Elite Expands Zwift Virtual Shifting to Almost All Trainers

Elite has announced expansion of virtual shifting across essentially their entire lineup of trainers made in the last many years. Of course, this expansion is really one part Elite, one part Zwift – but either way, it’s here today. Given I’ve previously covered Elite’s expansion of virtual shifting to the Direto XR, this post will be fairly quick.

The new expansion means all the following additional trainers now support it (everything since roughly 2017):

– Direto
– Direto X
– Direto XR Team
– Justo
– Justo 2
– Suito
– Suito-T

Previously, Elite had rolled it out to the Avanti and Direto XR. Keeping in mind the Elite Suito was introduced all the way back in 2019, and the Elite Direto back in 2017, so that’s definitely impressive to see.

In the case of getting things cooking, you’ll simply open up the Elite Upgrado app, which will update your trainer via Bluetooth. Once that’s done, you can start to take advantage of virtual shifting. However, in order to actually shift, you’ll need some sort of Zwift buttons on the other end. This can be the Zwift Play controllers, or the Zwift Click (seen below). The Zwift Click though is only available with the Zwift Cog bundle.

Despite popular misconception, you don’t need the Zwift Cog to virtually shift. After all, there are no electronic components in the Zwift Cog, instead, it’s all about making it easy to align various bike types to a single cog. You do however need the buttons up front (e.g. Zwift Click), which sadly Zwift still doesn’t just sell solo-cup.

However, Elite is offering a 20EUR discount on the Zwift Cog/Click combo using their coupon code from the press release here. So, that’s better than nothing.

Now, one thing to keep in mind is that the gear ratio on the Elite trainers for the Zwift Cog specifically, isn’t super ideal. I talked about this a bit in my Elite Avanti review, where it’s mostly fine for 2x bikes (e.g. those with two chainrings upfront). But if you’ve got a 1x (one chainring, including the Zwift Ride), you might find the minimum floor a bit restrictive. By that, I mean the minimum wattage that you can get down to. I’ve done a *TON* of riding on Elite trainers in this configuration over the winter, as has my wife, and while it’s generally good enough, it’s just not quite ideal on a 1x bike.

This isn’t really something that Elite can directly change in terms of their trainers, however, in order to mitigate it a bit, Zwift & Elite have started to offer a different Cog that’s 18-tooth. This gives you more range from a gear ratio standpoint, helping to mitigate things a bit. I haven’t tried that variant yet, but it is now available (and listed on the store as the Elite Cog).

I suspect, long-term, Elite will tweak their gear ratios a bit on newer trainers to better accommodate the Zwift Cog situation for 1x bikes and Zwift Ride. In the meantime, if you’ve got an older trainer (e.g. the Suito), at least Elite & Zwift are offering you options – which is certainly more than some of their competitors can say.

In any case, more Elite reviews to come shortly, including the Elite Square & Elite Justo 2.

With that – thanks for reading!

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