Today, Zwift launches their much-anticipated Wild Isles Watopia expansion. Located west and south of Jarvis, the new roads provide a flatter connection from Jarvis to the Jungle. Read on for all the details including new routes, leaderboard segments, images, videos, and more…
Meet the Wild Isles
This expansion is visually inspired by California’s coast and particularly Santa Catalina Island. (Locals simply call it “Catalina Island” or “Catalina”, and it’s visible from Zwift’s Long Beach headquarters.)
The new roads are now included on our popular Watopia map poster, which you can download for free as a PDF, or purchase as an affordable 24″36″ poster print.
Zooming into the map gives us a clear picture of this expansion. The unshadowed area below is the expansion:
Zwift says the expansion includes 18km of new roads, but my measurements show it’s closer to 20.7km. That means this expansion is about the same size as Watopia’s Southern Coast addition in late 2023.
You can see there are four distinct “areas” in the Wild Isles:
- Caldera Cruiser: Named for the volcanic scenery, this is a slightly rolling crit circuit with its own start pens. A lap segment leaderboard tracks efforts in both directions.
- Power Islands: This pan flat, distinctly-shaped circuit will include some new power segments, with fresh functionality, in the coming months. Flatlanders, rejoice: this is the new “flattest route on Zwift”, with exactly 0 meters of elevation gain per lap! While the flat, straight roads may seem boring to some, Zwift’s art team punched up the experience nicely with some really beautiful foliage and animated sea life. A lap segment leaderboard tracks efforts in both directions, and there are also lap counters near the lap arch.
- Seafoam Circuit: Our second crit circuit complete with start pens, this section’s distinguishing feature is the bison herd, which is a very Catalina Island-esque thing to include! A lap segment leaderboard tracks efforts in both directions.
- Avalon: Although it’s not a circuit in itself, this is absolutely a distinct area in the Wild Isles. It’s a re-creation of real-life Avalon, the only incorporated city on Santa Catalina Island. This section also includes the only sprint segment in the expansion, along with the distinctive Catalina Casino building.
Notable Sites
Most of the Wild Isles are exactly that: wild! But the Avalon area includes many buildings and a busy harbor. The famous Catalina Casino is located on the south end of town, just like in real life. The Queen Mary, formerly docked off the coast of Jarvis, occasionally makes an appearance, and seaplanes fly in over the road and land in the harbor as well. There’s also a tantalizing gravel road – currently inaccessible – climbing into the hills behind the town
I suppose Zwift couldn’t call it the Wild Isles without including some new wildlife. Dolphins play in the waters as you ride past, and a whale even breaches (although I haven’t seen it happen yet)! The Seafoam Circuit’s bison herd mirrors the real-life island’s herd of ~150 American bison, and you’ll also spot some new birds, hermit crabs (if you look closely), and new plants.
This being an archipelago, there are plenty of bridges in play. Most are wooden, and there are some nice visuals as you ride below bridges or take one to cross over scenery below.
There are lots of other sites to see, but I’ll leave you with these very California-feeling “Bike Route” and Highway 1 signs I spotted. See if you can find them for yourself in game!
Cycling Routes
Today’s launch adds 9 cycling routes to the game. Click the route name for a few more details. (These route homepages will become much richer once the expansion goes live and we can add photos, text descriptions, videos, etc.)
- Caldera Coaster (5.9km, 12m): A simple lap of the caldera portion of the expansion, corresponding to the “Caldera Cruiser Reverse” lap segment (below). This is a fairly flat figure 8.
- California Dreamin’ (21.2km, 106m): Starts in the caldera area of the expansion, but heads over to the Hilly KOM and a few other old-school Watopia proper roads before coming back to the caldera to complete the circuit.
- California Roll (33.9km, 139m): A flat route the covers all the road of four different Watopia circuits: the new Seafoam Circuit, the Caldera Cruiser, the Volcano Circuit, and the Flat Route.
- Four Foalsmen (70.2km, 578m): The baby brother of the Four Horsemen still takes on four KOM segments (Titans Grove, Volcano, Jarvis, Hilly), but with much less climbing than its big brother.
- Laps, Camera, Traction (26.4km, 217m): Starts at the new Seafoam Circuit, then heads through Avalon to the Jungle, where we complete a figure 8 before heading back to complete the Seafoam Circuit.
- Pacific Pursuit (54.2km, 381m): A scenic route that takes in a diverse set of Watopian biomes. From downtown Watopia to the Wild Isles, into the Jungle and across the Epic KOM Cutoff before heading out to Fuego Flats and returning to downtown via Titans Grove.
- Seafoam Circuit (4.1km, 18m): A short figure-8 circuit hosted in the bison-friendly Seafoam Circuit island group. This route is analogous to the Seafoam Circuit Reverse lap segment (below).
- The Watopia 150! (151.6km, 0m): We can all agree this one is just a bit crazy, right? It’s like a drawn-out Cirque du Suffer. 30 laps of the expansion’s “Power Islands” section, which has its own “Lightning Lap” segment (see below). An 0 elevation across 150 km? Move over, Tempus Fugit. There’s a new flat route in town.
- Watt Goes Up Must Come Down (62.5km, 776m): Start at the caldera, cross the power islands to the Seafoam Circuit, then ride down through the Jungle and out onto the Southern Coast Road. That’s the flat bit done. Now it’s time to climb! Climb The Grade, keep climbing over the Epic KOM, then go out to Titans Grove before returning to complete your big loop.
Three more routes will become available next week for Tour of Watopia’s stage 5:
- Long Ride: One Ride to Rule Them All (38.7km, 506m)
- Standard Ride & Race: Molten Momentum (20.8km, 245m)
- Short Ride: Crit Cross (13.5km, 36m)
Running Routes
Three running routes have also been added – one for each of the new circuits.
- Lava legs (4km, 11m): This fairly flat figure 8 covers the Caldera Cruiser leaderboard segment.
- Lightning Lap Run (5km, 0m): This pan-flat route covers the Lightning Lap Reverse segment.
- Seafoam Scamper (3.6km, 19m): A short figure-8 circuit hosted in the bison-friendly Seafoam Circuit island group. This is the same route as the “Seafoam Circuit” above.
Leaderboard Segments
This expansion adds 8 leaderboards to the game. 6 of these are laps – forward and reverse versions of each of the new circuits. Then there’s also the new Sunset Sprint in Avalon. (Like the routes, these segment pages will become richer as we add more content in the coming days.)
- Caldera Cruiser
- Caldera Cruiser Reverse
- Lightning Lap
- Lightning Lap Reverse
- Seafoam Circuit
- Seafoam Circuit Reverse
- Sunset Sprint
- Sunset Sprint Reverse
Ride The New Routes!
The new routes are available in game starting today, so you can free ride them whenever you’d like.
Want to ride these as events? Pacific Pursuit, California Roll, and California Dreamin’ are featured Tour of Watopia stage 4 routes, so any ToW events you do this week will be on those routes.
I’m sure these routes will feature heavily in community events as the week unfolds and ride organizers update their group rides and races. In fact, I’m planning to feature The Watopia 150 on this week’s Thursday Pizza Burner. Join me!
Ride-Through Video
Here’s a simple ride-through covering all the new roads, if you want to see them in “living” color:
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