The France / Tire Bouchon route description says it’s ~37 miles and ~1500 ft of climbing. It starts you over 3 miles and 400 feet below the start, so it’s actually ~41 miles and almost 2000 ft of climbing. Please don’t lie in your route descriptions. I’m sure some of the game designers think it’s funny, but it isn’t. Not when you’re trying to plan out your day of telling someone that you’ll be done “in a few minutes” before realizing you need to climb part way up another mountain and you’re going to need another 20 minutes.
That route had a 3.3km lead-in with 108m elevation.
When selecting routes look at the blue line that will indicate a lead-in.
Many loops have a lead-in.
Most lead-ins are a few tenths of a mile with no substantial climbing. I’m not saying change the route, just make the description accurate. An extra 100m of climbing is A LOT for some of us. Also, nowhere on the Zwift route screen does it say how much the lead-in is. So, I’m so supposed to go to some third-party site before I ride to figure out if there’s a 20 minute lead-in?
If you want to see how long route lead-ins are, see Complete Master List of All Zwift Course Routes | Zwift Insider
Thanks, that’s nice and all, but I don’t think I should have to go to another site and do research before I ride. I just want Zwift to tell me exactly how much distance and climbing I will have to do when I select the route in Zwift.
Many users agree that you shouldn’t have to go to a third party to get that info, but at present, you have limited options: stop using Zwift altogether, use Zwift and just deal with not knowing how long any particular lead-in really is, or take the 30 seconds or so to visit Zwift Insider and verify the lead-in length of your upcoming route. It looks like you’ve been around since 2015 (?)—is this the first time you’ve encountered something like this? Haven’t ridden the Lutscher route yet, lol ?
No, I haven’t ridden Lutscher route yet. I’m not a strong climber, more of a runner and a time trial guy. I guess I’ll go back to Fuego Flats, lol.
Don’t stay away from the hills! The only way to get better at them is to keep doing that. Sure, maybe stay away from the bigger ones for now, but build up and keep climbing. Most of the problem with hills is often in your head rather than in your legs.
I only mention Lutscher in this context because the formal route is 8.5 miles long… with an additional 6.8 mile lead-in that’s pretty much all climbing, lol. Anyone exploring new routes really would benefit from just taking a peek at ZI’s route description in order to see what they’re getting themselves into. But again, I think everyone agrees that it would be great to see those things right in Zwift itself–both during the route selection as well as in the HUD during the ride itself.
Route Name: Tire-Bouchon
Distance: 60.8 km (37.8 mi)
Elevation Gain: 483 m (1584 ft)
Notes: This route heads straight up to the hilly KOM before corkscrewing its way around the valley.
You can see the lead in in the animated graphics, no length and elevation there… this is how Zwift works… No comment…
Ride on!
You could always start a “meet-up” on Lutscher and Lutscher CCW and do away with the 7mile lead in altogether…
@Ydna Yes you could, but you wouldn’t even know it was an issue for consideration unless you were somehow aware of the lead-in before riding.
I find zwifthub’s route cards more useful - and the ability to screen out routes I’ve done, sort by distance, etc… yes, this stuff should all be inside zwift (and preferably on your profile and in the companion, too, so you don’t have to load up the whole game to see it)… but it’s not, and so for now we have to work around it with the tools other people have created (thank you all!)
@xavier_nihilo - of course, I wasn’t disputing that. It would help if everyone was aware of such “bugs” in the first place as it would help Zwift devs out and save them a job