It’s been over 2 months now since the change in rolling resistance, I don’t think they will be changing it back. I still haven’t been able to unlock the mountain bike either, got too frustrating and so I don’t even bother anymore… It’s a shame, I loved the jungle too and now never ride those roads. Watopia got a lot smaller…
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After a layoff I found this when I rejoined a few days ago. Apart from being a bad idea (nuking all previous rides on these segments for the purposes of time comparisons), it is also terribly implemented if you are on a smart trainer.
To see how weird go to the flat bit of gravel at the Italian Villas - this contains a tarmac section and a gravel section. At 170W (as measured by my Tacx Neo) and a constant cadence of 60 I could do 30kph on the tarmac and 20kph on the gravel (after taking a 100m to slow down). But I didn’t need to change gear; there was no change in apparent effort, or actual effort, or gradient or anything else. Except speed.
This may simply be a bug in with the Tacx Neo, but I have read others say that the have no change in the smart trainer resistance, and only a change in speed. As implemented what seems to be happening (with the Taxc Neo) is that the game speed is calculated by change Crr form 0.05 to 0.2 (according to by back of the envelope calculations) but the smart trainer isn’t told this: it thinks you are on a smooth road.
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I set out today to try and beat my PR on the jungle loop. I gave it an all out effort and was convinced I couldn’t possibly have gone any harder, and was absolutely perplexed to see that I was four minutes slower than my previous PR. I have to admit I’m very happy that there was some kind of change made because I thought I had gone completely insane.
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New update gives you the MTB.
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Thank you all for your patience, more off-road set ups have been added, as well as off-Road style workouts!
Way to ignore us Seth! A great many of us are obviously upset with the resistance changes and Zwift won’t acknowledge the issue beyond, “…Thank you all for your patience…”
If you want to go play pretend off road riding with steering, great, go make a new playground to do it in, but quit screwing around with Watopia sections which have been around for well over a year.
Seth, are you by chance related to Steve Jobs? Both of you act the same way towards the customer base when it comes to issues we bring up.
How’s that? The answer is simple; you ignore us and bounce around the issue at hand like a slimy politician does in a debate!
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I rode the alpe today, and the slower road there is really annoying. If I’m planning a long hard climb I don’t want to ride thru molasses on the way to the start
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It makes nearly zero difference. Like 2-3 minutes more of warm up before the climb. Complaining about slow speeds on gravel when heading to super slow Alpe ascent is getting ridiculous.
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I’m sorry you feel that way, Chris, but I do understand the frustration. There have also been a lot of people asking “What bikes can we use to help with this problem? Why haven’t we been told a list of what we can use?” I have the ability to answer that question at this time, so I did.
While I’m not a dev, so I can’t change how anything works, I am part of the Support Team, so I like to help with what I can help with. Providing information from what is available is in the section of ‘what I can help with’. I’m sorry if the information I can provide isn’t of use to you.
I do feel the name calling is probably not called for, when some one is simply providing information when it becomes available, but I’m sorry if I’ve personally offended you in some way.
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good job on the completion, glad you enjoyed the update to the drop shop
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I bought the Aspero yesterday as well and took it out for a few laps. I thought it was plenty of fun and seemed to make sense for speeds on gravel. And like you, I was able to wear the route leader jersey for a bit. Nice work!
It is a bummer that the gravel parts were slowed down in terms of making earlier Strava efforts unreachable. However, in terms of moving forward in the game as they (hopefully!) add more gravel routes, it makes sense to have different rolling resistance and different bikes that excel, especially if they make the gravel routes connect so that we can ride 15-20 miles of gravel in one go.
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They should make a tarmac bicycle way next to the main road.
Gravel bikes and MTB ride on the dirt main road, road bikes ride on the tarmac.
et voila 
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Seth, here is the message I would like to see related to whoever can undo the specific change made to the Jungle Circuit course. I am delighted to see Zwift add new mountain biking courses to the platform. What I am very disappointed to see is changing the previous Jungle Circuit course, which I (and apparently many others) have been riding as a benchmark course for a year. This renders it a completely different ride and makes comparisons to any ride before the change completely useless! There is no other course that I have identified that has a comparable profile (if I’ve missed something please educate me). I respectfully request that the Jungle Circuit course be restored to its former state. BTW, if there is someone else that we should be asking, please identify them. Thanks!
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Why use course as a benchmark when you’re using power based platform and have full power data available? People, have mercy.
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Hey Michal, thanks for your reply. I’m not exactly sure what your point is but for me, using a familiar course to evaluate how I’m doing over time is useful. And apparently that is true for many of our peers on Zwift as well. I just don’t think it makes any sense to arbitrarily change the physics of an existing course. I would much prefer that new gravel/MTB courses be added. rather than altering what is already there.
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If you are not using a TT/Tri bike (the same one for EVERY lap) and the same wheel set then the data is skewed anyways.
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Now that Zwift has given us gravel and mountain bikes in the drop shop you should be able to get pretty close to the same time on the jungle loop that you used to get on a road bike before the rolling resistance change. Use your drops and get a mountain bike, or use the Zwift MTB that should be in your garage already. Mountain bikes are the fastest in the jungle.
@Paul_Allen makes a great point too, your lap times can change based on the equipment you choose. As you level up and get access to better bikes your lap times will improve regardless of your fitness or the rolling resistance on the road. Lap time is not a good metric to track, use power instead.
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Again, thanks for the comments (and the coaching advice) :-). I’ve been a cycling enthusiast for more than 60 years and I readily admit to being a training luddite in practice although I am well aware of how to train with power. I don’t race anymore (never did all that much). I ride for fitness and health. I rarely change my equipment on Zwift and these days I road bike almost exclusively. I get what you guys are saying. What I don’t get is why it is necessary to change the physics of an existing course rather than adding new courses for the gravel grinders and MTBers which none of the comments to this point have addressed.
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This is a virtual world and I would assume over time things will change, maybe one day we get wind or steering or different drafting of better CDa values.
So you have the data for all your rides before the change (hopefully all was done on a TT bike so that drafting did not play a role) now you can do a new benchmark and calculate the delta.
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Amen! I think they should pave the jungle loop and the other small segments of gravel and create new routes for gravel and mountain bikes too.
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