The latest Zwift update has been announced and will be released in phases over the next few days.
This release’s big new feature is the much-anticipated addition of a southern coastal Watopian road. But it also includes refreshed textures and objects throughout Watopia, a new workout startup screen, and other improvements. Let’s dive in!
New Watopia Southern Coastline Road + Routes
We already knew this was coming, but that doesn’t make it any less exciting! Today’s update includes ~19 kilometers of fresh Watopia roads, located along the coastline south of the Epic KOM:
Access the new road from the Fuego Flats side and encounter several distinct areas/towns as you proceed along the coastline. First the maritime fishing village of Googie Springs, including Mr. Crankie’s Crab Shack. Then the Evergreen Coast area with its Bigfoot attractions, shipwreck, Misty Pines campground, and two sprint segments (Woodland Sprint and Sasquatch Sprint).
Keep going and you’ll ride through a tunnel into Ciudad La Cumbre, a colorful community at the foot of the Epic KOM which is only accessible via tunnels. Wave hello to the lizards!
Lastly, you’ll arrive at the Sandy Coast settlement with its colorful stone Mayan architecture. This area has two more sprint segments: Acropolis Sprint and Stoneway Sprint.
Keep going and you’ll find yourself on the Jungle Circuit.
Here are some of the key sights on Zwift’s new southern coast:
New Routes
This expansion includes eight new routes (and route badges), including four over 40km long. Click a route for more details (figured include lead-in):
- Accelerate to Elevate (41.3km, 1152m): point-to-point from Fuego Flats to the new coastal road, finishing up Alpe du Zwift!
- The Big Ring (51.1km, 268m): large loop covering the perimeter of Watopia, sans Alpe du Zwift.
- Canopies and Coastlines (27.5km, 246m): start in Titans Grove, end at the last sprint arch of the new coastal road.
- Coast Crusher (42.4km, 208m): out and back starting in the Jungle, turning around at the desert LAX roundabout, and ending at the last sprint on the coastal road.
- Going Coastal (16.5km, 63m): point-to-point from Fuego Flats to the new coastal road, ending at Sasquatch Sprint.
- Shorelines and Summits (50.1km, 793m): a large CCW loop beginning in the Jungle, hitting the new coastal road, then going up and over the Epic KOM (including radio tower).
- Sugar Cookie (39km, 258m): a large CCW loop beginning in the Jungle, hitting the new coastal road, then taking the Epic KOM bypass back toward the Jungle.
- Temple Trek (10.4km, 42m): a short one starting in the Jungle and riding down the coastal road to the Acropolis Sprint.
Accessing the New Roads
You can ride these new routes as soon as you install this Zwift update. Beginning October 30 some of the new routes will be featured in the fifth stage of the Tour of Watopia. Once the Tour of Watopia ends, Zwifters must be at level 10+ to ride the new road/routes.
Zwift’s notes here say, “While these routes will be available to ride on demand, they will only count towards Stage 5 starting October 27, 2023 @ 15:00 UTC.” But we rode “Coast Crusher” on the morning of the 25th and earned double XP and a completion checkbox for stage 5.
More to Come?
Zwift’s press release about the new roads includes this tantalizing bit: “In the future, Watopia’s construction planners expect to use the new causeway as a backbone for additional new roads, giving Zwifters access to other remote parts of Watopia that are not currently developed for cycling.”
Watopia Refresh
Zwift’s art team wasn’t content to roll out the expansion road. They took this chance to refresh all of Watopia! You’ll probably notice brighter, cheerier new textures for terrain, sky, and ocean, as well as new objects, especially in Watopia’s downtown. Here are a few changes we’ve spotted:
Want to look for more changes? Here’s a video of the Hilly Route in “old” Watopia, and another video of the Hilly Route with today’s update.
New Workout Startup Screen
Click any workout card on the homescreen or under the Workouts menu and you’ll be greeted with a snazzy new workout startup screen:
A few notable callouts:
- Click “Copy” to make a copy of this workout, which will be saved to your custom workouts folder. In lieu of a (much-requested) workout favoriting system, this is an easy way to “save” favorite workouts. Just make a copy of any workout you like, and it’ll be available under your Custom workouts list!
- At the bottom-right, see the max power you’ll be asked to hit during the workout (600W in the example above).
- The bottom of the screen breaks down how much of the workout is devoted to each of the six power zones.
- The screen includes an “sp” score (Stress Points, aka TSS).
Tutorial for Riders
Zwift released an updated onboarding tutorial for cyclists four weeks ago with update 1.49 (read more about it). The tutorial helps you explore the various “ride modes” available in Zwift, and completing it unlocks the new “Get Started” kit:
The tutorial is now open to all Zwifters. Access it from the Zwift homescreen by clicking your profile image in the top-right to open the profile menu, then clicking “Tutorial”:
Play Pairing with Third-Party Steering
Some Zwifters prefer using their Elite Sterzos, Wahoo KICKR Bikes, or other steering devices instead of Zwift’s Play Controllers. Zwift made a change in this release, allowing Zwift Play to be paired along with other steering devices so you get the benefit of Play’s other buttons while being able to steer with your preferred device.
Reduced Gravel Crr
Zwift’s release notes say, “Reduced gravel rolling resistance proportionally across road, gravel, and mountain bike wheelsets.”
“Gravel” is the newest surface type in Zwift, and only exists on Scotland’s Sgurr Summit North KOM, so this change has a very limited effect. That said, if you’re racing a route like City and the Sgurr this change is worth noting, as it makes the road bike a more viable choice than it was previously.
Here are the old and new values so you can see how the Crr change affected the bike choice landscape on the Sgurr:
| Old Crr | New Crr | % Crr Reduced | Watt Reduction* | |
| Road | .02 | .012 | 40% | 72W |
| MTB | .015 | .009 | 40% | 64W |
| Gravel | .012 | .009 | 25% | 27W |
* “Watt Reduction” represents how much less power riders will need in order to travel at 40kph with the new Crr values. This assumes a 75kg rider on a 7kg bike.
This change makes all bikes faster on gravel, but speeds up road and MTB more than gravel. How do bikes perform with the new Crr values? Here are the results of bot tests we just ran up the Sgurr Summit North KOM:
| 300W (4W/kg) | 450W (6W/kg) | |
| Road (Tron bike) | 4:01.2 | 2:59.98 |
| MTB (Scott Spark RC) | 4:05.04 | 3:02.75 |
| Gravel (Crux + CADEX) | 3:55.99 | 2:57.43 |
As expected, the time gaps between the three bikes have shrunk considerably compared to earlier tests.
Note: the ENVE G23 gravel wheelset hasn’t been updated to the lower gravel Crr, so we recommend not using those wheels until Zwift fixes them in the next update.
More Release Notes
Zwift provided notes on additional tweaks and bug fixes in this update:
- Fixed an issue where elevation markers on Climb Portal routes were truncated.
- Fixed an issue that would prevent Leaderboard HoloReplays from spawning if the Segment HoloReplay option was set to off.
- Fixed the ordering of workouts in the final week of the Crit Crusher training plan.
- Fixed crashes that could potentially occur when saving Video Screenshots.
- Improved navigation of the post-ride survey when using Zwift Play controllers.
- Fixed the description of the Tour of Watopia Fall 2023 Run Shoes in the Garage.
- Improved game stability.
- Mac: Minor reduction in installer and game update file size.
- iOS, tvOS: Fixed a crash that could occur when subscribing to Zwift after completing the free trial.
Discuss this release on Zwift’s forum >
Questions or Comments?
If you spotted any other changes or bugs in the update, please comment below!
Is there an elevation profile available for the new road yet?
Click any of the route names above to go to their detail page, which includes Strava segments, Veloviewer profiles, etc.
Nice work, Zwift HQ code jockeys. It’s really a 19 km new road, not 19km of new roads though. I’ll bet the next batch will be even more interesting route-wise.
Ahhhhh finally!
FYI Sugar Cookie says it’s 9km, but per your other link it should be 39km including the lead-in. Great write up per usual.
Fixed!
The image for Shorelines and Summits does *not* include the Radio Tower climb but your description says it is included…?
Because we are correct, and Zwift’s graphic is not. 😜
It looks like the Epic KoM Bypass could easily be extended outward to join the new road. I hope that’s the subject of a future update.
Is there still (or maybe there wasn’t ever) a difference between the name brand and the Zwift gravel wheels on gravel with respect to Crr (maybe that was only ever on dirt)? Definitely looks like this rolling resistance change will be appreciated come the ZRL race this upcoming season when we have to do all the Scotland roads (including the climb) in both directions.
All gravel wheels have always rolled the same on gravel. That’s still true. Except for the poor un-updated ENVE wheels…
Just my luck to have only those enve wheels for gravel XD Guess I’ll have to wait for a bit to ride gravel.
Zwift needs to shuffle the deck on their rolling releases. Stinks that they roll these out in waves but it seems you are locked in your “wave” forever. I never get the updates prior to late on Fridays. So I just get to watch everyone ride new roads all week.
Totally agree… The rolling release of updates, is a really bad idea when i comes to updates with long awaited new features 🙄
Truth.
I would propose rolling out to the lowest zwift id’s first 🙂 – That should solve all issues.
Are rolling releases based solely on operating system? I run Zwift on a PC and my iPad and neither have an update yet.
I don’t know what it is based on but it isn’t 100% of a platform at one time. There will be PC based systems update today, Thursday, & Friday generally. Not sure how they do it but I’m always in the last wave it seems so I’m assuming it is an unchanging algorithm maybe based on zwift ids.
Yeah, I hate rolling releases so much. I’ve been on Zwift (PC) since the early days. I have a high end (and supported) chipset and still don’t have the video thumbnails, and I also don’t have the new roads today on iOS or on PC. I arrived home from work really motivated to workout on the new roads, and of course, they’re not there at all.
I still don’t have the videos either, on a high-end and supported system. I don’t think this is a rollout issue at this point, though, since it has been so long. There must be some nuance in the system configuration where it has decided it doesn’t want to run on my machine.
I had a problem with videos as well, did a bit of digging and it turned out to be linked to which of my 3 screens was set as the primary one. Altered that and then video clips appeared straight away for me
Interesting. My Zwift monitor is actually a fourth screen that only gets turned on when I Zwift, so I can’t really set that as the primary display if that’s what’s necessary.
It’d be nice if the groups were dynamic by which id’s are actively using the platform in recent days.
Complain team here: where is the UI scaling for Android, I can see nothing when running.
Other than that, good here.
Hmmm. There seems to be a new off ramp onto the main road between the 360 Bridge and Hank’s. Now I have another place to wonder whether whether an intersection or construction sign will connect to new roads. Eric, could ZI sponsor a naming party/conversation for some unnamed or unpublicized features on Watopia? I mean, Scottie’s Cliffside Condo is fun but it just doesn’t come up very often. Your Dirty Sopressa was a great addition to the JWB and 360 Bridge. To kick off the discussion, I would say that the Hilly Route runs on Watopia Island and Observatory Island/Sea… Read more »
Hmmm… good idea!
So they made gravel bikes irrelevant for gravel.
please give me the option to get rid of bikes from my garage. I would even PAY drops for this luxury.
I don’t know about paying to remove bikes, but it would be nice to be able to trash bikes, or even better sell them back for a reduced price.
Good stuff, Eric (and lots of it) – thanks for summarizing it all.
This is great news, the fact this new road will act as a backbone for a whole new section in watopia is really good. After a few years watopia can be a bit ‘samey’ so even just having some new route badges is good, but a map extension will be awesome.
New road texture
Yes! The smooth asphalt replaces the cracked asphalt in a lot of places, including the Alpe.
For the Copy Workout function is that for ZWIFT specific workouts? I have weekly Group Workouts and I’m not quite sure how I feel about others copying my workouts, so trying to determine if this is ANY workout on Zwift or just Zwift library workouts.
I think it’s just any workout in the Zwift library.
Gravel only exists on the Sgurr Summit North KOM? It really seamed like I was getting a ~0.3w/kg advantage on the non road portion of the Jungle loop yesterday on a S-Works Crux…
Apparently that’s dirt, not gravel.
That’s dirt, not gravel. And gravel bikes WILL have an advantage there over road bikes. See https://zwiftinsider.com/crr
does this mean we will get some new rebel routes?
Seems likely. 😉
Do we know which routes will be in the tour 2023. I want to ride the routes this week but I want to save the badges for the tour for double XP
Found from GP llama
The big ring
Going coastal
Canopies and coastlines
Coast crusher
if i am correct you don’t get double xp for completing the route, only for the kilometers/miles you ride?
Correct. You’ll get the XP bonus the first time you complete a route, but it’s just the standard bonus. Then you’ll get double distance XP the first time you ride a route as part of ToW as well.
So if I finish a new route first in ToW (40XP/km) I lose the finishing bonus (2xXP) I’d get in a normal ride?
No. You still get the finishing bonus (and badge) for the first time you completed the route, but you don’t get double bonnus for doing it as part of the ToW. The only double XP is that you accrue while riding.
Which means it doesn’t make any difference whether you complete the route for the first time as part of ToW or a free ride.
But, if you choose, say Sugar Cookie, for a free ride to explore the new roads now, and then do one of those 4 (or all of them) for Tour of Watopia, you will get the route completion bonus for more routes without repeating any. Sure, it’s not the same as getting double XP completion bonus, but knowing which will be part of ToW can make you more efficient at choosing which routes to do when to complete them all faster (and still get the max possible XP in ToW).
looking forward to trying the new routes! =)
Dying to know what the new roads are to the west of the normal Titan’s Grove route. They look paved (they are visible on the right just immediately before the bridge you exit Titan’s Grove towards Epic KOM). It doesn’t look like repack ridge, but maybe part of it. Admittedly repack ridge is the only part of Watopia I haven’t explored… Anybody have any idea what those roads are or how to access? It even looks like there is a start pen just before the Titan’s KOM going south.
Repack Rush! https://zwiftinsider.com/route/repack-rush/
Pretty sure what you’re seeing is the exit of ‘Repack Rush’, the replacement for ‘Repack Ridge’.
Zwift fails again. Can’t finish the Tour of Watopia because the new routes aren’t vailable when I log in. Stage 5 is just blank, no routes. I’d tell Zwift but they have never responded to any issues.
It’s not a fail, stage 5 isn’t scheduled to start yet. Buy they have to get the update out in advance
Stage 5 runs from 30 Oct to Nov 5.
Call me Mr Picky, but I make that 4 routes over 40km, not 3 🤓
Depends on whether you count the lead-in or not. Originally I wasn’t… when I wrote there were three. But now it’s just confusing, isn’t it? 😆
I’ll update it to four above.
Looking forward to use my Elite Rizer for steering again together with the play controls activated. Nice catch up of an annoying conflict..
Well I’ve already thought of a Rebel Route with these new roads: Start at the jungle pens & head down the Alpe side (lead in) Go through the Jungle arch (start) Turn off and go down the new roads all the way to Fuego flats Round the desert roundabout Back again Turn right up the jungle climb Left down towards the Mayan bridge. Left again at the end of the Mayan Bridge back towards the Jungle arch. Finish at the arch (or go for another lap). No idea how long it is (guessing ~40km based off a rough guestimate) but… Read more »
Workout screen doesn’t indicate power value when you mouse point it , if my memory serves me
Agreed. This is really annoying – waving the mouse over any bar and having it tell you it’s power and duration seems a simple no brainer! Why would they make it difficult to access?
So far as I can tell, the only way to see it is to do the “copy” function then discard it.
Otherwise… looking forward to the new roads!!
Ok, they worked on the Crr for gravel, so maybe next is dirt? We need to find a way to make the jungle faster on road bikes.
what is the advantage of everyone going faster?
Going slow is annoying?
Word is dirt is getting faster next update.
Looking forward to the updated Watopia map in the store, so I can make a big print for my cave
In the Zwift-provided thumbnails above, Shorelines and Summits doesn’t go up to the radio tower. Since I can’t yet (and don’t want to) confirm either way, can anyone else say which is correct?
Ah forget that, already answered below, the Zwift graphic is wrong.
Gravel bikes are still going to be faster up dirt climbs for now though? Only because weight trumps Crr in those instances?
Yes.
Anyone noticed the Volcano seems to be more active? noticed last night that the lava out of the top looked to be brighter and at a greater height. But might just have been my eyes!!
Yes. Play Eric’s video of the KOM loop side by side. There are TONS of changes, improvements, additions, etc. and the volcano heightened activity is one of them.
Be nice if the apple TV window size can be fixed. Some of my data is cut off as it appears the screen is zoomed in slightly. Fixing resolutions does nothing to fix it.
Have you tried changing TV settings? Turning off overscan, etc? Typically this is fixed on the TV/ATV settings side, in my experience.
It’s most likely a TV feature know as ‘overscaling’ or ‘overscan’ and it’s common when using TVs as monitors. It can be fixed in the TV settings and/or in the computer. Try googling: tv overscan apple tv, or overscan correction and your TV model.
Could have done some reverse options for the new route too. A good one too would be the Alpe on out and back, but imagine the reverse Alpe route with an Alpe. Summit finish, would make a cracking Fondo and / or a great race some nice sprints then a big climb with 80 km done.
When will the new routes be available for group rides?
I would like to know this as well…
Not super impressed with the new 19km road but the added routes look really cool. Very good to see that Zwift has listened to people asking for longer new routes. Zwift actually starting to listen to power user feedback has been a tremendous improvement for the platform.
On another note, Zwift Cog and shifting device have been working great. Especially on my tri bike where the shifter is now exactly where my hands are during riding instead of the bike shifters on the aerobars where I always had to reposition to shift.
Hello I have been on Zwift since2015 and at level 56 but can not get update on my apple tv
At the moment it looks like you get double XP on those routes but you don’t get credit for week 5 for the Tour of Watopia
Hi, Salt Lake City area user here and still no update on any of my platforms (iOS & Apple TV) . Maybe just wait another day or two? Can’t wait to get new roads!
Would be nice is the update to the companion app was rolled out as well, no new routes under the “explore” so no missing badges in Watopia route list.
That’s exactly what happened. I have this week’s Companion update and Zwift update installed, and I see the new routes on both…
I rode from the new roads from the jungle direction yesterday, it’s seems strange that they would put 4 sprints in such a short distance, and make them all very similar at around 400m. If it was down to me, I’d vary them a bit, maybe a couple of shorter sprints, and have 1 uphill sprint. Don’t know what they’re like in the opposite direction.
From the other direction there’s a nice little uphill sprint (Sasquatch Sprint Reverse: https://zwiftinsider.com/segment/sasquatch-sprint-reverse/)
One welcome change that I don’t see listed is that they appear to have fixed the bug with the bikes in the garage. Once again, when you go to the garage, you start on the bike you’re currently on instead of at the top of the list. I wish that they had made this change before season one of the ZRL as it might have saved me from a bike swap mishap that cost me 10s (which was the final difference between me and the front group) on the Temples and Towers course (oh well, stuff happens, gotta be more… Read more »
What does everyone think about pace partners? I’ve noticed that the bots are larger and appear to weigh more. Noticeable on descents and rolling terrain.
Does anyone know when this will be released for Apple TV? I got on Zwift this morning planning to check out the new roads, and they weren’t available.
Nevermind. I see the comments on the other post about “rolling updates” and it looks like I just need to wait a bit longer.
The new road is great but it is spoiled by making you ride up a dirt track to get out
also some of the new point to point routes are not needed.
what is the point of temple trek?
I see my companion has stopped working on new release – goes to in game initially then drops – tries reinstalling etc no joy
Or is there an update to be released on the companion on iPhone that hasn’t come yet … today is the 28th.
Hi Max, may just have been a one off bit I tried couple of different options regarding which wifi hub / TP link I connected via and with my phone connected to the strongest wifi signal in the garage rather than house hub … it all seems to be working ok again (on the failure day they were both via weaker house hub signal as TP link was not working that day. – Anyhow hope you get yours sorted.
Same here, takes ages to switch into active game then drops out again in a matter of seconds…
With the new gravel setting, how is this to “real feel” friction? What are you basing the friction rates on?
My avatar taking much longer to come to a standstill after pedaling. Noticed after a few updates ago. Anyone else experiencing the same thing? Using IPad OS.
I noticed the same thing
Yes. This isn’t a bug – it was an intentional change by Zwift. If you need/want to stop immediately, you can enter the “Pairing” screen – it’ll auto-brake almost instantly.
I wonder why they changed it
I’m half expecting a Zwift Play shortcut to give another competitive advantage to people who want to pay extra.
Yep. Thanks Zwift for making me waste time looking for custom workouts- I’m still looking and just about ready to cancel this pile of BS after a year and look at other platforms. WHERE THE F IS CUSTOM WORKOUTS AND WHY ISN’T IT OBVIOUS!?
How come I can’t do multiple loops of the new routes? After one it takes me to the jungle circuit. Thanks
noticed reversed rider “black thought bubble” along bottom of screen as opposite lane riders met me on a normal watopia route. might go away after reboot but mentioning anyway. Still wish finish screen auto closed like before changes months ago. .
When will there a casting option in the app ?.
Looks like we can no longer drill down and edit into a session and see what cadence is being set etc and save and customise ?
Just updated to 1.51 and the Pace Partners are updated to what supposed to be 2 days from now.