Weirdly the press statement on on zwiftinsider has slightly different wording, which makes it sound like there will be several ways to get on the new road and not just the jungle and desert??
The new roads are flat and fast, and make several key connections, enabling Zwifters to enjoy some of the longest routes available in Watopia. There are eight new routes ranging up to 48 kilometers in length, allowing Zwifters to complete longer rides while enjoying the varied scenery in several distinct environments along Watopia’s coast.
Epic Bypass is a great, but under-rated road, it’s such a pity it’s locked off from the Downtown & Desert Islands by the two 10% plus inclines that were part of the original Epic KOM route, so a 3 to 5% connector would open up this road, as well as making a great loop.
Ideally the Jungle roads resistance is dropped a touch, I mean they are hard-pack dirt and that can be pretty fast IRL
But you can’t navigate into the turnaround unless you’re coming from the north. You can always come from the south and do a u-turn, but that bugs me because you couldn’t do that as an in-game route, which means you would have to do the entire desert on any of Zwift’s official routes just to get to the new stuff. IDK, maybe Zwift will open the turnaround up more?
jk, I actually like the Jungle; but I do wish it were the same surface as what they put in Urukazi.
The scenery is nice, the elevation change is great, everything but the surface makes it a genuinely fantastic road.
It’s kind of a shame we’ve been spoiled by fast areas, and Jungle is a rarely touched area due to a multitude of reasons. I love the scenery around it, but I know too many people abhor it, and thus nobody wants to tackle it on group rides because of how slow moving it is (and thus, sweeping can’t be accomplished).
To me, the issue with the jungle isn’t even the surface, per se. It’s that there is no perceived on-bike change as compared to the regular tarmac. That is, I’m in the same gear at the same rpms, but just going more slowly. This just isn’t how it should work. Some additional resistance should be sent to the trainer to make the rider work harder, if Zwift think that this surface has increased rolling resistance. (I have the same issue in the marina and other dirt areas of Watopia, but they don’t last as long as the jungle, so they aren’t quite as annoying.
Another issue I have with the dirt is this: We are on trainers!! What is really the point of having the mixed surfaces in the first place? IRL a different surface might require a different riding style/technique, but this is not the case on the trainer, so why even bother? (FWIW: I have a similar issue with the proposals for a Zwift velodrome, since not many folks are actually riding a fixed gear and, at least until recently, there isn’t steering.)
the thing i don’t like about it is that it is all down hill then all up hill without much variation. and the banner is at the bottom so you have to go round twice to get one lap.
being able to go in from the bottom of the loop and just cycle out of it might make me more likely to go there.
I think the new road will be rolling, like we get on Makuri.
The stills and short video give me a Makuri (no Neokyo) vibe, but it’s PNW (?).
We’ll see in the 1st couple of weeks of October as 1.50 (4th - 1 week after 1.49 or 11th - normal 2 week sprint)
Hoping the Jungle CRR isn’t a factor in popularity, when the Jungle 1st opened it was a great route, then they nerf’d it, that Dirt CRR value vs pavement/ tarmac
The tarmac climb away from the alpe/ jungle, even I don’t hate it
The “please give us this” Epic KOM Bypass to new road would be around 2km min, say 80m drop, so a nice enough 4% grade, ideally a 3% with adjustments…
In the picture, the new road seems like it could just be bent to the right a little bit and have it come in at the jungle’s pavement/dirt swap point. (although probably easier said than done at this stage). Or do both
Also @manda_F I like just looking at the picture in the OP. It makes me happy
I think I understand what you’re saying.
-Coming from Titans Grove, there will be a split off with options to go to the flats or the new road.
-Coming from the flats you could choose either the Grove or new road…
… but you’re NOT sure if you were already on the new road if you could you the desert turnaround to go back on the new road
That’d be fine. I doesn’t matter which way around the round-about you go on from which side, I was just trying to show that now matter we’re you’re coming from, Titans Grove, Desert Flats, or trying to use the turn-around go do reps, I’m thinking will still be able to go where we need to go.
That’s what I was concerned about- currently you can only enter the turnaround from the flats, so you would need to u-turn if you were coming from Titans. So no routes that include Titans + new road. Unless they open up the turnaround more, as you said.
Nice new features Watopia Expansion and Score Zwift Racing !!.. For City Crit many asked for it it was with humor but I have the impression that it was validated (what wouldn’t we do to keep the customers lol !) to see a Mario Kart type course with acceleration (Directional Speed Boost) which will be displayed on the ground as well as traps… which have to be validated using I think Zwift Play, right ?
I always wondered why it didn’t, as this is absolutely 100% the solution.
It seems like such an easy and obvious fix as well.
(assuming devices like say the Kickrbike can receive resistance data, without it being hill/gradient data… which that, I’m unsure of [because I’ve never bothered to look into this stuff], I would imagine it can however, since it can do it with ERG mode.)
But you’re right, it’s definitely a strange choice they just decided to make our avatars move slower, versus taking advantage of the smart trainers probably 99% of us are using anyway.
Seems weird to basically force everyone’s smart trainers into a dumb trainer on said mixed surfaces.
@Nigel_Tufnel , @Andrew_Nuse , this is a very good point !
Zwift apply the CRR maths to the power side, ignoring the trainer resistance, but why, seems a simple fix, there must be some gotchas because the surface/ wheel combination could feel like (say) a plus 1% gradient, so you can tell the trainer to add 1% to the current grade, ideally you do it after any trainer difficulty calcs, you also have to ensure the FIT file doesn’t see the extra grade too.
I think the reason it works that way is
a) Devs going to Dev but also Agile does not lend itself to anything but Quick Wins, which catch up with you eventually and you have refactor/ restructure everything
b) the state of the code base at the time probably would have broken a number of random things for the next 12 months.
and the quick win here was to apply CRR without sending any further Resistance to the Smart Trainer “making it dumb”
Quick Fix: make the Jungle hard pack dirt behave like Pavement/Tarmac roads or like Sand ! (yes sand has the same CRR as Pavement)
when they first changed it to make it slower a lot of people weren’t happy because all their previous times around the jungle were no longer comparable. I think changing it back would now have a similar response.
3.5km @ 3.8%
