s back to low 240s – I couldn’t get my heart rate back down. It crept up on every segment. Had there been more to tackle, I would have been toast.
So I paced this one fairly poorly I’d say. A lesson there.
Once you hit the top it shows you a summary of your climb – the standard Zwift ‘end’ screen, and then it’s a quick virtual circle around before descending back down to the climb portal.
As you exit the ride, others may be re-joining the ‘normal’ world from other climbs. That feels a little odd if you’re suddenly surrounded by people who were not there just moments earlier, but whatever.
Suggested Improvements
There are a couple of improvements I’d love to see.
One would be the virtual warm up as covered above.
Another would be a better down hill experience. As it is, on the way down the entire road turns purple. I feel like a variation on the uphill colour scheme could be used, just for some visual interest, and to warn you of upcoming risers.
It is a little bit boring heading down hill.
Aside from that, I really liked it. Like, really enjoyed it – more than I expected.
Sure, it’s as hard as any other regular Zwift climb, but it’s a good challenge. What’s not to like?
Aftermath
Because there were no pace partners on France, I switched to Watopia and carried on to complete my ~50 minutes of riding.
I therefore ended up with two completed rides:
And for the group ride:
And equally for the Strava stats:
I’m heading outdoors tomorrow morning for a slightly more gentle ride. I want to get out early doors like last week.
Honestly my legs are feeling it from that one. I’d say that was harder work than the intended SST session. But I definitely feel like I’m glad it did it over the SST ride.
Good stuff – a really cool new Zwift feature. I look forward to trying the other climbs, completing the challenge, and seeing where they go with this.