Fastest Bike Frames and Wheels at Each Zwift Level

If you’re racing on Zwift, upgrading your frame and wheels can cut some significant time off your efforts. But figuring out where to spend your hard-earned Drops can be confusing! So we’ve put together this table which lists the fastest frame and wheelset available at every Zwift level.

(Keep in mind this list applies only to flat and rolling routes. The list below is essentially a simplified, flat-race-focused version of our complete Zwift Shopping Guide. If the climbs in your race last more than a few minutes, you may want to consider a more climbing-friendly setup.)

(Also, this list does not include TT frames, since those aren’t allowed in typical Zwift road races. TT frames are covered in this post.)

Want to keep it simple? Just purchase each frame or wheelset on the list as soon as you level up. Don’t have enough Drops? Keep riding – you’ll get them soon enough! (And you might want to ride near a RoboPacer so your Drops add up more quickly!)

Fastest Frames

* The Felt AR (level 23), Cervelo S5 2020 (level 36), Specialized Venge S-Works (level 37), and Uranium Nuclear (level 31) all turn in matching times in our flat tests.

Fastest Wheelsets

*The Zipp 858 wheels are the fastest non-disc aero wheelset, making them the fastest legal wheelset for some top-end Zwift ESports races where disc wheels are not allowed.

Total time savings of fastest frame and wheelset over stock Zwift setup (Zwift Steel frame and Zwift Classic wheels): 22.5+66=88.5 seconds

Times above based on our flat speed tests, done with a solo 75kg rider at 300 watts over two laps of Watopia’s very flat Tempus Fugit route. Our test rider completes the route in approximately 50 minutes.

What About the Tron Bike?

The Zwift Concept Z1 (Tron) bike is 78 seconds faster than the stock Zwift Steel+Classic wheels setup. The fastest setup available turns in a time ~9 seconds faster than the Tron bike over our ~50-minute flat test course.

That’s a decent gap, but you can also look at it like this: until you have a disc wheelset (level 37+) or one of the faster non-disc wheelsets (level 31+), the Tron bike is your fastest option on flat/rolling routes!

We didn’t include the Tron in the chart above since you can’t separate the Tron’s frame from its wheels. But it’s certainly a bike worth unlocking. Here’s how to do that >

Want to dig deeper? See “Speed Tests: Tron Bike vs Top Performers (Scatter Plot)” >

Improvement by Level

The biggest performance gains come early in a Zwifter’s level progression. Here’s how much time you would be saving at each level if you upgraded to the recommended setups above:

You can see that by level 16, 66% of the overall possible improvement has already been achieved. And once you’ve hit level 39, the only way you’ll get faster is by racing smarter and training stronger!

Digging Deeper

Want to dig deeper into the speeds of various frames and wheels? Check out our Frame Ranking Charts and Wheel Ranking Charts.

Your Thoughts

Hopefully this helps you select a bike for your next race, no matter your Zwift level. Got questions or comments? Post below!