UPDATE: this route is now an official Zwift route, added to the game to host the final stage of Tour de Zwift 2024! See official route page >
“Rebel Routes” are Zwift rides which are 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!
Route Description
This is a long flat route which ends in a climb up the Volcano. It is most comparable to the Volcano Climb After Party event-only route, except Spiral Into the Volcano has an extra 10 miles of flat before the volcano climb.
If you follow this route on a map you’ll see how it was named: an ever-tightening counter-clockwise spiral which culminates in the spiral climb up the volcano.
We begin at the downtown start/finish in the reverse direction. Ride around the Volcano Flat to Ocean Blvd then Fuego Flats for a nice flat run through the desert which includes the longest timed “sprint” on Zwift.
Ride through downtown Watopia and around Volcano Flat a second time, but this time when we get on Ocean Blvd we’ll take that all the way back through downtown Watopia. The spiral begins!
Once more through downtown and around Volcano Flat, then hang a left at the Italian Villas to go over The Esses and back to the Volcano. We’ll loop once around the volcano (one lap of Volcano Circuit CCW), then hang a left for the Volcano Climb finish. The route ends at the top of the Volcano as you cross under the KOM banner.
Profile
This route is quite flat, with nothing more than short pitches or rollers until the final Volcano KOM finish which is 2.3 miles (3.6km) long at an average gradient of 3%.
Route details:
Distance: 55.6km (34.6 miles)
Elevation Gain: 324m (1,064′)
Getting Started
When freeriding, select the “Volcano Flat” route to begin–this reduces your number of manual turns required to just 6. You will spawn just before the downtown start banner.
IMPORTANT: you must ride down through the banner then flip a u-turn and ride through the banner in the reverse direction to begin the route!
Turn by Turn
There are many intersections of this route, but typically only 6 manual turns are required. All other intersections should be routed correctly by default, but sometimes Zwift changes the default turns when you’re deep into a randonneuring rebel route, so stay vigilant.
Here is the complete list of turns:
- Right to Volcano Circuit
- Right to Volcano Circuit CCW
- Right to Volcano Circuit
- Right (Straight) to Italian Villas
- Right to 360 Bridge
- Right to Sequoia Circle
- Left (Straight) to Sequoia Circle
- Right to Epic KOM
- Left to Desert Flats
- Right (Straight) to Desert Flats
- Left to Downtown
- Straight (Right) to Ocean Blvd
- Right to Downtown
- Right to Downtown
- Right to Volcano Circuit
- Right to Volcano Circuit CCW
- Right to Volcano Circuit
- Right (Straight) to Italian Villas
- Right to 360 Bridge
- Right to Sequoia Circle
- Left (Straight) to Sequoia Circle
- Left (Straight) to Downtown
- Left (Straight) to Downtown
- Right to Downtown
- Right to Volcano Circuit
- Right to Volcano Circuit CCW
- Right to Volcano Circuit
- Right (Straight) to Italian Villas
- Left to Sprint
- Left (Straight) to Sprint
- Left to Volcano Circuit
- Right to Volcano Circuit CCW
- Right to Volcano Circuit
- Left to Volcano Circuit CCW
- Left (Straight) to Volcano
- Left (Straight) to Volcano KOM
Strava Segment and Maps
Rebel Route Suggestions
Got an idea for a great rebel route? Share it below and maybe we’ll publish a post about it!
Just rode this today (24th Dec 2020).
Turn #13 was manual.
There is a new turn between 29 & 30, presumably due to the 4 new roads; sorry, I can’t remember the name of the turn or whether it needed manual intervention (I switched between the options at the time but can’t remember the default)
I did this route today. ALS said Turn #13 was manual, but it was automatic for me.
The additional turn is there, between 29 & 30;
29.1 Left (Straight) to Sprint
This was an automatic turn for me (the alternative is Right to Bridge/Islands).
Other than that all turns are as per the route above.
The list of turns needs a new one between 29 and 30 to account for the addition of the connecting section added between the two bridges. The default direction appears to be straight, which is the direction you want to go for this route.
I updated the turn list today to account for current roads.
Rode it today, made a mistake at the beginning, so needed to do the first spiral again. But Strava didn’t recognize. Or dit I do sth other wrong? https://www.strava.com/activities/6287894506
The segment is showing on your activity.
Yes, I talked with Strava. But the Timing is stil wrong
shouldn’t this route now be modified to add a new 2nd “spiral” down Titan’s Grove, so the spiral down Ocean Blvd would be spiral #3 now instead of #2.
It also omits the Hilly KOM. Including either it or Titan’s grove would change it from being a long flat ride to something else entirely. There’s definitely potential for a similar route including the two hills though.
I must be unlucky. I’ve just ridden this and there was only 5 or 6 automatic turns, every other one I had to adjust the direction. I missed a couple but thankfully noticed quickly enough to U-turn and still get the Strava segment
Rode this on 24/09/2023, don’t be put off by the number of turns, it’s easier than it looks! Great course. A couple of things to note:
(Also, iirc, I think step #35 is Left (Straight) to Volcano Circuit CCW, and not just Volcano)
Rode this today, correctly navigated the route to see the Strava segment appear on my ride. No Zwift route badge unlock upon completion? Despite it being listed as a route badge in Zwift amongst the others? Was disappointed not to see the blue badge banner pop up!
Sam, I rode the route today. Like you, I didn’t see the Zwift route badge unlock when I completed the route, and I wasn’t credited in my badges list. Oh well. At least I got in a good long ride.
Same thing happened to me. No badge.
After a recent (December 2023) update, This route now appears as a badge.
However, at this time it doesn’t appear as a route to ride in the Zwift app. In the Zwift Companion app, it appears in the list of routes, but specified as “EVENT ONLY”.
(Sometime in the future this may change. Several of the Rebel routes started out this way to later be made available to ride in Zwift.)
I searched for this route being used on the Zwift Hacks Zwift Events List https://zwifthacks.com/app/events/ but did not see this route currently used. Perhaps it’s not quite ready yet? I think that’s best place find it in use for getting a badge.
As far as I know, if you do not select the route in the route selection before starting to ride, you won’t get a route completion badge.
It makes sense that since the 3 new route badges are not listed in the route selection, you won’t get the badge.
Same thing happened to me. No badge
This is going to be a great “after party” race course once it’s formally released. Hope to see it in the DZR After Party series.
This one will be available in the last stage of this years Tour de Zwift, as the long ride.
This could be done in an Mega Spiral version as well. Just expand the first loops so that the first loop is basically
1: reverse Big Ring,
2nd loop :reverse Epic KOM and fuego flats,
3rd loop: the Epic kom bypass and Fuego flats,
4th Loop would be the current first loop,
5Th loop would be Titans Grove
6th loop the Oceans boulevard loop,
7th loop would be reverse Kom,
8th loop for the Esses,
9th volcano circuit …until the final climb up the volcano.
A really long one!
I did the route today but didn’t get the badge. Boo
No either… no badge
No badge for this route – it is event only.
This route was the Herd Sunday endurance group ride, everyone got the badge.
Are Rebel routes created based on end users picking a different direction than the default course suggestion that comes up on screen?? So once you complete a default route then have a play around with taking different turns?
The tdz route doesn’t do the last loop around volcano circuit
Gah. Testing to confirm that now. It was supposed to be fixed!