Zwift has just released what it calls its largest game map expansion “in five years.”
There’s no brand new biome this time around, but the New York zone in Zwift has been graced with 31km of extra roads.
These feature in 12 new cycling routes, and three running routes. And Zwift says another five will be unlocked over the “coming months” too.
This expansion was originally announced in September as part of a season raft of updates, including AI-enhanced recommendations for workouts. But it has finally arrived on the platform proper.
Zwift’s original New York map was set in Manhattan, in and around its version of Central Park.
The new roads also see you take the subway out to Prospect Park, south of Manhattan, as well as featuring more of New York City in general. Oddly enough, while you pedal past Times Square you’re swiftly diverted underground, suggesting Zwift may be keeping that one in its back pocket for yet another map expansion.
You do get to ride across Manhattan Bridge and Brooklyn Bridge, though.
Zwift New York Routes
Here are the new bike ride routes:
Watts the Limit – 31km; 219mDouble Span Spin – 12.6km; 120mProspect Park Loop – 5.5km; 37mGreen to Screen – 28.4km; 207mDouble Parked – 42.4km; 330mFuhgeddaboutit – 79km; 838mSpinfinity – 19.3km; 155mSpinfinity Ultra 35km; 291mThe Greenway – 36.8km; 292mToefield Tornado – 10.3km; 53mAvon Flyer – 5.1km; 30mIssendorf Express – 7.3km; 53m
They also show off a couple of Zwift ’s new features: power segments and turbo-boosting Escalators.
Power Segments are simple enough. These are timed sections in which you are challenged to maintain as high a wattage as possible across flat terrain.
Zwift’s escalators, which have turbo boost ground power-up graphics like those of a racing video game, zip you up inclines without requiring any real effort. They are a handy way to avoid folks having to slog up extreme climbs that would otherwise see most riders crawl up at a snail’s pace.
You are of course not really tackling those inclines as a result. But they are handy for getting through exits of underground train stations, which in the London map have always proved a bit of a brutal slog when part of an easy workout.
The new areas maintain the look Zwift established when New York was added to the game world in 2018. It’s a futuristic version of the city with plenty of neon and glassy transparent raised roads, although the green park areas are generally much less sci-fi coded.