Rebel Route: The Marvelous Metric (Watopia)

After leading the Thursday Pizza Burner 100km for over a year (sign up at zwift.com/events/tag/blameeric), I’ve started wishing for longer Zwift routes that are also fairly flat.

• I want longer routes because seeing different sites and riding different roads is more interesting/engaging than riding multiple laps of the same circuit.
• But the routes need to be fairly flat, because the Pizza Burner is about putting in a longer, steadier effort with a group.

Here’s the thing about Zwift’s current route library, though: all the long routes have too much climbing.

The mega-flat Tempus Fugit has only 1.5 meters of climbing per kilometer of distance, and routes typically feel “flat” to me if they have around 5.5m/km or less. But all of Zwift’s truly long routes (100km+) are over 12m/km (save the France Classic Fondo at 7.6km, which has two Petit KOM climbs early on, so that’s a no-go). And even if I wanted to do multiple laps of a shorter ~50km circuit, these medium-length routes typically have way too much climbing as well, or a key longer/steeper climb that would break up my group ride. (Watopia’s only exception is The Big Ring, and even that route takes us up through the Jungle each lap.)

So I got to thinking: surely we could piece together a 100km flat route using Fuego Flats, the Southern Coast, and the rest of Watopia’s flatter roads. We could pull various tricks to make it happen, including starting from a higher elevation and riding big flat sections in both directions.

What I’ve settled on is a non-loopable route with only 489 meters of elevation gain over 102 kilometers (so 4.8m/km). That makes this the 13th-flattest route in Watopia, and by far the least climby “long route” in the entire game.

Or looking at it another way: there are flatter routes in Zwift, but they are all much shorter (the longest is around 36km). Unless you include Litus Fugit, a 60km 4.4m/km loopable Rebel Route I created which hasn’t yet been added to the game but really should be.

I hope you enjoy The Marvelous Metric. And I hope someday Zwift adds it to the game, so I can lead The Pizza Burner on it!

About Rebel Routes

“Rebel Routes” are Zwift rides not available on Zwift’s routes list, thus requiring manual navigation.

See all Rebel Routes >

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

A complete turn-by-turn tour of this route would be too much, so I’ll summarize it instead.

You can set yourself up easily by selecting the Mountain Mash route. This puts you at the route’s start point near the Jungle start pens, heading toward Watopia. (Starting from here is a tricky move on my part, as it lets us start with a bit of descent, making the start more gentle. It also gives us a faster overall speed, since we’ll descend more than we’ll climb.)

Cut across the Epic KOM Bypass (one of my favorite stretches of road in Watopia), then head down to Ocean Boulevard and out to Fuego Flats for a ride through the desert in the “forward” direction.

At the LAX Roundabout we’ll turn onto the long Southern Coast road for an out and back which quickly racks up 45 rolling kilometers. We use the bottom of the Jungle, and the Mayan Bridge Cutoff, road, for a quick turnaround at the end of the Southern Coast, allowing us to come back the other way.

When we arrive back at the LAX Roundabout, we’ll head up the Col du Saddle Springs and get onto Ocean Boulevard for a trip through the Marina and out around the Volcano into Downtown Watopia.

Head back out Ocean Boulevard and up into the edge of Titans Grove to hit Fuego Flats once more, this time in the “reverse” direction. By the end of the Fuego Flats road you’ll be over 95km in.

Wanting to make the final ~5km interesting, I’ve routed us across The Esses, down the Dirty Sorpressa, and out to the Volcano. Turn the first right to head into the Volcano for the route’s finish at the Volcano Circuit arch.

Turn By Turn Directions

Begin by choosing the Mountain Mash route, which starts you at the Jungle Pens, heading in the right direction.

1. Straight to Epic KOM Bypass
2. Left to Sequoia Circle
3. Straight (Left) to Sequoia Circle
4. Right to Downtown
5. Right to Desert Flats
6. Straight (Left) to Desert Flats
7. Left to Ciudad La Cumbre
8. Right to Ciudad La Cumbre
9. Straight (Left) to Jungle Ruins
10. Straight (Left) to Jungle Ruins
11. Right to Mayan Loop
12. Left to Mayan Bridge
13. Left to Mayan Loop
14. Straight (Left) to Jungle Loop
15. Right to Ciudad La Cumbre
16. Straight (Right) to Ciudad La Cumbre
17. Straight (Right) to Fuego Flats
18. Straight (Left) to Fuego Flats
19. Left to Epic KOM
20. Straight (Right) to Epic KOM
21. Left to Epic KOM
22. Right to Sequoia Circle
23. Left to Italian Villas
24. Straight (Right) to Italian Villas
25. Left to Italian Villas
26. Left to Volcano Circuit
27. Straight (Left) to Volcano Circuit
28. Straight (Right) to Volcano KOM
29. Left to Volcano Circuit
30. Straight (Right) to Volcano
31. Left to Downtown
32. Left to Downtown
33. Left to Ocean Blvd
34. Straight (Right) to Ocean Blvd
35. Left to Epic KOM
36. Left to Desert Flats
37. Right to Desert Flats
38. Straight (Left) to Desert Flats
39. Left to Downtown
40. Straight (Right) to Ocean Blvd
41. Right to Downtown
42. Right to Downtown
43. Straight (Left) to Sprint
44. Right to Volcano Circuit
45. Right to Volcano Circuit CCW

Route details:
Distance: 102km (63.4 miles)
Elevation Gain: 489m (1604′)
Strava Segment
See on ZwiftMap.com

Rebel Route Suggestions

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