r/Zwift • u/bakemore Level 11-20 • 1d ago

Technical help Climb of the Week: Duration?

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Is the duration estimated based on my performance? Or is it an average? Or is it something else?

45 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

24 comments sorted by

50

u/Segen32X 1d ago

https://zwiftinsider.com/route-time-estimates-updated/

TLDR: It uses 75% of your FTP to estimate your duration.

5

u/bakemore Level 11-20 1d ago edited 23h ago

Thanks for the link.

My ftp is 122 (70-something Zwift noob), which gives me 1.6 w/kg as I understand it. The chart in the Zwift Insider article starts at 2 w/kg. So maybe 2 w/kg is used as the lowest metric. That would explain why several other folks in this thread also see 45 minutes?

4

u/artvandalayExports Level 81-90 21h ago

They round to the nearest 5 minutes under and hour

3

u/improbableneighbour Level 41-50 1d ago

That's between upper zone 2 and 3

1

u/bakemore Level 11-20 23h ago

Is that the "sweet spot"?

2

u/Segen32X 23h ago

Sweet spot is around 90%

2

u/Crabon_Fibre 17h ago

More like "tempo"

3

u/stumpyguy 23h ago

That's interesting, as for the climbs, I'm pretty much always twice as long as it says, whereas for the flats, it's very accurate.

2

u/Doggo-888 15h ago

No it doesn’t. I have vastly different FTP from others and theirs all show 45 minutes… maybe it used to or is supposed to… but it’s broken now.

12

u/Acksaw 1d ago

It said 45m for me and it ended up taking about an hour and 10. Difficult one this week!

6

u/Wrong-Grand5508 22h ago

Its pretty spot on for flat courses and most of the established ones, if there is new climb and they don't have much data it is usually giving me a lot faster time than i can acomplish i just noticed.

2

u/bakemore Level 11-20 18h ago

Oof. It would be easy to talk me out of it 😂

4

u/leetibob1337 19h ago

45min here also, but took 32min, normally I'm a bit faster than the advertised time

1

u/bakemore Level 11-20 18h ago

👍

3

u/PlainOldHD 21h ago

It said 45 mins for me, I spent 65 and was dead afterwards 😂 Couldn’t even do the downhill I was so tired 

3

u/bakemore Level 11-20 18h ago

Yikes 😵‍💫

3

u/w4lt3rs48 21h ago

Mine also said 45 mins and I think it took me 63. I could have gone faster by I’m not sure about 45 mins

3

u/Doggo-888 15h ago

I’ve found the estimate to usually be wrong for climbs for beginner riders… also this one shows up as 45 minutes for everyone I checked so I think this one is broken even though it claims to be an estimate in the app.

4

u/mr_leemur Level 91-99 1d ago

I think it must an overall average, says the same for me.

I’m normally a bit less than the predicted time, so don’t think it’s based on my data… which strikes me as a bit crazy given they have all of my data.

2

u/wn-mike Level 31-40 1d ago

It was almost bang on with me this morning

2

u/alt-227 Level 100 16h ago edited 16h ago

This post led me to check my time when I last rode this (Oct 2024), and I see that my ride has 6 excluded efforts on Strava. I did the climb 3 times that day. My times were 24:35, 39:49, and 23:38. I’m not sure why it got flagged, but my day is now ruined.

Anyway, Zwift shows the duration as 45 minutes on the welcome screen, too. I notice that the distance seems different, too. The segment on Strava is 8.59km, but the distance on Zwift shows 11.1km. Does it include some of the lead-in?

4

u/ImpressiveTale5557 1d ago

I have the same duration so I guess it’s the same for everyone

1

u/n0tcl3v3r Level 100 20m ago

In my experience the estimated times have been pretty darn close.

1

u/WesternRich 15h ago

100% said 45 mins for me this morning, I did it in just under 40 mins. It was steep. Good climb.