UPDATE May 30, 2024: Zwift has updated the map shown when viewing your activities at zwift.com/feed, so you can see the new roads that will be added with “The Grade” expansion releasing mid-June.
Here’s an animation to show the differences between the current live map and the new one releasing soon. Along with new roads it looks like we get new start pens at the base of The Grade, a new lake near the Epic KOM, and… less snow on the Epic KOM. Global warming?
Zwift also shared this teaser short of “The Grade” on their socials today:
Today Zwift released a teaser image on their social profiles (see Facebook post) that includes lots of details for the Watopia expansion scheduled for June 2024:
The teaser includes partial maps, full names, and distance + elevation for 5 different routes. I’ve overlayed the new routes on the existing Watopia map to show where they’ll be located, and have included a bit of commentary as well. Enjoy!
Oh Hill No
This looks to be the pure FTP test route. The distance of 7.8km indicates that it is circuit, taking you up The Grade KOM segment then back down to loop around and start the route again.
[adinserter block=”4″]
Glyph Heights
This loop begins in the Mayan Jungle, traveling counter-clockwise to the bottom of the Jungle before turning left onto the new road which takes us across to The Grade. Climb up the hairpin portion of Oh Hill No, finish the last bit of the Epic KOM, then descend the Epic’s backside and head back to the Jungle to complete the loop.
Elevation Evaluation
Zwift’s teaser only included around half of this route, but my guess (artfully added in yellow above) is it includes the first 2/3 of the Epic KOM forward, the rest of the coastal road to the LAX roundabout, and the connector road that takes you from that roundabout across to the base of the Epic KOM forward.
My only question is: where is the spawn point?
Peak Performance
The longest of Zwift’s teased routes, Peak Performance begins on the new road the crosses from Oh Hill No to the coastal road. It appears to be a figure 8, but where exactly it goes is anyone’s guess. My guess is that it will loop through downtown Watopia and hit either the Volcano KOM or Hilly KOM.
Coastal Crown Loop
Zwift didn’t give us much to go on, did they? You start on the descent of Oh Hill No, apparently (which seems a bit odd). Based on the length, I bet this turns right at the bottom of Oh Hill No, follows the coastal road toward the Jungle, then turns right again onto the new cross road that takes you back to the Oh Hill No descent.
New Roads
If we combine all the roads in Zwift’s teaser, we can see that the new routes will be mostly using existing roads, with something like 11-14km of new roads being added (highlighted in white below).
Your Thoughts
Share below!
The higher road was easily spotted on coast expansion as soon as it was released, not surprised to see it feature prominently
Well done! I am happy they are including the crossing road. When the first announced it, I was worried it would just be the single road straight up.
11km of new roads on 10k of new routes mainly the stretch. Not a lot really tbh
Great potential for Rebel Routes up and over the Epic KOM from various directions, and the new cross road. Really makes that section of the map much more versatile. Good job, Zwift [don’t listen to the inevitable naysayers complaining that this was not exactly what THEY wanted]
I don’t think i’ve seen a single complaint about new road. New roads are always received very well. It’s all the other bits that zwift should be doing that the complaints come for.
Just wish they would give us custom routes would be a game changer for organisers.
I saw a few complainers responding to the Zwift IG post, including one person claiming to speak for the whole of the Zwifting community who said that these roads were not what was being asked for. I’m with you, I think that most people want new roads, and lots of people like new opportunities to climb.
I’m sure someone will say they wanted pancake flat section added. Or a complaint that the shadow of their bike is too large.
Yes I’m excited!
Cool, look forward to it.
Peak Performance squiggly line looks different than the others….I bet there are 2 new ways up the mountain. Also the overlay for Peak Performance doesn’t make sense, the white lines don’t line up nicely with existing roads.
I think Zwift’s artists just simplified the roads for the teaser image. I highly doubt there are more roads than what I’ve overlayed above. But I hope you’re right! 😁
Saw this, but I am sure that they are just rough-cut drawings of the new routes, as teasers. The fact that the lines nearly, but don’t quite, match up with existing roads confirms this in my mind.
Just look at how beautiful the radio tower looks today
Almost worth unpausing my membership 😂
Coastal Crown?
Ah, you’re right! Fixed.
Not sure if 8k at 4-ish% is long enough for a 20minute ftp test.
can someone do the math? For which WKG this stays above 20 min.
vulcano is half the distance at same % and that one is way shorter then 10 minutes
7.8km and 306m altitude gives a slope of 3.9%. About 3.9w/kg will get a 75kg cyclist up that climb in 20 minutes.
But according to the article it’s only the straight part that Zwift will use to calculate FTP so that’s maybe only 4 or 5km.
For an FTP test to be in any way accurate though it must be a fixed time, not a distance (an A cat rider doing an FTP test that lasts 15 minutes while a D cat takes 30 minutes to do the same test makes for a very bad FTP test).
So I’m not sure how this will be used to evaluate or produce an FTP number. Maybe it’s only an 8 minute test? An 8 minute FTP test would be a more bearable prospect than a 20 minute one to most people.
The FTP test is on the lower, straight steeper section. The switchbacks are more gradual. So the elevation gain on the FTP test is even less, perhaps 200 meters if it’s twice as steep with comparable distance. For moderately strong climbers, it will be much closer to 10 minutes than 20 minutes, with top riders down near 7 minutes. But for racing, a shorter “FTP” test is probably more relevant (not many races feature 20 minute steady efforts).
By definition FTP isn’t based on a fixed time. When Andy Coggan originally listed ways to estimate FTP, none of the ways were based on a fixed time. (As an aside, he did give average power over a fixed distance as an illustrative example).
In one of the earlier ZI articles about The Grade, it said this: “Zwift used the data from over 700,000 FTP tests on the platform to create an algorithm that accurately detects your FTP based on a max effort ranging from approximately 10-20 minutes.”
I made a comment on the article saying I found it strange, and that it seems like a solution looking for a problem. It still seems like that to me. I’m not sure how many people want an ~8-20 minute FTP test.
I’ll be keen on a new hill, just not sure what this FTP stuff is about.
Or maybe, since the upward straight section is only on the two routes that are clearly for testing (“Elevation Evaluation” and “Oh Hill No”, could it be using the percentage-tweaking abilities of the climb portal? Make it the right “difficulty” based on your existing FTP so that you have room? (Downwards and free navigation would obviously just use the “real” slope.)
(I mean, I’m perfectly happy to FTP test by just…turning off trainer difficulty, though if doing so I usually do try to avoid major downhills during the test because it feels kind of silly.)
For those trying to achieve 100% route completeness, can Zwift remove the event only routes that never get marked completed? Never understood this…
They’ll be marked if you complete them. Gotta join an event.
And it only counts if you complete them AFTER they created the badge for the route. So the most recently-added badges… mostly for older routes… require you to re-ride the route to earn them.
I’m somewhat agree with @Romank. I’m so
close to completing all
the visible and have most hidden badges. They introduced the bag a badge series but I missed #2 and there is apparently no make up option. I only needed PR Full and Uber Pretzel. Completing those would give me the 100 mile. But those will be brutal for me. Like all day since they don’t run rubber band (my name) groups on them.
I’ve reserved to the fact I’ll never Everest in a day nor climb ADZ under an hour. I’m okay with that. Those are extra credit. But I’ve gotten all else I think.
im at 181 badges. So close but Zwift keeps adding more. jJust when I get close, the finish line gets pushed out 🤦♂️😀. Someday maybe a level 100 will take pity and kudo me.
I think zwift should announce every month real destination about Giro d Italia, Vuelta and de toure France.
When you consider that there was recently a monthly rate increase of around 20%, and on the other hand no new themed worlds such as Italy, Spain, Austria or Switzerland with epic climbs are being developed. Instead, Watopia is being expanded and Zwift is not able to integrate real landscapes into the ClimbPortal climbs (sometimes you feel like you’re on an LSD trip in the ClimbPortal). Sorry, but this is really weak and doesn’t inspire me much.
I get that the price hike is significant, but they had not raised their prices since 2017 or whatever it was. You could say that we’ve all benefited from a less than market rate subscription cost for the past 6 years, and now they’ve caught up. Personally, I’d rather they spend more time on Watopia. I like Makuri but the other worlds are occasional gimmicks for me
I like it! One more connection between the bridges in the northeast would add a number of other options. And another start pen somewhere south or southeast.
I’m almost more interested in that little connector than the Grade itself – it must be a climb of some sort in its own right based on where it seems to be linking up. Be interesting to see just how long and how steep it is. It seems to link up at about “the snow line”, so maybe 700ft or so? The hairpins then do the next 300ft or so to get to the top of the tunnel before the rollers (which you then do before the final kick up the epic itself). If so, that provides a couple of cat 3 ish climbs overall (the grade itself to that turn, and then this connector road to the bottom of the hairpins), which is a length of climb lacking in the whole game outside of Keith/the full Leith). Whilst with the turn-off where it is also provides a lot more variety and styles of climb, depending on whether you continue up the epic and/or radio tower, or turn off at that point.
I say you could make a nice route, Stepping up, by;
– Start downtown
– head to the Esses;
– head to the Jungle (step 1);
– turn left at the hardly used Maya connector route;
– head up the higher new road (step 2?);
– head up the hairpins (step 3);
– head up the radio tower finish (step 4).
Test of repeatability with little actual recovery, no?
Eric, i was curious about peak zwift in 23 and 24 but cant find the articles. Were they written at all or did you stop the series?
I’ve only posted Peak Zwift posts when the previous record is broken. So I’m not doing a post each year telling what that year’s high is.
We still haven’t beaten January of 2021! https://zwiftinsider.com/peak-zwift-49114/
Eric, any articles on the most number of subscription exits in Zwift? I think the record has been broken recently.
Zwift doesn’t release subscription numbers, so I have no idea when it comes to that sort of data.
Thanks Eric!
Oh and if that first image shows route representation teasers, then the big loop in the middle might be the teaser for “elevation evaluation”. The upper cliff road connecting the two Epic climbs is also painted in here. My guess is you start in the same pen used to climb AdZ (between jungle and epic), then take that cliff route to get on course.
Maybe this has already been thought of, but I’d really like my own apartment in Watopia. I’d also like a storage shed full of all my bikes and a closet full of my kits. Finally, a pain cave that I could ride virtually in while I’m riding virtually.
I’d support this.
Apartments would be interesting. Downtown could have more towers built as riders get their names on available doors. Plenty of available towers in Makuri though. Your default start spot would become just outside your building.
Some virtual coffee/pizza shops and pubs to hang out after a group rides would also be nice.
I’d rather see a world like Belgium for classics style races than more Watopia.
And ofcourse the VELODROME!!
Ok, I’m not trolling here: why do people want a velodrome? It seems that without any tactical steering and realistic draft physics this would be the least exciting road right after a completely straight road?
Are there new start locations being created to support some of these??? It looks like there might be a new one on the Southern Coast! (fingers crossed!)
Looks like it, yes. “Oh Hill No” appears to start at the bottom of the hill, which isn’t currently a spawn point in game. Peak Performance starts on the new side road, too. Assuming Zwift’s green arrows are actually start points…
I reallh hope the climb is long enough. I hope it is at least 30 minutes at 5 w/kg
Would like something comparable to ADZ
I would be happy with the obvious “missing” Fuji San implemented in Makuri.
Unfortunately, Fuji is not quite exciting as one might think. The roads up there are all at very stable gradients of around 5-6%.
Due full lumbar fusion my climbing days are over, but great news for the climbers.
Oh Im dissapointed they only added so few new roads.. there is no more space left in watopia i guess …They should have made a new world based on flanders for example with 100k new roads. That should have calmed down the people complaining about the 5euro price increase. And would justify it more or less.
To be honest, considering how long it takes them to build these new roads, I’d rather have them spend the effort where it nets the biggest benefit in terms of new route choices created. And that works out really nicely here, because they do open up a whole bunch of new options with just a little new road. So I’m all for “adding in” shortcuts and connections between existing parts of the world, in order to increase variety and allow a little monotony-break. This also means they can make use of existing scenery, to maybe deliver the roads just a little quicker than building completely from scratch 🙂
Completely agreed. It’s amazing what can be achieved with just a few new roads. For me it’s all about new routes rather than masses of new roads. The southern coast expansion was a significant amount of new road but riding the whole thing has quickly become dull so now using it as a backbone to make new routes with smaller roads coming off of is great and as you say, gives a lot of new possibilities without too much extra dev.
For the same reason I’d love to see them link together some of the smaller worlds. A US map of NYC/Richmond/crit city, a UK map of London/yorkshire/Scotland and a Europe map of France/paris/innsbruck/bologna could all be achieved with relatively few connector roads but would open up hundreds of new route possibilities.
Nice!
And the Mayan San Remo route mentioned in the June racing series, any insider info on this one yet?
Cheers 😊
All we know is what the ZRacing info says – length (21.4km) and elevation (219m)!
The new roads have been added to the map in the latest updates.
Oh, nice catch! Yeah, I’m seeing it on my activities at Zwift.com.
New ‘The Grade’ teaser is on Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/0dtWUexJSD0
Saw that this morning!
I’m excited! Nice to know that we have the roads in-game now (obviously not rideable). Looking at this photo and am thinking to myself: a loop around the lake at the top would be cool. Do a climb to earn a nice, flat loop around the lake (of course one of the route options could be just the loop itself if you just wanted to ride the loop).
Knowing this was coming, you still sold me an outdated Watopia wall map one day before releasing this update… send me the new map.
Is global warming melting the glacier to form a new lake?
Levelling up seems to have an impact on road usage. For example, Tempus Fugit is incredibly popular. For what reason? There are so many on there, that the draft effect provides extra speed and with flat course, where climbing isn’t rewarded in XP terms, seems to be heavily populated. The Strava users love it as their weekly ride total looks even more impressive. I’m still missing RGT and the features that we had there to upload a real course and then ride it with bots and/or friends.
I look forward to riding the new courses and I really look forward to more flat courses, with lots of greenery (the positive impact of ‘vitamin G’ with a 3.0 permanent bot group to ride with on each course.
Will these new routes me added to the Veloview leaderboards?
No sign yet!