Great news folks, rather than spending your life shopping in the real world or online you can now shop whilst cycling online. Zwift have given us the ability to convert our millions of pedal revolutions into their new and modified digital currency ‘DROPS’.
It’s kinda like joining the Euro, so your old XP points will be converted over to DROP points and then you will see your new DROPS currency balance against the DROPS ‘currency’ symbol which is usually a green or blue “drop”.
You don’t seem to be able to buy drops and instead earn them through interaction with the game. As you ride further, higher and unlock more Zwift levels then so you earn more ‘drops’. Naturally the ‘Drop Shop’ is the place to spend them and you can ‘buy’ new elements to customise your in-game avatar.
Your old avatar customizations seem to all still be there just as you left them yesterday and the new DROPS, for now, are only available be able to be spent on WHEELS and FRAMES. That’s a good thing right?
I’m tempted by this sweet-looking little number jsut for retro-pose Kudos, although I sincerely hope that Zwift allow the subsequent purchase of those handlebar-mouted aero wicker baskets. It’s a somewhat moot-point though as I’m not on level 40, so this one remains locked to me so far.
I might have to trade in my Raleigh wheels for some Zip 454s, although I’m not sure how long they would last on Watopia Town’s cobbled high street. 284k drops, ouch, that’s a lot of sweat on the floor.
This might be a great opportunity for Zwift to get some ad revenue from the wheel and frame manufacturers? Not sure. Maybe there is a quid-pro-quo for them being able to use the other companies’ branding in exchange for advertising.
I’ll end on this image sneakily cutting off the Ventum, you know you’ll want to go onto Zwift to see how much that one ‘costs’.
Have a look at GPLAMA saying pretty much the same thing – but he’s better-looking than me.
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I’ve recently gone in the other direction and down graded my frame and wheels, to give better correlation to my speed in the real world. On the rare occasion that I Zwift race I’ll naturally take any free gains I can get and upgrade again.
Zipp 808/Disc combo is nice addition which was previously available only to folks during Zwift BETA test. Other additions seems more like different aesthetics of the same (climbing, aero, TT bikes) with little to none in game benefits.
But maybe I’m wrong and Zwift team did it right and modeled aerodynamics, weight for each of the new bikes. Might wait with purchase until zwiftinsider.com do some testing of the new stuff. 🙂
I saw a GCN ‘real’ test of My shimano C60s (50mm rim) vs climbing wheels…virtually identical for climbing ! and I bet mine are faster downhill and on the flat. not sure what zwiftinsider will find 😉