Zwift recently published their “This Season On Zwift” (TSOZ) press release summarizing plans for new Zwift features through the end of 2022. And while that press release gives some high-level details of upcoming features, we like to dig a little deeper here at Zwift Insider.
This is one in a series of individual posts discussing specific upcoming features in more depth.
Nothing gets Zwifters more excited than new roads, and Zwift has promised some fresh roads this winter with an expansion to their Makuri Islands world. Here’s their teaser video:
It certainly looks like a beautiful place, and a far cry from urban Neokyo’s neon-lit permanight. The new map is named “Urukazi” (woo-roo-kah-zi) and Zwift’s press release says:
“Urukazi” is the combination of two Okinawan words — “uru” means “shore,” and “kazi” means “breeze.” The combination of the two words is meant to evoke the serene, untouched character of the Southern Japanese archipelago. On the terrain of Urukazi, you’ll find a Zwifty interpretation of those islands’ scenery, as you ride pavement, gravel, and a new type of surface not yet found anywhere else on Zwift.
The new map will add approximately 20km (12 miles) of roads to the Makuri Islands world, bringing the total to approximately 80km (50 miles). 8 new routes will be available when Urukazi launches, including one “uber route” which Zwift says is 40+km (25+ miles) long. (We think/hope this is a typo, as a route covering all roads should be more like 80km in length.)
A New Surface
What’s the “new type of surface not yet found anywhere else on Zwift”? As most Zwifters know, different surfaces on Zwift not only look different, they feel and roll differently. Each Zwift wheelset has specific rolling resistance (Crr) for each type of surface in Zwift.
Dig into all things Zwift Crr >
Zwift already has the following road surfaces:
- Pavement
- Brick (example: part of downtown Innsbruck just before the Leg Snapper)
- Cobbles (example: Italian Villas)
- Wood (examples: Watopia fishing village piers and bridges)
- Ice/Snow (found only on the Radio Tower climb, as far as we know)
- Dirt (example: Mayan Jungle)
- Grass (found only on Repack Ridge, as far as we know)
What would be next on the list that seems at home in an “untouched” land like Urukazi? In the past we’ve talked about a need for a surface where mountain bikes can excel – perhaps a rough singletrack or deeper sand or gravel.
Zwift says the new map features “features pavement, gravel, cobbles, packed sand, and wood planks.” All of those are existing surfaces on Zwift, except sand. So that must be the new surface type.
Where Will It Be?
Again, this is purely conjecture. But our guess is Urukazi may serve as a sort of “bridge” to Zwift’s version of Mount Fuji, which we all hope is arriving someday. Since Fuji is located to the southwest of the current Yumezi map, and is a bit of a distance away from the existing roads, we think Urukazi will be located in this approximate area:
Events On New Roads
Zwift’s ZRacing series for November is titled “Race Makuri”, so you can bet we’ll have lots of chances to race the new Urukazi roads when they roll out.
Zwift is also planning a “Tour of Makuri Islands” Nov 4-30, so even if you aren’t interested in racing, you can ride the routes with friends. Zwift’s tour events are always very popular!
Release Date
It’s not always possible to pin down specific release dates for upcoming Zwift features, but this one is easy. Zwift’s TSOZ FAQ says “your first chance to ride the map will be in the Tour of Makuri Islands”, and that tour begins November 4!
Your Thoughts
Share below!
I’m sure Mt Fuji is to the North of the Map as Zwift show it, which is an anticlockwise 90 deg rotation on Strava.
New map placement may be correct though, unless it’s part of the Harbour.
Always though harbour map from the Bridge on the NE quad & Mt Fuji on the NW quadrant ?
I also thought it was the harbor bridge that looked like it was heading to Mt. Fuji, but who knows at this point. Just excited to see some new roads, even if I prefer tarmac. I would hope that we don’t HAVE to go through Neokyo to get to them as they seem more thematically in tune with Yumezi, but I’ll take what I can get.
Sadly we know it’s only 12 miles. No real climbs will be included with that little real estate on offer.
The article said it was a bridge to Mount Fuji. That would suggest a respite from climbing.
According to the view from the Castle, I believe Mt Fuji is in the NE corner of the map.
Me, too. If this is a bridge to Fuji, it would be up to the upper left, off the farmlands.
There is no doubt Zwift are building this map out nicely. What I think would be excellent is if there was one or two big climbs.
Coming in 2056.
If it’s where it says it is above, then they could easily connect to the other side of the forest climb
Could we ride through Water. Like crossing a stream bed or along a river bed.
That would be cool with the water splashes around the bike.
That was my first thought when I heard there was a new surface until I saw Eric’s pretty convincing argument above that it was going to be sand. Water would be a cool effect to add.
I’m sure Mt Fuji is to the North of the Map as Zwift show it, which is an anticlockwise 90 deg rotation on Strava.
Awesome. A total of 12 miles and a bunch of them will be gravel. I really wish someone at Zwift would start listening to people and stop putting in dirt roads. If you want to create new dirt only routes, awesome, but when you do really small updates and make a significant portion of it gravel, it makes it pretty useless to the majority of riders who really hate gravel, and the paved sections annoy the people who like the gravel. Basically no one is happy and I can’t figure out how Zwift doesn’t understand this.
I agree with this. Until they can replicate the full sensation of riding on gravel/dirt outdoors, riding through virtual gravel and dirt while locked into a stationary direct drive trainer is just annoying (even with a rocker plate, you don’t get any sensation of tire slippage, over/understeer, jumps, etc). I am also curious how Zwift decides what surfaces these roads should be. I don’t have the numbers, but every time I find myself on a dirt surface in Zwift, the road is decidedly more empty than others. I know I stopped using the jungle route in Watopia when they slowed… Read more »
Nothing to be added…
To your point I think it would be great if Zwift were transparent with what is top of the list in terms of community requests. Whilst this new addition might not be for me, I would be a lot more supportive if I knew the majority of the community were asking for it, or it was aimed at a particular set of users i.e. new joiners. Adding more gravel & sand seems rather pointless without some level of context as more people seem to ride on tarmac, cobbles, etc.
I do not see the appeal of riding gravel period. This is a fad that seems completely industry-driven. A real good way to sell more bikes is to invent a new kind of bike and convince people they need these new made up machines.
I really don’t think the majority of people hate gravel. I don’t mind it at all – I just wish they’d add more interesting bits on gravel / dirt – a dirt sprint segment?
Also, if sand and snow are added, that must mean fat-bikes, right?
There is a further road surface you didn’t mention – carpet when you cycle through the casino building in Neokyo. It would be interesting to know if this has a different rolling resistance to the other surfaces.
“KAZI” has a different meaning in the UK.
I believe it’s spelled “khazi”…
No, it is spelt like that and is used for toilet or shi>>er
It’s spelt “khazi”, just google it
Another “Ride it once” experience on Zwift… I’m sure there are ways to check the most popular segments and recreate those on different world’s to keep the masses happy. Gravel may be popular in real life but it’s not in game. It also seems crazy that after 14 months there’s only 20km of fresh road being launched. Sorry to sound so negative… (Level 50 Cyclist / Level 21 Runner)
With Kazi meaning breeze, is it possible that the “breeze” will affect riding performance on this map?
12 miles of new roads seems to be a bit of a joke considering how much time they have had and the revenue they generate given the influx of new riders. I want to see more real life roads. The Olympic or UCI championship courses or Paris-Roubaix
To be honest, I don’t care if there are new surfaces. It’s pointless in a virtual world on turbo trainers and just a hassle changing bikes in races…..you can’t do that in the real world.I.e. How good are you at remembering short key sequences.
Ya… love the idea of a set of routes that mirror the classics or Tour stages. I’m still pleased to see Zwift developing Makuri – more roads, more variety is great and I also give them a break on the time it’s taken – I can believe there’s a lot to get right. For me my favourite routes are the ones that exist IRL – like Innsbruck UCI.
As majority is riding normal pavement anyway, instead of developing Makuri with gravel and new type of surface (why?), I personally would find more interesting to develop France instead. To add real gps routes similar to Alpe, Ventoux, in order to add addtional routes simulating TDF ;)…
It takes a long time to develop Short stretches of Zwift roads. Apps like FulGaz can have multiple new roads every day from uploaded footage. Maybe Zwift can integrate an alternative real footage section to give more variety. It might get customers from those platforms and keep the current users more happy in terms of variety.
next step should be combine watopia and makuri…
Or at least have Makuri permanently available like Watopia. Having new roads is great, but frustrating when you only have access to them on certain days that might not align with when you are training.
Since the structured workouts allow you to choose any world any day, you can get around this problem by doing a short warmup workout and then staying on the course. I like to use the Bradley Wiggins 16 min warmup routine.
A bridge or tunnel connecting them would be awesome.
The good thing with that idea is it could open up a huge amount of new badges with routes spanning the two maps.
Zwift has become so real…they even managed to reproduce the whole street building process including duration 1:1 from the real world. This is so fascinating!
Packed sand means that it’s time for Zwift to release their next bike type to clog our garages and take over the MTB’s place as the least-used bike type in the game. That’s right, it’s time for fatbikes, which will only be more useful than other bikes on sand and snow, but their weight penalty will be too great to be useful on the Radio Tower climb and their aero penalty will be too great for them to help anywhere flat that’s not sand. I mean maybe they’d also be the 2nd best type on an MTB course like Repack… Read more »
You forgot about the glass roads in New York
Throw in Beach sand for a new surfce.
“Kazi” does not mean breeze in Japanese, “kaze” (pron. KA ZAY) does. Someone should tell Zwift before they launch and upset Japanese Zwifters and language buffs alike.
Yup、kanji for “wind/breeze”is 風 (Kaz”e”) , kaz”i”. かじ means (rudder) and if you look at is kanji symbol 家事 means (Domestic Affairs). So in short, change the “I” to “e”. I live in Okinawa, just FYI…
If the new “Urukazi” expansion is actually a bridge to a future Mt Fuji release, then the likely location would be as is shown on the map below:
Thank you for the update. Too bad more dirt road that makes riders go slower for no tangible difference on the trainers… Now days I just use Rouvy year round for unlimited choices of routes and my daily training use, since I don’t like structure workout and prefer to train by choosing different routes mostly climb and just ride my bike. Been only sign up to Zwift for a month or two in the deep Eastern Canadian winter to ride with friends and grab the badges for new routes every year. Looks like it’s gonna be this way again this… Read more »
If I could snap my fingers and pave over every gravel road in Zwift I’d do so :).
Eric, I’ve search “Tour of Makuri Islands” and haven’t seen anything else about it. Nov 4th is two weeks away – did something change on the timeline of this Tour? Or is the “system outage” in a few days about setting up something in advance of the Tour and the November release?
Tour is still on! Look for announcements on Oct 27…
20km….so again zwift trickling out enough road in a year for a beginner cyclist to knock out in an afternoon…then blowing out subscription money on knock off trainer hardware that no-one needs
new map features “features pavement, gravel, cobbles, packed sand, and wood planks.”
Sounded like there was going to be Zwift cyclocross for a second there. Can just imagine people jumping off their trainer then doing a few steps on the treadmill or stairmaster then back to the bike. Extra points for a remount on rollers! And a new device which throws mud in your face for added realism.
More gravel, more dirt? Come on Zwift. What’s the benefit? That we are all going slower on those segments? There is no real benefit to it, imho. Changing bikes? I’m yet to see a cyclist who cycles on a road bike with a mountain bike on his or her back to switch midway through the ride. It is just ridiculous. I don’t think jungle, for example, is too crowded. I have only been there a few times just to get a badge or when I was forced by an event to go there. And most of the time people say… Read more »