Just did a ride on the jungle loop and noticed that my speed was much slower maybe 4kmh average. Was hard to crack 30kmh on some of the downhill sections and uphill speed was also slower. As soon as I left the jungle and back on the road speeds came back to normal. Is this a new setting in Zwift for dirt sections?
Explained here:
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Ah. Cheers.
Hmmm, so when you do the jungle loop from the start banner you are better off when you change your tyres 2 times during the ride.
I think that Zwift can better invest their time in other features.
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Was wondering the same thing yesterday… so how will we beat our previous PRs? Will Zwift adjust them?
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MTB courses/routes would be nice but making the jungle route gravel only 
… i would prefer the way it was before the update. so in this case make the jungle circuit asphalt - back to normal.
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Do we even access to any gravel bikes/wheels? The only thing I can think of at the moment would be the MTB. Maybe gravel bikes will come in the future and maybe even some dedicated gravel courses/world.
The notes from the last update mention new starting pens at the Jungle circuit which would make gravel races more possible as currently there is about a 10km lead in to get to the jungle circuit from the main starting pens.
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Various wheels and tires now have different rolling resistance based on the surface they are rolling on. IE, a mountain bike or gravel tire may be the best on the Jungle circuit, while a road/TT bike is fastest on the tarmac. More to come here in a future update.
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Started building out new paddocks near the Jungle Circuit for future eventsI
I’m not overly concerned about change but in this case it’s not realistic. I often ride gravel on my road bike. I would be just as fast on a dirt road as on my 29er hard tail if not faster, actually definitely faster. The jungle loop is just a dirt road, not a single track mtb trail.
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I asked zwift about this as I was getting a marked reduction in virtual speed as soon as I arrived at the jungle loop. They said “we have added a special traction, since you are on a jungle route”. This “special traction” is not being picked up by my Bkool trainer, so my actual wheel speed is at times double the Virtual zwift speed. They did not say when they added the traction though.
I was so perplexed as to how I had lost about 5 minutes on my previous PB. It made no sense at all. This is good news!
Just do a bike change as you enter the Jungle area, the time saved will be more than the time lost in the change.
From reading the reports the MTB bike is near 2 minutes faster then the Tron bike.
A change takes about 30 seconds.
If the Pros can do - you can do it.
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jungle circuit asphalt? Naw…that looks so cartoonish. Jungle circuit should be jungle circuit aka. gravel.
This is proof that you can’t please everyone - when it’s unrealistic some will want it to be more real. When it’s more real some will complain it’s too real.
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If the Pros can do - you can do it.
I don’t want to do that in the middle of a training session, and I’m not a Pro, I use Zwift for training. This should be optional not mandated.
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When I rode it the first time and was significantly slower I questioned what happened but googled it after the second time. I knew I wasn’t imagining things…like 5-6 minutes slower with a legit effort.
I agree. Seems like there are far greater issues or improvements that can be implemented. Nothing worse than having to completely quit out of Zwift to rejoin or select another event. Also changes to jungle appear unrealistic. Mountain bikes by design are far heavier and tyres alone do no give the Hugh advantage they give on gravel.
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Indeed. When I’m climbing out of the jungle at 4.5w/kg and some guy doing less than 3 flies past me like I’m not moving, that isn’t realistic. If we were both doing the same w/kg and he’s faster fair enough, but they way it is now is just ridiculous…
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How to make it optional? - you sure you understand what you’re asking - you mean like a switch to enable or disable the gravel effect - what about the other riders??? sounds too complicated. if you don’t want it then go on another route.
I have been… and so have many others. The Jungle Route is a ghost town. Interesting idea, poor implementation.
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I think it was a bad idea. Nobody likes feeling slow, regardless of whether they are actually slow or not. Zwift is supposed to add fun to an otherwise boring thing, riding trainers.
It should not have been implemented at all, but at the very least, if they absolutely HAD to make people slower on dirt, they should have done it so subtly that nobody would have noticed. People feel these things viscerally, and I think the ghost town effect is because nobody wants to feel like they are riding through peanut butter all the time. Not fun. It’s pretty simple. Don’t make “improvements” that suck the fun out of the game.
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Its a real shame that the Jungle Route has been so adversely affected.
Watopia is not the place to experiment with road surface and resistance
unless the update is 100% spot on.
I might be wrong but I don’t recall anyone complaining that these tracks
were unrealistic. The dust clouds were good enough.
If its not broken… maybe its best to leave it alone.
“Grind On”
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