Zwift: another attempt to alleviate trainer boredom

[fiamme red]

http://www.bikeradar.com/road/news/article/zwift-launches-multiplayer-online-training-videogame-42593/

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/09/30/zwift-is-trying-to-turn-indoor-cycling-into-virtual-reality/

Customers who sign up Tuesday can race one another around Zwift Island, the company’s first virtual landscape. A virtual Central Park may be next, the company says.Complete with pedicabs, wobbly tourists on bikes, horse carriages, cabs, 46 traffic lights, unmarked police cars, etc.? :)

[fiamme red]

Review: http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2014/09/ultra-graphics-trainer.html

[gmcampy]

Saw this today, looks really cool and might actually make winter training bearable if it fully materializes and isnt cost prohibative

[redir]

I think it's great. So much so that last year I started programming a virtual velodrome but the project got cut short. Gamification is a very good motivational tool!

[pakora]

wow

I will so sign up day one.

[denapista]

Not that we really have winters in LA, but if it's raining I'd rather go to the gym and do core strengthen exercises versus spinning my brains out in my living room.

Sometimes not riding a bike is a good thing. I guess it's a racing thing I'll never quite understand, as I don't race just recreational riding. Sitting on rollers for hours on end, sounds agonizing to me. Again, in LA our winters are when the temps drop to the 60's.

[pakora]

It is agonizing, but combine some cyclist self-loathing (i.e. velominati), some general self-loathing (I know many hardcore riders who are rails and identified as overweight or obese kids or young adults, myself included minus the rail part) and 90 minutes of grindcore and you have a winning combination.

I even took up running last winter for the vestiges of some kind of cross training, but I just can't make myself go to a gym, even if I can make myself shovelglove or do pushups and situps (after a lighter trainer spin).

[Ti Designs]

DC Rainmaker calls it "ultra real". Is there anyone here who could possibly mistake riding on a trainer for really riding? There are now dozens of these systems that all claim you can ride the alps without leaving your basement. It's not even close to the real thing, nor could it be.

The way I see it, two things are going wrong here. First, they are selling something that can't stand up to it's own advertising, and consumers keep thinking that this one will feel just like riding. The second thing is a matter of looking at the longer term goals. If you ride all year, and by the end of the season you're slower and more tired, what makes you think that just riding on a trainer is going to help? I would think that setting up a full training program over the winter, knowing that you're taking steps to be a better rider next season, would be a better way of staying on track.

I'm probably wrong...

[velomonkey]

I will try it, but it I did a trainer ride on a computrainer last winter - well a trainer race - and yea, the smart trainers adjust the power based on drafting and incline.

Give me an old Giro race on TV and Kreilters any day of the week. That's the closest to real riding, not a trainer.

Though it does seem this will work with kreitlers if I have ANT speed which I do.

[ceolwulf]

DC Rainmaker calls it "ultra real". Is there anyone here who could possibly mistake riding on a trainer for really riding? There are now dozens of these systems that all claim you can ride the alps without leaving your basement. It's not even close to the real thing, nor could it be.

The way I see it, two things are going wrong here. First, they are selling something that can't stand up to it's own advertising, and consumers keep thinking that this one will feel just like riding. The second thing is a matter of looking at the longer term goals. If you ride all year, and by the end of the season you're slower and more tired, what makes you think that just riding on a trainer is going to help? I would think that setting up a full training program over the winter, knowing that you're taking steps to be a better rider next season, would be a better way of staying on track.

I'm probably wrong...

I'd be pretty surprised if you were wrong; but itsa fact that our enforced half-year off the bike here in Manitoba does my cycling fitness no favours. I'll be looking into this very closely.