There is an interesting thread on the Xert community forum where Eric Min, CEO of Zwift has been using Xert and uploading his Zwift rides.
Of course this causes some speculation that Zwift might be buying Xert.
As I user of both I see this as a match made in heaven.
I got a âride onâ from Eric Min the other day.
Anythingâs possible, but it doesnât seem to make any sense for Zwiftâs goals, which are centred around being a legitimate e-sports platform.
Why canât they be both an e-sports platform and training platform. One stop shop, wouldnât you say?
Their training âplansâ today are God awful, so this makes some sense.
Iâm an entrepreneur by nature and I somewhat stick to the philosophy of âbe great at one thing firstâ, but perhaps Zwift feels they have the virtual riding/racing experience licked and are ready for the next tool in their arsenal. I think people outside would argue if thatâs true, but I get the play here. Makes sense honestly, especially given how horrible their training side is.
I disagree hereâŚEric seems to be all over e sports although when Jon Mayfield was interviewed on a recent zwiftcast he wasnât sold on e-sports so there is definitely a difference of opinion at the top. However, this is where Xert fits perfectly because you could have smart workouts built into zwift, analytics in xert afterwards (although analytics arenât great) and real time MPA overlays when racing. Using real time MPA data whilst zwift racing is incredibly useful and helpful. So xert would satisfy those wanting to get fitter and who use the platform for training and those who want to use xert for racing. Seems a perfect fit and would add value to both companies as zwift is lacking in the workout / training space. However, i donât see a buyout happening soon as Zwift are trying to branch out into hardware, e-sports etc so seem to have a lot going on. They are also a really young company so whilst an acquisition isnât out of the question it seems unlikely for a company that is growing so quickly. A partnership sounds like a great idea though where zwift allows integration in the zwift platform and both parties benefit.
Can you post the thread link?
Well if it happens I just hope they simplify the xert system as I had to give up on it as I just couldnât understand it. It was far too complicated for me
I was wrong, it was on the Xert users FB pages not the forum
Screen shots⌠always take screen shots 
So thankful the TR forum is on disqus and not on facebook. Iâd love to see the comments but the FB thing no thanks.
Iâm a bit torn, here, as part of me thinks that Zwift is aimed at the casual market (fitness, social rides) and very increasingly at the eSports / racing market.
For casual / social riding, theyâre leagues ahead of anything else on the market; theyâve hit a critical mass in the off season of thousands of users, half a dozen worlds, tons of courses, and so on.
For racing, Zwift seems to have stumbled onto something that people are really gravitating to, even though the events have been pretty much self-organizing and the tools (if you can call them that) that Zwift provide are basically non-existant. They just got several million USD to develop eRacing and if they can get their crap together, they can basically corner the market. I have hope for that.
As mentioned above, though, Zwift as a training platform is laughable, and really only used by those who donât know any better. Now that Iâve spent a couple years with TR, and have read some criticisms of Zwift âworkoutsâ, I realize just how bad they are.
That being said, though, maybe Zwift is looking to improve on that and become an all-in-one platform: social, casual, racing, and training. That would make sense from a long shot business plan, especially because Zwift is probably aware how inconsistent their training plan is.
From a business point of view, I can see a Zwift / Xert merger making sense. Personally, I think the whole breakthrough / no FTP test bits are gimmicky, and Xert wasnât for me, but I could see people new to indoor cycling being attracted to it.
So, maybe smoke and rumors, but I could see it happening, and it would be good for Zwift.
If that merger happens I will go back to zwift and drop TR.
I donât see what Zwift gains from buying full blown training system like Xert (or TR or any of the others). those companies have value because of their subscription model and unless Zwift is going to keep charging a separate fee for the training tool, it would just be paying for something then cutting off the revenue stream that it just paid for.
Zwift is doing great as an open source agnostic BYOP (bring your own plan) platform. (I think TR is the only training tool that makes if virtually impossible to get their workouts onto Zwift).
If Zwift wants to beef up their own plans, all they have to do is throw a small amount of cash at any decent coach and put him/her to work for a couple months. Way cheaper than buying a company. Remember, Coach Chad started out as a local Reno coach before Nate tapped him. There are lots of people who can prep training plans. All Zwift needs is its Coach Chad, it does not need to pay for a full blown software system.
Xert and Zwift work seamlessly together as it is!! You can download your recommended Xert workout and push it to Zwift already with minimal hassle.
Once you get your head round the basics, it such a user friendly platform. And once itâs got enough data the fitness signatures are accurate.
Using MPA as a pacing tool is fantastic! For shorter races it can be used brilliantly, but itâs not great at modelling fatigue in longer races. Thereâs time at the end of the 100km Zwift races Iâm on my knees and the MPA is barely tickled!! It can also be used instead of training to a particular power - eg rather than 5 min intervals, deplete MPA to 60% then recover. Go again when MPA fully restores.
Below is a Xert graph where I used MPA as a pacing strategy to win from a solo break. Spent the entire race almost, but never quite fully depleting MPAđ¤Ž
MPA? Is that like EPO?
Whatâs MPA?
Donât confuse âtraining platformâ with workouts. Zwift is actually a great platform for doing workouts, every bit the match for TRâs app, if not better. Zwiftâs in app workouts do kind of suck but Zwift makes it super easy to sync in outside workouts through TrainingPeaks. Sure, you can get a great plan through TR, but for virtually ANY other source of a training plan, Zwift is the best indoor tool to run that workout.
I signed up for the xert free trial a few days ago and had to give up as I just didnât understand it. I know my 1 hour ftp is currently 200w but when it reviewed all of my strava rides is said my TP was 172w. Thatâs a massive variation. Maybe I did something wrong while trying to set it up.
Not going to argue with that! For long threshold or sweet spot weekend rides (or even Pettit / Collins) Zwift is the only thing that makes it tolerable.
Itâs worth sticking with for the free trial and trying to get your head round! Do all the rides it pulled have power data, and are there any with recent maximal efforts? Playing devilâs advocate, how do you know your 1hr FTP is exactly 200W?
The more info Xert has, the more accurate it gets, but if there are a few rides with dodgy power data, it can throw the fitness signature off.
I did a 60 minute ftp test a couple of weeks back.
Aside from the ftp test no. Iâve been riding only sweetspot and z2 for a while.
