I’ve been messing around with lots of different Watopia Rebel Route ideas lately, but this may be my favorite. It uses Watopia’s most classic roads in a combination that would work well for an easy short ride, a warmup + lap-jersey-grabbing ride, or (hopefully some day) an official Zwift race with a flatter start and a punchy and strategic second half.
This route is simply a combination of two well-known Watopia circuits: Volcano Circuit and Hilly Route. We begin with the Volcano Circuit – the “big ring” that is flat and fast. Then we hit the inner “little ring” of the Hilly Route with its namesake KOM.
One other tidbit: this is the first time I’ve created a “reverse” version of a Rebel Route, because I think the Big Ring/Little Ring Reverse makes a great course as well. The Strava segment is linked at the bottom of this post, and I’ll be including the reverse version in the Veloviewer Leaderboards.
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
You can set yourself up for an easy first 11km of navigating by selecting the Volcano Flat route to begin your ride.
A note about the Strava segment’s start point: it begins at the white line on Ocean Boulevard which acts as the official start line for some newer Watopia routes. This allows future events as well as free rides to match the Strava segment.
The first loop of this route – the “Big Ring” portion – is the Volcano Flat route. That means you’ll travel through the Ocean Blvd tunnel, the marina, down the Dirty Sorpressa and across the land bridge to the Volcano, then back into downtown Watopia. That’s the “Big Ring” done.
Next, instead of turning onto Ocean Blvd again, we go straight to head up the Hilly KOM for the spicy “Little Ring” portion. This is Watopia’s classic “Hilly Route” which takes you over the KOM, down through the Italian Villas, onto the JWB Sprint, then up the ramp and into The Esses before a fast finish at the downtown lap arch.
Turn By Turn Directions
Begin by choosing the Volcano Flat route, which starts you in downtown Watopia and routes you correctly until you need to turn right to hit the KOM after completing the Volcano Flat route (turn #12 below).
- Left to Ocean Blvd
- Straight (Right) to Ocean Blvd
- Straight (Right) to Italian Villas
- Straight (Right) to Italian Villas
- Left to Italian Villas
- Left to Volcano Circuit
- Straight (Left) to Volcano Circuit
- Straight (Right) to Volcano KOM
- Left to Volcano Circuit
- Straight (Right) to Volcano
- Left to Downtown
- Left to Downtown
- Straight (Right) to KOM
- Straight (Left) to KOM
- Straight (Left) to Bridge
- Straight (Left) to Islands
- Straight (Right) to Italian Villas
- Right to Sprint
- Straight (Left) to Sprint
- Right to Downtown
Route details:
Distance: 20.6km (12.8 miles)
Elevation Gain: 143m (469′)
Strava Segment
Reverse Strava Segment
See on ZwiftMap.com
Rebel Route Suggestions
Got an idea for a great Rebel Route? Share it below and maybe we’ll publish a post about it!
Hi Eric Good 20km routes – I like that you also reversed the route. One thing I do is as a “Rebel” is I use the link roads at 16.25km and the other one 12.8 km (I know this means not doing the jersey) and do these loops in reverse sometimes just for variety. Thanks for the work – haven’t done the Rebel Marvellous Metric but I’ve split it into 20, 30 40 etc kms one day I’ll do the whole Metric hopefully. A big Rebel Ride On!!!
Hi Eric just thought of an other permutation – do the hilly route 1st and then the volcano route – Perhaps calling them InsideOut & Outside In Loops
Always thinking about a race route that fancies Gravel Bikes. Besides the obvious Jungle, this one might be an option. The loop makes for a good crit course I think, the finish atop the climb would be optional of course. 😉
Eric. I did both in one ride. It seems that big ring little ring has an established leaderboard going back a few years.
i actually like it as a two loop doing the reverse (volcano to start) then through the banner to start the alternate.
That’s really… odd, that the forward version of the Strava segment is showing historic Zwift activities, while the reverse version does not. Both created on the same day. I wish Strava would match old activities on ALL Zwift segments I create!
Yeah, you could definitely do both routes in one session, just over an hour for most.
It might be based on how much free capacity there is at the time to determine how much backfiling to do before giving up. If you created the segments at the same time maybe the second one gave up immediately cause it was busy backfiling the first one.
Turn 4 should be right.
I’ve just ridden the route and the mistake is that you have actually missed out the Right that should be turn 4. There should be 20 turns and not 19.
The correct correct sequence is
Left
Right
Right
Right
Left
Left
Left
Right
Left
Right
Left
Left
Right
Left
Left
Left
Right
Right
Left
Right
Also on a load of the first handful of turns the Text description is incorrect.
Fixed.
I was actually missing turn #2, hence the text descriptions seeming wrong after that. Should be right now!
In the second paragraph you use “Circuit” instead of “Flat” and link to your Volcano Circuit route page.
Another great Rebel Route, thanks Eric!
General note that the “reverse” isn’t a case of retracing the course of big ring/little ring (eg, doing a u-turn and doing the reverse hilly route bit first). It’s doing the reverse volcano and then the reverse hilly route.
This should become an official route in the future: A fusion of Volcano Flat Reverse with Hilly Route Reverse.
This is more interesting/useful variant than the usual changing start/end points of an existing route to make a new route. It’s a good route to ride when I don’t have a large amount of spare time after work.