We are excited to bring you the second iteration of the Watopia Expansion! The latest expansion will take place on the Southern side of the Epic KOM Mountain, stretching from the Mayan Jungles and Southern Coast up to the top of The Grade.
The Watopia Expansion will be a part of the game version 1.67 rolling release that is scheduled to start on June 11, 2024 and be available to all Zwifters by June 13, 2024. You will have to be on game version 1.67 to see or access the routes.
The new routes will be level locked for Zwifters below Level 10, however, we will have a full schedule of events that anyone can take part in. To find events taking place on The Grade, click here. Please note, event won’t be visible for scheduling until June 13. In addition to Zwift’s scheduled events, we are Inviting club owners to schedule events on the Watopia Expansion routes and have their events added to The Grade Series . If you are a club owner that wants your events added to the schedule, check out this intake form here to get started!
The Watopia Expansion will offer 8 new routes and a new climb, “The Grade.” The Grade can be accessed by riding the “Oh Hill No” route or “Elevation Evaluation” for those looking for more of a lead in. Oh Hill No is 7.8 km long with a 8-9% grade all the way up and also act as a FTP test!
If you increase your FTP while on The Grade, you will see a pop-up letting you know your new FTP. If there is no increase detected, you will not see any pop-up window.
All new routes will also have cycling route badges available to add to your collection. To learn more about the Watopia Expansion or its new routes, check out the main page here or the FAQ.
I was wondering when reading the announcement how long it would take until people were moaning about it being a phased release. It’s two days at worst. Take a few deep breaths.
Oh no hill at 7.8km and 8-9% grade. That’s interesting as the teaser shots provided nearly two weeks ago showed 7.8km and 306m which is less than 4%.
I assume the teaser shots (which were detailed in an article on Zwift Insider) contained incorrect information because these screenshots look closer to 10% than they do 4%.
So from the GPLama video the actual The Grade is 3.5km long, 305m elevation at 8.7% and he says any complete effort over 8 minutes duration will be assigned an FTP estimate.
Yeah, Shane finished the climb in about 15 minutes which was always going to be the issue with a 305m climb, some people would complete it in less than 20 minutes so it’s value as an FTP test is going to be debatable.
Yeah, as with most FTP test alternatives, it’s not going to be as accurate as a true 1 hour FTP test, but it is probably going to be a closer measurement in comparison to something like a ramp test.
The testing procedure doesn’t really matter - as long as whoever is doing the test sticks with the same protocol through the course of their training so you can compare one result to the other. Of course some people cling to the 60 minutes test as a badge of honour but I don’t see the value.
As long as you can measure your progress over the time of your training plan then that’s most important.
I think the 1 hour test isn’t accurate and you should all suffer through the old AIS power profile test.
