msu2001la

I am another who hated indoor riding back in the dumb trainer days. I remember trying to do interval workouts by gearing up/down on my drivetrain to increase/decrease resistance and absolutely hating it. I liked riding rollers a bit more because it forced me to stay engaged with the riding, but I could never do more than 30-45 minutes on them and that type of training without resistance has limited benefits.

Zwift and smart trainers were a game changer for me. I picked up a cheap Kickr Snap a few years ago and it works fine. I ride online 4-5 times a week during the winter, including a few group meetups with friends - we use Discord to chat. I got a 40" TV to run the game from my laptop, and a rocker plate for my trainer. I do training plans with various interval workouts and it's fun and engaging. I don't do any Zwift racing, but I do some of the group rides and that's fun too.

The Zwift hub looks like a decent direct-drive trainer option. It's currently $600 and comes with a free year of Zwift. A wheel-on Kickr Snap ($350) also works pretty well if you already have an on-bike power meter. The big downside to wheel-on smart trainers is that they don't work very well as power meters, so you have to calibrate it every time or you'll get really funky power readings. If you've got an on-bike power meter you can just pair that instead, and then you don't need to worry about calibrating the trainer.

Mtracer

My idea of hell is time on an indoor bike trainer. Some people love it, weirdos. I do maybe 6 times in the winter when it's simply not possible to ride outside. Fortunately I live where we get little rain and snow. So, most days I can ride. A cold day is around 30 F. So, again mild compared to what many have for winter.

I find it mind numbingly boring. I've tried several of the apps and Zwift was the best for me. I try to find the most complicated training workout I can, just to give me something to do. I don't find anything immersive in any of these apps. I don't socialize on it. And frankly I have no idea how these people seem to be carrying on text conversations.

I may give some of the racing a try this winter. That I'm sure would keep me interested.

Even for as little as I ride indoors, I still find the Wahoo fan really nice. It's much better than a standard room fan. The airflow is very narrow and therefore you get some nice air speeds. While it can speed up and down to mimic changes in riding speed, I just set it on high for max cooling. But I make use of the fan after my summer outdoor rides as it's in the same room I strip out of my cycling kit. Nice breeze to cool and dry me off.

I have a Wahoo Kickr Snap, which is a wheel-on type trainer. I would definitely get a direct drive if I had it to do over.

I have a buddy that when he was young, he and a friend would compete to see who could ride longest in a total dark garage, with no music or other sound. Sort of sensory deprivation riding. I think he said their record was in the hour range.

Retoocs

I've been using Zwift since it was a free beta. The erg mode is the best. Put on a movie and just pedal away. You don't have to think about what watt you need to put out or for how long.

PeteHski

Work out mode on Zwift is not really very immersive. You are kind of detached from the scenery when following power intervals in ERG mode. Zwift racing on the other hand can be pretty intense! A good Smart trainer makes the terrain feel realistic in sim mode with trainer difficulty set to 100% for realistic slope resistance.

RChung

Seems like you wouldn't need Zwift if you're watching a movie in erg mode.

genejockey 

I've tried to use TV, movies, etc. to keep my mind occupied while riding the trainer but nothing really worked for much longer than about 40 minutes. Then I tried a couple "ride through" videos and those worked - although I did have some issues with the rider/videographer's riding. One was riding on a narrow path with walkers basically scaring them out of the way!

I first tried Zwift three years ago when wildfire smoke made riding outside hazardous for a couple weeks. I used a dumb trainer and Zwift's "Zpower" function. It made it easy to keep riding longer and push harder. After a couple months of that, and a bonus at work, I got myself a Kickr Snap wheel-on smart trainer, and that made Zwifting much more immersive. I've done thousands of "miles" of free riding, group rides, races and workouts. It's allowed me to keep my fitness up through the winter when it's too dark after work to ride, and also when we get smoked out.

Retoocs

Zwift is for the preprogrammed workouts.

RChung

If this works for you then that's fine but you could save $180/yr by doing programmed workouts on the free Golden Cheetah.

chaadster

I’ve been on Zwift since the beta (testing) days, so about 10 years, but I’ve never gotten deeply engaged with it. I guess because I’d been doing coached, power-based stationary bike workouts for some years before Zwift and was quite comfy passing the time watching the numbers on the head unit and focusing on the workout segments, I was more interested in the Zwift tech than I was in need of something to make stationary work tolerable.

Zwift, then, was an adjunct to the coached, studio rides which I do 3x per week year-round, and so I never hand the need, interest, or bandwidth to get into the game part of Zwift. That is to say, I ride in Zwift with my own, external goals and don’t chase any of the in-game elements like goals, drops, PowerUps, RideOns, or that kind of stuff.

I certainly like Zwift better than watching rando vids while sweating away in the basement, and I like the terrain-variable resistance, preset ERG workouts, and ability to customize interval workouts. The social aspect is great, too; group rides, the keep-together utility…that kind of thing is great.

Ultimately, even though I really only use Zwift during the winter for a couple of rides a week and scarcely do anything more with it, it has become a critical piece of my cycling life, as a way to keep up socially with ridemates to maintain motivation and fitness.

eduskator

I've had both big brands (a TACX flux, a Wahoo Kickr Core and a Wahoo Kickr) and I prefer Wahoo. More accurate, less issues.

I've tried Zwift and other softwares (IE, the virtual reality ones) and I prefer Zwift for the online community.

Jklotz

My zwift trainer arrived today. Hopefully get it set up tomorrow. I'll be using my old Willier race bike as a permanent setup, cause I know if I have to take off the rear wheel and do a setup every time I want to ride it, well, there will probably be nights that I should have ridden but didn't. Anyway, I appreciate everybody's comments. Hopefully this time the trainer will see more use than last.

Eric F 

Cool! There is a learning curve to the system, how to navigate around, and how the trainer/bike reacts in the virtual world. If you go in expecting everything to be as it is in the real world, you're going to be disappointed. If you keep in mind that your bike is now a game controller, you'll be fine. There's lots to explore, and lots of different way to make Zwift a valuable addition to your cycling.

I did just over 2 hours with a pace-bot group last night, at a consistent and steady tempo effort. It was a really effective session for the kind of training I wanted to do, and not something I could have easily duplicated in the real world.

I also recommend checking out www.zwiftinsider.com for additional in-depth info on the platform.

PeteHski

One thing to note with Zwift is that the default setting for slope simulation is 50%, so you need to set it to 100% for realistic resistance on hills. The setting is actually named “Trainer difficulty” in the settings menu. 50% setting means that a 10% slope will feel like a 5% slope.

I just thought I would mention this because most people don’t realise and wonder why climbing feels too easy.

Enjoy!

Kai Winters

I enjoy using Zwift. I use a Kickr gen 6 via an Apple TV, latest version.
It works great...not including my current problems with the comp app on my iphone 12...
I live in northern ny and our winters are long, dark and cold so zwift makes winters much more pleasant. I have many friends on the platform, belong to a club and participate in all kinds of events including the zwift racing league, TTT, etc.
It's so much more fun than the mind numbing riding on my old mag trainer.

Jklotz

Yes, I saw a youtube video about that. Thanks for the tip.

OK, gotcha. Thanks for the tip. I do plan to try some more structured workouts this winter, so I'm sure that will come in handy.

I've got a group ride tonight, but will play with it some today. I did see that you can do a victory lap with Sepp Kuss tomorrow around the volcano, whatever the volcano is. It's at 7am EST. That's pretty cool, getting to ride with Sepp.

TMonk

Have you tried using an old-school wheel on trainer with no modern apps? That is a lower-depths of hell situation by comparison. A modern direct drive smart trainer with Zwift should certainly be considered purgatory by comparison, at the worst. The feel is so much better.

TMonk

Z race today, 4 laps on Innsbrucking course. There were only two riders (lol). I dropped the other rider the first time up Leg Snapper, then proceeded to solo for the rest of the race. 54 minutes total at ~3.8. I did try to surge up Leg Snapper and once or twice more per lap to try and simulate a race level effort.

After, I went to Watopia to try and grab Titan's Reverse as a "night cap" to my ride. It's a VO2 length climb. A hard, but repeatable effort for me is in the 4:20 - 4:30 range. A minute or two in, the leaderboard revealed that the KOM was at 4:19. I think I had that in the legs, but not in my mind, so I "cruised" it at 5.0 for a 4:32 effort. NBD.

Eric F 

How many watts is 5.0 for you?

TMonk

bout 330. I'm 145 lbs. Well, always somewhere between 145 - 150, but I leave it at 145 in Zwift and don't bother changing w daily fluctuations

daviddavieboy

I started with Zwift when it was in beta as well. These days I rotate between Zwift (I use offline), Sufferfest (Wahoo) for actual training and a modification of GTA V for when I get bored on the others. The latter can be quite interesting in that while there are actual training routines involved you can occasionally be attacked or run over by NPCs. In all honesty trainer riding is terrible for me and I can only get between 1-2 hours before I have to quit. Outdoors I can literally ride until I am falling asleep.

Eric F 

Weight makes such a huge difference. 330W is 4.0 for me. My FTP of 250 would be 3.8 for you, but it's 3.0 for me. I'm currently bouncing in the 182-185lb range (182 on Zwift/Strava). All of my numbers were more favorable when I was a racer-boy 20 years ago.

Jrasero

I think the price of entry is steep but getting better especially with units like the Zwift Hub Trainer ($500). While smart trainers have gotten much better in mimicking aspects of road riding, the lack of steering, the unnatural freewheel feel and how it tries to translate resistance, and simply the lack of of outdoor sensory inputs always throws me off. It's better than not riding but to me it's more akin to spin class with a laptop or iPad than "cycling" because at the end of the day cycling is still very much centered around feel, otherwise wouldn't we all just be on Peletons? I actually bought a Zwift Hub last fall and sadly my bike wasn't compatible. Eventually I found a work around but then my trainer bike's rear derailleur broke and here in NY we had an insanely mild winter so I ended up selling the trainer and just riding outside when possible. I know more competitive cyclists who swear by trainers since they can't bear to be off a bike for a season let alone a couple days due to bad weather, but for me personally if the roads are unrideable and I really need to exercise I will just go to the gym

RChung

What made the bike and trainer incompatible?

TMonk

Ya its funny how that works. Like I see numbers from some larger riders and my mind is blown, but then again they have a larger body to push through the wind and accelerate, and more mass to push up hill. I avg'd 250 on the nose for my Z race today which comes out to 3.8 for me. My 3.0 is about 200w.

bblair

First the cost. You can spend tons, but don't have to. You probably already have a laptop or iPad. I use an older bike, but your regular road bike is ok. Definitely get a smart trainer, I think the wheel-on KickR, which I have, is fairly inexpensive now.

Then, if you like it, add all the gadgets you want. I added a big TV with soundbar and subwoofer. Because you always need another big TV, right? Those are cheap now at Costco. A fan is a must. Amazon or Target, don't buy a cycling specific fan, that is dumb. I run my Zwift through Apple TV, 'cause it's way faster and reliable than my old laptop and only cost $179, also at Costco.

There is almost too much on there. The races are way too hard for me. Even C level. Mostly I do group rides or free rides on different routes. I don't love the workouts, but many do.

Two or three times a week, an hour each time is just enough to keep me in respectable shape come Spring.

Ride On!