For a simplicial group $G$, there is a universal bundle $WG \to \overline{W}G$ in the category of simplicial sets, detailed in for example [May's book](http://www.math.uchicago.edu/~may/BOOKS/Simp.djvu) (djvu). Now $WG$ has a simple enough description in terms of $G$ that I would expect one could construct a contracting homotopy directly. Has this been done in the literature? The proof in May's book (and in the original sources) that $WG$ is contractible goes via showing that $WG$ is 'of type (W)', and that such simplicial sets are Kan, simply-connected and have trivial homology.