I can see the market growing due to trainers becoming cheaper, that’s what prompted me to sell my inside ride rollers, get a Kickr core and start using zwift. But if I look through my strava 95% of people I ride with in summer already have smart trainers so a huge increase seems unlikely to me
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That must have been quite a downgrade. Why didn’t you convert your rollers to smart rollers?
I’ve been using inside ride rollers since 2008. For me it has been a huge upgrade, comfort is the same, trainer is way quieter, and being able to have resistance control has been really ice
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This is the key, imo. Where are all the new riders going to come from? People have been trying to knock off Zwift forever and it’s just not working. All the big companies are now partnering with Zwift and people are excited about it, which tells me people would rather stay in their comfort zone and pay more than switch, even when the alternative is free (TPV).
People say they want more realistic and “clean” racing, but at least half the amateur field is on inaccurate meters and the masses don’t seem to care. They’re more worried about realistic wind, breaking, and turning, which blows my mind.
I don’t see how anyone, even with big oil money investment, is going to knock off Zwift in the next 10 years, even if the product is free.
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This is a good point. It could eventually be Zwift that kills Zwift.
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Check out the zwift subreddit or just look at the average w/kg of the zwifters around you in zwift, most zwifters are not serious cyclists at all, a large number probably never even cycled before and they just ride around for like 1-3x 30-60 minutes per week with the majority on the lower end of that.
On reddit I see people who have been zwifting 3-4 years that have a lower level than I achieved in 2 months (level 37 after less than 2.5 months and I still ride outside on top of that)
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They seem to have weathered their big price increase from last year pretty well….sure, everyone screamed and yelled and a few people left, but overall, everyone just forked over the extra $$.
But that rubber band won’t stretch continually….question is where will the breaking point be?
But yeah, they gotta start showing some profit soon. What I do find interesting is the scale of Zwift as a company vs. what was IndieVelo (now TPv). Seems there is significant overhead that can be trimmed from Zwift.
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The thing that TR had and still has is the relatively low tech set up costs. I’m still using my daughters old iphone 8, and it’s very stable for TR. Probably next up is Zwift, with an ATV set up?
I’m not sure about TPV, but MyWoosh wouldn’t work with my older trainer, and in covid times I recall trying rouvy with limited success.
Presumably any jump in graphics, individualisation (e.g. hills for intervals), VR is going to be a big IT technology investment for the user too?
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Totally, but miles is a vanity statistic anyway, I live in the east of england, for every 500TSS I am going to do more miles than somebody who lives in the Alps
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Gunna guess the increase in levels from 50 to 100 and the total rework of the xp goals is the cause of that. If they don’t ride a ton, they won’t really be taking advantage of the multiplier to level up faster to get where they’re “supposed to be” levels wise.
Blows my mind that Zwift (and Peloton as well) is not making a profit after this many years. And with as many subscribers as they each have
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That, yes. Also replicates the on/off power that you find in IRL racing. It’s an overall more dynamic racing experience (help massively by the pack dynamics too).
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Absolutely true. I could not get TPV to work on my old iPad. I had to switch to ATV (and their support acknowledge this)
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What’s next for indoor cycling?
I was really hoping with all the new handlebar controls we would see a trainer powered Mario Kart game. Guess I’ll have to wait a bit longer. 
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Well, the aforementioned app was headed in that direction at one point, and widely criticized for it…
Oh boo… no sense of adventure!
I think this graph is super interesting and was a bit surprising to me: the massive spike in searches for Zwift on Jan 1st every year. Obviously we don’t know how this translates to signups, but it does suggest that there are a ton of people interested in using these apps for general fitness and weight loss rather than as training/racing tools.
Folks on this forum are the hardcore users but probably not the actual bread-and-butter for apps like Zwift, so what we want is probably less important to their bottom line than gamification and a UI that hooks the casual user.
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I dunno…we don’t know what the search term criteria was. And as you note, what the click-through or conversion was.
Honestly, the most interesting thing to me in that graph is the massive decline in searches for Peloton and how Zwift has managed to substantially close the gap that existed during COVID.
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It seems like all aspects of high end cycling will always be niche. It seems like the available pool of customers is cyclists who ride/race/do events and who want to keep in shape when they can’t ride outside. This is a tiny subset of all cyclists already. It’s even smaller when you look at people that actually care about power. Plus they need to won a smart trainer and the desire to ride a trainer enough to make the subscription worth it.
I was on the Zwift beta but never subscribed because trainer time for me is binge watching movies and tv shows that my family will not watch. I can fulfill both needs at the same time.
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I want Mario Kart but for the trainer. All other simulation apps are useless to me. Let me throw some shells and collect some coins 
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