Zwift recently released a survey to some users that had details about their upcoming hardware(smart bike and direct drive trainer). Here is a brief overview of the hardware teased in the survey.

Zwift Direct Drive Trainer(Zwift Wheel)

Zwift is also developing a direct drive trainer, similar to the Tacx Neo 2T and the Wahoo Kickr in terms of specs. This trainer is called the Zwift wheel for a reason, it’s literally shaped as a wheel. Similar to the Zwift ride, the Zwift wheel also has LED lights on the rims of the wheel. The unique thing about the Zwift wheel is that you can actually transform it into the Zwift ride by adding the other parts together(more on that when more details are out).

• Power Accuracy: +/-1% // Very accurate, matches the accuracy of trainers in that price range(Tacx Neo 2T and Wahoo Kickr)
• Peak Power: 2200W // Not that many riders can hit that power, but very similar with other trainers.
• Max Simulated Incline of 25% // Same as Tacx Neo 2T, only 1-2 spots that hit that steep, which is why not many other trainers go up that high.
• Downhill Simulation // A feature that is seen on the Tacx Neo 2T(The feature is nice, but can be annoying on long decents like Alpe Du Zwift and Ven-top.
• Road surface simulation // Only other trainer that features this is the Tacx Neo 2T(I personally really like the road feel feature)
• Braking, Steering, and Game Controls // Seems like a pretty cool feature, especially in races if game controls include turning power ups on. Braking?!?!?
• Virtual Gear Shifting // The ability to choose any gearset(12 spd, 11 spd, etc), more about this in this article by Zwift Insider.
• Immersive Lighting // Lighting that reflects things in game(kinda similar to Tacx Neo 2T, but Tacx is just based off of your power output)

Zwift smart bike(Zwift Ride)

The interesting thing about the design of the Zwift ride is that it is actually shaped and designed to look sort of like a Tron bike. The specs/features for the Zwift Ride are very similar to the Zwift Wheel, the main difference just that it’s a full on smart bike.

Additional Zwift ride features/specs(mostly just dimensions and rider compatibility, specs for this similar with other smart bikes).

• Minimum user height of 5′ (152cm), maximum height of 6′ 4″ (193cm)
• Dimensions: 5′ 5″ x 2′ 4″ (165x71cm)
• Vertically storable // Something that most smart bikes don’t feature
• Adjustability: handlebar position, seat position, and crank length are all adjustable // Same with most smart bikes

My thoughts

I think that this is a pretty good move from Zwift, since when riders are looking to do indoor training, they are likely to buy a trainer from the creators of the app. Especially because of all the specs of the trainers. The features(game controls, virtual gearing, steering, braking, accuracy) all sound very tempting for me, but the design is kinda ugly in my opinion(not that most smart trainers look cool…).