Continuing with the tradition started with the 2015 Richmond course, Zwift is once again releasing an expansion to coincide with the UCI World Championships. This time, it’ll be an 8.7 mile ( 14.1 km) circuit in Harrogate, a spa town in North Yorkshire, England.
A recent post by Zwift Insider gives some good details about the upcoming expansion but only states “early September” for its release. The actual course has already been released so I thought it would be interesting to create it in Rouvy and get a sort of sneak preview before the expansion drops in Zwift. As it turns out, Worlds Lap Harrogate 2019 has already been created and ready to ride.
Zwift Insider estimates the pros with complete the circuit in 19-20 minutes. Consistent with my middle-of-the-pack athleticism, it took me a bit over 38 minutes. An existing segment, courtesy of Strava and VeloViewer, shows the course having a elevation gain of 741 feet while the Rouvy version shows 774 feet with a maximum of 11%.
Generally, it seems that Zwift courses have a somewhat “smoother” transition between gradient changes so I would expect it to have a slightly different feel from that provided by Rouvy, which can, at times, feel a little abrupt. Now we just have to wait until early September for Zwift’s version to drop and see how they actually compare. Stay tuned!