Wahoo Announces Acquisition of RGT Cycling, Consolidated Wahoo X Subscription – DC Rainmaker
Wahoo Fitness has announced today the acquisition of the RGT Cycling app (formerly Road Grand Tours), as well as announcing their new Wahoo X Subscription Service, which combines the membership for both apps under one umbrella. In short, subscribers of either platform now get both platforms for the same monthly price (effective immediately).
In talking with Wahoo Founder Chip Hawkins, he says this will mark the start of a substantial growth period for RGT – not just in terms of fueling the company with much-needed cash, but also with new features that compete with Zwift – most specifically in areas that Zwift has ignored. However, to be clear, Wahoo SYSTM (previously The Sufferfest) is not going away or being defunded. Wahoo says they have continued content expansion plans for SYSTM.
However, all is not good news in Camp Wahoo. Just prior to announcing this acquisition, Wahoo has also non-announced a round of layoffs that impacted a number of departments in the company, from devices to apps. More on that down below.
First up is the acquisition of RGT, which Wahoo says has been in the works for a long time. So long in fact, that today’s acquisition announcement is concurrent with the ability to use a single consolidated login for both apps, immediately. Something that’s pretty much unheard of in an acquisition announcement. Effective today, both Wahoo SYSTM and (Wahoo) RGT accounts fall under a new Wahoo X bundled subscription service/login account. That account covers both software apps, and even your Wahoo ELEMNT and Wahoo Fitness apps (also, WahooFitness.com accounts).
This means that subscribers of either platform now get both platforms for the same price. So in the case of RGT users, you’ll now get all the stuff from Wahoo SYSTM, and the inverse as well.
Of course, as interesting as that is, what’s more interesting here is what Wahoo plans to do with it all. In talking with Wahoo Founder Chip Hawkins, he says they plan huge investments going forward, and noted that the core of RGT from a software development perspective is designed well. Saying specifically that “it’s a well-designed system on Unity”, though acknowledging that the graphics aren’t necessarily there yet, but “that’s easy to fix” given the underlying structure that RGT has in place already atop Unity.
He went on to say that RGT’s limited scale was largely because they “never had the marketing budget” to work from, especially in comparison to platforms like Zwift which can throw tens of millions of dollars at marketing each year. In the case of RGT, he stated specifically that the company had done impressive things despite operating on a “shoestring budget”.
Going forward, Wahoo sees themselves focusing heavily on RGT’s so-called Magic Roads, which allows individuals to instantly create courses/routes based on uploading a file from a real-world place. Wahoo sees big potential in two different but similar aspects there. The first is doubling down and focusing on the race and cycling realism aspects for those that want it, but then a second piece being more gamification (e.g. for those that prefer the Zwift style). Thus, in effect, allowing a user to choose which type of experience they want when they go off to do a race or ride. Wahoo says they don’t see themselves getting into the world-building realm like Zwift does (e.g. Watopia, Makuri Islands, etc…).
It’ll be interesting to see if that approach works, I’m somewhat skeptical of that, for the simple reason that one thing Zwift has demonstrated is that while people like choice (e.g. choosing a world or route), they also prefer to have lots of choices within that world that are well designed and detailed, with nuances specific to a given section of the course only seen in that section and not auto-repeated elsewhere. I’m not convinced Magic Roads gets to that level of realism, since it’s auto-generating everything. Still, I’m open to being convinced.
In any case, without giving specifics, Wahoo says they plan to iterate very quickly, and will be aiming to deliver key new features to RGT that go to the core of areas, not just ones that the RGT racing base have asked for, but also specifics that the Zwift Community/Racing Core have asked for but haven’t yet been delivered on Zwift. Said differently, it sounds like Wahoo is basically trawling the Zwift forums for the features that Zwifters have been asking for, but ones that have been ignored. Expect those to be implemented first.
As for SYSTM, Wahoo says that it’ll continue to get content additions. The company seemed to imply that they see the SYSTM app as relatively mature in terms of delivery, but now want to keep adding more content. Whereas RGT will see both content as well as growth of the app design/features/etc.
In terms of the existing free version of RGT, Wahoo says that’ll remain, stating specifically “there will still be a freemium option across all platforms”.
Finally, note that from a pricing standpoint there is one loser here, which are RGT subscription users that were paying $9.99/month. That’ll continue till Sept 1st, 2022, then rise to $14.99/month. However, it should be noted that if someone signs up for the annual membership, then the cost is $129/year (effectively $10.75/month).
While much of today’s media attention will be on Wahoo’s acquisition of RGT, one would be remiss if the substantial round of layoffs that occurred this past weekend weren’t covered – as certainly, they form part of this picture, even if only tangentially.
Last Thursday night, Wahoo notified a number of employees that they were being let go as part of a large round of layoffs. This impacted employees across all divisions, including device/firmware, Wahoo SYSTM, and other components. Wahoo wouldn’t disclose the exact number of employees that were impacted, however, based on the numerous employees that reached out to me over the weekend, the most consistent range puts it roughly in the ballpark of 50 people.
Wahoo would confirm that the layoffs did occur, and noted that for the last several years the company had doubled its employee count each year to keep up with demand. While that worked during times of tremendous demand (namely, the surge of COVID lockdowns and massive demand for indoor training products), that was no longer viable for the company, as the market is now substantially down for the company. This massive drop in product demand mirrors what I hear from most other companies in the space, though, some have put in more in line with pre-COVID 2019.
Albeit, the mix of demand has shifted, with some indoor training companies noting a shift in the blend of more premium heavy products back in 2019, to more entry-level products. Said differently: Any cyclist who planned to buy a nice trainer would have done so in the last 2 years. And anyone who didn’t, probably wasn’t all that deep into the sport.
As for Wahoo, they noted that they had to “right-size” the company going forward, while also wanting to have better time-zone coverage going forward with the RGT components being brought onboard. Similarly, it would not surprise me to see layoffs in other indoor training focused companies over the course of the year (at least, the ones solely focused on indoor training), as the realities of stagnating indoor app memberships continue throughout 2022.
One notable loss as part of this was Reid Weber, one of the original co-founders of TrainerRoad. He went on to join The Sufferfest a number of years back, and led much of the product development that transformed The Sufferfest from what was then an outdated software app into the vastly revamped Sufferfest platform that many came to know and love over the past few years. Following Wahoo’s acquisition of The Sufferfest nearly 3 years ago, Wahoo subsequently revamped it as SYSTM last September.
I think things are about to get spicy in the indoor training app realm.
It’s been long discussed that realistically, Wahoo was probably the only one with the brand awareness and marketing prowess to take on Zwift. But, there’s always been two core pieces to that: Financial and platform.
The first being the platform: Having something people actually want to ride – repeatedly. As a platform, RGT has made great strides over the past 12-18 months. The unification of their splintered app design into a single app is key to the start of that. But it’s still not perfect. I used RGT’s new Apple TV app a few months ago, and came away both excited and frustrated. A smattering of tiny user interface things ended up ruining my ride (namely, the start of the race). But, if there’s anything everyone agrees upon, it’s that Wahoo is really good at user interface things. However, the core reason most people tended to try RGT once and then move away was simply lack of users.
While some RGT fans love the empty worlds, the simple reality is that’s not exactly a selling point for a social riding app/platform. And to fix that, you need money. Lots of it.
And in Wahoo’s case, layoffs aside – they have lots of money from their investment fund friends. Within the industry, an oft-agreed-upon napkin figure says that it’d take roughly $20-$35 million dollars to initially launch a viable Zwift competitor. With the word ‘viable’ specifically meaning that something that’ll actually take market share away from Zwift and become something that the masses and media realistically consider as an alternative. That figure includes the software development side, but also the initial marketing/launch push (but doesn’t include trying to equal every aspect of Zwift in features or marketing spend). In Wahoo’s case, they’re buying RGT for likely far less than that. But that’s only a piece of the puzzle. After all, if the RGT platform feature-wise had been a viable major competitor to Zwift, they’d have amassed far more users by now.
Wahoo says their funding is going to drive huge software development investments into RGT, to start competing on features and functions. And at the same time, Wahoo also says they’re going to invest in marketing too. And in this world (virtual or otherwise), that’s what counts.
While the vast quantities of pro cyclists train on Zwift without being paid by Zwift, Zwift has long paid numerous high profile pro cyclists and triathletes to be featured in heavily utilized advertising campaigns, including Tour de France winners. Zwift was really the first indoor cycling platform to feature pro riders in this way. Similarly, Zwift also funds other community aspects/efforts. And the company further holds events both physically and virtually, all of which cost money to put on – all money paid by Zwift. And that quickly scales into the many tens of millions of dollars. Of course, as anyone in the industry will also readily tell you (complete with plenty of concrete examples), Zwift spends money on everything and anything like it’s going out of style. Most companies are far more restrained in their spending, either out of prudence or necessity.
Wahoo’s edge here compared to other existing attempts, is they are an existing brand that’s well known and well-liked in the cycling community. In addition, Wahoo is a brand with deep ties to pro cycling teams via their sponsorships. Thus, it won’t take as much effort or money for Wahoo to drive interest and traffic to a renewed RGT, as it might for other upstarts. The challenge however once new users arrive on Wahoo RGT will be the same as non-Wahoo RGT: Ensuring they stick the landing and stay. And that invariably gets back to more features, and more concurrent users.
Only time will tell whether it works, but if there’s one known good here, it’s that competition is a good thing for consumers. And we’re about to get a lot of high-money competition.
With that – thanks for reading!
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Zwift better watch their backs – they’re going to be seen as standing still if they don’t get their apps (game + companion) up to snuff.
Agree. Zwift’s cash burn has to be fugly.
Investing in hardware development right as hardware demand hits a massive air pocket.
It is tempting to believe this will usher in a new era of advancement for RGT and Wahoo and create true competition with Zwift. Considering this announcement is coming just a short few days after Wahoo laid off upwards of 90 employees, mostly software engineers, and a few short months into the monumental flop known as the Wahoo watch, I’m personally not going to hold my breath.
Wahoo’s product leadership and exec level has no idea how to leverage the thing they just acquired. They destroyed a massive amount of goodwill with their software engineering staff and will continue to see an exodus of critical people who don’t care to be a part of that anymore.
Zwift doesn’t have anything to worry about.
Zwift has to worry about the same things as Wahoo: running out of money and growing, or more realistically maintaining, their user base. Like the high end trainer market, anyone who is really excited about virtual training worlds has already signed up for one.
Color me excited. Love the potential to switch between video game rides and Suff style rides like the Col Collective, under one sub.
Those cheesy old Suff videos are fun at times, too.
This quote is so spot on: “Any cyclist who planned to buy a nice trainer would have done so in the last 2 years”. NYT had a similar quote on a Peloton owner who fire-sold her bike “to beat the rush of everyone else selling theirs.”
Quite a few of the criticisms of Zwift are from the long-timers who see the platform as standing still while excessively gamifying over the pandemic period. Arguably that’s true, and many are active on the forums. Core worlds – Watopia and London in particular have seen very little love in the last few years. That’s really got to be looked at by Zwift. If Wahoo get magic roads anywhere near where they hope then Zwift have an issue – albeit more of a niggle considerig their market hegemony. Therein lies the problem.
Interesting about RGT. I tried it a few weeks ago under a trial. I liked a couple of the routes but did not do the big climb ones….I also did the Magic Road….This is a really cool idea but it needs some work. When you have to use user-developed programs to clean up the roads, it loses its appeal. If they could incorporate the required post-work and keep all the Strava segments of IRL riding, I would sign up long-term. Zwift has become “meh” since they dumped all the segments. Now I have to ride for an hour for my two motivational/”whereamiat” marks…I am losing interest.
I get more Fulgaz segments when I ride Yorkshire in Zwift…
I may have to re-try BigRingVR…for some reason I really liked it when I did a 2-week trial a year or two ago.
i’ve been using the “free” accounts ie. limited to 1-2 routes under rotation and a few ergs and access to participate in rides. – A long time ago (sometime last summer) i was having conversations with their support team about implementing some of the technology used in MS flight sim 2020 for making magic roads. currently they are barebones and only the gps and height is “true” to IRL, with that tech they could actually easlily build most of the world quite acurately.
More location-specific scenery is already announced — the RGT team has been really lean and it’s amazing what they’ve done with what they have. Magic Roads version 2 was a huge improvement on 1 (which just drew roads as floating ribbons), and version 3 should use land use data for more specificity.
But when racing, I really don’t pay much attention to the scenery anyway. I’ve been doing RGT races for a year, and while I would love for things like putting an ocean next to coast routes, I really don’t miss the cute scenery of Zwift. Afterwards I check Strava satellite view for the local details.
Dear Wahoo – add whatever contentappfeatures you want, but please don’t take away the SUF videos! That’s all we use SYSTM for anyway. #sitdownmikecotty
I would have loved them to pick up VirtuPro.
It’s a better riding experience than RGT.
link to virtuprocycling.com
Also Rouvy would be a good fit with all the pro racing videos there
I wonder if the pool of potential users is big enough to sustain the level of financial growth that VC needs
Assuming average usage of 8 months/year==>120 $/Year/user, it brings a paltry 12M/yr revenues for every 100K user (which is quite large a number already for a Zwift competitor). That level of revenues does not really cover much R&D payroll…
As a matter of fact, Wahoo HW division does not gain any benefit from this move
i seriously doubt they have 100K paying users. – i’ve never seen anythng above 20 users on normal rides. maybe 50 at an “event”, but that’s about it.
Close the Gap! Hmmmmmm . . . can Wahoo do that? Z have such a huge headstart, first mover advantage, 100s of thousands of users and an entire community slash ecosystem around it. It’s a tough ask. Not impossible. But hard.
Will the Wahoo/RGT/Systm merger also reignite the rumours of Zwift buying TrainerRoad, and Zwift possibly getting into the trainer hardware game as well?
Nothing too exciting, rather looking forward to a Trainerroad/Zwift merger. Yes I’m riding a wahoo kickr V5 and tried both platforms previously. They’d need at least 2 years of development to be on level with a current Trainerroad/Zwift merger, and then they’ll advance as well in the meantime.
Ray, any news on Trainerroad/Zwift?
CyclingTips is reporting that the possible merger has been called off, but no source cited. link to cyclingtips.com
When I decided to try Zwift a couple of years ago, I chose the Wahoo speed & cadence sensors to use with my dumb trainer. They were reliable but the design of the battery compartment was terrible – I basically destroyed the water tight seal trying to pry them open. Nonetheless, I wanted to go all in with Wahoo. Tried Sufferfest – wasn’t my thing. Held out for a color Elemnt Bolt, but the reviews were terrible (see DCR’s review). Contemplated a watch, same thing. When I upgraded my trainer, considered a Wahoo Kickr, but ultimately decided against (same with the Tickr) – because reliability issues from those who owned. All of this is to say that I wanted to give my money to Wahoo at every turn and I like the idea of integrated hardware + software (Apple). But until Wahoo can deliver on quality, I’ll stay away. I ultimately went with a combo of Stages, Elite, Polar, Zwift, TrainerRoad… and it works good enough.
You are overthinking. I bought Elemnt Bolt 5 years ago (five!) and it has been rock solid since then. I would call it being reliable. Same with Tickr Fit which I used for 3 years daily. Both are likely the most reliable pieces of bike tech I ever had.
Agreed. I’ve owned a lot of Wahoo kit. My ELEMNT is going strong, 6 years after I bought it, battery life still allows me to do a century ride, and still getting firmware update support from Wahoo amazingly. All my sensors work fine, including an old school Blue SC still running on one bike, Cadence and Speed sensors on others, and an original TICKR HR strap. KICKR CORE got thousands of miles on it. I had a TICKR FIT break on me, but Wahoo replaced it *after the warranty period*. Nothing but good luck with Wahoo.
I have no idea what’s going on inside Wahoo, but it’s easy to see layoffs as being a negative. It sure is for those getting laid off. That said, over the years, I’ve been party to a number sizeable layoffs and associated reorganizations that wound up being revitalizing to the companies and businesses. Personally, I don’t have anything invested in any of this other than my monthly memberships and looking for an app that meets my needs/wants. I was using primarily Zwift for years and switched to SYSTM about 6 months ago for their 4DP training plans, which I really like, except for some hiccups in the app the delayed the start or interrupted a workout. Personally, I never really cottoned to Zwift’s virtual riding/worlds and gamification.
What happens to rgts free option?
i’m with you – but an unqualified guess is “gone”.
The BikeRadar article said Wahoo confirmed the free version will remain, curious how long that will last.
OK – thanks (and still my guess is – not very long) – i only got the email from wahoo (i have no products whatsoever from wahoo so i was really baffled when i read it on my phone) and went straight to DCR for any news
Yes, I just confirmed with Wahoo as well – and they stated the free version will remain.
Uhh that price point… 🧐
Under 10€ was just justifiable enough for me for a computer game…
I think the future here will be the combination of ‘serious’ training programmes and video or animated environments. So I think this merger is going to be good (though I only have a passing trial experience of RGT, and I have never tried Sufferfest/SYSTM). And presumably also the rumoured Zwift-TrainerRoad partnership in whatever form it takes.
For my part, I use TrainerRoad simultaneously with FulGaz which provides the visual distraction of a plain TrainerRoad experience. And I use Zwift for a change when I’m not following a scheduled trainer session.
I would really love to know the real reason(s) why Zwift opted against using a full featured 3D engine like Unity and ended up rolling their own. On the surface it seems like a poor long-term decision.
Great summery Ray!
I can foresee that the ability to ride on RGT for free will be removed, which will be an issue for me because I’m not about to pay for both Zwift & RGT subscriptions.
I see RGT as being the best indoor app around for getting anywhere close to the ‘Real Life’ experience and if it has more events with more users I’d seriously consider switching from Zwift to RGT.
Fortunately for us in the Northern hemisphere we have time to see how things shakedown before the indoor season recommences in the autumn.
I read about layoffs, looking on my Elemnt Rival and feeling confused…
Wahoo always “wants” to do sooooo much, but in the end it takes to much time.
Let’s see what will happen with Wahoo X and how long it will take to realize their great plans.
It will be interesting to see if Wahoo add any proprietary license stuff to their trainers to lock them to specific software or reduce functionality for other platforms.
With Zwift bringing out their own hardware soon, if that’s not openly compatible with all platforms……..🤷♂️
Maybe getting RGT for free for SYSTM users will push more people to the platform, and more people leads to….more people….
Before features, I think RGT needs some (or…lots of) polish. Some menus, sounds, the web platform for events…Etc…everything still screams “tiny little development team focusing on core”. This is good, as it is way more difficult to modify the core than the clothes…
I tend to zwift less and less, but TBH, it’s difficult to beat for free riding during winter 🙂
(and RGT lacks some detailed easy roads. I cannot loop on Borrego Springs as I can on….any Zwift route actually)
Zwift has an extreme first-mover advantage. The social aspects (I.e. large groups cycling at the same time) are of huge value to consumers and Zwift has a major head start in this arena. No matter how nice the graphics and user interface is on Wahoo in the future, If they don’t have the critical mass of people on the platform, they won’t be able to compete with Zwift very effectively due to lack of other riders on the platform/routes at the same time. Not sure what the answer is for them. Trainer Road owns the seriously-training cycling athlete, Zwift owns the social component, Peleton owns the spin-class crowd. Wahoo will need to carve out, or create, a new segment to succeed, in my opinion. Would make a great business case study.
I think that Wahoo is doing too much at once and dropping the ball too many times. Especially on hardware. I have my third Kickr Bike. The frame on the first one broke after a year at the base of the seatpost, the replacement overheated and failed on the first ride, and the third, so far, is ok. I am on my third original Bolt after two screen failures. A friend has the exact same problem. The Bolt V2 is only now getting the software bugs under control. I bought a Roam and sent it back after I discovered that it only had enough memory to load the map for a single, large, state (CA). I had to unload CA to load anything else. Wahoo verified that the memory was too small. Every other computer I own can load the entire US at once (Edge 1030, Karoo 2, Stages Dash). And then there is the giant Kickr fiasco from a couple of years ago. I think that they have not done a good job defining the products or in QA and hardware testing. Their bike computers especially seem to be lagging way behind the competition. The only saving grace is that their customer service is quite good. Although it much cost a fortune.
I’ve been on Zwift since early Beta, and used to use Sufferfest until the combined subs got a bit much and Zwift improved their workout library (still miss the Suff vids, though!). I had RGT Free for a good while, but could never get into it – I’m not a racer, and just going for a ride seemed a bit soulless.
Wahoo could easily construct a more realistic and more fun competitor to Zwift if they combine the best of SYSTM and RGT and get enough people on the platform to make it feel busy. I’m not sure how the videos would fit into that, or even if they could, but the training expertise of Sufferfest way eclipses that of Zwift and I’m sure it wouldn’t take too much to create a couple of ‘worlds’ that would grab the imagination of users if the graphics and physics were better than Zwift. I look forward to seeing what they achieve.
I feel like I’m starting to turn on Wahoo. I loved my Elemnt, and it still serves me quite well, but getting support used to be easy, I’m now on two weeks of an inability to download (or update) maps that were all on my device at one point. I get an email maybe once every three or four days, reply immediately, and sit and wait again. The battery life on an almost 6 year old device is still great, so I’m not rushing to replace it, but included map updates are only so good if you can’t download them. I thought a Roam might be in my future, but I’m not sure they can hold their focus for an actual product’s lifecycle.
Pretty excited about this…
I dropped Zwift and went back to Systm for Sufferfest videos – much easier (mentally) to get through hard workouts.
Was “missing” an option for outdoor rides separate from inspiration videos when calendar/program deemed necessary. I tried FulGaz which was OK but somewhat difficult to justify the subscription when I was using in 3-4x/month max.
$25 to $35 million. Which of these will be the basis for the next WeCrashed mini series? Wahoo or Zwift. I need to email Anne Hathaway so she can get this in development already. One of these companies is going to end gloriously in the next five years and I would hate to be Wahoo with their crappy watch, lackluster RGT, and layoffs.
There is a lot of potential but right now I’m skeptical of that being realised.
I tried Sufferfest/SYSTM and, like so many, there were bits I loved and bits I didn’t. The workout UI is awful compared to Trainerroad which is perfect and the training calendar awkward. Syncing devices cumbersome too.
I loved the “On Location” videos but they aren’t widescreen and not enough of them.
RGT I’ve tried but everything felt so fake. I just couldn’t immerse myself in the world. Magic Roads would be a nice feature but unless the world resembles the location it’s not going to achieve much.
FulGaz works with user submitted real locations because it’s HD/4K video of the location – just a shame the app is so unbelievably unstable and the UI so bad it’s unusable most of the time. Someone please buy FulGaz and fix it!
Zwift does workouts “well enough” for many and I can immerse myself in the world. The golden ticket is TrainerRoad and Zwift for me and merging Sufferfest/SYSTM/RGT into a single offering and improving the issues across both is a lot of work that I think will take too long to realise.
I think the future best indoor app won’t come from any of those currently available. People know what’s wanted now and can start coding something new from scratch.
Someone did buy FulGaz, Ironman (link to dcrainmaker.com). Likewise I hope they invest in it–some time working on stability and UI would go a long way since the content is already there….
“In talking with Wahoo CEO Chip Hawkins”
Ray, I only noticed this from the quote in the related email, but it seems that the “real” Wahoo CEO is Mike Saturnia. Chip is now the Chairman of the Board per my quick search, but that may well be off.
Probably doesn’t matter to most everyone, but might be worth editing to be up to date for whatever Chip’s title is at the moment.
Huh. Things I never noticed. Good catch! Updated to ‘Founder’ in the meantime.
LOL, probably a distinction without a difference… at least in this context.
Thanks for checking and updating either way 😀
The Magic Road thing sounds tempting. Re-riding old routes done in the analog world and possibly being to use old ride times to pace or improve would be really cool. However, I worry about how realistic this would actually look. If it’s just a recreation of the road grade at different points without the same or similar scenery, I think the relevance and cool factor would be lost.
I’ll admit I’m not into the gaming kind of virtual ride experience. I really dig FulGaz. I know that it’s impossible for Magic Road to approach that sort of detail in the scenery, but I’m nonetheless interested to see how Magic Road evolves.
Magic Roads are great but either auto generation must be more advanced to generate proper landscapes, road network, landmarks and buildings based on a map data (openstreetmaps) or we need map editor to fine tune them and make them pretty. The routes are too monotonous and there are no actual landscapes. If I’m about to ride up the mountain I want to see the damn mountain before my eyes 😉
Agree, I love the idea of magic roads, but unless there is a map there or some sort of landmarks that indicate where you are on your real road ride, it’s just falls flat….
But overall, I’m very pleased to be able to have SYSTM and RGT now for 1 price. I was a dual subscriber before.
Be aware that as a dual subscriber, the Wahoo subscription FAQ recommends to cancel one. I have no idea what happens to any stored data of the service you cancel. Contact customer service if you have concerns about that.
From the FAQ:
I was already subscribed to both RGT and SYSTM. I don’t want to be double-charged. What should I do?
You need to cancel one of your active subscriptions – either through RGT or Wahoo SYSTM. Please contact customer support with any questions.
Bad news for me, biking is not main interest and RGT has been a valuable thing for me and I really mikr it. Now it will be a price hike from 99 to 185 SEK in sweden. I am leaving that boat now. Any idea for an alternative?
Regarding the SYSTM, I was thrilled when it came out but I found it totally miserable. I even have a 12 months free subscription on it, but I cant stand it. Goodbye Wahoo.
Zwift is sitting on that TR acquisition not sure for what reason other than it not happening
CyclingTips article seems to state (even if a bit wishy-washy) that the Z+TR option is officially “dead”. They don’t give any real info, so it could be wrong or just deliberately short of info for a range of reasons.
I agree that this action is very big and should be getting people thinking if they aren’t already doing so.
In most business cases, acquisition offers never really die. One company makes an offer, perhaps another company does too, and then the recipient decides. That process can drag on for months or years.
At this point, said recipient has apparently decided either no to Zwift, no to all (other) offers…or no for now. Almost every company has a price where no turns into yes. And any hesitations can usually be changed by increasing said price.
I don’t think this announcement is something that immediately should cause Nate concern, but I’d be more concerned for 18-24 months down the road depending on how Wahoo handles things. Realistically speaking, if Wahoo can make RGT into a viable Zwift competitor, then the initial loser isn’t Zwift: It’s TrainerRoad. That’s because SYSTM has vast overlap with TrainerRoad. So if Wahoo can give people a pseudo-Zwift + pseudo-TrainerRoad for one lower price. Well, that’s likely to hurt TR more than Zwift (based on user numbers alone).
Of course, that all assumes Zwift stays static. The last few months are really the first time in Zwift’s history I’m seeing some legit signs that the company is growing up. Much of it isn’t obvious yet to users, but structures are being put in place that should have been years ago. I’m seeing those in minor day-to-day things, but also behind-the-scenes tidbits when talking to other industry players that interact with Zwift. Of course, their own hardware will be a massive distraction, launched at realistically the worst possible time (no fault of theirs). But, it does appear to be causing them to focus a bit more.
Anywas, interesting times…
Great info and thoughts, Ray. Much appreciated.
Maybe this is off-target, but it feels to me that Trainerroad is somewhat left out in the cold in all these machinations. Zwift would only acquire TR to dismantle it & eliminate a competitor. At the same time, Garmin’s fledgling efforts at structured training seem to be going nowhere. So, maybe Garmin buys TR??
I dunno, I see Wahoo as getting too distracted. Their head-units used to Just Work Every Time – and why I migrated from Garmin. Then came the Garmin-style firmware updates that regularly broke stuff, then the twin disasters of the Bolt 2 and watch (not to mention the early problems with the most recent Kickr). Feeling really bad for the Speedplay devote’s as well in the midst of all this and looking at that likely future.
Why does everyone feel like that have to do EVERYTHING? Why can’t companies be satisfied with doing a smaller number of things REALLY well? For example ummm… I dunno… Zwift(?!). This is also the reason I seriously hope Zwiift doesn’t actually go down the hardware rabbit hole.
I guess it comes down to Sturgeon’s Law… “90% of everything is crap” (or will become crap in the long term).
Not saying that anyone else in this market is better, but implying that Zwift does software really well…really? They’ve also been down the hardware rabbit hole for a year(s) now; see Ray’s many other articles on the subject.
I’m hopeful this means Wahoo will put more focus on improving and streamlining SYSTM. As an RGT fan with a rarely used SYSTM membership, I think Wahoo is doing a better job trying to get my money with this.
Not getting into world creation is a big mistake. It’s one of the big social aspects of Zwift.
I host a race series on RGT Cycling: the Northern California (NorCal) Tue Niter, which is every Tue at 6 pm Pacific. As I write this, we’re doing stage 2 of the 5-stage Redlands Classic. Each week is 20 km, and it’s a good chance to try out RGT racing beyond the “official” events, which tend to have low turnout. It’s much more of a “community” feel than most Zwift races, which tend to be a bunch of random strangers.
There’s three sources of RGT events: (1) the app shows upcoming events on the home screen, (2) RGTDB is the “ZwiftPower” or RGT and is the best resource for events and Magic Roads, (3) there’s Facebook and Discord groups. But my recommendation is check out RGTDB, which has registration links for events.
I subscribe to both so I’m happy about this from a financial perspective.I’m hopeful this will bring more users to RGT to start populating the courses more. I’ve seen the user base grow slowly over time so I’m optimistic about the positive affect this will have for RGT over the near term. I prefer the physics and actual riding on RGT over Zwift personally, but Zwift definitely has the UI and ease of use edge by a long way. Also the advantage of Zwifts worlds is pretty significant if you just want to get on the bike and ride. You can loop and make turns and adjustments to your rides on the fly – it’s better than an A to B route that ends in RGT. Also the lighter/brighter colors and lighthearted nature of the world I think attracts more people than the “realistic” environment of RGT.
Hopefully Wahoo can improve the UI and then focus on integrating their workouts into RGT as an alternative to their videos. I have been more and more turning off and turning on something else to watch – not sure why but I’m having a harder time leaving them on for some reason. Lastly I hope they can develop some built in tools for development of real roads from users. I have done some and they work ok with the community tools but they are a bit of a bear to use. Integrated tools would give better uptake I think. Also the ability to add banners/sprint points/Points of interest on a course would be very welcome to make it more interesting.
Overall I’m optimistic about the acquisition. I can’t wait to see what happens next. Now I just have to make sure my RGT account history isn’t lost.
Echo all of your sentiments.
The FAQs say that those with different email accounts for SYSTM and RGT are not yet able to have their accounts merged, but they are working on it.
Any chance you used the same email for both, like me, and have been able to log in to RGT? I haven’t received a single password reset email.
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Here’s my most recent GPS watch guide here, and cycling GPS computers here. Plus there are smart trainers here, all in these guides cover almost every category of sports gadgets out there. Looking for the equipment I use day-to-day? I also just put together my complete ‘Gear I Use’ equipment list, from swim to bike to run and everything in between (plus a few extra things). And to compliment that, here’s The Girl’s (my wife’s) list. Enjoy, and thanks for stopping by!
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The most common question I receive outside of the “what’s the best GPS watch for me” variant, are photography-esq based. So in efforts to combat the amount of emails I need to sort through on a daily basis, I’ve complied this “My Photography Gear” post for your curious minds! It’s a nice break from the day to day sports-tech talk, and I hope you get something out of it!
Many readers stumble into my website in search of information on the latest and greatest sports tech products. But at the end of the day, you might just be wondering “What does Ray use when not testing new products?”. So here is the most up to date list of products I like and fit the bill for me and my training needs best! DC Rainmaker 2021 swim, bike, run, and general gear list. But wait, are you a female and feel like these things might not apply to you? If that’s the case (but certainly not saying my choices aren’t good for women), and you just want to see a different gear junkies “picks”, check out The Girl’s Gear Guide too.