When others put Zwift down as fake

Hi Zwifters Friends, Hope someone can help me here :-)  I have a few cyclists friends that are not big fans of Zwift or indoor trainer in general (Zwift, trainerroad), every opportunity they tried to put it down as fake and that people cheat and so on… too many questions and variables and I get stuck not able to provide answers to them that are meaningful with facts. Anyway, I am a Zwifter for sometime now, I do indoor for many reasons, in Canada the winter months suck plus I have time constraints sometimes… Anyway, one particular question I get asked all the time is that if a Zwifter can cheat by having different type of trainer as others like lets say smart trainer vs regular trainer, and if really indoor training will make you faster. So anything you have that I can pass on to these guys that are ignorant :slight_smile: LOL… Thxs Zwifters and continue to Ride On!

Simple.  Train hard over the winter with Zwift.  Drop your friends mercilessly on your first outdoor ride in the spring.  Problem solved

Agree w David. I live in Canada too and one winter thought I’d be “tough” and bike commute all winter. I showed up to the first spring race expecting to dominate; I got dropped, hard… I had done no sustained efforts for 4 months, just stop and go, white knuckle rides. Next season i got a power meter and trained i doors, upgraded 2 categories that summer.
No sense arguing with those people though. Let the results do the talking.

The cheating only occurs in racing, sometimes deliberate, most of the time unintentional. I would be promoting Zwift / indoor riding as a great training system especially when the weather is rubbish. 

Agree, let the results do the talking.

Thank you everyone for replying to my question… I would just ignore those haters and let the results do the talking when Spring comes around :biking_man:t2::+1:t2:

:)  You will find that the more ignoring you do in life, the happier you will be.

 

I just smile when people bad mouth Zwift. I’m no speed demon, but my first outdoor ride after two weeks of Zwift was 2+mph faster then my old averages - without trying! Literally the best investment I’ve made in some time.

Indoor cycling is almost always harder than outdoors. That is a fact beyond dispute. 

 You need to do around 1.3 to 1.7 x the length of riding outdoors to replicate the same training effect, generally.

To me, riding outside is slacking off. TrainerRoad, Zwift etc is either work, or brutal (as in the case of a Zwift race).

 

Anyway, David nailed it earlier - do work, drop them. Let your legs do the talking.

Personally I would say they are two very different forms of cycling. Although outdoor cycling also generally already comes in two forms, namely good weather cyclists and those who go through hell outside.

I would definitely agree that cycling on Zwift is nothing compared to cycling through hell and back again. Yes, Zwift allows to go all out and in terms of physical strain it can be just as much as during an outside ride, if not even a little more with no care about surrounding traffic. However, indoor cycling allows for itself to be done under quite comfortable circumstances if you set up your pain cave well. Whereas cycling outside, regardless of weather, brings in a whole other dimension.

In general though, most road bike cyclists are nice weather cyclists. When I’m outside cycling with rain, sub 5 degree temperatures and wind gusts I generally encounter no more than 1 other road cyclist for every 30 ~ 50 km’s.

Ultimately though, no matter where you ride, hardly matters. As long as you keep pushing yourself you’ll keep on improving. And with that, Zwift offers an ideal solution for a large number of cyclists who would otherwise stop over the winter period.

I can see why people badmouth indoor training, if they’re able to ride outside and enjoy it, and haven’t tried training indoors with the new crop of smart trainers and apps.

But, you’ll find that with some people they’re bashing it one year, and joining you on Zwift/other app the next year.

As long as you enjoy what you’re doing, that’s all that matters.  And if next year you decide to ride outside more (maybe a warm winter), that’s ok too.

I like Zwift a lot, but I am still critical of certain aspects of it. As someone who has slogged outside in many, many a New England winter, its a godsend. Of course, I loved Tour de Giro, which most of you don’t even know what that is, so anything that motivates you to ride is good in my book. 

I do wish they would implement a proper racing function. What is there now seems half-baked and doesn’t realize it’s potential. It could be great, but i think the commercial pressure (and technical to some extent) on them will steer this in a more “gamey” direction, which i think the perception is with may “serious” riders…

 

I used to tell my clubmates that Zwift miles didn’t count. (Jokingly, because they dropped me like yesterday’s news when they wanted to, but were nice about it.) Then I started using Zwift. Now they count!