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How To Ride Any Zwift Course at Any Time on Mac or PC

Kevin Curry

Kevin Curry

— 2 min read

I love Zwift, simply put it has revolutionized indoor training. The days of purposelessly spinning pedals while I watch old TV episodes or tour stages are behind me. In this brave new world I can compete, train and just get a spin in on a great course that feels very close to real life.

There is, however, one thing I would love to see Zwift  change.

Currently, Zwift  HQ publishes a monthly course schedule which is posted in the app and over on the  Zwift Support Hub. Eventually, they have promised that riders will be able to choose which of the three currently available courses they ride on. For some of us, eventually is not soon enough.

Luckily, there are two very easy ways to pick your course on Zwift and ride in Watopia, Richmond or London whenever you want.

Modify prefs.xml With Zwift-Preferences

zwift-preferences

Jesper Nielson has created several scripts for Zwift users, and the one I use most often is  zwift-preferences. This script lets you set a trainer difficulty effect, choose which world and course to ride, toggle Neo road feel, and set a variety of other preferences.

You can download the app  here.

Modify prefs.xml by Hand

If you’re on a Mac and can’t use zwift-preferences or if you would rather edit a text file than use an app, you can easily set your course with a little editing of your Zwift prefs.xml file.

You have a prefs.xml file in your Zwift user directory (can be found in Documents/Zwift). Open this file in a text editor, and simply add the following text to force Zwift to place you in in your course of choice.

To ride  Watopia, add:  <WORLD>1</WORLD>
To ride Richmond, add:  <WORLD>2</WORLD>
To ride London, add:  <WORLD>3</WORLD>

This text should go directly after the  <ZWIFT> tag at the top of the file, or just before the  </ZWIFT> tag.

Example

Here is a  sample  prefs.xml file which forces Zwift to always place you in Watopia (added text is in red):

<ZWIFT>
 <WORLD>1</WORLD>
 <WORKOUTS>
 <LAST_WORKOUT>2857029371</LAST_WORKOUT>
 <USE_ERG>1</USE_ERG>
 </WORKOUTS>
 <CONFIG>
 <LONDON_ROUTE_SIGNATURE>913172163</LONDON_ROUTE_SIGNATURE>
 <LONDON_BRANCH_PREFERENCE>6</LONDON_BRANCH_PREFERENCE>
 <LAST_POSTRIDE_GRAPH>0</LAST_POSTRIDE_GRAPH>
 <USER_RESOLUTION_PREF>3840x2160</USER_RESOLUTION_PREF>
 <MINIMAL_LEADERBOARDS>0</MINIMAL_LEADERBOARDS>
 <RICHMOND_ROUTE_SIGNATURE>2196019512</RICHMOND_ROUTE_SIGNATURE>
 <PREFER_NATIVE_BLE>0</PREFER_NATIVE_BLE>
 <ROUTE_SIGNATURE>2737483381</ROUTE_SIGNATURE>
 <RICHMOND_BRANCH_PREFERENCE>6</RICHMOND_BRANCH_PREFERENCE>
 <PREFERRED_MONITOR>2147516416</PREFERRED_MONITOR>
 <BATTPREFS>20</BATTPREFS>
 <IMGPREFS>0</IMGPREFS>
 <BRANCH_PREFERENCE>6</BRANCH_PREFERENCE>
 <AMBIENT_VOL>1</AMBIENT_VOL>
 <SFX_VOL>1</SFX_VOL>
 </CONFIG>
 <DEVICES>
 <LASTPOWERDEVICE>736231</LASTPOWERDEVICE>
 <LASTCADENCEDEVICE>736231</LASTCADENCEDEVICE>
 <LASTTRAINERDEVICE>1168477320</LASTTRAINERDEVICE>
 <LASTHRMDEVICE>7905500</LASTHRMDEVICE>
 </DEVICES>
 <USER>
 <NAME>***</NAME>
 </USER>
</ZWIFT>

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