Zwift Ride Indoor Trainer → worth the money?

I review my time on the Zwift Ride and I answer the question, is it worth the money now?

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i’ve been using this Zift ride with the Wahoo Kicker Core for a whole month now At the point of making this video I’ve ridden it in 15 max effort races and several long distance group rides I’ve covered 560 virtual kilometers on it so far with some of that being uphill I’m not sure if the uphill on Zift makes any difference to this video but I thought I’d add that in there anyway I’ve not just been riding loops on Tempest Fugit in zone 2 listening to the Archers on Radio 4 My point is I’ve used it for what I think most people would use it for on Zift So it feels like a really good time to make a review video about the Zift ride Now in most instances of using this bike I’ve absolutely thrown it around and made it dance like R2-D2 after two cans of Stellar Ah Ah I’ve had two FTP tests on it And then the cherry on the bakewell is I finally achieved my sub60minute outdoor Zift target that I’ve been working towards for the past 2 years Come on A new FTP increase Let’s go Now I was planning on using this bike for 3 months before I made a review video about it but spoilers I’ve been so impressed with it after only the first month that I’ve decided to share my thoughts and views about it now in this video Now I’m going to stand up for this bit because I need to show you the other bike that’s behind me and I think it might make the video more dynamic I’m trying to be creative guys Now I will start by saying that I made an unboxing and first impressions video when I first received this bike from Zift At that point I had no real understanding of how it would perform versus my other indoor trainer which is a W bike Now I would recommend going to watch the unboxing and first impressions video as I’m not going to cover old ground that I mentioned in there and it also adds context as well I started on Zift in May of 2023 so 2 years ago now And for that whole time I’ve been using this Watt Bike Atom I’ve not made a review video of the Watt bike as up until now I’ve not really had anything to compare it to Now I do and I’ll be honest the Zift Ride has done really well in comparison to my Watt bike Now I’m not going to mess about in this video I’m going to go straight in with its biggest advantage the Zift Ride that is and that’s its price The Zift ride with the Wahoo Kicker Core has no real right to be as good as it is versus something like the Watt bike which is a premium indoor trainer This bike the Zift Ride is a budget option versus other dedicated premium indoor trainers that are on the market This Watt bike here this exact one cost me 2,000400 back in May of 2023 So for someone completely new to the world of indoor training and brand new to cycling spending that much money on something like this was a complete unknown and that was a really difficult thing to do It was a big decision Now obviously the Zift Ride didn’t exist 2 years ago It only came out in the summer of last year in the summer of 2024 so less than a year ago now And my choices for training indoors on a bike of any kind was very limited This Zift Ride setup that I’ve got here costs £1,200 minus a penny This cost me £2,400 This bike is £1,200 cheaper than this bike I could buy two of these for the same amount that the Watt bike cost me And that kind of blows my mind and really puts this review into perspective Now this isn’t a Zift ride versus what bike video This is a review of the Zift ride But I can’t help but compare it to this because I’ve been using this for so long Now the question I need to answer in this video is do I think this bike is worth the money in short yes The answer is yes I’m not going to drag this video out by making you wait until the end to hear my view on it Now I get asked a lot in my video comments and on my Discord channel about my view on this and I’ve answered it in the same way pretty much every time For its price I’ve been hugely impressed with it and I’m going to talk you through the things that I’m enjoying about it Some of those things will be artificial or cosmetic and some will be game changers to me personally So much so that even after a month of using it I still haven’t swapped back to my significantly more expensive premium W bike Now I know you can find a solution that’s even cheaper by buying a cheaper drivetrainer secondhand frame and using a set of controllers but 2023 me would never have done this I needed a solution that did everything for me I didn’t want to have to pull all of those parts together and assemble them hoping everything worked So I scoured the internet and ultimately I decided to settle on my Watt bike atom and I I never regretted it I loved using I still do love using my Watt bike atom Now what I suppose this boils down to is value for money Now I will say that Zift did send this to me to use I have not paid for it However this is not a sponsored video and Zift had no expectations on me to make this video I don’t make negative videos If I don’t like something then I probably won’t make a video about it And I could have very easily have kept using and enjoying the Zift ride and not made this video Or if it was inferior to the Watt bike I could have just swapped it straight back having tried it out I haven’t I’m still using it and will probably continue to do so However it is a very difficult decision to make because the Watt bike cost me so much money Back in 2023 I still weighed 120 kg And even though I’d already lost 70 kg at that point I knew I was still really heavy and needed something that felt robust Now I initially looked at a Pelaton bike as an indoor trainer as a solution because I didn’t know anything about Zift at the time The only other option was a Wahoo Kicker bike However the weight limit was 113 kg and I was obviously too heavy for that I then discovered a Watt bike atom that had a maximum weight limit of 135 kg As a comparison the Zift ride has a recommended weight limit of 120 kg In preparation for this video I’ve now watched many other YouTube videos reviewing the ride The weight capacity was something no one really mentions or they skip over as part of their technical specs The weight capacity of the ride is one of its biggest selling points for me So in a nutshell purely based on this alone as I bought the Watt bike purely based on my heavier frame I would have 100% have bought the Zift Ride instead if it existed back in the spring of 2023 It would have been a no-brainer considering that I literally bought that because I considered myself to be too heavy for anything else on the market Now one of the benefits of the Watt bike is its really heavy frame The thing weighs a ton I mean not literally but it feels like it’s not far off Because of this it’s incredibly robust Now the thing is with this W bike this weighs an absolute ton I can drop my enormous sprinting watt And if you’ve been a long-term viewer of my channel you will know I am known for my explosive wattage I haven’t got it I’m embarrassed At least my attempts to get there by throwing myself around on the bike like a lunatic Having a heavy and robust frame on the Watt bike felt good It felt like I wasn’t going to tip it over or worse snap it in half like a twig Now when Zift contacted me and said they were going to send me one I was worried about its robustness versus my Watt bike And even though I’ve lost a lot of weight I still weigh 88 kg I still weigh enough that I need to consider this when buying equipment The Zift Ride is significantly lighter but heavier than your average road bike frame for example because arrow and hills don’t apply indoors obviously Isn’t as heavy as I was expecting It feels robust It doesn’t feel like it’s too light You don’t want it too light when you’re on it sprinting otherwise it’ll be all over the place Now I know I’m going to get this in the comments and I know that once you’ve got these bikes into place like a sofa or a fridge they’re probably not going to move But the ride seems to be holding its own Even with me attempting to throw it around I haven’t tipped it over And strangely unlike the Watt bike I haven’t made it shimmy across the floor Every now and then I had to move the Watt bike back into place as over time I had walked it out of position This hasn’t happened with the Zift ride probably because most of the weight is in the back end The frame is connected to the Wahoo Kicker Core trainer and this does weigh quite a bit I think this keeps everything from break dancing across the room and that’s important to me as someone who is not wafer thin I need it to feel robust and it really does Still on the subject of weight and size the Watt bike does have a much smaller footprint If you live in a small apartment or need a solution to fit it into a bedroom or small pain cave then the Zift Ride is quite a bit bigger However having said that is it worth the additional £1,200 cost i don’t think it is But I’m not restricted on space If I was then I might think twice But knowing I was saving that much money I could probably make it happen by moving furniture around and saving the difference in the cost I mean who needs a bed to sleep in you could just sleep under your Zift frame Now of course I’m using my Watt bike as a comparison here which is very short on its footprint It takes up significantly less space However I’ve never connected my bike frame to an indoor trainer as I’m pretty sure the footprint would be the same with the Zift Ride when you compare the two Considering it’s the same size as my gravel bike this really isn’t an issue for me and it probably wouldn’t be for most people looking to buy this as a solution to their indoor training I’ve also read quite a lot online about the amount of noise the ride makes when you ride it When I received it I expected it to be really really loud and it really really isn’t In fact I don’t think it’s much louder than my W bike which has a belt instead of a chain which is known to be quieter The amount of noise the Zift Ride makes is perfectly acceptable to me I make significantly more noise when I’m riding it with my grunts heavy breathing and I I eyes I can’t really complain about the chain when I’m making my neighbors question who they live next to Come on Yay The other big advantage of having a designated trainer is that I do not need to dismantle it to go for a ride IRL Now of course you could have two bikes one for indoor training and one for fun outdoor pursuits in the sun Jesus But I don’t I have one bike If I had to dismantle this every time I went outside I would never go outside But I just had my first full-on fall off the bike Went straight down like a sack of potatoes And in staying on the subject of being able to attach other bike frames the Zift ride package with Zift which includes this Wahoo Kicker Core with the Zift Cog and I had to Google what the Zift Cog was This means I can if I wanted to switch out the frame and attach my own bike to it I see two real benefits to being able to do this for example over my W bike The first I’ll admit is less likely which if if I do damage the frame I can still use the trainer and vice versa If I damage this I can’t use it It’s as simple as that My W bike is a sealed unit I’ve always been conscious that if something does go wrong with it then it could be a very costly thing to repair Now I will say that I have used this W bike for 18 months This is probably an important fact and nothing has gone wrong with it except for one really annoying situation where I dropped a part inside the body and I had to remove the entire thing I had to dismantle all of this to be able to access it And I think that invalidated the warranty I’m not sure because I didn’t want to check And then the other benefit of being able to attach another bike frame to this is if I’m looking to train on the same bike for an endurance event or for a race IRL for example which I’m probably never going to do I might do an IRL big endurance event but I’m never going to do a race anyway If I need to train on a different bike then I can use that bike frame with the Kicker Core instead of using the Zift frame I can’t do that with the Watt bike I can see the benefit of using the same saddle frame pedals etc if I was training for a big event or a longdistance adventure Not being able to do it on here versus on here I think is a big positive Now this next point is one of those eye of the beholder views as I’ve read a lot online about the welding on this frame being or looking poor For context in comparison with a significantly more expensive trainer so the Watt bike has very very visible welding marks as well on its frame too I don’t know if that’s relevant I’ve read quite a lot about people mentioning these welding marks As you can see they’re very pronounced on the Watt bike as well and that’s double the price So I’m not sure how relevant these comments are And on this point of talking about the frame I think the Zift ride with the Kicker Core looks better than the Watt bike That’s just my opinion With its designated frame real chain as the Watt bike as a belt and trainer setup the Kicker Core I feel slightly closer to looking like a real cyclist And I certainly feel like a real cyclist with a real chain This is a cosmetic point I know and looking at a lot of other pain caves online not everyone worries about what they look like And I agree Don’t worry about what you look like Just get the job done I completely get it But I like how it looks So I thought I’d include that in the video The other thing I thought I’d mention is initially I thought the Allen key being located under the frame was a bit of a gimmick but I found it really handy for quick adjustments It just removes that need that annoying need to search the garage looking for the right size tool I’ve also used it for putting furniture together So there you go And then the best bit about the Zift Ride for me is its integrated buttons and controllers I’ve had problems with my W bike loss connection with Zift during races before It didn’t happen every time but when it did it was always at the worst possible moment when I’m sprinting or trying to climb a hill and not get dropped Oh so annoying I’ve not had this happen once on the Zift Ride I don’t know what’s caused it with my Watt bike I’m just hoping that because the Zift Ride and its components are sold by Zift that they have ensured that everything works with their app So far so good This for me is its biggest advantage Knowing I can just jump on the trainer and have it work without issue or needing to troubleshoot is its biggest advantage Now I will say that I really like the positions of the buttons for gearing The fact that everything is built in it’s all in the right positions it feels so much more comfortable Now the Watt bike has these rubber covers on the handlebars They’re there to protect the inner workings from sweat something that Zift Ride doesn’t really have It has its handlebars covered but they seem to be so much more welld designigned if I’m honest Sometimes during big efforts or sprints on the Watt bike I would occasionally pull these covers off and I’d keep having to hit them back down to ensure they wouldn’t slide up during long rides and races This was really annoying and something which I am really really grateful don’t exist on the Zift ride Because of these sweat hoods on the handlebars on the W bike I had to fit the Zift Play controllers to the drops And even though they worked they took up a large portion of the drops meaning I had reduced hand placement during sprints Because the Watt bike isn’t built specifically to be used on Zift there is always going to be compromises And then this is my final point and that’s that Zift really seems to have a good level of customer service This wasn’t something I was going to put in the script I’m not talking about my experience with them but the anecdotal feedback I’ve heard from everyone that I know have had dealings with them I’ve also read loads of comments on my videos and in my Discord server from Zifters discussing how their dealings with Zift Zift’s customer service department has resulted in a positive outcome I will say fair play to Zift for working really hard on this because I haven’t heard a negative thing mentioned and it’s the reason I’m putting this in the video Now everything I have said so far in this video probably could be mitigated against alternative solutions found or the points I’ve made are just relevant to me and not you That makes a lot of sense However unless you have unlimited funds and pay Elon Musk to design you your own bespoke trainer there are always going to have to be workarounds and compromises as no one person’s situation will be the same However when more issues are solved than not and when the price is significantly cheaper than the competitions then I feel comfortable saying I wished it existed 2 years ago and I was able to buy one then as I think I would have spent the extra money which I saved on Tracy if you’re watching this If you’re not watching this then I probably would have spent it on more cycling gear as I still need to film my upcoming IRL cycling challenges that I’m hoping Zift has prepared me for at least from a fitness perspective Now I will say if you are interested in buying a Zift ride I do have a link and discount code in the description Make sure you click on the link and then use the code Ryanzift10 Thank you very much for watching this video I hope to see you in next week’s video Cheers guys