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Yesterday Zwift rolled out a much-anticipated addition to Watopia, the game’s largest and most popular map.
With only 5km of fresh pavement, the addition may seem rather small. But it’s a very significant stretch of 5km, because it’s the return of Jarvis Island, the first road ever ridden on Zwift.
So it’s a throwback to Zwift’s 2014 roots, which feels quite fitting and nostalgic as Zwift celebrates its 10-year anniversary this season. Read on to learn more about the Jarvis expansion.
New Routes
This expansion adds a 4.8km loop connected to the Volcano Circuit via a short spur (see white road above). Six new routes have been added to the game, each using the new loop in different ways.
The new routes are free-ridable and earn achievement badges the first time they’re completed. These routes are also available for event scheduling via Clubs if you have the latest version of Zwift’s Companion app.
Deca Dash
52.4km distance
500m elevation
Start in downtown Watopia, then head over to Jarvis Island for 10 clockwise laps. Ends at the sprint banner.
Waisted 8
30.7km distance
144m elevation
It’s Watopia’s Waistband, but in reverse, and with a clockwise lap of Jarvis Island thrown in.
Triple Twist
24.4km distance
200m elevation
Takes in the Volcano Circuit and Jarvis Island clockwise before returning to a Hilly Route reverse loop with a finish at the Jarvis Sprint.
Coast to Coast
24.1km distance
164m elevation
A point-to-point route beginning at the coastal start pens and finishing with a CCW lap of Jarvis Island.
Loopin Lava
18.3km distance
212m elevation
A CCW loop of Jarvis Island followed by the Volcano Climb before descending and finishing at the Jarvis Island lap banner.
The Classic
8.8km distance
64m elevation
Simple and sweet. This is literally the route that started it all! One CCW loop of Jarvis Island, beginning with a lead-in from downtown Watopia and ending at the lap banner.
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New Route Badges
Each new route also has a route badge, so you’ll earn a chunk of XP and the achievement badge the first time you complete the route!
- Deca Dash: 1000XP
- Waisted 8: 615XP
- Triple Twist: 400XP
- Coast to Coast: 480XP
- Loopin Lava: 285XP
- The Classic: 100XP
There’s also a badge for “The Classic Run”, just for the runners.
A Grand Entrance
The first time you enter Jarvis, be sure to have your sound turned on! Zwift has put together an epic unveiling sequence, and it will only happen the first time you enter Jarvis. We recorded it for posterity:
Sightseeing Tour
The new road can be broken down into three areas. Here’s a quick photo tour progressing around the loop counterclockwise.
Italian Villas and Lap Arch
Take a right as you enter Jarvis Island, waving hello to the bear sculpture (is that Jarvis the bear… with Scotty Squirrel on his back?) and you’ll find yourself passing some familar-looking buildings. These were the inspiration for Watopia’s Italian Villas.
After riding through the lap arch, look right to spot the Queen Mary, a nod to Zwift’s Long Beach headquarters.
The KOM and Forest
After passing the Queen Mary, you’ll feel the road tilt upward as you enter the forest and pass the Jarvis KOM start line right where the big trees begin. With its tall sequoias this area feels a lot like Watopia’s Titans Grove. Hear some down-home pickin’ as you pass the Banjo Cafe, then you’ll cross not one but two bridges before finishing the KOM. (That second bridge is a steep one!)
The KOM finishes in a ride-through tree like you’ve seen in Watopia’s Sequoia Circle, then you can descend back to flat ground for a sprint. (Note: if you travel in the other direction, there’s a KOM going the other way, too. They both share the same finishing arch in the ride-thru tree.)
The Sprint
Return to flat ground and it’s time for a sprint to finish off your Jarvis Island lap. You’ll pass the start of the KOM (in the other lane, going the other way), then the sprint start line is upon you:
It’s a short and flat sprint, and like the KOM there’s a segment in both directions.
New Leaderboard Segments
Jarvis Island has three arches, and each arch is an endpoint for segments in both directions. That means six new leaderboard segments:
- Jarvis KOM
- Jarvis KOM Reverse
- Jarvis Sprint
- Jarvis Sprint Reverse
- Jarvis Lap
- Jarvis Lap Reverse
Your Thoughts
Got questions or comments about Zwift’s newest (and oldest) road? Share below!
Nice to see the blue guys again!
I’m too young. Who are these blue guys?
They used to give more draft though!
Based on where they’ve stuck it, it would seem to me that the next expansion would likely be another route connecting the southern coast.
I rode the Looping Lava yesterday, and I… had hoped for more.
Just FYI, the description for “Coast to Coast” in the article seems to be wrong (describing Coast Crusher instead).
Gah! Fixed.
I rode Waisted 8, Loopin Lava, and the Classic yesterday and it seems the routes all go counterclockwise on the island. Do any of the routes go clockwise?
I rode Deca Dash last night, it goes clockwise 🙂
You’re right, I guess I was so distracted by the screen shaking that I was disoriented 😉
Pretty sure Waisted 8 is ridden CW on Jarvis…
Waisted 8 is clockwise
I rode the ‘Waisted 8’ route yesterday in the first time slot of the fifth stage of the ToW. Something I thought about during the ride was that some routes are excellent for racing, for various reasons. Others are better suited to smoother rides, like easy endurance rides, group rides, etc. Then, there are those long, hilly routes that serve as great challenges for harder endurance rides or almost-real-life-like road racing, or even as personal milestones to overcome. It might be interesting to have some kind of community feedback system where we could rate each route according to each purpose. For example, three stars (interesting, neutral, uninteresting) for each route in the categories of ‘racing,’ ‘riding,’ and ‘challenge.’ That would give a nice overview / insight / glimpse about avaliable routes.
By the way, Waisted 8 didn’t feel great for any purpose 🙂
Waisted 8 would be a horrible race course at least, that’s for sure. Might be good for a well paced group ride where the uphill sections early on could serve as a bit of interval… But to be fair Waisted 8 was a bit of a let down. I was semi expecting to maybe do Jarvis in both directions and twist with the Volcano loop to switch CW/CCW. Nope, just plain old boring Tempus Fugit.
Will Jarvis stay on the map permanently, or should we expect it disappearing into the ocean again at some point in time?
It’s here to stay.
Zwift made stonehenge grow out of the water for 2 months just so it could sink back down? I didn’t even see it; first time through I was doing a workout. 😆 Seems like an odd priority.
Yesterday when I rode the Deca Dash in the Tour of Watopia, after the animation finished everyone on the ride could only see themselves listed in the rider list on the right. Kind of a bummer for that last 95% of the ride!
After all the build-up around Zwift’s 10th-anniversary Watopia expansion, I was left feeling underwhelmed. The entrance animation was a nice touch, but I expected more than a simple 5km loop. For a milestone like 10 years, a completely new world or a substantial expansion of roads would have felt more fitting (remember when we used to get new worlds regularly?).
The Deca Dash route itself is enjoyable for a lap or two, but by the third lap, it really started to feel repetitive—and the banjo music didn’t help. The scenery felt generic and lacked the distinctiveness that sets other parts of Watopia apart. While the Jarvis area might work as a brief detour on a longer ride, I can’t see myself coming back to the Deca Dash route anytime soon.
Here’s hoping Zwift has more ambitious updates planned for other worlds this fall and winter. Otherwise, it’s going to be a long wait for spring and real outdoor rides.
Zwift did have a solid output in both new worlds and Watopia expansions didn’t they? We got Scotland and the Watopia South Coast last year and the Grade this year… i don’t think that’s much worse than the 8,5 years before that.
Not entirely sure what this has to do with the 10th anniversary. For the OGs this might be interesting. For the newer people, probably not as much. I’ve been on Zwift two months, always ridden AdZ 3-4 times, ridden the Four Hoursemen, every route for ToW until stage 5 but will knock those out this week. To be around for 10 years…the pace of expansion is going to have to keep up with their rivals.
I did the tour of watopia run last night so that I could really soak in the scenery and while I was initially excited, the new road IMHO isn’t half as interesting as the south coast expansion or makuri islands. It’s unfortunate that they couldn’t add in a few more notable features. It came off as pretty generic. Hopefully, they spruce it up a bit in the near future.
One problem with new worlds is that it spreads out the community so you feel more alone defeating a main goal of zwift. However I was underwhelmed by the short amount of new tarmac for the build up. Hopefully they can build off of it in the future.
Zwift’s solution to the world problem has been to rotate the worlds and have three available simultaneously. I think that approach as worked well and the only impact that adding an additional world would have is to make worlds available less frequently (which would not necessarily be a bad thing). But even without a new world Zwift could always build out the other existing worlds (most of them are relatively small). Adding roads to the other worlds would make riding them more interesting because you’d have more options.
Yes, no more new world unattached to existing worlds please. Far better to expand the larger existing worlds than to build anew. Also beneficial would be building some short connecting roads which allow for variety in routes. Zwift seems rather random in its road building strategy.
I’ve always wondered why they didn’t just keep building out London or New York after a certain point. Or better yet, why they didn’t put Scotland in Watopia. I get that they wanted a specific route for online racing champs, but just call it a Scottish-themed expansion of Watopia and use the same routes.
Lol, I did my first zwift century in 2014 on Jarvis. Talk about repetitive!
Is it an exact replica of the original Jarvis Island?
The world needs a badge of 25 laps in one activity 🙂
There’s already one for the volcano. Not doing that again.
I didn’t see the unveiling sequence but came from Italian Villas riding at forward facing view. at least, ground was shaking & arches were descending. have to second some comments here. expected more after their vivid fanfare. hoping for a connection up to jungle, otherwise enthusiasm may drop for an isolated rotary much larger than the requested velodrome.
My windows pc crashed during the effects sequence when I tried to freeride the ToW short stage 5. After that I completed the Deca Dash in the group event but somehow never noticed the ride through tree in any of the ten laps lol… because suffering too much to notice anything else.
Sorry new loop is very boring 10 times round it today 🙃🤔
Disappointed I won’t be able to improve my very poor Jarvis segment time on Strava since it’s not back in the original location.
Same! I’m still hoping to be able to find the original zwift.exe to ride the original jarvis sometime.
I have a new appreciation for beta Zwifters who rode ride this 5km stretch over and over. As much as people (myself included) can complain about “new” roads, there is a lot to choose from in the current version of Zwift compared to the early days.
We loved it. I lead some 100 km. Rides. Mostly up and down…people really were engaged with enough banter and continuous instruction tips made it feel more like a group ride. About 2 hours 40 min 2.5-2.8, strong regroup after downhill. There was a different feel when it was the only loop .. vs one little option. I was never bored!
Lol now if strava can pickup those rides in current segs not crazy fast but so many!
I think I saw Jarvis rolling down a hill when I did Looping Lava. It was interesting to see. I’m hoping that’s not a one time only event though.
The new routes are not yet visible in ZwiftHub?
Deca Dash is demoralising. Never again. Round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round
It’s similar to the “Hothead badge”, 10 laps of the Volcano circuit. If that wasn’t enough, there is the “On Fire” badge with 25 laps.
When are the new routes going to appear on Veloviewer badgehunters?