The Best Gifts for Zwift Riders

Zwift is the video game your cyclist disappears into for an hour every evening: a virtual world they ride through on their real bike, bolted to a device called a smart trainer that makes the pedals harder to turn when the road on screen goes uphill. You do not need to understand any more than that to buy them a good present. What you need is a short list of things Zwift riders genuinely want, a plain explanation of what each one does, and the one question to answer before you order. That is this page.

Everything here is a product we already cover elsewhere on the site, re-explained for a gifter. We have not tested these on a bench and do not claim to; we compile manufacturer specifications and score them on a published rubric. What we have added for this guide is a "safe to buy blind" score — how likely the gift is to land if you cannot ask any questions at all.

Start with the fun one

The best Zwift gift is not the most useful one. It is the steering plate. A Zwift rider spends most of their time making training more efficient, and almost none making it more fun — so a front wheel block that lets them steer through the pack is the present they would never buy themselves and will use the same evening. It pairs to the app, not the trainer, so there is no compatibility to check. The only reason not to buy it is if they already run a gradient simulator on the front of the bike, which you will know because it looks like a small robot.

The cheap, useful ones

If they run Zwift on a computer, an ANT+ stick with an extension cable is the least glamorous gift here and one of the most appreciated. Dropouts — the trainer briefly vanishing mid-race — are the most common Zwift complaint, and a second radio sitting on a cable near the bike is the standard fix. It costs very little and it makes an excellent addition to a bigger gift.

Open-ear headphones are the other easy win. Indoor riding is loud — fan, trainer, group chat — and normal earbuds either fall out or block the room. Open-ear headphones sit in front of the ear, survive sweat, and are not personal in fit the way earbuds are, which makes them one of the safer things to buy for someone else.

The setup upgrades

Two gifts change how their pain cave looks and feels every session. A trainer desk puts the screen, bottles and towel at handlebar height and rolls over the front wheel; if their laptop currently lives on a chair, this is the upgrade they keep postponing. A bigger screen is the other one — the jump from a tablet to a 43-inch TV changes how immersive Zwift feels more than a trainer upgrade at the same money. The TV needs somewhere to go and something to plug into, so it is a gift for someone whose setup you have seen.

The big gifts, and their conditions

A smart fan is the safest big gift on the page. It ramps its own speed with the rider's heart rate, pairs to sensors rather than to a trainer brand, and is used every single session. It is expensive for a fan and we say so in the review, but a gift is not a value-per-watt decision.

The Kickr Climb is the most spectacular gift here and the most conditional. It tilts the bike to match the gradient on screen, which for a rider who does long virtual climbs is transformative — but it only works with compatible Wahoo Kickr trainers. You must know what they own. If they ride a Garmin, Elite or Zwift-branded trainer, buy the steering plate instead and nobody will be disappointed.

Finally, the trainer itself. A surprise trainer is usually a mistake, but there is one exception: the rider who is clearly still on a wheel-on or non-smart trainer and has complained about it. For them, the Kickr Core 2 is the trainer we recommend most, and it is also the trainer that carried the deepest Wahoo discount last Black Friday — check our Black Friday deals hub before paying full price. You will need to know their drivetrain or buy the Zwift Cog version, and our cassette guide explains what that means.

What to skip

Zwift gift cards are fine but flat, and a subscription is often already paid annually. Do not buy a Zwift-branded jersey or shoes without knowing sizes. Do not buy pedals, cassettes or cleats unless you have seen the bike — those are compatibility purchases, not gifts. And do not buy a trainer for someone who already owns a direct-drive one; a second trainer is a garage ornament.

If the person you are buying for is newer to indoor riding than a committed Zwifter, our gifts for new indoor cyclists guide is the better list. If they have everything, the cyclist who has everything guide is where the serious money goes. And for smaller items, see our stocking stuffers.