Zwift turns 10 this fall, and over the years, Eric Min and others at the company have leaked activities on Strava to tease new roads and other features.
The last Strava leak of new roads was Eric Min’s ride in Neokyo in November of 2021. But today, Zwift co-founders Eric Min and Jon Mayfield appear to have ridden together on the upcoming Watopia expansion.
See Jon’s ride on Strava, titled “Only time I’ll have the KOM jersey” >
See Eric’s ride on Strava, titled “Zwift Expansion — the early peek!” >
See Jon’s ride on Zwift.com >
See Eric’s ride on Zwift.com >
Some screenshots from Strava:
I reached out to Jon Mayfield when I saw his ride, and he told me, “Last time I ever had a KOM and a sprint jersey was back on the day we launched the original Jarvis.”
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Digging Into the Data
Looking at the Strava map of Eric and Jon’s rides with a little help from ZwiftMap for Strava, we can see the shape of the new roads and that they connect to existing Watopia roads via a spur from the Volcano Circuit:
If that shape looks familiar, you may be an OG Zwifter. It’s the exact shape of Jarvis, the original Zwift island. After months of speculation, we’ve found our answer: Zwift is bringing Jarvis back! A fitting move for the 10-year anniversary.
Jon’s activity shows the loop’s profile as he rides a counterclockwise lap first, then flips a u-turn to ride it clockwise:
Eric’s ride used a route titled “Deca Dash” (you can see the route name at the top-left on the minimap, which is sporting a fresh route profile that I’m sure will be released soon):
The Deca Dash route appears to be 10 laps of the new loop (hence the “Deca” name) for a total of 47km. This indicates that the new loop is 4.7km in length.
Looking at Jon and Eric’s rides in the Companion app confirms that each lap also includes sprint, KOM, and lap leaderboard segments, in both directions. Currently they’re simply titled “Jarvis KOM”, “Jarvis Sprint” and “Jarvis Lap”:
The screenshots give us some metrics for two of the segments:
- Jarvis KOM Reverse: 1.3km at 3.1%
- Jarvis Sprint Reverse: 200 meters at 0.2%
Availability
Zwift has said Watopia’s expansion will be available to ride in Tour of Watopia events beginning tomorrow, November 12. So my guess is we’ll all be in Watopia-Jarvis very soon.
Your Thoughts
Excited for some fresh roads, scenery, and leaderboard segments? What are your thoughts on Zwift’s latest expansion? Share below!
I think this is great and love the Jarvis throwback. I am surprised though it’s a closed loop.. It would have been great to have another connecting road or two to really open up Watopia. Maybe in the future. Looking forward to riding it.
Connector roads are always nice for the new routes they open up, but it could still be quite useful though as it could allow for existing routes to be expanded to incorporate any number of laps of the new “Jarvis Loop” into them, which could make for interesting Points races in particular. A lot will depend on how Zwift make it available. So, for instance, the Richmond Fan Flats or After Party routes allow for organisers to set X amount of ‘laps’ of the pan flat section, so if people could do that but integrated into the middle of various existing Watopia routes it could be interesting
Completely agree, but having a second connecting road wouldn’t stop that. You could still do laps. I’m sure a future expansion will open it up. Looks great though.
Judge it when you see it 👍
Not really sure what your point is?
Neil – Paul’s point is…it ain’t worth 20 bucks a month for a 2015 route with buffed 1985 graphics and gigantic HUD bud!
You’re not paying 20 bucks a month for that though. You’re paying for everything else, plus now a bit more.
Smash that cancel button!!
There has been a YT video around for a few weeks now showing the upcoming “Jarvis” expansion section: https://youtu.be/_PxOsIIqvcE?si=dHpQUeaPFy86Su4s
I just barely missed Jarvis in the beginning. Glad to try it now.
All the routes (all new?) seem to say 1 Lap for now for the given distances, but this may be incorrect since the route info isn’t known yet.
Good catch. I bet that’s accurate!
The new routes are also shown in the Companion app and have been for about a week under Routes.
I’d wager those are correct – the 6 new routes are in the companion lap already with other segments they travel through also listed, so we can pretty much work out the routes [read no further if you want to be surprised!].
Deca dash is the longest but only has the three new segments (climb, sprint, lap) – we know now why, it’s a 10 lap of the new circuit. Waisted 8 goes via Fuego reverse, takes in the new climb and sprint and includes the Hilly Loop at some point. Looping Lava does a lap of the new circuit and the Volcano climb. The other new routes are “Coast to Coast” which is 16.3 mi and has the new lap segments plus Woodland sprint (the first sprint on the southern coast road), then there’s “The Classic” which is 5.6mi and only has the new segments (probably a lead in then a lap), and finally “Triple Twist” which has the new KOM and Sprint, then the original sprint and the Zwift KOM.
Zwift – The Return of Jarvis….soon on a device near yo you. 🤪
For some of us ..memories from long ago. Ride On and On and On
When was this de-implemented?
Jarvis Island was the Beta Platform and was de-implemented in 2015…when Zwift launched public with Watopia.
Very cool! As a huge Zwift fan/rider who didn’t know about the platform until my Soccer injury (and the pandemic) happened, I’ve always been a little jelly of those who go to ride Jarvis…I am sooooooo psyched about this!
Connecting with other worlds would be absolutely awesome!
Did anyone notice UI and elevation change? Also, GPL posted a video review of a new VR trainer with a new UI 🙂
Where?
In some of the screenshots. One of the best upgrades of the new UI is taking forever!
Go to his YT channel, he released a video about it (leaked in his previous video, probably have a beta access).
https://youtu.be/VqQ-AxDP7Bs?si=3FKMTBAQgEA2BT0N
Quite useless expansion, just chat for nerds
…so still no velodrome?
I don’t get the appeal here. Without braking, turning and collision avoidance which Zwift doesn’t have natively what would the point be? I’m not knocking the idea I just haven’t been able to understand it from those that want it. If Zwift had the aforementioned features, then yeah, I totally get it! But that’s hardware and software updates that will take a LOT of work.
It opens up the options to completely new types of events. I find the 20km points races on the forest velodrome (sprint every 2km) to be some of the most fun races I’ve done. The dynamics is very different on this type of track. That’s in IndieVirtual, I mean Training Peaks Velo … ahh whatever, you get the idea.
Braking and turning are available natively. And the velodrome seems like it would be a perfect way to show off the capabilities of the play controllers.
The possibilities certainly seem more intriguing than recreating a 10-year-old map that other than nostalgia for a few doesn’t really offer anything new.
And Im sure the velodrome is coming at some point. We’e seen the dev shots of it. Just hoping it will be in this release
a velodromes only good for a platform with not many subscribers – not thousands. bkool has one; go there and stop being a bother.
In a recent podcast, Zwift confirmed the existence of the Velodrome in their development environments but also indicated that it was very early and it would be awhile. I think when they release it, they will want a host of features around it as well to make it something more worthwhile than just a track oval.
Can you link the podcast ?
Damn. I was hoping for a portal where you could ride around and jump into any of the other worlds.
Like…the main menu? Data wise that would be a nightmare and then plotting it to “the earth” for Strava would also be a nightmare without stopping and starting a new ride.
The Strava thing they seem to have sorted given that you get the same issue when teleporting around the same world and that works.
Always happy to see new roads on the map.
What a beautiful hat-tip and nod to their founding. Love this and can’t wait to ride the new road!
Very interesting, and also fun to have a recap of an (not so old) interview with Eric Min where he was asked about bringing back Jarvis, where the reply was something like “for maps development we only look into the future”. =) Super excited about this though!
Ok, this may not be popular, but I’m massively disappointed by this for a few reasons:
Was hoping for better honestly.
It’s like getting a “fun size” candy bar. I’d rather have it than nothing but still.
There are new routes; Loopin Lava at 18.4 km, Waisted 8 at 30.9 km and then Deca Dash at 52.6 km.
And then there are Triple Twist at 24.5 km, Coast to Coast at 26.8 km and finally The Classic at 9.0 km.
Less than 5km is what you call a new expansion? Come on Zwift HQ, I think and would like to believe it can be done better than that….. can’t it?
Does this mean we soon get a new Pretzel? 😂
A lego one I guess😂
I think this is AMAZING. I started Zwift in 2019 so sadly I never got to ride Jarvis Island until (almost) now. So what if it’s only 5km of road. It still makes for AMAZING new routes with how much Watopia already has (and still more to come I bet). I think it was a “fitting” move to get people “fit” for Zwift’s Decade birthday. Happy Birthday, Zwift. You’re awesome. Can’t wait to see what you do next. Ride On!
When will route details be available? I like to see routes before doing new ones
My guess is you’ll see them in game tomorrow, since that’s when Tour of Watopia stage 5 begins. You can also find them here: https://zwiftinsider.com/routes
Do you know if these will be totally open routes or if any will be event only? So Deca Dash is the mini version of the PRL Full it seems
Six fully open routes.
while it’s fun that they’re bringing back jarvis, imo it’s pretty pathetic that we’ll have to do with 5km of new roads.
also, please merge all the small words together with makuri and thus create 2 large worlds that are worth our time. Watopia (fantasy) and Earth (based on real locations)
Agreed! It’s always seemed to me like it would make a lot of sense for Crit City, in particular, to be placed in to Watopia so that it could be combined with other routes.
To be honest. I’m a bit disappointed with what we see here, I hope when it’s completely revealed there will be some worthwhile features and I’ll be proved wrong. Even cycling a lap 10 times doesn’t seem too innovative to me.
I had hoped that there would be a new mountain expansion. I particularly like the replicas of well-known live climbs like ven top or AdH.
A velodrome would also have been something different, provided that suitable events are also implemented.
In between I had also imagined that it would be cool to integrate Makuri Island (or even all worlds) into Watopia. Technically it should be possible and the new routes that could be designed would be enormous. Come to think of it, something like this would have done justice to a 10 year old.
I’m still looking forward to the Tour of Watopia – Stage 5 event and hope that my current expectations will be exceeded.
I mean, they released a massive mountainous expansion less than 6 months ago? This seems more like a fun little legacy extra for the anniversary.
It’s going to be very interesting to see hundreds of people riding a 4.7km loop. Will the pacelines get bigger or smaller as people start getting lapped? Will Zwift say that the person you lap is 4.7km behind or will it say 0km behind?
I wouldn’t be surprised if Zwift were using this route to see if a Velodrome would work.
Great news but, I would expect to see more and longer new roads given price rises etc the quality of game needs to improve in a comencerate manner.