I have been cycling about a year and a half since getting out of the military a little broken and moving home to Columbia, SC. I had to leave my ultra running background for phys therapy, yoga, and cycling.
This area is FLAT, my scariest climbs were 3-4%…so when I finally entered my first bike race in October, the Hincapie Gran Fondo in Greenville (an amazingly well run race series btw) I knew going in to it that Skyuka mountain was going to destroy me. I just so happened to impulse buy the cyclops h2 with free year of Zwift a week before…I set my trainer difficulty at 100% and for the first time felt lots of incline for long periods…oh no!
I made it through the race and swore I’d start climbing and only climbing. After about 5 weeks of only Zwifting I went back out on my regular routes and absolutely crushed every Strava segment I wanted to, setting tons of PRs.
Point is, I was being held back by my environment and Zwift is going to ensure I’ll be able to race up the mountains instead of crawling, I don’t regret the purchase one bit.