29 July 2024
As I wrap-up my Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra review, and a few other review things in the hopper for this week, here’s two quick technical tidbits I thought were interesting. Some geekery here, but, such is this site.
Stats on Zwifter Levels
Zwift Insider reported on some interesting stats, from Zwift employee James Bailey, in their recent podcast. It’s a good discussion that is definitely worthwhile listening to, especially if you’re a veteran Zwifter. The discussion starts at the 30:50 marker.
The stats are quoted as “engaged Zwifters” who are both paying and actively riding (meaning, excluding inactive accounts), and based on current late July 2024 data. For the purposes of this discussion, the Zwift Insider crew notes using a number of 1,000,000 engaged riders as a potential simplistic watermark. That matches the recent interview I had with CEO Eric Min last month.
Here’s how Zwifter’s break out today:
– 45% of all engaged Zwifters are in Level 1-10
– 19% of all engaged Zwifters are Level 11-20
– 36% of all engaged Zwifters are above Level 21
The percentage of Zwifters at Level 100 is 0.06%, so assuming 1,000,000 engaged Zwifters, that would be merely 600 people. The ‘median’ Zwifters is Level 10.
In the podcast, they posited that perhaps this meant that the majority of riders are ‘new riders’. And that’s an interesting, and certainly very possible take with some truth to it. But I actually think it means something else: People don’t actually ride Zwift as exclusively/often as some might think. Especially in the ‘off-season’. I mean, one merely needs to look at the active riders Companion App screen seasonally to see that. Roughly speaking, there’s a drop of 80%+ in max concurrent users between winter to summer. Those people (like myself) are simply riding outside for more workouts in warmer weather than in colder weather. Sure, I do indoor Zwift workouts in summer (like yesterday), but I do them far less in summer.
However, I do agree with them very much on one thing, with them saying “the big portion of Zwift’s customers are nothing like me” on the podcast, and further “nothing like the loud voices you hear in the community”. This is a nod to various changes Zwift made recently with respect to XP, and racing features, levels over 100, and so son, that the “Zwift Community” has been upset about.
It’s a challenge that every large platform has with an active community (be it hardware, software, or some other group), in that the old guard/veteran users often go down the rabbit holes that the general population simply doesn’t care about. Now, that doesn’t meant those rabbit holes aren’t worthwhile, or that they aren’t right. They very much can be. And undoubtedly I’m guilty of that in various technical topics as well from time to time. And as I note many times, the leading voices of a given community will often set the tone for everyone else, so appeasing those rabbit holes can be strategically important for a product/company.
Now, as Shane Miller noted in the podcast, there’s “really not enough detail to draw many conclusions from”, and there’s some truth to that. We don’t have some of the added data Peloton releases in their quarterly earnings reports, which talks to sessions per user per month, which is a *MUCH* more useful metric (even if it is heavily skewed by warm-ups/cool-down, it still is consistent month to month).
Still, I thought it was notable.
Peloton Adds Running Track Mode:
PeloBuddy has noted that Peloton has added a virtual running track mode to its treadmills, somewhat mirroring the little single-dot LED running tracks you saw on old-school treadmills throughout the 90’s and beyond. This is in addition to of course the instructor-led classes Peloton has for the treadmill, as well as various scenic runs.
On my Peloton Tread, I didn’t get the fancy new notification that this feature was added. Instead, it’s very thoroughly buried. You’ll select the “Experiences” tab at the bottom, then “Just Run”, and then “At your Own Pace / No Goal” (it doesn’t show the track for goals). At which point you’ll get a running track as a default thing shown where you’d previously have been a blank screen:
The track is a 400m track, and is split into typical 100m sections. You’ll see a yellow dot moving around track (you), and then it’ll close out the yellow ring each time. You’ll get a lap notification each 400m. You can hide the track by tapping on it.
As an owner of one such Peloton treadmill, I actually think this is great. I’d guess that about 80% of the time when I jump on the Peloton Tread, I’m doing my own workout – rather than one of theirs. While I think their running coaches are actually *really* good (seriously, one is an Olympian), there’s the simple reality that I already have a specific workout of my own I need to do. So I usually end up just picking either a scenic run, or the nothing-burger option of basically just a blank screen of metrics. In this scenario, most of the time that structured workout would align better to a track. Thus, this works well.
It’s sorta like the Zwift May Field track. I love that silly thing, and it’s probably the majority of time I spend on Zwift Running, is doing structured workouts on that.
Go figure that my preference is to take an already miserable experience (running on a treadmill), and aim to make it worse (by running loops around a mindless track). Go big or go home I guess.
Either way, nice to see Peloton’s addition here. And, in theory, this feature is actually available without a subscription, since it falls under the “Just Run” feature that doesn’t normally require a subscription on a Peloton Tread (but, I can’t validate that personally, since my treadmill is tied to a subscription).
Thanks for reading!