Gamification and BET (Brain Endurance Training)

Cycling Weekly just did an interesting article on cognitive fatigue, and the extend to which combining physical and low-level cognitive training (e.g. decision making, memory tasks etc) can enhance performance.

it strikes me that Zwift and other platforms are missing a trick when it comes to the potential for indoor riding to be gamified. It would be great fun to pursue tasks in virtual worlds while cycling - e.g., collecting tokens from various locations against the clock, putting keys in locks to open shortcuts or prizes, etc.

Obviously it would need to be optional and fully bypassable - I myself am one of those people who finds the trivial gamification of power-ups etc very annoying in training and racing situations and avoids them completely. But if I was offered the opportunity for a fully gamified indoor cycling experience I’d definitely want to try it!

Martin from WTRL has/had an external game / website that did something kind of similar, where he had a program randomize coins through a map, you could log in and collect the coins against others also visible on same map.

No idea if it’s still functional or not anymore, but a cool demonstration either way:

Might’ve been popular at some point.

I think if it was advertised more, or set as an event by someone like Eric from Insider it could “be a thing”.

Since we can’t have open world as an event, just telling people to be on at a certain time and spread coins out at a specific time of day, it could be fun for some.


Everything is about marketing to the community with stuff like that.

TBH, I’d be all up for a full-on interactive, gamified environment with plasma canons on bikes etc. :wink: Something like racing with deadly skirmishes. Drop Shop would be about adding weapons and armour. Imagine chasing someone up The Alpe, trying to get close enough to get a good shot while breathing out all orifices. :joy: Then he does a u-turn and is coming downhill at you all guns blazing. Would be fun!

Only if we could use them to destroy obvious bots, coffee break abusers, and runners (oh wait, I’m a runner)

I remember a “paperboy” gamification in addition to the coin hunt.
Repack Rush has some gamification.