Zwift’s fresh southern coast expansion on Watopia added 19km of beautiful rolling roads along the ocean, opening up lots of possibilities for longer Watopia routes.
Today we introduce the next southern coast-inspired Rebel Route: The Roads Less Traveled! Zwifter Shawn McAfee sent in the initial idea for this route, but we tweaked it just a bit so it includes all four of the rarely-traveled road sections Zwift added back in December 2020. In fact, this route covers three of those four roads in a direction no official Zwift route covers. That’s pretty cool!
About Rebel Routes
“Rebel Routes” are Zwift rides not available on Zwift’s routes list, thus requiring manual navigation.
The reward for your rebel ride? Exploring a new route, knowing you’ve gone where few Zwifters have gone before. And a Strava segment rank in the tens or hundreds instead of the thousands! Rebel Routes are also included as a separate category on our Veloviewer Route Hunter leaderboard.
Route Description
We begin by selecting Sugar Cookie as our route, which spawns us near the Jungle pens and routes us correctly for the first ~26km of the ride.
Ride down the Jungle Circuit’s dirt road in the forward direction and go through the Jungle lap arch. This is the start/finish line for our route.
Next you’ll turn right onto the new southern coast road. You’ll hit the Stoneway Sprint, Acropolis Sprint, Sasquatch Sprint, and Woodland Sprint before climbing away from the coast and back into Saddle Springs where you’ll head up the short climb and take a right into Titans Grove.
Enjoy the Titans Grove rollercoaster, wave hello to the dinosaurs and put in a good dig on the Titans Grove KOM before descending the rollercoaster and heading out of the grove, turning left toward Watopia.
You’ll hit Ocean Boulevard next. Turn right here toward downtown Watopia, then a quick left to go up the Hilly KOM. You won’t actually climb the whole KOM though, because you’ll turn right halfway up onto the KOM Bypass. This is the first of our “roads less traveled” for which this route is named.
Turn right after the bypass to descend through the statues and past Hank’s Gas Station, then turn right after the 360 bridge onto another road rarely used. This little spur spits us out at the JWB Sprint banner – turn left here, ride through the Italian Villas then take a right to wind your way down to the Fishing Village.
Stay on the main road through the village and down into the ocean tube, then turn right at Sequoia Circle to head toward the Epic KOM. You’ll climb the foot of the Epic KOM and go over the suspension bridge, but then you get to skip the rest by turning right onto the “less traveled” Epic KOM Bypass road.
At the end of the bypass stay straight to head toward the Jungle. Ride past the Jungle pens where you ride began, descend to the dirt road, but this time turn left onto the Jungle Circuit’s reverse direction. Cross the suspension bridge, descend through the dust, then turn right onto the Mayan Bridge cutoff – the last of our four “roads less traveled”.
Cross the bridge, climb up and out, then turn left. Almost there! Just keep going downhill, enjoy the beautiful cave colors, then cross the Jungle arch for a second time. You did it!
Profile
This profile is best described as “rolling” in character. The longest climbs are the Titans Grove KOM and the foot of the Epic KOM, but neither of these is more than a few minutes of effort.
Getting Started + Lead-In
The easiest way to get started is to choose “Sugar Cookie” from your Watopia route options. This will auto-navigate you all the way to the turnoff for Titans Grove, where you’ll need to turn right.
Turn by Turn
Here are the turns you’ll need to make to successfully complete The Roads Less Traveled after starting from the Sugar Cookie route:
- Right to Jungle/Alpe
- Straight (Right) to Mayan Loop
- Straight (Left) to Jungle Loop
- Right to Southern Coast
- Left to Epic KOM
- Straight (Right) to Epic KOM
- Right to Titans Grove
- Left to Ocean Blvd
- Right to Downtown
- Left to KOM
- Right to KOM Bypass
- Right to Bridge
- Right to Italian Villas/Sprint
- Left to Italian Villas/Sprint
- Straight (Left) to 360 Bridge
- Right to Sequoia Circle
- Straight (Left) to Sequoia Circle
- Right to Epic KOM
- Straight (Right) to Epic KOM
- Right to Epic KOM Bypass
- Straight to Jungle/Alpes
- Left to Jungle Reverse
- Right to Mayan Bridge
- Left to Mayan Loop
- Straight (Left) to Jungle Loop
Route details:
Distance: 53.6km (33.3 miles)
Lead-In: 5.7km (3.5 miles)
Elevation Gain: 437m (1433′)
Strava Segment
Rebel Route Suggestions
Got an idea for a great Rebel Route? Share it below and maybe we’ll publish a post about it!
