Dan333SP

One thing that may be of interest... I mentioned earlier in the thread how Canyon-SRAM have signed a Zwift competition winner to a contract each year since 2016. Although these ladies aren't winning major stage races yet, they are getting re-signed, so it's not strictly a marketing exercise, they are getting some real talent out of the competition-

https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/can...arris-in-2020/

OBoile

Mine are 4 and 7 and we don't have consistent babysitting, so this coming year, I may get to do 2 fondos and 2 triathlons. My wife will likely do about the same amount. Mostly, we'll do events near where my parents live so that they can watch the kids (we don't want to drag them to too many boring races). Doing a race takes, at minimum, an entire day of our weekend. We simply don't have time to do more. We both used to also compete in powerlifting, but one of the big reasons we lost interest was that we didn't want to commit an entire day to doing a contest, and in particular, didn't want to subject the kids to having to sit through several hours both in the car and at the venue.

On the flip side, I decided on Saturday that I'd do the third stage of Zwift's "Tour of London" on Sunday. For a race that took just over an hour, my total time commitment was likely 1:45 between setting up the bike, a quick warm up and sitting on the couch recovering while my butt was cramping afterwards. Had an emergency happened, I could have quit at any time and gone to help. Of course it doesn't mean as much to me, but it means enough that I'll push myself and the cost is also essentially 0.

Dan333SP

Our little one just hit 4 months, so my daily routine is just putting her in a little electric swing thing next to the trainer where she smiles and laughs while she watches me suffer each morning for an hour before mom wakes up. Can also stop at any point and help if she has a meltdown, something I can't do if I'm driving to a criterium in North Carolina or something like that.

OBoile

Congratulations! It sounds like you've got a good strategy going there. We could do something similar (but back then it was lifting weights) up until about 18 months. Then our son started getting bored too quickly and we pretty much had to exercise one at a time.

MoAlpha

Yeah, that phase is sweet, but it doesn’t last very long.

rubiksoval

Well that's kind of the point, isn't it?

rubiksoval

So physiological talent. Because for sure, actually riding a bike in a bike race requires a very specific set of skills not used on Zwift.

Bike racing itself is a skill. Pedaling hard...isn't. You're either genetically capable and trained to do so, or you aren't. You can learn to bike race. You can't learn to get a 400 watt ftp.

Zwift does not teach you to bike race. It teaches you how to video game and pedal hard. Zwifting is not racing a bike. It's playing a video game with your aerobic system.

rubiksoval

Coming back to this because it's very much inaccurate.

A zwift race is physiologically nothing like a real race. I've said this a number of times. The power is 100% different in a zwift race and an actual race. Physiologically they are very dissimilar. Comparing a Zwift A race with a p/1/2 race, a zwift race is very steady state with little to no coasting and far fewer and lesser peak outputs (500 watts is typically more than enough for nearly any surge save for the finish). Real races are typically way more stochastic with way more and way higher peaks, and way more lulls and coasting. 700-1000 watt surges are essentially the norm in crits and road races with hills or attacks. And significant amounts of softpedaling/coasting are also the norm.

Ranting against a strawman? I responded to a question about why the UCI wouldn't get involved with zwift and you went off on a tangent trying to legitimize it as racing while saying it's not actually bike racing.

So if it's not bike racing, but the UCI governs bike racing... well, seems to fit.

MoAlpha

Some of you might remember the old dog race game at carnivals where you advance your dog by keeping a water gun on target, or some such task. With that as my Boomer baseline, Zwift looks pretty realistic.

datlas 

Ok boomer.

atwl77

If the UCI can govern cycle-ball, I don't think it's a stretch to ask them to govern Zwift (or e-racing in general) as well.

mstateglfr 

sure, I pretty much agree with all this.
It aligns with whatnive posted so far in this thread too.

Dan333SP

I'm sure there are differing power demands in a P1/2 race versus a similar level race in Zwift because of the drafting and such, I was stating that for me, as someone who is usually just a pack surfer in 3/4 races, my HR and power are remarkably similar between a Zwift race and a real race. There are surges on hills and out of corners, coasting on downhills, etc. Again, it's not exactly the same for all racers, I'm sure, but for me I've found that it's as close to a real race in terms of training as I can get. Have you done any Zwift racing yourself, or is this based on having looked at other people's data?

himespau 

It's been a while since I've been on Zwift (and never did much in the way of racing - just tried to see if I could get on some odd sprint leaderboards in the very early days). Is there any strategy/skill involved? Is staying in someone's draft something people do/care about? Or is it blast as many watts as you can and see who can drope the hamer the most for the longest?

Dan333SP

I'm trying to say it's a legitimate athletic endeavor, and the fitness requirements are similar to real bike racing. I am not saying it is bike racing, it's virtual bike racing. I don't see why the UCI being involved has to be up for debate... like I'd said before, the FIA sanctions an F1 e-sports series, which is even further removed from driving than Zwift is from cycling.

My strawman statement is in response to comments like this-

Where are you seeing people express their delusions that because they're good at Zwift racing, they therefore are accomplished bike riders? In my experience, people who do well in Zwift acknowledge that they're good at virtual bike racing, not real bike racing. I'm sure there are exceptions, but there are also people who do nothing but time trials and probably also think they'll be great pack racers.

OBoile

Drafting matters. But, because cyclist avatars don't really take up space, you don't see fights for position and you can just drift directly backwards in the pack so there's no real set rotation or anything. In general it seems to me that there are also far fewer successful breakaways. So, it often becomes the following:

1. Start hard so you get in a fast group
2. Ride a fairly steady pace in the group. When you creep up to the front, you'll naturally have increased resistance and then creep backwards where you'll get a draft and creep forwards again.
3. Try to stay attached during the hills (this is where separation happens).
4. Sprint at the end. Possibly with a "power up" from the game.

Corners don't really matter (no need/way to brake), and you can't be boxed in or anything. So (and I'm speaking largely out of ignorance here so take it with a grain of salt) tactically it isn't the same and is generally much simpler.

Psimet2001 

Meh - I question everyone and everything that is on top. If you've been listening you also know that while I can sit and complain about something like gravel - It's about all I am "competing" in anymore. While I enjoy taking shots at Zwift - I still rode an hour on it yesterday. I just refuse to think that anything is an all knowing savior of anything. A lot of times my probing and pot shots are meant to pull the zealots out of the conversation and find those that use it with a critical eye in hopes they can truly quantify the long term value of it and it's place in the sport. Without doing that then I feel all I am doing is listening to a Peloton commercial given by a bunch of disciples.... when the last commercial really pointed out some of the flaws in what they think is their mission.

In reality I am paying for an account and I am trying it with an open mind. My skin still will crawl when people try and draw some sort of comparison between Zwift racing and real world performance but I am not alone in that. I truly wish we could just embrace it as a game without trying to make it seem like real life racing. Change the graphics but give it the same tactics. I think it could be interesting that way. Like why can't we have a race on a course that resembles a large rollercoaster with loops? Sections that float in space? Sections that act like their powerups do where people can develop tactics that in a way mimic racing tactics (not saying they don't already as I don't race on there yet).

It's the stuff where people sit around and do video comparisons between zwift's Alp d'huez and the real thing that make my eyes roll hard enough that it distracts me. I've never had the time or money to ride the thing in real life but i know enough to know that no approximation of it will ever be accurate so take it at face value. If the idea of riding an analog of it gets your training done then bravo...just don't destroy it by trying to analyze the hell out of it.

Apologies on not having any new podcasts lately. Cross season is always the busiest. 7-day work weeks for months on end. now officially over. Have a few in the can and a couple of topics I want to pick up. This will probably be one of them. I've been a lot less disagreeable lately and that honestly doesn't make for good podcasting. Try thinking of the last time you listened to a podcast where people talked about something and no one ever disagreed. Believe it or not sometimes we have an outline and have agreed beforehand which sides we are going to take if it's an issue that we all agree on in advance.

The hate of the hand-wringing about racing comes from this place. Always full of a bunch of people that want to emulate what they perceive to be the racing culture but unwilling to take the step to try it. After doing it - yeah draw your own conclusions. It's not for everyone of course. The reasons cited for not doing it get old. I have heard all of them over the years.

You alluded to me talking about what is killing racing? Nothing is killing racing. That's the part that I don't think people get. They always seem to insert their own narrative and attribute their own experience as somehow being some sort of cause for racing dying. It's dying at the same rate it always has....it's just that no one is trying it anymore. If people were trying it we would be chugging along like always. Some would love it. Some would hate it but the people leaving every year through natural life shifts would be offset by those coming to it. They just aren't coming to it anymore. It's not gravel. It's not Zwift. It's not money. it's not gear. It's a general shift in what people want to do with their time. Racing (IRL) is just not one of those things. Playing a video game where racing happens is.

Hell we should shoot a video blog where I try a Zwift race. If it's like real racing then I should be crapped out the back in the first 90 seconds or so....

At the end of the day it's still riding a trainer. Like I said I rode for an hour yesterday. That's an hour I wouldn't have done without the distractions of Zwift. I am grateful for zwift in that regard.

rubiksoval

I've been on zwift each winter since Jarvis Island.

rubiksoval

I assert the fitness requirements aren't the same.

And again, you're responding to my response to someone else. It wasn't your debate, so why engage in it only to decry it?

Comments made after your statement? Okay.

Real lack of logic and continuity here.

Dan333SP

You're saying the same thing as me. I haven't said the fitness requirements are the same. They are similar in that they require pedaling hard on a bike and recovering quickly. They are disimilar in that there is no risk, no requirement to be adept at positioning and bike handling, no team dynamics, no cornering, etc etc. We can agree there.

For my response to your response... aren't we on a public discussion forum? The purpose of this place is to engage in debate publicly. In fact, the thread was originally intended to discuss one user's enjoyment and impressions of Zwift, so all the posts complaining about the gamification of cycling and whether e-cycling has any place in the universe of bike fitness are off topic, no?

Anyway, thanks for the critique of my logic and continuity, duly noted.

rubiksoval

Except you're merely lamenting that that particular debate is occurring. That's just whining.

Dan333SP

I contextualized it by citing examples of how other sanctioning bodies (FIA) are supporting e-sports in a similar way. I think it's a smart move for them to capitalize on something that could be a new revenue stream and draw more viewers to the sport. If you guys want to have a private debate about whether the UCI should be involved in Zwift, maybe send a PM.

Genaro

The more people in the actual course itself, the faster you will be. You are almost in a constant draft as you pass people or people pass you.

Dan333SP

It's like a SUPERMUP, without the risk of running over small children.

datlas 

What's the hot-key for ON YOUR LEFT ?