Would love to see “rough” routes where an MTB is the best tool for the job. Could even throw in “jump” lines (no steering required) where you have a target speed to hit on the approach. If you nail the landing, you get a boost, if you go too far or short, a penalty. (could use the same programming for those as repack rush).
Not looking to rewrite the whole game, just good reasons to use the MTB other than upgrading a Halo bike. Tons of zwifters are mountain bikers using Zwift to train for MTB. MTB routes could have a ton of surging and resting, but with enough bumps to make the MTB the best choice.
MTB’s are fastest on dirt surfaces, so you can go ride the jungle circuit.
There’s no reason you can’t train specifically for MTB on Zwift, you don’t need “MTB” specific routes to do this either. Over/Unders, VO2 Max intervals, cadence drills, etc… all can be done on the trainer, on any bike, on any route, and they will transfer to MTB very well when you are outside on a trail. Zwift even has MTB specific training plans already built into the game.
Why you might not see single track on Zwift might be because it was tried in the past and was very unpopular. There was a course called Repack Ridge, I rode it a few times and then never went back, you couldn’t really ride as a group on it, and Zwift is all about riding together, not alone on a single track.
Also, there is no need to duplicate you own posts.
I think this is unfair to Repack Ridge and bit of a false equivalence in terms of popularity. It was an experimental route that required steering via Companion. It was awkward or inconvenient to use, especially in a jersey pocket. It’s unsurprising it was less popular. That’s quite different from a normal Zwift route that just happens to be off-road.
In general I think a mini-game or something like this could work. It could somewhat mimic a 40-20 or 30-30 workout where you have to sprint on the run-up to jumps to really get the most out of the jump, and rest between jumps. Maybe if you have the play controllers you can choose your line to skip a jump, or choose a smaller jump, and plan to get more speed for the next one if you’re too tired, choose to do a different trick on the jump, etc, or have to brake around corners to maximize speed without getting a speed penalty etc. The loop could require you to bike back up the hill through singletrack etc.
That said, something like this would probably be a pretty big investment for Zwift so it’s hard to see them investing in it.