Yesterday I rode my 2nd Zwift ride. I chose London loop. Was surprised by the Box Hill, which was a good challenge.
I couldn’t remember the length of the loop and after an hour of riding, I decided to end the ride.
On the post ride summary page I saw I was really close to the finish line (start point), but I had no way of telling as I didn’t see anywhere on the screen or companion app dashboard the distance to the finish line. If I had known I was that close to the finish line, I would have pushed on.
Is there no way of telling how far the finish line is for a route?
No, there is no indication how far you have ridden into a route. Most all of them start and finish at some kind of banner (sprint, KOM, or downtown Watopia for example).
Actually some of the longer routes do have a progress indicator (same kind of progress bar as you get in events), for London at least the two PRLs have it. For added excitement, for some reason it seems to disappear from view for a good while every time you approach an intersection, making at least me wonder if the computer has made a wrong turn on my behalf…
I no longer see the white bar, have not seen it in a while. I just road Tick Tock in Watopia, says 10.5 miles, I did 11.6 until the banner, annoying. I had already did one lap of UCI Richmond, so was doing Tick Tock as a slow down 10 miles. I just road to the banner and was not trying to create a fast time, but the meter would be really nice.
I think that only routes which offer the orange ‘fastest lap’ jersey have a timer/bar in the HUD. As for Tick Tock, it is one of many routes that have a lead-in. These lead-ins can be short to somewhat long (like the Lutcher route). The idea of the ‘route’ is that once you select it you can (generally) just ride and ride and ride on it without having to make any turn selections. These lead-ins, though, are not a part of the actual route, as you only ride them once - to get to the start of the route. When selecting a route the lead-in is indicated by the blue highlighting, while the actual route is highlighted in white. I don’t think any indication is given of the specific distance of the lead-in, but you can get a general idea from the map. And, as Mike Rowe indicated above, most routes start and finish at a banner/arch. The Mega Pretzel is the only exception I can think of, and it starts and finishes on the land bridge near the volcano.
Lead in is funny, because there is a UCI course, Innsbruck reverse I believe, that ramps to 13% grade without much of a lead in. Barely warmed up and the grade shoots up; I would never do this in the real world. To that, there should be a stage profile of some kind and your progress to such; the flat map is pretty much useless, as is seeing 20 or so people next to me.
Yes, it has been a very popular feature request over the years.
The best part about this sentence (which is completely true, unfortunately) is the “over the years” part … Zwift asks us to leave our feedback here in the forums, yet they rarely implement any of the feature requests.
Honestly, if I choose a route, it’s because I want to ride that route from start to finish … SURPRISE! So it only seems logical that there would always be an indication bar showing me how long I have until the route is complete. If you create a Meetup and select a route with a goal of distance, you get this bar as well as an on-screen banner confirming the completion of the Meetup. This functionality is already built in, but not implemented on solo rides? SO WEIRD!
For now, whenever I elect a route, I have to memorize the route length and/or memorize a landmark next to spawning site, so I know when I’ve completed the route, or to know how many laps on a route I’ve done.
Yes, remember the route length; in reality, since you see the route length (not including the lead-in, mind you) while choosing the route immediately before beginning the ride, it’s not too hard to remember how long the route is. That said, do have a look at Zwift Insider’s master route list, which includes lead-in distances.
No real point in remembering the spawn site; the official route will begin at an arch of some sort (usually artificial, although for the desert routes it’s a natural land arch), and it’ll end at an arch of some sort. If you remember the route length, you’ll know when you’re getting close.
Just an FYI in case you’re unaware: you only get a route achievement banner for a route the first time you complete one lap of that route (not for 2nd or 3rd or 4th etc laps)—the exception is for the Volcano Circuit (special achievement badges for 5 laps, 10 laps, and 25 laps), but that route actually has a lap counter at the finish arch.
Agreed especially since this doesn’t change much on each individual ride.
What would also be nice is highlight the route/lap on the miniature map on the corner of the screen
Agreed!! For the same reason, I’ll be 90% done with a route and just want to know how much farther to push myself. Feels like a major oversight, hopefully they will roll this out soon for both the desktop and companion app!
Slightly off topic but I’d love to see a larger elevation map. I am often presented with a sprint only to find out one of the steepest parts of the route is about to hit. Would be great to have more visibility to those features.
This has been a consistent annoyance with my Zwift experience: The lack of consistency between a route’s advertised length, and the actual number of kilometre ridden/meters climbed to complete it.
My time is not infinite. I know how long its going to take me to ride 30 km, or 50, or a hundred. Likewise I can look at a route profile and figure out how much effort its going to take me to make it up climb a, b, and c.
What annoys me to no end is the way Zwift manages to drop you at (apparently) completely random spots in a route, forcing you to do a significant percentage of that route (at least) twice.
I understand the concept of a “lead-in”. Fine. But stop dropping me into a position where I have to do a big chunk of a route twice before I get credit for riding it.
Just as an FYI, there are very few routes where you have to do a ‘big chunk’ of the route twice to complete the route. And you can always check ZwiftInsider to get the full information on a route, including lead-in.
