Associate
- Joined
- 19 Mar 2005
- Posts
- 569
Zwift
The other night I finally got around to doing a decent ride on Zwift (http://zwift.com/) after being accepted on their beta programme. I was accepted as I have one of their supported trainers (Kurt Kinetic Road Machine) and speed cadence receiver (Garmin GSC10).
Zwift is a virtual world, where people can cycle laps of Zwift island using their trainer. You may have seen on their strava feeds people doing rides on a island in the pacific (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarvis_Island) but really it is people using Zwift.
https://www.strava.com/activities/246522956
You sign upto Zwift, put in your stats i.e. age, height, weight and then download the Zwift programme. You then launch the Zwift application and sign in, you can then customise your cyclist i.e. hair, skin colour, bike colour and then you can elect to ride on your own or ride with one of your logged in friends. I was riding on my own so I set out to do 5 laps on my own. Each lap took around 9 minutes, and the course has some big climbs, flats and descents. Your Zwift speed goes down when you are on the climbs i.e. my garmin speed was ~20mph on the climbs and <10mph on zwift when on the big 8%+ climbs so is kinda realistic, then on the descents it is sometimes 40mph+ all the time whilst I was doing a steady 20mph on my garmin.
You get awards for example for riding for more than one hours, exceeding 40mph and these then allow you to unlock jerseys etc.
I was riding with virtual people and real people from all around the world, I had some good battles with a German guy who we kept swapping positions as drafting really helps you to overtake the person infront so was quite realistic. There are ingame leaderboards according to how fast you're lapping and how many laps you have done, king of the mountains classification (how fast you are on the climb), so I'd say it's reasonably competitive.
I had a bad crash on a descent in the alps in August and ended up breaking four vertebrae in back but thankfully they've now all healed and I've been on the turbo inside for the past two months - mainly doing Sufferfest and Trainerroad which has been good and not too boring and have been getting 3-4hrs a week of good turbo practice. I wouldnt use Zwift all the time, the graphics are amazing and like the interactivity/competitions against others but it's just doing laps of the same course that is a bit boring. So will use it every now and again to keep things fresh, along with my structured turbo training.
I had my first ride outdoors last Sunday and went to Richmond Park to do a lap, back felt good and didnt feel too unfit after 6 months since I was last on the road though I have been hammering the turbo indoors. Now time to increase the mileage outdoors, also I'm picking up my new Cervelo R3 this weekend that my friend has built up for me after buying the frame but will be saving that till the weather picks up
The other night I finally got around to doing a decent ride on Zwift (http://zwift.com/) after being accepted on their beta programme. I was accepted as I have one of their supported trainers (Kurt Kinetic Road Machine) and speed cadence receiver (Garmin GSC10).
Zwift is a virtual world, where people can cycle laps of Zwift island using their trainer. You may have seen on their strava feeds people doing rides on a island in the pacific (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarvis_Island) but really it is people using Zwift.
https://www.strava.com/activities/246522956
You sign upto Zwift, put in your stats i.e. age, height, weight and then download the Zwift programme. You then launch the Zwift application and sign in, you can then customise your cyclist i.e. hair, skin colour, bike colour and then you can elect to ride on your own or ride with one of your logged in friends. I was riding on my own so I set out to do 5 laps on my own. Each lap took around 9 minutes, and the course has some big climbs, flats and descents. Your Zwift speed goes down when you are on the climbs i.e. my garmin speed was ~20mph on the climbs and <10mph on zwift when on the big 8%+ climbs so is kinda realistic, then on the descents it is sometimes 40mph+ all the time whilst I was doing a steady 20mph on my garmin.
You get awards for example for riding for more than one hours, exceeding 40mph and these then allow you to unlock jerseys etc.
I was riding with virtual people and real people from all around the world, I had some good battles with a German guy who we kept swapping positions as drafting really helps you to overtake the person infront so was quite realistic. There are ingame leaderboards according to how fast you're lapping and how many laps you have done, king of the mountains classification (how fast you are on the climb), so I'd say it's reasonably competitive.
I had a bad crash on a descent in the alps in August and ended up breaking four vertebrae in back but thankfully they've now all healed and I've been on the turbo inside for the past two months - mainly doing Sufferfest and Trainerroad which has been good and not too boring and have been getting 3-4hrs a week of good turbo practice. I wouldnt use Zwift all the time, the graphics are amazing and like the interactivity/competitions against others but it's just doing laps of the same course that is a bit boring. So will use it every now and again to keep things fresh, along with my structured turbo training.
I had my first ride outdoors last Sunday and went to Richmond Park to do a lap, back felt good and didnt feel too unfit after 6 months since I was last on the road though I have been hammering the turbo indoors. Now time to increase the mileage outdoors, also I'm picking up my new Cervelo R3 this weekend that my friend has built up for me after buying the frame but will be saving that till the weather picks up
