Today Zwift announced plans for a new world patterned after the 2018 UCI Road World Championships Course in Innsbruck, Austria.
Zwift’s route will cover the “Olympic Circuit” at Innsbruck, which is 24km (15 miles) long with an 8km (5 mile) climb section with an elevation gain of approximately 400 meters (1300′). I wasn’t able to track down a Strava segment for the full circuit, but did find this segment which covers the climb section.
About the IRL Race
In September the men’s elite racers will begin their race in Kufstein and ride 84.7km to Innsbruck, where they will cover this circuit 7 times–and the final circuit is a modified one which includes an additional climb featuring 25% gradients. Overall, riders will climb over 5,000 meters (16,400′) over 265km (164 miles). Ouch! Sagan’s going to have to work for this one…
About Innsbruck
Innsbruck is a scenic Alpine town known as the “Capital of the Alps.” Elevations in the area range from 574 to 2350 meters, which explains why Innsbruck is an internationally-renowned winter sports center. The capital city of the state of Tyrol, it is the fifth-largest city in Austria.
Photo credit innsbruck.info
When Can We Ride It?
While the UCI race is on September 22, Zwift has promised we will be able to ride the new course in August. Some of the world tour pros are already talking about riding the course on Zwift as training for their outdoor race. Bernhard Eisel of Team Dimension Data told Zwift:
The lead contenders will certainly be performing course reconnaissance in the coming months, as is the norm. However, what is new is the ability to repeatedly train on a key segment of the course and understand when the best moments to attack will come. For riders such as myself, who will serve as a supporting rider, we need to understand when the critical moments of the race will come and ensure our leaders are in the best position possible. And it will be super motivating to prepare alongside Zwifters from all over the world.
Photo credit innsbruck.info
Hmm… Another short course world doesn’t really excite me, but pros talking about Zwift as a recon tool for a pro race does. That could lead to some interesting places in the future (replicating some of the one-day spring classics routes, or critical stages of some of the tours, possibly with connecting roads for the latter).
Hey I like anything you guys will do to keep us interesting in riding in this game..
Any new additions to the platform are always welcome. They’ve certainly hyped this one up a long way in advance, rather than little teasers a week or so before a big course release. It looks like it’ll make an interesting Zwift racing course that’s for sure!
With a fourth Zwift location now on the cards, surely manual world choice MUST become a thing, rather than a rotation through all four?
I wonder though if manual world selection through four worlds will require the return of “cycle bots” to keep each world sufficiently animated…
Nice for the pros, I guess. For the rest of us this is just another Richmond.
Absolutely like the idea and concept, but why communicate this now while release is due in august? Im sure many zwifters are still impatiently waiting for extra levels, world selection and so on…
Think this is a bit of a gimmick. A 24km world doesn’t really give much variation. Sure it will be fun to ride it and get a good idea what it will be like. Rather than a separate world, I’m hoping they just drop it in to Watopia which would be a really welcome addition.
I agree – add it into Watopia – would complement Alpe du Zwift well. Let’s hope it isn’t another dead end as Richmond has proved to be
Or maybe better yet they could link richmond and innsbruck? Then on strava the map would be weird though. If they cant do world choice they could do it so they have a UCI day where you choose Richmond or Insbruck.
I like the idea of linking worlds. I think that would be better than providing world choice. Put portal in each world, which when ridden into allow you to choose which world to transport to (similar to turn selection now). That way you’re not stuck in the world you started your session in.
I think the issue there is that Strava would have a heart attack trying to sync all of the route stuff together for all 4 maps.
I mentioned that but I believe that every place could be around Watopia.
If it were a portal approach, routes wouldn’t have to be sync’d or related in any way. You leave one map at a portal and transport to the spawn area of your destination map. Group rides/races wouldn’t be able to cross maps, and maybe for Strava, etc, it would have to break it into two (or more) rides if you mix maps. So… I suppose it’s not as straightforward, as I thought at first blush. 🙂
I see this and Richmond fighting for the coveted twice per month Friday or Monday slot.
Still don’t know why zwift can make a track cycling world to do solo or team track events. Surely 100x easier than creating a new ‘world’. I’m still happy for a new course, but really hoping it isn’t anything like richmond has turned out.