After yesterday’s ride on Alcatraz AWOL I decided to carry on exploring the new California map with another workout, this time using the Pacing #1 workout on the Area 52 route.
Much like how Alcatraz AWOL takes in more than just Alcatraz Island, so does Area 52 cover off more than only the UFO research facility.
This route clocks in at 21.8km, with 146m of climb per lap. That’s double the distance of Alcatraz AWOL, but only 1.5x the climb. So an easier route. Not that it matters, when doing a workout.
Again, to give context to the rather barren screenshots I direct you at the previous post, under the “From MyWhoosh Go to MyWhoosh, and MyWhoosh HD” section.
Unlike Alcatraz AWOL, which starts on Alcatraz island, this route starts in downtown San Francisco (I believe / am guessing), and takes a short ~2.5km of riding to reach the start of Area 52.
Much like Alcatraz, there are various military bits of scenary here. Barbed wire and chain link fencing, aircraft hangers and military vehicles. It would be interesting to see what other stuff shows in MyWhoosh HD for sure.
I covered off the inclusion of Arabic signage yesterday – not touching on that again today, but suffice to say it is all over this map.
It’s here that we see the first signs for the Area 52 I recognise from the MyWhoosh California map teaser trailer.
That alien head… lmao.
Then we see what looks like a crashed space ship as we slowly the climb a little riser, and then… yes, we are heading inside. Very cool.
From here it transitions into a futuristic science lab setting, which reminded me very much of the original Half Life game, for any PC gaming nerds. The best game of all time? Yes. No question.
It’s a really cool setting – completely different from anything I’ve seen before in any other cycling game – and there’s more of that to come later in this route.
After leaving the Area 52 section (it’s about 2.5-3km long), we head out into some woodlands, which I’m not sure if I covered on the Alcatraz AWOL route – they look similar but I’m pretty sure they are different. And then it’s down to the coast where we cruise past a cruise ship. Again, new stuff, very cool.
Next up, and unexpectedly, we head into the wacky world of the Amusement Park, with its creepy wide mouthed face at the start (and end) of this section. We have to cycle right through some fat guys mouth… which to be honest is a brilliant touch, and whoever thought up that should be let loose on all other route design. Genius.
The amusement park is fully working, with rides moving round, cable cars, and a rollercoaster. I imagine these are full of people in MyWhoosh HD, but for me they were rather eerily empty.
Sadly at this point I got distracted by the day job, and had to zone out.
When I next looked up I was in something called Toon City.
I imagine this area will be absolutely hated by plenty of angry cyclists who moan about Zwift with its gamification aspects. But personally, I loved it.
Think World of Warcraft crossed with Super Mario and Doctor Seuss.
Completely visually different to anything else – the exact kind of thing you can only do in video games. Brilliant. And I’d completely forgotten that bit from the teaser trailer, so it seemed brand new to me. Also because of the very nature of the basic graphics, that bit probably works the absolute best of all areas.
The route finishes off with some kind of space rocket launch zone, which – again – is very well done.
I’d absolutely love to see these areas on a proper high spec PC. I bet they look so much better than the way I experienced them.
But yeah, another fantastic route. Well done MyWhoosh!
