Official Petition/Appeal for ZHQ to pave Jungle, and return gravel and dirt to previous Crrs

General Discussion
1

As of 1.52, the Crrs for Gravel and Jungle have been altered to increase the rates of speed by consideral margins.

Eric of Insider completed his findings and just published his results here:

A quick overview chart of the Crr changes:
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A quick overview chart of his findings for the Jungle:
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Now at 4w/kg, where the gravel bikes really chewed into the purpose of the MTBs, which is fine in my opinion, as MTBs haven’t really served a purpose in Zwift (as of yet / if they ever do). While they were I presume designed around the old Repack Ridge, that concept never seemed to take off (which is a shame, single-track routes up up and down Epic mountain would be great fun to escape the roads of Watopia).
But I digress.

Gravel bikes came around, and marked a huge difference on dirt roads, and eventually “gravel” which is just faster dirt, when Scotland was announced.

So here we are, rolling into November 2023, where no bikes, nor wheels have been released on Zwift for an entire year. In years prior, Roval Alpinists were released and produced the same times as the unlockable Meilenstein wheels at a mid-tier level (32?).

What is the purpose of having all of these surface types, if everything is going to fly over them at the same speed? Why have different bike choices at all, if the gaps on Crrs are only going to be closed down?

Let’s consider some other aspects of Gravel and MTBs people have recommended users to try for the past several years:

Up until … now, folks were able to choose slower bikes, or gravel, or MTBs, to stay with groups on group rides or robo partners. As of 1.52 and the Crr changes, this “functionality” is lost, which is a GREAT loss, greater than what the folks at ZHQ I think even considered.
This allowed A riders to join C pace groups on group rides, when being able to hold over 1-1.5w/kg above pace, and continue at the same speed as the group; meaning… the group ride could remain a group ride, and be inclusive for folks well over the capabilities of the ride.

Which now sadly means A riders have nowhere to go for group rides since … there aren’t any A group rides, and rarely B group rides anyways.

Folks that were using these slower frames and bikes, now might not be able to ride with a specific robo partner, without being forced to go back to a faster bike, and now being in a dead space between bots; putting them right back where they didn’t want to be.

Races? ZRL?
Reconning rides and making a tactical choice to swap bikes is no longer a ‘function’ of Zwift racing. With today’s changes, there no longer serves a purpose to swap bikes anymore.
So the joy of reconning a route to decide if it could be worthwhile, is now also a missed element.

These Crr changes are more devastating to the ecosystem of Zwift than I think ZHQ thinks they are.
I want them to reconsider… and at best, return the Crrs to what they were.

Nobody that I know of, wanted to see gravel and MTB bikes to not serve a purpose on Zwift.
They just wanted Jungle to give feedback (resistance), or be skipped (road to sky; paved road access straight to AdZ), etc.

These Crr changes are a massively missed mark by the Zwift team, and a complete misunderstanding of greater functionality.

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#pavethejungle!

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I had a blast today with an MTB group doing loops of the jungle. I even bought the Scott fancy MTB for the occasion - what else am I going to do with the drops. It was something a bit different, the banter on the discord chat was about local MTB trails, and I quite enjoyed it. There are hundreds of km of paved surface, if you really hate the jungle, don’t ride it.

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#GravelTheTempusFugit!

Why not have sand storms affecting Tempus Fugit at times which means depending on the day you see a sand storm effect and the road surface is sandy and slower.

This would add an exciting thrill to Tempus Fugit. :rofl:

I support having the jungle surfaces become much slower again, and suggest the solution is to give direct fast access to Alpe du Zwift (build paved tunnel through the rock face with construction barriers).

Okay, so how would you ride on Alpe du Zwift without riding the jungle?

The thing with drops is people get Tron bike, a TT bike and the MTB and buy nothing else so they end up with 150,000,000 drops. Not really a problem as such.

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Close your eyes for about 6 minutes and pretend it’s not happening.

They should pay me for giving out this great advice.

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I don’t respond to trolling - I just ride.

How much gravel have you ridden in Zwift in the last month just out of interest?

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Not sure. Some. I"ve been in the Climb Portal a lot. From memory Maria took me up the jungle a couple of weeks back.

The reason I don’t know for sure is because it doesn’t really matter - to me.

I remember the days when to be a “troll” you had to post sick stuff on dead kids’ MySpace pages.The bar sure has been lowered if my post was trolling. :man_shrugging:t2:

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My petition is for Zwift to play “Welcome to the Jungle” on a loop, max volume, unmutable, the entire time you’re riding in the jungle.

Give this post a Heart to formally sign my petition.

(By ‘unmutable’, I mean it overrides your computer’s/phone’s/tablet’s settings and turns the speakers on at full volume.)

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Regarding road bike axcess to the Alpe - It’s not like you’re going to fall off your skinny tire bike in the dirt, it’s just some extra seconds. The Crr of that segment is the last thing on my mind when I’m heading for the Alpe.

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Right, but the point is for many, they don’t want/need a 20 minute lead into ADZ; some folks would genuinely appreciate being able to spawn in literally right at the gate.

The purpose of this thread is to make a point that by making dirt/gravel “faster”, it decreases the purpose of having gravel and MTB bikes in Zwift. Where the alternative is… Zwift HQ even developed an entire gravel world (Gravel Mountain), which never released to public access (this is roughly 2 years ago now for the record).

Essentially what’s happened is ZHQ has removed an entire aspect of their own creation; despite it not being “the” problem in the first place.

And they’ve previously made good use of some gamification aspects, during things like Tour of Zwift / Watopia / Academy, with auto bike swaps.

All of that … is now meaningless.

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This is a different feature request that has nothing to do with dirt.

It is 9 minutes from the spawn point to the alpe mostly downhill. 33.6km/h in zone 2. That is a sort warmup before the climb start.

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Perhaps I just count the time it takes me to get my bibs and socks on, and it’s been forever that I’ve done Road to Sky :rofl:

But correct; different request.

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Climbing is overrated :wink:

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When first introduced the Jungle CRR was the same as tarmac/ pavement, then it was nerf’d as Gravel was seen as a thing, except riders “voted with their feet” and emptied overnight, except tor AdZ access.
To help the new coast road the CRR needed to be returned to something near enough as tarmac/ pavement.

Maybe make all free ride roads the same CRR, but on group or race ride setups allow an option to turn on the alt CRR values for different surfaces, true sand would be “interesting” !

Makuri has some lovely roads that no one rides as they are dirt.

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I would not want all free ride roads to be the same Crr. I like the variety and see no reason to change it. The recent reduction in Crr for dirt is what I would call “nerfed”.

By the way, the Jungle is not at all empty. It’s not packed but it has far more riders than most climbing routes, even considering the path to AdZ hosting some riders who wouldn’t do the rest. I wouldn’t call for the elimination of climbing routes because they are avoided by some.

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You got it there - limited time means with the gravel part at the start you sometimes not easy to get the whole route done in 1 hour.

Without the gravel bit I can usually do around 50-55 minutes (sometimes less). The gravel part adds no value and just wastes time when you are in a hurry. The first segment of ADZ is enough warmup.

That’s when I ride the proper Alpe d’huez in Fulgaz.

Paving the jungle would be solved by a parallel paved road. Gravel riders have their gravel and others have a paved road. Everyone can be happy. :wink:

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Now, the new route helped a lot, the return of the dirt CRR to close to what it once was, before it was changed a few years ago to suit MTBs & Gravel bikes.
Having the pre recent change CRR values was fine for me, but I also remember the 1st few years of the Jungle when there was a decent group of us who did laps, the “old CRR” values in the table Andrew posted above were the ones post original changes to various surfaces, generally the Jungle dirt and that was when the Jungle emptied, it was a sad day.
It is great to see the Jungle with hundreds of riders again.

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What’s interesting is that you see so many people in workout mode in the jungle.

I would have thought these gravel riders would have enjoyed the undulating gravel hills instead of a set workout spinning away?

Aside from those, the other regulars are the level up bots.

I used to ride in the jungle in the old days with the Amelia Anquetil bot when it was 65kg and 4.2w/kg steady pace. Since the changes I stopped.

It was decent, Epic KOM and jungle in the same pace partner ride.

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There were quite a few people on it even before those recent changes. Did you ride the parts that aren’t on the way to the Alpe? I suspect a lot of those people just didn’t care about any of this. They were just cruising around on their TT bikes doing workouts, couldn’t spell Crr, and couldn’t care less.

Lowering the Crr of gravel is the same as lowering the gradient on the Alpe. I don’t care if the majority prefers that all the hills be less steep.

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Yes, I’d do the occational MTB ride :slight_smile:
Probably did more jungle laps post CRR nerf then AdZ climbs, still not got the 25 badge after 6 years.

To be fair, I’d forgotten that the A bot went round the Jungle, might explain our different preceptions.
Jungle introduced with standard CRR, CRR nerf’d in late 2019, CRR almost returned to normal in late 2023.