Back in the day both me and Robbo ran various social events on Zwift, these were awesome beyond words (His race series more than my socials for sure). We did the socials in different ways, some days would be a fast group and a slower group, some days would be sprint segments, some days would be climbs etc… But always with riders trying to help others. This is different to a Herd etc because you’d know all the names from here and you’d want to help your virtual mates out… In the sprints there was the self-kudos of beating people you know from here.

I love zwift, especially in winter and i’ll be Zwifting later today for sure.. but i still use it for racing in summer. I’ve done nearly 700 races since Zwiftpower came about.

21 There’s a whole range of options that aren’t Zwift.

When I first started on the indoor cycling journey I also came to the conclusion that Zwift was ideal for doing those short, intense rides that I find hard to replicate  in the outdoors. Traffic, undulations, junctions etc all interrupt the intensity. This last Winter I came to the realisation that long Zone 2 sessions are actually better done indoors. That’s from the POV of weather, daylight and road/trail conditions.

5 You can give up whenever you want

I see that as a negative.

If I can drag myself outside and onto the bike, the odds of bailing out are very slim, usually because I’ve committed to a loop and the bail out is almost as bad as the route.  So 95% of the time I’ll make it.

Zwift (or MyWhoosh) I’ve got on countless times and all enthusiasm has been sapped by the time I’m logged on, everything connected and grinding up the first incline. On the road at least I’m now 5 miles from home and however crap I was feeling I’m now committed to at least burning calories even if I don’t power up the hills,

it’s a fairly quick process to get going – much easier than finding time to head out for a ride, or to a gym etc.

I disagree.  It’s no quicker to dig out summer kit and head out to the shed than it is to put on winter kit and head out the same door on a real bike.  It’s just a different set of shoes/shorts/top/gloves etc.  Any time saved getting layered up is offset by not spending time waiting for Zwift updates to download, companion app to connect, all the sensors to talk to each other, etc.

The gym I’d agree with, but I’d question the sanity of anyone who goes to the gym to do cardio for any longer than necessary to warmup.

not spending time waiting for Zwift updates to download, companion app to connect, all the sensors to talk to each other,

It doesn’t have to be like that though.

weeksyFull Member
Back in the day both me and Robbo ran various social events on Zwift, these were awesome beyond words (His race series more than my socials for sure). We did the socials in different ways, some days would be a fast group and a slower group, some days would be sprint segments, some days would be climbs etc… But always with riders trying to help others. This is different to a Herd etc because you’d know all the names from here and you’d want to help your virtual mates out… In the sprints there was the self-kudos of beating people you know from here.

I love zwift, especially in winter and i’ll be Zwifting later today for sure.. but i still use it for racing in summer. I’ve done nearly 700 races since Zwiftpower came about.

Would be great if this sort of thing happened again as without the social aspect I find it all a bit boring. I’ve refused to pay the higher cost of Zwift but I’m surprised that the bit I miss most is the social aspect where would join a local cycling clubs group. A STW one on zwift may encourage me to resubscribe – or if it could be done on a different platform?

It doesn’t have to be like that though.

I agree, MyWhoosh is marginally less frustrating in this regard.  Tacx does look tempting for the reasons you suggested too.

Whatever software you use, fire it up at least 15 minutes before you need it. If you fire it up 2 minutes before your race, it will invariably want to update itself first.

Depends how I’ve left it, most of the time I like to leave the laptop in the shed with everything setup and ready to go, but as you say this then guarantees it’ll need an update whilst I sit there in the cold.

If the laptops in the house then you have to boot it up without connecting sensors, and it’s adding layers of faff which goes against the whole point of it being time efficient to do <1h workouts if you have to start them 15min early.

Some days you get to jump on and everything just works.  Other days you’re sat there in a 0C shed in shorts cursing technology and thinking you could have already been 5 miles up the road and warmed up by now.

I disagree.  It’s no quicker to dig out summer kit and head out to the shed than it is to put on winter kit and head out the same door on a real bike.  It’s just a different set of shoes/shorts/top/gloves etc.

I find it really irritating when people smugly announce that you would be better off going for a outdoor ride. Of course it would, we all know that. But we also know (for all the reasons that Hannah listed) that you get more cardio per minute of turbo than you do for an outdoor ride. I did a 40 min session on Rouvy last night and that included 35mins or relatively intense exercise. I was showered and re-engaged with family time just 10mins after session ended.

There are loads of reasons why people are time poor or tied to the house. Not everyone has great riding near their house or expensive night riding lights. Some people don’t have space to easily wash bikes or they might be scared of the dark! Loads of people have childcare responsibilities or other good family reasons why they need to stay in the house in the evening. Not everyone like riding is crap weather. Please don’t be patronising and tell people they are better off riding outside, most people will do this if they can, or if they want to.

I think one “truth” that’s worth pointing out is that, if you’re serious about your fitness and particularly racing, it’s easy to look at everyone else training indoors and think “I have to do this to compete against them, even though I don’t want to” but that’s not the case.

Riding indoors isn’t for me. I’ve done a Peloton ride and used to turbo train – I enjoyed the Peloton but nowhere near as much as riding outdoors, in nature, in fresh air. Being outside takes more time and is a less efficient way to train but so long as you’re aware of that, you can adapt rather than being consigned to your shed. At the Puffer at the weekend, I and all my male team mates set lap times in the top 15 riders. We won mixed quad and were third quad overall. Only one of us rides indoors, and even then he’s only done it twice in the last two months. You can still compete against people riding indoors by riding only outdoors. So if you don’t like it, don’t worry.

We tried a smart trainer when K was recovering from a bad injury.

As Hannah says, you’re really not using a bike on the trainer that youre using outside that season.  Too dirty to be in the house.  The faff of swapping bikes on a trainer for two people is also considerable. We quickly bought a second had Wattbike – that or the Zwift bike take less space, can easily be swapped between riders (though we have two seat towers so we can use our own saddle) and are clean.

I expected it to quickly become a clothes rail but this is our third winter and we’re still regularly using it.  This morning was dry and a bit warmer so rode outdoors but the last few weeks it’s been all watt bike  as my lungs couldn’t take the cold.  Likewise 30 minutes at the end of the day after dark.

We’ve switched to Rouvy (which has a 2 user plan for the price of 1 on Zwift).   You get a feel for the TSS scores of the workouts after a bit.  If I’m feeling really low energy for some reason theres always the option of dialling down the power a little bit rather than giving up.

Good enough fans makes a bit difference to the sweat issue – I’ve got a pair of Vacmaster fans now (and a towel)

Things I’ve found that indoor training is great for…

no bike clean up after, I’d be showering anyway.

Putting training in the diary means I do it doesn’t matter if it’s raining windy or too cold.

I can train 3-4 times a week, even in the summer I can’t get out for a ride that often.

I disagree. It’s no quicker to dig out summer kit and head out to the shed than it is to put on winter kit and head out the same door on a real bike. It’s just a different set of shoes/shorts/top/gloves etc. Any time saved getting layered up is offset by not spending time waiting for Zwift updates to download, companion app to connect, all the sensors to talk to each other, etc.

The gym I’d agree with, but I’d question the sanity of anyone who goes to the gym to do cardio for any longer than necessary to warmup.

Nah, the Faff to get all my crap together for a winter ride is substantially more than chucking on some bibs (under shorts and a hoody and tramping out to the Garage in Crocs. Zwift updates aren’t that frequent or big and all the sensors just seem to pick up automatically, I tend to be on the bike turning my legs over while it boots up anyway (bike and PC typically left set up during winter).

Winter weekday evenings in the Garage are way less challenging than muddy night rides, certainly not more fun, but you can’t have it all. Weekends I get more time to faff about pre/post ride this time of year.

The other thing I’ve yet to try is pairing my Garmin with the smart trainer and letting that drive a session, apparently I can make an ERG driven session out of the data from an old ride(?) or download a session from Garmin(?), plonk it on the bars and just go (could just stick Netflix/YT/iPlayer on the Monitor then I suppose). I’m thinking I’ll cancel the Zwift Sub in March/April and maybe pick it up again in October, but maybe I cancel it a bit earlier if I can get about the same benefits from a simple session driven off of my Garmin. need to give that a go I think.

27.  You’ll either like it or you won’t!  No matter the setup.

Linking in to some of the comments above, you either have the head for indoor riding or you don’t.  All the stuff about better outdoors is hiding so many things on purpose.  Cleaning, time efficiency, control of conditions, safety, variety (sounds odd I know).

I have started Zwifting again recently as a way to get legs turning easily and hopefully consistently.  I will actually be avoiding the “puddles of sweat” efforts and intervals as indoors they just give me a stinking headache, but I need to get things moving and this is a nice easy way to set a steady controlled pace/session whilst I gain some base fitness back.  I had to have this conversation with myself a few years back, am I an indoor rider or not and luckily I am.

28. Wear summer fingerless gloves.  Bare hands the handlebars feel disgusting and they’re handy for wiping sweat quickly.

First post on here in years as I bumped into Zilog on a Zwift start line at the weekend.

For me the social/team aspect keeps me riding on Zwift. I don’t train, I only do group rides and races, ZP says 635 races.

There are many teams out there that organise themselves via Discord, which is advert free and very usable, they run a few events a week and participate in larger events like the ZRL (season 2 starts tonight), and chase races. These often include ‘points’ races that are not first over the line, making them much more tactical, and the cherry on top is the 5v5 ladder races that take part mostly midweek.

I still ride outside, but 1 hour zwift session is usually all I have time for mid week.

Lots of teams around – I’m over here
https://www.rhinoracing.club/joinus

maybe we should have an STW sub-group on Rhino 🙂 I’m definitely up for some somewhat-organised racing with people I “know”

if i get a spare 90mins i`ll go for a proper ride thanks!

Minus the 30 minutes of faff, is it really worth it for an hour spent dodging range rovers in the dark/wet/cold?  🙂

I’ll take ~80 of those 90mins on a trainer cheers…

i do think having everything setup ready to go makes it so much easier.  We have an integral garage and I have a Wattbike permanently set up in there, with a Vacmaster fan, remote controlled from the bars.  I run Zwift on an iPad that takes a couple of seconds to pop into the tribar mount, Zwift Companion on my iPhone on a Place of Things bar mount, and Spotify on Air pods.

Indoor riding kit sits in a separate cubby hole to other kit, so no rumaging around, bibs, socks, thin SS top, fingerless gloves, Garmin HR chest strap on, wander downstairs, fill up water bottle, open kitchen door to garage to  Wattbike, switch it on, pop the Apple devices into the mounts and by the time I have turned up the boa straps on my shoes everything is fired up and ready to start a Zwift ride.

What’s that blue gravel bike with the Lauf forks? I kinda like it…

I would love a proper turbo trainer set-up.
A mix of cost, space and set-up means it’s not really an option – or at least it’d be a very much compromised option. 🙁

Echo the comments about “a proper outdoors ride”. Yeah, it’s raining, sleeting, busy roads, dark at 4pm, it’s near impossible to do proper structured training like specific zones or sprints or recovery in traffic and over mixed/hilly terrain and I’d need to clean the bike, wash a whole load of winter kit…

Part of me wants to have the head for indoor riding … But I just have zero motivation for it.

For me, riding is about escape, being outside, feeling the weather, smelling the smells, going on a journey. That’s what pulls me to ride my bike.

I’m fortunate in having a good variety of road, gravel, MTB riding from the door though, and 5 different bikes to choose from, 3 of which in particular are set up for riding at this time of year (mudguards, 2 Singlespeed options). Also fortunate in having relatively flexible working arrangements, kids slightly older and less reliant, and a partner to tag-team with. So, Personally, I’ll always choose outdoors over indoors.

But, totally get that other people are wired differently (the fitness/training aspect comes higher up the list of priorities) and/or that their lives are more time-crunched or less flexible, than I am fortunate to have.