gthomson

Just did the stage 4 ride of Tour of Watopia which is the jungle route that I normally avoid like the plague cause I hate that route. Once again, I chose a gravel bike figuring it would be the best option for riding over hard packed gravel paths and wooden bridges but I'm a slow learner and realized it was the wrong choice. I could see how the mtn. bike would be advantage going up hills cause Zwift could simulate 21 speeds instead of 12 but I should be faster on the flats and descents.

Why does Zwift bother offering a gravel bike when it's clearly the wrong choice riding off of the road? Based on gravel riding popularity these days you would think they would have many choices to choose from and it would be the next go to bike after choosing road.

base2 

Zwift offers all the bikes because all the bikes (for the most part) actually exist or have some benefit on a particular part of the map.

The mountain bike is indeed faster in the jungle section.

Maybe you hadn't noticed the broken pavement around the volcano?

blacknbluebikes 

The equipment variety is for fun, not necessarily for optimization. To me, Zwift and Golf share one commonality - when I stopped keeping score, it became more fun. There's no reason that I would have a Pinarello and a Moots and a Canyon and whatever else I've got in that "too damned hard to access" garage.

TennBent

Welcome to the club. Like you, I typically avoid the jungle simply because I don't care for it. However, a while back, I decided to try an experiment. I purchased a gravel bike thinking it would be great for the jungle. I quickly discovered that it was only marginally better than my road bike. I then tried the Zwift mountain bike and found that there was a definite difference in speed. It does seem odd that the gravel bike is so slow. My initial feeling is that it should be at least exactly in the middle of the three or a bit more biased toward the mountain bike. I'm not sure of Zwift's intentions but it seems that since a gravel bike is based on a road bike, they have given the gravel bikes more of the road bike's traits within the game. Who knows? Zwift does some odd things sometimes and we just have to adapt. So now, if I ever do a ride that involves the jungle loop, I stop and switch over to the mountain bike out by the windmill then switch back as I'm leaving the dirt. The exception to this is when I'm just heading straight to the Alpe.

On a side note, from your description, it appears that you did the Tour of Watopia stage on your own. If you had joined one of the scheduled event runs, they automatically switch you from your road bike to the mountain bike, on the fly, as you hit the dirt and then switch back as you exit. It makes things much easier.

BTinNYC 

Keyboard shortcut to garage: T

gthomson

It was in a group ride so that's interesting you say that. Some conspiracy by Zwift to keep me from winning? ha ha no chance of that ever happening anyway. Normally I'm not much of a bike switcher and don't really care if I ride a bit of gravel on my Pinarello Dogma F8 but you really feel it doing the jungle route so I changed my bike before I started the ride. I always switch to first person POV when doing group rides so can't say I actually saw the bike I was riding but will see if I have any pic's on my Strava post. If I was on a mountain bike then it was just the usual struggles when I ride and can't blame it on the bike at all

PeteHski

When I did ToW stage 4 it automatically switched my road bike to a mountain bike for the relevant sectors. Did this not happen for you?

gthomson

Being a sucker for punishment, I did it a second time last night but chose the standard stage which was longer and included the KOM. That really hurt but did confirm that it automatically switched me to the mountain bike. No excuses now, I'm just slow.

unterhausen

I thought the gravel bike was marginally faster. But it could just be cognitive bias

PeteHski

I’m surprised you can tell any difference. Or did you do controlled constant power runs over the same segment with various bikes and no drafting?

Sy Reene

A useful website for those unfamiliar with its existence
https://zwifterbikes.web.app/

base2 

Hey! That's cool.
Thanks!

unterhausen

You don't know me very well if you think I might have done controlled experiments. But I felt less bogged down on the gravel bike. The Crr numbers for various wheels is pretty interesting. https://zwiftinsider.com/crr/

What's interesting about that article is that you are almost always better off on a road bike.