Originally published as a Rebel Route by Zwift Insider in March 2020, “Downtown Titans” is the brainchild of Zwifter Shawn McAfee. The thinking behind this route was to cover the newest (Titans Grove) and oldest (Hilly) KOMs in Watopia.
Zwift’s February 2022 update included this route as an event-only route that awards an achievement badge. The April 2022 update then made this route free ridable.
Originally published as a Rebel Route by Zwift Insider in March 2020, “Downtown Titans” is the brainchild of Zwifter Shawn McAfee. The thinking behind this route was to cover the newest (Titans Grove) and oldest (Hilly) KOMs in Watopia.
Zwift’s February 2022 update included this route as an event-only route that awards an achievement badge. The April 2022 update then made this route free ridable.
Route Basics
Length: 24.6 km (15.3 miles)
Elevation: 254 m (833‘)
Lead-In: 0.8 km (0.5 miles)
Map: Watopia
Start & Finish
Begins and ends at the downtown Watopia start/finish banner.
Achievement Badge: 490 XP
Sprint & KQOM Segments |
| Titans Grove KOM Reverse (0.89 km, 4.4%) |
| Hilly KOM (0.9 km, 5.5%) |
| JWB Sprint (0.36 km, -0.1%) |
Strava Segments
Route Description
Route profile by ZwiftHub – the place to plan and track your route achievements!
After beginning at the Watopia Pier start pen (or just before the Watopia lap banner if free riding), take a quick left onto Ocean Boulevard, then the next left to climb up toward the desert before a right-hand turn takes you into Titans Grove. This rollercoaster of a road will have you twisting and turning up and down through the giant sequoia trees and even into a lost valley with living dinosaurs! But to see the dinos you’ll have to climb the timed KOM first. Top the leaderboard and grab that jersey, then descend to the dinos, wave hello, and continue your rollercoaster road to the end of Titans Grove.
A right turn out of Titans Grove takes you back toward Ocean Boulevard where you will turn another right to head down into the ocean tunnel. Right again to head toward downtown Watopia, then a left onto the Hilly Route.
When Watopia first launched (around May 2015), the only road on the island was the Hilly Route. So enjoy yourself – you’re riding a piece of Zwift history! Hit the short forward KOM and see if you can grab that polka dot leader’s jersey, then descend the backside through the statues, past Hank’s Gas Station, and over the 360 Bridge.
Soon enough you’ll hit the cobbles of the Italian Villas, where you’ll want to wind up those legs because you’ve got a sprint section coming up. Can you grab the green jersey?
Cross the JWB and hit the ramp in the Esses – another rollercoaster ride toward the final stretch of this route. Once you descend into downtown Watopia and cross the finish line you’re done. Nice work!
Interesting.
I have a personal route that is the same, except I do the Hilly Loop in reverse (turn right into Downtown, not left up the KOM). That way you don’t cut off some of the Hilly Loop route, and have the ability to earn the reverse route jersey.
I found I wasn’t able to use this route for a club event group ride. Is that right? Are the other new badge routes also not club event selectable?
I would guess they want to save them so they are first ride-able in the tour of watopia.
Correct. There’s some speculation on the Zwift Forum they *may* add this as a selectable route post-ToW, simply because there are badges available for route completion. (having an “orphan” badge would be a first – other event-only routes like those in Crit City and Bologna don’t have completion badges)
Are you going to create a “from start pier” or “segment starts just after start pier” segment for this so people doing it in the tour of watopia match a segment? Since this is an event only route it seems that unless one uses a hack like zwiftpref there is no way to match this segment other than using manual turns.
There’s a “from start pen” version now.
But I wonder how this should be treated in VeloViewer’s Zwift Insider leaderboards. Right now the old rebel route is listed there, so if you ride it in an event your PR won’t be updated 🙂
The situation for Three Little Sisters is the same and the leaderboard still only includes the “free ride” version that you can’t be coming from the start pens, so I imagine the same will happen with this segment. At least for now.
Tour of Watopia listing shows a lead-in of 0.8 km. Which is correct?
I think there’s an error with the two separate Strava segments–both the original and new “from start pen” illustrations are identical, and each appear to “start” beyond the banner, finish at the banner, in which case the “event” would qualify for both. The links point to different segment ID’s, so my hunch is that Eric has inadvertently modified the ORIGINAL segment to “start” beyond the arch.
They don’t look the same now (so if they did, it has been resolved).
Bike setup suggestion for Downtown Titan ride?
TOA frame with Enve 7.8 wheels would be my pick, I think.
I rode this tonight as a workout but didn’t get the badge, is that right? Other routes I’ve earned the badge riding during workouts
Looking again my route was out somehow – it took me up Hilly KOM first then the sprint and then Titans Grove Reverse. It’s like it started me in the middle of the route, being a workout I couldn’t see a progress bar etc so thought all was good till I hit Hilly KOM again and didn’t go through downtown arch