Zwift released a new update last night with the long-anticipated new Watopia expansion. This new expansion is Zwift’s first unlockable route. You have to be level 10 or above in any sport to view the new jungle. Zwift is hoping to give users more incentive to ride their trainers. I expect to see more of this more often with new expansions.
Zwift also released additional updated and fixes that I have outlined below. But first, let’s go through this new mysterious part of the island.
A RIDE THROUGH THE MAYAN JUNGLE
According to Zwift, the Watopia Mayan Jungle dates back to roughly 1800 B.C. Keep in mind this is an imaginary island so these are 1800 imaginary years.You will see a lot of ruins, from Mayan pyramids, statues, rope bridges, underground caves, and aged arches. It’s also full of vegetations, and dirt roads.
To unlock this new route, you have few options:
- Be level 10 or above in any sport. This applies to running as well. So if you are level 10 in cycling, you will have that option open if you decide to run.
- If you aren’t level 10, find a friend that is level 10 or above to ride with. Pick your friends wisely.
- Find a group ride, a race, or a group workout that goes through the new Jungle route. Zwift will be scheduling events that go through the new route in the next few days.
If you don’t know your way around Watopia, you can select the new route from the route select menu. Zwift added the following new routes:
- Jungle Circuit: It’s start with a flat route to the start of the Jungle Circuit, then you can just do laps until your you can’t take more of the ruins anymore. The route is 12.3 miles long and 657 ft of elevation.
- Road to Ruins: This is a longer route that starts off with a long 8%-10% climb up to the jungle. Cross the rope bridge and then you will head back toward the volcano flat route. This route is 18.7 mile long and 905 ft of elevation.
I had a chance to ride the full course today. It’s a nice addition that is full of detailed graphic, steep climbs, waterfalls, underground caves, ruins, and temples. Riding the course is particularly fun if you are a Tacx NEO owner. You will enjoy the various road effect, from dirt roads to the rope bridge, so make sure you have that enabled within Zwift.
WHAT ELSE IS NEW
Zwift also made the following fixes and improvements:
- Cycleops Hammer/Magnus spindown calibration is now supported over built-in bluetooth on Mac and iOS.
- Support for this via ZML bluetooth bridge is still in the works.
- Group workouts algorithm changed to reduce the speed of the group so it is more reasonable
- Dirt road dust effect reduced in large packs of riders
- Made changes to allow for reduced download size of all future updates
- Fixed Brick activities (Bike, then Run). They now save as two activities of the correct sport
- “Ride with…” or “Run with…” should be more reliable now
