Zwift unveils £1,199 Zwift Ride smart bike with singlespeed frame, Kickr Core trainer and Zwift Cog system: how does it ride?

Today Zwift is launching some new hardware, the Zwift Ride, which will be available to buy in the UK from 26 June and will cost £1,199.99. So if you thought Zwift was moving away from its own hardware with the demise of the Zwift Hub One, think again: this is, again, a collaboration with Wahoo, but very much a Zwift thing. It’s a real smart bike (of sorts) for not a lot of money, albeit one that’s tied to the Zwift environment.

So what is the Zwift Ride?

It’s a smart bike, of sorts. Remember the Tron bike that got leaked back at the start of 2022? Well, it’s not that. Although a quick trip to the Zwift HQ in London – where the hardware development team is based – is enough to confirm that yes, that was very much a real thing, even if it didn’t see the light of day. And a lot of what we’re seeing released today stems from that project. The Zwift ride has been very quick in development – 18 months from concept to market – and it borrows plenty from its halted predecessor.

Like the Tron concept was, the Zwift Ride is in two parts, a combination of the Wahoo KICKR Core Hub One, which we’ve reviewed, and a dedicated steel frame with Zwift controls that attaches to it. The controls will be familiar to anyone that has seen the Zwift Play controllers, and again those controls started their life on the concept bike before being developed as a standalone product.

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For launch, the offering is the whole thing, trainer plus frame. At a later date (autumn was the suggested timeline) you will also be able to buy the bike bit as an upgrade, but there are some tweaks needed to the design before that happens; for example Zwift is hoping to expand compatibility to different trainer models with different axle heights, so some kind of adjustable foot will be required at the front.

Why develop the Zwift Ride?

Given that the Tron bike never made it to market, what was the thinking with trying again? Well, Zwift has spent a long time studying user journeys: what prospective indoor riders want, and what prevents them from taking it up. The key points to come out of that were that users wanted simplicity, clarity, and something that’s high value, fits into a domestic environment, is always ready and can accommodate multiple users.

Zwift identified two main pain points while studying user journeys onto the platform. The first is cost: a dedicated setup is expensive. And the second is complexity: Many prospective Zwift users aren’t technically savvy and the thought of taking their bike to pieces and then having to reassemble it correctly so it doesn’t fall apart on the open road… well, it scares them. So the Zwift Ride is designed to address both. 

It’s (arguably) cheap for what’s a true smart bike, with controllable resistance, virtual gearing and dedicated controls. If you’re lucky enough to have a dedicated space for your indoor trainer it’s still likely to be in your house, and Zwift says it’s designed the Zwift Ride to look good in a home environment. The overall look is very bike, rather than gym equipment. It’s a recognisable diamond frame, it’s white rather than black, and it even sports a nice retro-themed head badge

Setting up the Zwift Ride

The Zwift Ride is easy to set up. Like with the Zwift Hub One, which was designed to massively simplify the process of getting on Zwift – though I’m still undecided about whose benefit that is for – the Zwift Ride has been extensively user tested to make the setup as easy as possible. Everything – from the through axle to the adjustment points to the flat pedals it’s supplied with – is adjustable with the same 6mm allen key, and you get one in a neat magnetic mount underneath the top tube. 

As well as that, Zwift has moved away from the slightly opaque numbered scales on the adjustable points you’ll normally find. You get a card with the bike, and all you have to do is find your height on the scale which corresponds to a letter (I was T).

Then, it’s just a case of setting saddle height, bar height and reach to T and you have a basic setup that’s likely to fit you. I can confirm that T worked for me, although it was a little bit upright for my taste. But then all you need to remember is that the bar height needs to be Q next time, and you’re sorted for fit in no time.

With only three adjustments for basic fit it’s simple to swap between users in a multi-rider household. There’s just one crank length – 170mm – both for reasons of cost and simplicity, and the bars aren’t designed to be swapped. So it’s not as configurable as some other bikes on the market, but it’s versatile enough for the majority of riders.

The setup process is really straightforward, and at the launch the product manager Graham completed it in about six minutes, even with all the eyes of the press on him.

The Zwift Ride ships in three boxes – frame, trainer and bars – because it’s a lot cheaper to send it that way. UK postage will be £50, and you won’t need to phone a friend to shift it when it arrives.

It’s not light – the frame is 17kg, and the trainer is a similar weight – but at least you can move those bits one at a time. Once you’re in position it’s just a case of setting the bike on the trainer and tightening up the through axle, then fitting the bars and plugging them in. 

The colour coding is neat: Bolts with an orange outline are things you change for fit, and bolts without are just for setup. So even if you have very little technical knowledge you should be able to work out what’s what. Zwift even decided to switch the direction of the through axle so you’d only have to work on one side of the bike.

If you’re taking the Zwift ride apart then the chain has a channel to sit in on the dropout so it doesn’t dangle from the bike, and the tensioner holds it in place. There’s a foot on the bottom bracket too, so you can set the bike down without worrying about your carpet.

Zwift chose a chain for various reasons: it gives you the feel (and sound) of your outdoor bike, it’s cheaper, and it’s easier to tension in a system that’s designed to be demountable. The chain itself is a narrow singlespeed chain, and there’s a slightly redesigned sprocket engineered to be quieter when working with the Zwift Ride’s chain. If you wanted to put a different bike – your TT bike, for example – on the trainer at any time then the sprocket is still compatible with all chains up to 12-speed.

The Zwift Ride experience

What’s it like to set up and ride? Well, a lot of the actual ride feel is being delivered by the KICKR Core trainer, which is regarded over here at road.cc Towers as about the best budget smart trainer you can get your hands on. I’m not entirely convinced about using the Zwift Cog with your nice road bike that has crisp, well-adjusted derailleur gearing; that’s always going to feel better than virtual shifts. However, paired with this frame as a smart bike it makes sense: that’s how all smart bikes work, after all.

Setting up the Zwift Ride is pretty simple. You only need the 6mm Allen key that Zwift provides as part of the package, unless you’re fitting your own pedals that use something different. The way the bike is stable on the trainer even without the through axle is well thought out, and the chain tensioner is simple and works well.

I like the fact that Zwift has added a chain dock and foot on the bottom so that you can sit it on the carpet without getting oil everywhere. The only fiddly bit is getting the handlebar assembly into its slot, but most people aren’t going to struggle.

I’ve things to say about pairing the bike in the game, though. Given that a major driving factor of this product is to simplify things for people, it does surprise me that Zwift hasn’t done more to make the pairing a one-click job. This bike that it’s selling as a complete thing does not appear as a complete thing in the game: you have to pair the trainer and the controls separately.

On top of that, it’s possible depending on your setup to pair the trainer in a way (via ANT+) that will render some of the controls inoperable: the gears won’t work. Okay, most newcomers aren’t going to have an ANT+ dongle in their system, but at the point that the game sees both a KICKR Core trainer and some Zwift Ride handlebars available for pairing, it should be showing them as a single unit and connecting everything at once.

On to riding. The Zwift Ride feels more like a bike on a trainer than it does a smart bike, in terms of how it behaves. It doesn’t have the weight of something like the Stages bike (sadly discontinued) I have set up behind it in my cramped and untidy shed, and so there’s a bit more movement when you’re sprinting, or getting out of the saddle, but I’m okay with that.

Also the KICKR Core doesn’t have adjustable feet, so if your floor isn’t perfectly flat you’ll get some rock from that too. The sound is a chain sound, which reinforces the feeling that you’re on a bike rather than a trainer. It’s not silent, but neither is it loud, and there’s very little vibration; everything feels well-balanced. It’s quite compact; not quite as compact as the Stages bike behind it but pretty similar, and certainly you’ll need less room than with a bike on a trainer as there’s no front wheel poking out.

I’m not sure why you wouldn’t use sequential gearing on a smart bike, so I haven’t played around with the other options, but the 24-speed virtual drivetrain works well and in my experience gives you gears small enough to spin up steep stuff. At the other end the big ratios are stiff enough that you can sprint even down the hills and find enough resistance, which I haven’t always found to be the case with smart bikes.

I haven’t done a huge distance aboard the Zwift Ride, but it feels to me like Zwift has done a bit of work on the gear changes: they feel a bit less – what’s the word? – ‘manufactured’ than before, and take less time to settle down after a change of ratios. The feel of the gear changes using the Zwift Cog on the KICKR Core wasn’t my highlight of the testing, so it seems like a move in the right direction. More time in the saddle is needed there though.

The controls are an improvement on the Zwift Play controllers in a number of ways. Firstly they pair as a single unit; even though there’s still work to be done there, at least you’re not pairing them individually like you do the Zwift Play controllers, which you would never use individually. The steering and braking paddles are more accessible on the outside of a pretend brake lever, rather than tucked in behind a real one. And they’re properly bolted on to the bars, which just gives a much better experience: the buttons are easier to find and press, stable and always in the same place.

It’s good that you can now turn off braking in the game, because it’s currently useless 99% of the time, and it’s easy to accidentally brake when you want to steer. At the point when you have to do both more often, I still don’t think one control handling those two actions is the best option. Ideally the buttons and controls will become more configurable in time, through the game interface.

Overall my feelings about the Zwift Ride are positive. It is, in effect, a real smart bike, is enjoyable to use, and is half the price of even the Wattbike Atom, which I’d consider to be the least good of the other readily-available real smart bikes (It’s still good). That’s a compelling reason to buy, so long as you’re prepared to commit to Zwift.

This bike uses the game engine for some of its functionality, and it’s not a standalone unit that you could use in Rouvy, say, if you decided you were bored with Zwift: shifting wouldn’t work, and nor would any of the other controls. Whether that’s a problem is a decision you’ll make based on your circumstances, but if you’re happy in Watopia and the other worlds of Zwift and you want a permanent setup, there are a lot of positives here.

www.zwift.com