“Hell of the North” Route Details (France)
This route is named after the famed Paris-Roubaix race which inspired its Zwifty cobbled roads. It begins with the tricky Les Intestines and settles into a flat, sprint-filled loop on France’s newer cobbled roads before finishing up the Petit KOM.
Route Basics
Length: 19.8 km (12.3 miles)
Elevation: 241m (791′)
+0.3km (0.2 miles) lead-in
Map: France
ZIMetrics
Rating: 11.5/100 🛈
Time Estimates 🛈
4 W/kg: 32 minutes
3 W/kg: 36 minutes
2 W/kg: 46 minutes
Start & Finish
Begins from main France start pends, ends atop Petit KOM.
Format: Point-to-Point
Ride Achievement Badge: 395 XP
Run Achievement Badge: none
Strava Segments
Route Description
Route profile by ZwiftHub – the place to plan and track your route achievements!
Riders begin from the main starting paddocks and turn right onto Les Intestines: a twisty, rolling road where steering offers a big advantage when attacking in a race.
Turning left onto France’s newer roads, you’ll hit the Dos d’Âne Sprint, a slightly uphill and long cobbled segment. Descend the other side and continue around your loop, hitting the Sprinteur Sprint and Sprint du Cratère Reverse segments in turn before turning left onto France’s “old” road once again.
Soon you’ll arrive at the final sprint segment of the day: the Ballon Sprint. After that quick effort, catch your breath and spin your legs a bit, as a spicy finish awaits up the Petit KOM. (The route ends at the banner, but keep pedaling a bit and turn right to enjoy the descent. You earned it!)
Bike choice please?
Whatever you need to get upgrade miles for.
Sworks tarmac sl8 is the best all around bike in game. fast and aero and a great climbing bike. Perfect for this course
It seems, that on flat routes Tron is faster
Not really. There are three or four bikes that are faster now when you put decent wheels on them.
While these newer routes have not yet been added to:
https://zwifterbikes.web.app/route/roule-ma-poule
the closest route IMO, is the Roule Ma Poule. Six additional kilometers but elevation is similar. Best bike depends on you personal data: weight, height and anticipated power output for the ride/race. Cookies required to maintain you data. You can check the boxes of the bikes and wheel sets that you own.
Cheers.
It doesn’t appear that Zwifterbikes has updated their data since Zwift updated all the bikes performance metrics…..
Thor updated it last week so it should be OK now
Tarmac first 17km then Aethos for climbing
Absolutely no way is changing bikes faster. Stay on your aero bike.
Unless you need the climbing meters on your Aethos and miles on your Tarmac. That’s more important if you’re not racing.
It’s not a long (or steep) enough climb to even consider the Aethos.
And you won’t have time to swap.
Stick with an Aero. You save energy on the flats.
I guess we know what stage five of the After Party series will be
Hard? 😂
That name always makes me think of the “Hell of the West” name used in the cycling movie American Flyers with Kevin Costner – shame we haven’t really had a decent cycling movie since then
Anyone who thinks that this is anything like riding on the pave at Roubaix is seriously deluded and needs to give their head a wobble.
Did anyone think that?
”I think this Zwift route is exactly like Paris Roubaix” ….said nobody ever.
Res Firma Mitescere Nescit! Which loosely translates to, once you got it up, keep it up. Great movie.
Except for Rae Dawn Chong, that was truly an awful movie.
Great wheel change by ms chong
I was an extra in that movie, “racing” in the first stage on the famed Morgul-Bismark course outside of Boulder, Colorado. It was a memorable week with lousy pay but nice swag from the movie!
Game of Thrones is my first thought of choice, although I could be confusing it with It’s hell up North…
I would love to see our bikes suffer damage from wear over time based on routes, damaging different aspects of the bikes. It would cost drops to maintain our bikes. Hell of the North would obliterate our wheels and possibly cause us to buy new wheels. The best racing bikes would be kept in the garage till needed for racing, or you would pay high maintenance costs. High maintenance issues would cause a performance degradation, i.g, a worn drive train or broken chain, spokes, punctures, etc. Just a thought.
Yes, Yes, Yes
Example:
— fully upgraded Halo bike would be totally ruined once riding this route…so that one, after such a ride will need to repurchase again a Halo bike for 10 000 000 drops, and upgrade it from the scratch.
— for the Tron, it should be also very simple, just climb again 50 000 m , obtain the bike and upgrade it from scratch.
And I always wondered, where from Zwift takes all the best ideas for the game upgrades — apparently from the comments lol…
I’m so glad it is not just me.
I have seen a couple of comments online recently regarding this idea and I am onboard with it.
Even better, damage in race that must be repaired to continue. Nothing like hitting the cobbles in the lead, and then losing time due to a puncture (random 30 second to 5 minutes penalty waiting for the team car) to make a race more realistic.
If that’s your aim then there is nothing stopping you from rolling a dice every 5 minutes. If you roll a 6 then you puncture, stop, wait for the team car and chase the pack. Let us know how you enjoyed the realistic race :).
If Zwift is going to do that then it should also make the rider situation ultra realistic and have “crashes” that would take riders out of the race and even end their racing for a “recovery period”. I can say that if bike wear was something that became part of the game, I would be gone to a different platform. I don’t need that level of frustration.
I’d also like to be able to trade in bikes!
Brilliant idea.
These new cobbled routes seem to put Tacx Neo into uncanny valley territory. It’s by far the best “ride feel” when rolling over cobble versus tarmac, but the teeny little vibrations it creates are not exactly “Hell of the North” impact. I have no problem calmly sipping a bit of water while bouncing along.
Looks like a missed opportunity for a velodrome…
but great that France gets some tlc.
What happens after you complete the route ?
Last sentence of the route description explains it…
I got that part. But the last sentence of the Route description also encourages us to enjoy the downhill to the starting point. Which makes me thinking, if they extended this Route to that point and made a WHOLE Loop out of it, we could continued it for another 2-3 Laps, without necessity of sign off and sign in, again, nor trying to navigate the New Route manually… I’m speaking on behalf of FREE riders, who want to enjoy the New Routes, but for distance longer than 12,3 mls…