PSA: Zwift price increase

Signed up for Mywhoosh today and did a quick ride.............seems very, very similar to Zwift.

I have done some racing on Zwift, but its seasonable,  so I could just renew my account when required.

Just set up a mywoosh account and will give it a try next time the weather stops outside play.

Good timing as my next Zwift payment is due out in 3 days!
Usually can it for summer anyway like a lot of other folk on here.

Be good to try and get some STW rides on there if possible...

JB

Be good to try and get some STW rides on there if possible…

I enjoy a bit of Zwifting but always cancel my sub for the summer, will certainly look at alternatives when the winter comes back. But having just added a gravel bike to the collection there's every possibility that I'll just ride that instead.

MyWoosh not running on my Apple TV, looks like I need the 4K version

Will trial it through my phone and maybe upgrade later, kind of defeats the point of saving a bit of money though 😂

Guess it might pay for itself in about 8 months or so?

Got an email from indieVelo this morning saying that the number of registered users doubled over the past week.

Could there be a funny sort of threshold for Zwift where if they reduce the number of users enough (and remaining users pay the increased fees) they can run fewer servers or something and sort of break even?

I'm not a Zwifter but it seems such a weird and clumsy way to increase price that I can't believe they didn't anticipate the mass exodus!

it seems such a weird and clumsy way to increase price that I can’t believe they didn’t anticipate the mass exodus!

It's possible that they just need the money.

I'd have thought that announcing a price increase next month and giving folk the opportunity to sign up for 12 months at the old rate would have seen a large injection of cash immediately though.

IIRC it's run on the Amazon server farm so they're not paying for servers, just for computing capacity.

From a business point of view, why didn't they put prices up a bit (~3% per year) during the boom period at the start of the pandemic, rather than this crazy hike when the boom ship has long sailed off into the sunset?

My better half randomly bought me a small Zwift voucher at Xmas, still not used it and she only realised afterwards it couldn't be used for subscription. The Zwift store prices are crazy, I've been half thinking about the Play controllers for a while, but there seemed to be a constant flow of issues posted on their forum. And with this subs hike, I'm currently very hesitant about buying them, as they so far would be useless on another turbo platform... Leaving alternatives that aren't too appealing! 😆

https://uk.zwift.com/collections/all/?sort_by=price-ascending

The Controllers are still a "beta" product too. Given the number of issues with them I'd expect some changes before they finalise them, but Zwift have already had their fingers burnt in hardware so I also wouldn't be too surprised to see them dropped, maybe taken on by Wahoo given how the two companies are now cooperating.

Could there be a funny sort of threshold for Zwift where if they reduce the number of users enough (and remaining users pay the increased fees) they can run fewer servers or something and sort of break even?

That's probably not how it works. I'd be surprised if they didn't scale on demand. The ideal for them is probably lots of subscribers but lower, or more evenly spread, levels of active riders.

I’ve been half thinking about the Play controllers for a while, but there seemed to be a constant flow of issues posted on their forum.

IIRC it’s run on the Amazon server farm so they’re not paying for servers, just for computing capacity.

My better half randomly bought me a small Zwift voucher at Xmas, still not used it and she only realised afterwards it couldn’t be used for subscription.

That just seems bonkers!

Could there be a funny sort of threshold for Zwift where if they reduce the number of users enough (and remaining users pay the increased fees) they can run fewer servers or something

I doubt it, Zwifts operation seems to put all the demands on the hosts CPU, I presume that means it runs on a much smaller server at their end.

And if it did, then they'd just move to a cloud server provider like AWS that scales on demand (and would cost a lot less than the subscription price per user).

And ...... if anything this will be removing the casual users that just use it for unstructured training once or twice a week and barely worry their server hamsters. Not the racers who turn up every day, 1000's at once.

 But having just added a gravel bike to the collection there’s every possibility that I’ll just ride that instead.

I say something like that every year 😂

This year I have a track bike so will be riding at the velodrome all winter, honest.  Variety is the spice of life though.  This winter was just too wet for any riding.  Even the roads in the Chilterns are f***** as the underground streams in the chalk have overflowed and washed road surfaces away.  Stonor Valley is traffic lighted, Dolesden lane has "failed road surface" signs, and the same stream resurfaces further down in Hambleden valley and has taken the road with it.  Nothing will be done until the summer as they can't work on them whilst the streams are still flowing.

Every spring since '18, when I begin cycling to the South Downs lanes again after the turbo winter, I get increasingly convinced that my next bike should be a gravel/adventure bike that could take up to ~50mm tyres (even though part of me would like a racy road bike to replace my very upright 388/610mm reach/stack Cube Attain GTC)...

Besides the relatively butter-smooth tarmac on Longwood Dean north-west of Upham, that has been resurfaced at least twice over the past eight years (does someone "important" live there?), so many other popular lanes west of South Harting are turning into pothole obstacle courses!

I get increasingly convinced that my next bike should be a gravel/adventure bike that could take up to ~50mm tyres

After my previous post, I remembered about One Lap installed on my mobile, that I've not launched for a good while but had a big update a few days ago. Started ok, maybe ~20 routes with free ride and workout options, pricing suggests it's $4.99pcm

AFAIK most (all?) of the processing (drafts, etc) is done client side!

Zwifts operation seems to put all the demands on the hosts CPU

Ah, that explains why my laptop has such a tantrum if I accidentally leave Zwift on in the background after a session.

I get the logic behind wanting people to go from month on month to pay for a year, gyms have the same issue, its better to have someone secured for the year rather then a PAYG. But, by god have they badly thought this through and coupled it to a price hike at the worst time.

MyWoosh not running on my Apple TV, looks like I need the 4K version

Can you not run on mobile and screenshare?

Could there be a funny sort of threshold for Zwift where if they reduce the number of users enough (and remaining users pay the increased fees) they can run fewer servers or something and sort of break even?

It is probably running on virtual servers on the Amazon cloud, these cost trivial amounts compared to the number of riders each one can support. Probably something like $100 a month for a server that can support several hundred riders at a time.

AFAIK most (all?) of the processing (drafts, etc) is done client side!

Yes, it has to be this way I think. The system is designed to handle significant latency - you see riders from all over the world in races - so you have to race what you see, but that's not necessarily the same as what other people see at any given instant.  If you have someone in Australia on your wheel, and you sprint to drop them, they will still get your draft a second or so after you think they've gone during which time the version of your avatar on their screen is still in front of them.  However, there's enough lag in the response of your trainer to your power input that this isn't really noticeable, so it's quite clever. The only time it falls down is during a close sprint for the line - sometimes you think you've got someone but you were racing your version of their avatar, and their last second sprint may not have registered on your display. But the messages about where each rider was on the course are probably timestamped so the central server has a fixed record of who was where on the course at any time, which means that the true version of the race is living on Zwift servers and no-one is actually seeing it real time.

The system is designed to handle significant latency – you see riders from all over the world in races – so you have to race what you see, but that’s not necessarily the same as what other people see at any given instant.  If you have someone in Australia on your wheel, and you sprint to drop them, they will still get your draft a second or so after you think they’ve gone during which time the version of your avatar on their screen is still in front of them.  However, there’s enough lag in the response of your trainer to your power input that this isn’t really noticeable, so it’s quite clever. The only time it falls down is during a close sprint for the line – sometimes you think you’ve got someone but you were racing your version of their avatar, and their last second sprint may not have registered on your display. But the messages about where each rider was on the course are probably timestamped so the central server has a fixed record of who was where on the course at any time, which means that the true version of the race is living on Zwift servers and no-one is actually seeing it real time.

This has blown my mind 😟

which means that the true version of the race is living on Zwift servers and no-one is actually seeing it real time.

So if you can minimise latency and/or find a Trainer with minimal latency (at least in terms of measuring those precious watts) do you get an "advantage"?
Is plugging an ethernet cable in essentially a Zwift PED?

Well there's lag between when you stamp on the pedals and when your own avatar moves, which on my cheap trainer is quite noticeable - maybe a second.   Then the message that your power has increased is then sent to Zwift, who then distribute it to all the others in your race.  That lag is likely to be less than half a second, most likely, even for long distances.

The trainer lag is the critical one when it comes to the absolute race timing so yes, if you have a better trainer that responds quicker you'll get a slight advantage. The murky bit is when you want to respond to other people's attacks.  When you are racing Bruce from Australia, by the time you see his avatar stand up and sprint, he's actually already gone half a second ago, and your trainer then needs half a second to respond.  In my experience this makes it almost impossible to properly follow a sprint for the line. So your best option is probably to just decide beforehand when you're going to go.  There's a 50/50 chance you'll be the one getting the first mover advantage.

I can follow breaks during races, but it takes a really big sprint since you have to close the inevitable gap that opens up and invariably end up knackered.  So I think if you are going to launch an attack mid-race the same applies, you should do it early and not wait to respond to others.

Is plugging an ethernet cable in essentially a Zwift PED?

Yes, but not a very strong one.  I looked at this for streaming video games. I had a ping of about 12ms, I upgraded to WiFi 6 which brought it down to 10, then I went with wired ethernet which lowered it down to 8ms.  I suspect the lag in the rest of the system is a lot more than that.

which means that the true version of the race is living on Zwift servers and no-one is actually seeing it real time.

I have literally never thought about how Zwift works, and now I feel smarts growing in my brain. Cheers Mol.

This is all conjecture mind, having raced a lot and knowing a bit about how it would have to work.  I've been beaten when I was sure my avatar was ahead of a rival at the sprint, and vice-versa, so I suspect this is how it works.

You only need to ride beside a mate while chatting in real time to discover that what you see on the screen isn't always what the Zwift server sees. We've noticed that, even just riding along, our relative placing  isn't consistent.

Or try to ride a team time trial whilst talking on Discord.  People keep saying 'ok go, now back off, wait, stop, wait for me' all the time and it doesn't seem to bear much relation to what you see on screen. It's impossible to do what you would on the road.  You can keep a line, but it's not like real life. I think how bunches work is that everyone close enough to each other on the road and in terms of speed is put in a bunch, and that has an average power.  People over that average are at the front, and people under it at at the back.  If your power goes too far from the average, you leave the bunch - either off the front or the back.  To make a good looking pace line, I think you need to be riding equally spaced powers i.e. 250, 240, 230, 220 etc - and the game will organise you into a line. But it doesn't really matter - you all get the draft.  So you can all ride at 230 with the person on the front at 250 and it will work - the front rider will increase the group average.  Then when the front rider's done they just drop their power to 230 and someone else goes to 250 and their avatar will work its way to the front.

Again, all conjecture but this seems to be how it works.  If you try and sprint for the front and stop when your avatar gets there you will overshoot, because of the lag.  Similarly, if you sprint to catch a bunch you will always go sailing through unless you slacken off long before you get there.

You might want to look at IndieVelo, a free (for now, at least) Zwift clone. Being developed in the UK, looks very like an early incarnation of Zwift, but it claims to have features that make the performance input/output even more realistic. Draughting, gradients, wind direction, and so on.

I've abandoned Zwift for now, and tbh, doubt I'll go back. If IndieVelo isn't too expensive, I'll stick with it as it offers all I need.

https://indievelo.com

Can you not run on mobile and screenshare

Yes, will be doing this while I test it out to see if I think it’s worth investing in a new box… okay in the short term while I use it once a week maybe over summer, but come the winter months where I’m on it 5 times a week I’ll want something that can handle the software while I use my phone for music etc.

Have experienced really frustrating power/HR dropouts by using one device to do everything in the past.

So just tried the screen mirror, it worked but the graphics were terrible…illegible…turns out my phone is also crap 😂 (iPhone XR)

Shame but that looks like the end of MyWhoosh for me.

Or try to ride a team time trial whilst talking on Discord.  People keep saying ‘ok go, now back off, wait, stop, wait for me’ all the time and it doesn’t seem to bear much relation to what you see on screen. It’s impossible to do what you would on the road.

I actually got [I]reasonably[/I] good at not overshooting, there is definitely a knack to it when you're not equipped with brakes! But it should be much easier now with braking.

It'd be better if they put in a button to control the order / turns (I guess steering does that in a roundabout way). In the real world you'd watch the guy in front pull off, then try and hold your cadence / speed steady whilst your power goes up. Hold it as long as required then pull off yourself then not forgetting that your turn isn't done untill you've accelerated back onto the group (which is the really hard bit when you're breathing hard enough to taste blood).

Installed Mywhoosh on the computer.

I'll aim to set up the rest of the bike later and go for a ride on it.