When looking at a ride, is there an easy way to tell if there are gravel sections along the route? I hate nothing more than cruising along on the road, having a great time, then hitting a few miles of dirt/gravel and seeing my speed plummet.
Might not be considered an easy way but https://zwiftmap.com provides this information (select “surfaces” in the layers icon on top right corner).
Also bear in mind that the sand in Makuri will not affect your speed so that should be safe
Remind me please–is it everything in Makuri that gets treated like tarmac? Or just the sand in the islands and just outside the city? What about the surface on the way up the Temple Climb? (I slow down there anyway, so it’s hard to tell, lol)
Sand is like tarmac. Dirt has its own Crr. Temple climb is dirt. Sand is only in Urukazi.
So is dirt still as slow as gravel used to be? Like in the jungle?
I think if dust kicks up it’s slowing you down.
Thanks I remember doing well in a Temple Climb race, and I’d decided to go with a gravel bike for it, but I sometimes can’t keep track of what is doing what when things change. Even at the speed of Zwift changes, lol.
The Jungle is dirt. Gravel is only in Scotland on the Sgurr.
Bear in mind however that zwiftmap has not been updated to show surface types on the new roads (assuming it ever will). Appears the original developer has mostly let the project fade away for now.
The solution to this problem would be to have rotating “dirt” weeks in Zwift where all road surfaces are slow, rough dirt.
Riders with Tacx Neo will love it. And you don’t need to wonder about the surface type.
And the people who love the jungle will enjoy it even more.
What about road surfaces that change under you, like it changes from day to night (which some people also seem to hate)? Like, the last 20 minutes of every hour could be Gravel Time.
Uh oh, I’ve created a monster! I know it’s fun to watch the world burn, but that’s a bit too much.
Maybe once steering becomes more common, they could just put nice safe tarmac shared use bike paths/lanes through all the nasty gravel
How about if you lower your weight by 10kg you ride gravel everywhere for a month
I’m sure I saw that on Makuri somewhere, there is a lovely nice running path right beside the miserable gravel climb.
How about when it rains in Watopia the dirt roads turn to mud and you slow to a crawl.
So when it is raining outside I go to Zwift?
When it is raining in watopia I go outside
When it is raining in watopia and in Zwift I will watch tv?
You could always MyWhoosh. I Bing-ed how to MyWhoosh the other day.
Maintainer of zwiftmap here.
The surfaces of Watopia southern coast and Scotland were just updated.
It’s an all manual process, so if I missed some roads, please reach out on GitHub or via mail.