- Finished and morning, Trainiacs.
(grunting)
That was a very easy little Zwift ride.
This is rest week, so nothing too crazy right now
and we were just going for an hour to 31.7 K
and then I did six times two minutes
with my hands like way up off the bars
and hands way over here
focusing on the pedal stroke up,
activate all those muscles groups.
Just because it's restful doesn't mean
we don't get to do anything fun.
So, for years, Zwifters who put in tons of miles
on Zwift have maxed out at level 25.
Well, just this week,
they announced that they opening up
all the way up to level 50
and I've never really dived into how to level up,
the best ways to level up,
packs to level up quicker
and what you get, why'd you wanna level up,
so that's today.
(upbeat music)
All right, so up until now,
Zwifters who have put in tons and tons of mileage
only had 25 levels to work with,
that levels, if you're new to Zwift,
A, follow me, first name is T,
last name is Rathlon Taren
but you come in right here
underneath how fast you're going,
there would be a number.
Now that is your Zwift level
and up until now, they were limited
to 25 levels, somewhere around 5,000 kilometers,
3,000-ish miles and just earlier this week,
Zwift did a big update,
you would have had to go in and actually update
your version of the app to see it
but they released 25 new levels,
so you can now go up to level 50 being somewhere
in the neighborhood of around 22/23,000 kilometers,
we're talking like 14,000 miles.
I've been riding for about 15 months
and I have yet to hit 3,000.
You're gonna be good for a long time.
Now why does this matter?
Why should you care about this?
Well, A, fun, B, let's get into that.
Now you level up by getting experience points
and I just rattled off approximate numbers
of how much mileage it'll take
to get to those levels
but it actually doesn't go off of mileage exactly,
it goes off of experience points
and you get experience points by riding a lot.
So, you get 20 experience points
for every single kilometer that you ride
and 30 experience points
for every single mile that you ride.
You also get 10 experience points
for doing things like accomplishing,
completing a King of the Mountain section
or a sprint section, so you can accumulate miles gradually
as you go, this is important
because it adds an aspect of gamification
hence giving us more motivation,
making it more fun to be on the platform
because there's something else to look forward to.
It's a heck of a lot better
than just sitting and staring at a wall on a trainer.
That's awful and it gets harder as you go.
When you first sign up for Zwift,
after following me at T Rathlon Taren,
it takes only about 1,000 experience points,
we're talking maybe a few days of good riding
to start leveling up in those first few levels,
now towards the 20 to 25 mark,
it takes around 10,000 experience points
but with these new levels, it takes upwards
of 20,000 experience points just to level up.
Now, in my opinion, the reason why this is so big,
the first reason that people want to level up quickly
is to unlock more routes in the game.
You've got Richmond, you've got Watopia,
you've got London, you've got New York
but that's just the basics.
You can also open up sections like Alpe Du Zwift
or the Jungle Route all in Watopia
by hitting levels 12 and 10 respectively
and this makes it super fun
because you can just go around and around and around
and granted, they've made the world so big
that it's hard to get bored in it
but there are a couple of these routes
that are particularly interesting, Alpe Du Zwift,
you might wanna do a couple times a year
and the only way that you're gonna do it
is if you hit level 12.
You can also start customizing your avatar a lot more.
Here, I'll show you some of the levels
and what you can get for them.
So now on the level one you have the Zwift kit.
Not so great.
Level two you go up to the basic kit.
I look like a bumblebee.
Level three, you go up to the basic kit number two.
You might fool people into thinking
that you won the green jersey, bonus.
Level four, you can upgrade
to the 32-millimeter carbon wheels and these wheels
and bikes end up actually affecting your performance
when you're in the game.
Level five, you can get the specialized Allez carbon bike
for when you start going on Alpe Du Zwift.
You can change to the classic wheels at level six.
At level seven, you can change to the steel bike,
I don't know why you would wanna do that.
I mean, unless you really like being vintage-y.
How hipster can you get?
Well, the answer to that is right from the start,
you can make yourself as hipster as you want.
Let's get that, oh yeah, let's get that hipster beard going.
That's Hipster Taren right there.
What about Goatee Taren?
What about Mutton Chops Taren?
What about Slick Johnny Depp Mustache Taren?
I like all these Tarens.
- Ew.
- Ew. (laughing)
And then past level 25, you might be wondering
what's so special about it?
What can I get?
Well, just for example, you can get the pot glasses
at level 26.
You can get some '80s glasses at level 31.
You can get a monochrome kit pack at level 34,
Mavic shoes at level 35.
You can get U2 glasses.
I don't even know what that is at level 41.
A Euro Synthe road helmet at level 45,
the Euro Vanquish aero road helmet at level 49
and at level 50, you get the level 50 kit.
Also, the disk wheels.
Whoa, fast.
So, if you are already a level 25 Zwifter
and you've gone well beyond the required experience points
to hit that number, you have two options now.
You can choose to continue to pursue
at just the regular pace starting at level 25
regardless of how many experience points you've got
or you can more appropriately pursue
an accelerated path where you can get
those further levels but on a faster program
than just if you hit level 25
and then continued on at the normal rate.
For most of us however,
how do we start leveling up quicker?
What are the hacks to do so?
Besides just riding a lot,
there are some hacks.
Number one, you gotta change your bike.
Let's get to this.
First thing you can do
is go and change your bike
to the Zwift Time Trial Bike.
Like I said, this actually has an effect
on how you perform in the Zwift world.
Take that bike and the advantage of that aero
and go and ride flat courses
that are loops over and over and over,
so good courses are the Volcano Loop
which is fairly tight
and you get some experience points by doing that
and some small King of the Mountain climbs.
You can also then go and do group rides
and these groups rides
will actually have you going upwards
of 40 to 50 kilometers an hour
but because of the draft that you're getting
from those group rides,
you're gonna be going quicker
than you would just on your own,
so you're going to be accumulating experience points
much quicker than just going
and doing your standard workouts
and then beyond that you really just have to ride a lot.
Make a point of taking turns
that you know have more sprint sections,
shorter King of the Mountain sections
like if you say I'm gonna go and tackle Alpe Du Zwift,
well, that really just one section
but if you go on a flatter section
that has a sprint section over and over and over
and do that accumulating experience points,
going in regular Zwift group rides,
not necessarily a Zwift race
because that's gonna blow your mind out of your body,
like whoosh, hot fun fact.
Highest heart I've ever had
for three minutes.
Zwift races, yeah.
186 when I've done 176 on just max out heart rate tests.
Gets a lot out of you on Zwift races.
So, go tally it up.
Make sure you are following me
because this coming year
we are going to be doing quite a few more Zwift group rides.
Get yourself some experience points.
T, last name is Rathlon Taren.
All right?
Ride on, Zwifters.
I hate that.
Ride on.
You ever hear that?
Not a fan, later, Trainiacs.