Staying on-route

Hi, I’m pretty new to Zwift, so I’d be grateful for any advice. I’m struggling to complete routes as Zwift keeps taking me off-course. As an example: Today I wanted to ride Tempus Fugit in Watopia, as part of a competition with a group. I entered Zwift, selected Tempus Fugit and set off. Unfortunately, as I’m new, don’t have a great setup (I just use my phone), I don’t know the route that well. But as I passed 17.4km, I knew I was off-course as Tempus Fugit is supposed to be 17.2km. Looking at the route I took after my ride, it looks as though I made a u-turn just before the end of the route. I never selected a different route, or took a turn. This keeps happening to me. What am I doing wrong, or how do I ensure I stick to the route I’ve selected? My route on Tempus Fugit:

When you select a route make sure you don’t do any manually turns, let Zwift handle it.

Routes have a lead in distance and they usually start at an arch (Tempus Fugit starts at the stone sprint finish arch).

Tempus Fugit route should look like this:

It looks like you may have ended your ride too soon.

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Thanks, but this is my issue. I don’t select turns. But this keeps happening to me.

Look at your route compared to mine, you ended yours too soon and didn’t go under the arch again.

Mine
tempus1

Yours:
tempus2

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Oh, damn! But I thought the route is 17.2km. I rode 19.1km. See the screenshot:

There is a lead in and you need to go under the sprint finish the route: https://zwiftinsider.com/tempus-fugit/

I live on that route so I know it well.

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What @Paul_Allen is trying to say is that each route has a lead-in distance, so once you had done 17.4km, this was actually what you had done in total since you started near the pens. But the route only officially starts at the banner, which is where the 17.2km starts to count. By the time you get the the banner, you have already ridden 2.4km, meaning that once you had covered 19.1km you had only done 16.7km (19.1km actual less 2.4km lead-in) of the route. You can see on your route plot that you ended your ride half way around the turn-around, but in order to complete the route officially, you need to continue around the turn-around section and go back to the banner (see on Paul’s post how his route includes a little extra white section at the turn-around point near where your “PR” maker is). You were a few 100 metres short.

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Yea Tempus Fugit is a weird one, technically you go under the stone arch 3 times. 1st time starts the route after a few km lead-in, you turn around right before entering Titans Grove and head back, pass through the starting arch again and go up to the roundabout and get sent back towards the sprint to hit the stone arch for the 3rd time (end of route).

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Aaaaaahhhh!!! Thank you. I really appreciate the explanation. Looks like I’ll have to take another crack at it tomorrow, or the day after. I’m quitting too soon, thinking i’m off course. I hadn’t expected the lead-in.

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Always ride longer till you find a banner.

Also this site is very helpful Complete Master List of All Zwift Course Routes | Zwift Insider

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Hi, I’m also fairly new to Zwift and I am getting very frustrated that when I select and start on a route, and I don’t select turns but stay on the route, I never finish the route that I have selected to ride. I’ve not heard of a banner. What does it look like? Does this banner apply to all routes? Thanks

@Cheryl_Parnham

On the first time you have done a route a banner will come on to the bottom of the screen to say you have unlocked a badge or something. It’s not in the map it’s just a big announcement along the bottom of the screen. I think there is a noise that plays too.

If you have already got the route badge you won’t get the banner for that route again. You can check which route badges you have in menu->badges. If you find you haven’t done a route Then you should use zwift hacks or zwift insider to determine how long a segment is with the lead in and if you want then select that route at the start of zwift and ride it a bit more that the required distance.

This whole obsession everyone is having with doing certain routes is only new (October last year I think the route badges started).

I should add that anyone that wants to see if they have gotten a badge during a current ride (instead of quitting early) should click end ride and look at the summary screen which gives a list of ride ons and accomplishments including any route badge. If it isn’t there then click back and get back into the ride to keep going (unless it’s a dodgy route that takes you off route which can happen).

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These are also called banners at the end of a sprint segment, KOM/QOM, or downtown.

images

Most all routes with a few exceptions will start and end at one of these.

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Thanks heaps for the above info. :grinning: