Today was a day to experiment with two programs I heard about for Zwift, RoadCaptain Route Builder and RoadCaptain Runner. RoadCaptain Route Builder creates a route using the worlds in Zwift incorporating the available turns without needing to click the turn arrow. I built a route several days ago but I didn’t understand how to use in Zwift. I watched two YouTube videos by the program’s creator and got a better understanding of how to create the route and then use it in Zwift.

Before riding Zwift today I created a route based on the Watopia Beach Island Loop adding a number of turns on to other roads. The Beach Island Loop is 8.0 miles long with 144 feet of climbing. This is the map from ZwiftInsider.com.

I wanted a longer ride but on flat roads too. Using RoadCaptain Builder I created this route. The white roads mark the route. On the left are the list of roads to ride with the length in km and climbing in meters. The distance converts to 15.56 miles. This route goes on roads to the right of the basic Beach Island Loop shown above returning back to a spot where it connects to where I rode earlier and ends there.

To use RoadCaptain Runner with Zwift I loaded the created route into Runner, signed into Zwift in Runner and then started Zwift. I selected Watopia and the Beach Island Loop route in Zwift and start riding. As I rode when a turn option comes up that I selected in RoadCaptain Builder my avatar turns without any intervention from me. At first I didn’t understand the alerts in Zwift when a turn approached but it seems that is triggered by RoadCaptain Runner before my avatar makes the turn. That’s what I understand so far.

With the Runner window overlayed on Zwift it shows the road I’m riding and counts up the km rode until the route makes a turn. My ride today started out as expected but the Runner window turned red after 1.96 miles alerting me that the connection to Zwift failed. I have no idea how or what caused the failure but Zwift and my sensors were still working. I thought maybe opening the Zwift companion app on my phone caused the problem so I closed it but Runner didn’t reconnect. I stopped the ride, exited Zwift and started a new ride using the Builder route.

This ride went better but the Runner window lost connection to Zwift a couple of times but I continued riding and it reconnected. When Runner resumed it lost the total km rode but showed the road/segment distance count up and the elevation and made the planned turns. It seemed to make the turns as programed until around 12 miles Runner said I missed a turn and to turn back. The problem was the Zwift controls at the bottom of the screen didn’t have the u-turn icon. This meant I retraced the roads heading back to the starting point and not riding the roads in the Builder route. I kept riding until I reached 15.76 miles and then stopped. I exited Zwift and when I checked the route map in Stava and SportTracks I found the spot I couldn’t make the u-turn. I wondered where I was riding after the missed turn. I need to learn more about how this works. I try again tomorrow while the weather is chilly outside.

Below is the route map from Strava. The red/white lines marks where I rode. The loop in the center is where the missed turn took place.